Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Temporal relationships between daily precipitation and NDVI time series in Mexico

Most of the vegetation growth in Mexico shows clear responses to the availability and abundance of surface water which can almost exclusively be linked to rainfall. This study employs four years of time series with daily precipitation and modeled surface reflectance at a spatial resolution of 0.05° which were analyzed for lag-dependent linear serial correlation. Positive lags of, on average, 1 to 1.5 months between precipitation and NDVI as a surrogate for vegetation growth as well as statistically significant correlation coefficients (p<0.05) were found for vegetated surfaces. Vegetation types which are physiologically more dependent on precipitation for seasonal vegetation growth show a shorter response time and stronger relationship to precipitation than evergreen forests and shrublands. The relationship with respect to precipitation variations among several years remains inconclusive.
IP-10 and Type 1 Diabetes: A Question of Time and Location

Chemokines are key signal molecules that attract cells of the host immune system to the site of a potential threat. Virus infections usually induce a massive chemokine and cytokine burst and therefore recruit a large plethora of leukocytes to the site of infection with the goal to restrict and abrogate viral spread. The down side of this massive excitation of the human defense system is non-specific activation of potentially self-reactive lymphocytes. Coupled with an antigen-specific event, for example molecular mimicry between host components and viral proteins, autoimmunity might be the consequence in susceptible individuals. However, activated immune components with autoaggressive potential must find their target and must remain in one site sufficiently long in order to cause chronic tissue damage. In this review we will focus on the influence of the chemokine IP-10 (CXCL10) on the trafficking of autoaggressive cells during the immunopathogenesis of type 1 diabetes (T1D) and explain why IP-10 can have a dual effect on T1D depending on time and location of expression.
Continuous improvement: design, organisation and management

The paper analyses and describes strategies for designing, organising and managing systems for Continuous Improvement (CI). CI is defined as a broad change program, planned, organised and systematic, and distinguished from project based models of change. Based on case studies and survey research, four basic strategies for the design and organisation of CI are identified: three team-based strategies and one individually based strategy. These, in turn, depend on the basic task design (individual or group tasks), and whether the improvement task is integrated or parallel. It is argued that the design largely depend on the definition of process, goals and content of the improvement tasks. Further, it is shown that companies tend to move from expert-oriented strategies to more organic strategies as maturity evolves, and that Swedish models for CI seems to be more organic in nature, as compared to the more expert-oriented Japanese approaches.
The Significant but Understudied Impact of Pathogen Transmission from Humans to Animals

Abstract Zooanthroponotic pathogens, which are transmitted from humans to nonhuman animals, are an understudied aspect of global health, despite their potential to cause significant disease burden in wild and domestic animal populations and affect global economies. Some key human‐borne pathogens that have been shown to infect animals and cause morbidity and mortality include measles virus (paramyxoviruses), influenza A virus (orthomyxoviruses), herpes simplex 1 virus (herpesviruses), protozoal and helminthic parasites, and bacteria such as methicillin‐resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. However, zooanthroponotic pathogens are most commonly reported in captive animals or domestic livestock with close human contact; there, the potential for economic loss and human reinfection is most apparent. There is also the potential for infection in wild animal populations, which may threaten endangered species and decrease biodiversity. The emergence and reemergence of human‐borne pathogens in wildlife may also have negative consequences for human health if these pathogens cycle back into humans. Many of the anthropogenic drivers of zoonotic disease emergence also facilitate zooanthroponotic transmission. Increasing research to better understand the occurrence of and the potential for bidirectional pathogen transmission between humans and animals is essential for improving global health. Mt Sinai J Med 76:448–455, 2009. © 2009 Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Influence of Distance Measures on the Effectiveness of One-Class Classification Ensembles

Because of the presence of only a single class during the learning procedure, one-class classification is considered as one of the most challenging tasks in contemporary machine learning. Recently, ensemble approaches have been applied to this task, proving that they may lead to a significant improvement of the robustness of the recognition system. Most of one-class classifiers base their decision on a distance from an object to the decision boundary, canonically expressed in the Euclidean measure. When combining such predictors, one must map the distance into support function (probability). Additionally, we use weighted one-class support vector machine, which utilizes a distance-based function for calculating weights assigned to objects. Therefore, one may easily see that the measure used has a crucial impact on the quality of base classifiers as well as on the classifier fusion. This study investigates the performance of seven different distance measures over a set of diverse benchmark datasets. Additionally, we analyze the correlation between the used distance measure and the selected fusion method. Experimental analysis allows us to shed some light on strengths and weaknesses of examined distance metrics applied to combining one-class classifiers.
O INTERCÂMBIO COMERCIAL BRASIL-CHINA: A QUESTÃO DAS VANTAGENS COMPARATIVAS

The aim of this paper is to better understand the commercial flow’s characteristics between Brazil and China. Various aspects of the commercial relations between these two countries are analyzed: structure changes, intra-industry trade, technological intensity and exploitation of comparatives advantages. This issue is relevant in view of the important growing of the Chinese economy in the international scene and the growth of the commercial flow observed between these countries in the last two decades. Low levels of intra-industry between these two countries were found and low (high) technological intensity in the Brazilian exportations (importations). The data seems to show a trend to specialization of the external Brazilian trade with China. Based on the input-output technique and considering the proportional factors with three production factors model, a factorial intensity analysis in the trade is made. This one, shows Brazilians exportations as more intensives in natural resources and the importations more intensives in capital, and the labor intensive goods had low commercial representation between the two countries. Thus, the results seem to agree with the precepts of the comparatives advantages in case of Brazil be accepted as relatively abundant in natural resources and relatively scarce in capital, when it’s compared with China.
Laparoscopic surgery for choledochal cyst in children: a case review of 31 patients.

INTRODUCTION The results of the first substantial series of children suffering from choledochal cysts treated using laparoscopic surgery at the Shanghai Children's Medical Center, Shanghai, China are presented. METHODS Data from 31 sequentially treated children (average age 45.2 months, SD 36.5, range 2 to 168 months) with choledochal cyst treated by laparoscopic surgery were collected prospectively. The chief complaints included intermittent abdominal pain, vomiting, jaundice or pancreatitis. Two cases had no clinical symptoms; their diagnoses were based on prenatal ultrasound findings and confirmed postnatally. The laparoscopic technique included excision of the gall bladder and cyst, followed by a Roux-en-Y anastomosis constructed after exteriorization of the small bowel via an infraumbilical trocar incision. After repositioning of the bowel, an end-to-side hepaticojejunostomy was carried out laparoscopically. RESULTS The procedures were carried out successfully in 27 children and the average operating time was 5.2 hrs (4-7.5 hrs). In 4 patients, the operations were converted to open surgery because of a giant cyst (diameter 10 cm; 1 case), serious inflammation and adhesions (2 cases), and hepatic duct malformation (1 case). Complications occurring postoperatively and cured by conservative treatment included hepaticojejunostomosis leakage (1 case), bowel ileus (1 case), pancreatitis (1 case), and pneumonia (1 case). Oral food intake was started within 3-5 days and patients were discharged within 7-14 days (average 8.6 days). All patients are well with bile-stained stools after an average follow-up of 16.3 months (range 2-43 months). The average cost was RMB 19,167 ($2522, range RMB 12,600-34,538). CONCLUSIONS Laparoscopic resection of congenital choledochal cyst and choledochojejunostomy in children is feasible and safe. The long-term results are good. There was a considerable learning curve during the development of the technique as experienced by the team.
The Diversity of Innovation in the European Union: Mapping Latent Dimensions and Regional Profiles

Regional innovation systems are a relevant approach when analysing territories from either a theoretical or an operational point of view. In the last few years, the development of several different comparisons of innovative profiles of sub-national level demonstrates the interest in this paradigm. The article proposes, through an analysis of 175 regions, a typology of regional innovative profiles to understand the diversity of innovation in the European Union. Multivariate statistics were used to find the dimensions underlying the innovation phenomena and to create homogenous groups of regions that display similar profiles. First, Factorial Analysis was used to reduce regional indicators to their latent dimensions (Technological Innovation, Human Capital, Economic Structure and Labour Market Availability). Second, a hierarchical analysis of clusters was undertaken, resulting in five groupings of regions (Disadvantaged Regions, Average Regions, Central Regions, Large Economic Centres and Innovating Regions). The results of the study are compared with other relevant analyses and some consensual ideas are achieved. Physical proximity still has a relevant impact on innovation processes. The planning and policy-making of innovation must take into account this profile diversity and should originate actions adapted to each specific context. With a political agenda such as Lisbon's, which intends to create a competitive territory, the focus on an indicator such as gross domestic product is extremely inadequate for fundamental decisions related to financing regional policy. More meaningful analysis like the one carried out in the article could be an example to evaluate future regional budgets in terms of European regional policy.
A study on motion and energy absorption characteristics of raft-type wave energy converter

This paper utilizes the method of adding a mass source and a damping term into the fluid governing equation for generating and absorbing the second order stokes wave. A nonlinear mathematic model for a raft-type wave energy converter with three floaters is proposed based on the Lagrange formulation. A number of simulations are accomplished in CFD software by numerically solving the non-linear mathematical model for investigating the motion and energy absorption characteristics of the raft-type wave energy converter. The simulation results show that the increasing of the hydraulic damping can decrease the root-mean-square angular velocity of the floater and increase the hydraulic moment. This indicates that there exists an optimal hydraulic damping for maximizing the absorbed energy.
The CpAL Quorum Sensing System Regulates Production of Hemolysins CPA and PFO To Build Clostridium perfringens Biofilms

ABSTRACT Clostridium perfringens strains produce severe diseases, including myonecrosis and enteritis necroticans, in humans and animals. Diseases are mediated by the production of potent toxins that often damage the site of infection, e.g., skin epithelium during myonecrosis. In planktonic cultures, the regulation of important toxins, such as CPA, CPB, and PFO, is controlled by the C. perfringens Agr-like (CpAL) quorum sensing (QS) system. Strains also encode a functional LuxS/AI-2 system. Although C. perfringens strains form biofilm-like structures, the regulation of biofilm formation is poorly understood. Therefore, our studies investigated the role of CpAL and LuxS/AI-2 QS systems and of QS-regulated factors in controlling the formation of biofilms. We first demonstrate that biofilm production by reference strains differs depending on the culture medium. Increased biomass correlated with the presence of extracellular DNA in the supernatant, which was released by lysis of a fraction of the biofilm population and planktonic cells. Whereas ΔagrB mutant strains were not able to produce biofilms, a ΔluxS mutant produced wild-type levels. The transcript levels of CpAL-regulated cpa and pfoA genes, but not cpb, were upregulated in biofilms compared to planktonic cultures. Accordingly, Δcpa and ΔpfoA mutants, in type A (S13) or type C (CN3685) backgrounds, were unable to produce biofilms, whereas CN3685Δcpb made wild-type levels. Biofilm formation was restored in complemented Δcpa/cpa and ΔpfoA/pfoA strains. Confocal microscopy studies further detected CPA partially colocalizing with eDNA on the biofilm structure. Thus, CpAL regulates biofilm formation in C. perfringens by increasing levels of certain toxins required to build biofilms.
Spurious results in testing mutual fund performance persistence: evidence from the Greek market

The present study shows that failing to adjust for known risk factors in measuring fund performance can lead to spurious results in testing the persistence hypothesis. We support this argument by providing evidence from the Greek fund industry, examining also the performance persistence in this small and relatively unexplored market. Correct adjustments for risk factors and documented portfolio strategies, account for a significant part of the previously reported persistence. The intercept of the augmented Carhart regression is suggested to be the most appropriate performance measure.
Unemployment Persistence in the West German Labour Market: Negative Duration Dependence or Sorting?

The paper tests for negative duration dependence in West German unemployment in the presence of unobserved population heterogeneity. The analysis is based of a microeconometric model estimated on the German Socio-Economic Panel covering the period 1983 to 1995. I find that, after controlling for observed and unobserved population heterogeneity, individual re-employment probabilities are constant or even increase slightly with duration and, thus, reject the hypothesis that the high and increasing share of long-term unemployment in West Germany can be explained by structural negative duration dependence. Copyright 2001 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Learning cycles brings chaos in Hopfield networks

This paper aims at studying the impact of an Hebbian learning algorithm on the recurrent neural network's underlying dynamics. Two different kinds of learning are compared in order to encode information in the attractors of the Hopfield neural net: the storing of static patterns and the storing of cyclic patterns. We show that if the storing of static patterns leads to a reduction of the potential dynamics following the learning phase, the learning of cyclic patterns tends to increase the dimension of the potential attractors instead. In fact, such learning may be used as an extra "route to chaos": the more cycles to be learned, the more the network shows as spontaneous dynamics a form of chaotic itinerancy among brief oscillatory periods. These results are in line with the observations made by Freeman in the olfactory bulb of the rabbit: cycles are used to store information and the chaotic dynamics appears as the background regime composed of those cyclic "memory bags". It confirms precedent papers in which it was observed that huge encoding capacity in term of cyclic attractors implies strong presence of chaos.
Corporate Social Responsibility and College Recruiting in the Hospitality Industry

Many organizations practice Corporate Social Responsibility even though debates about its definitions, implementation, measurement, and outcomes persist. The present study examined recruiters’ perceptions of their own organization's Corporate Social Responsibility values and activities, in addition to the importance recruiters place on social responsibility as a selection factor when interviewing college-level applicants. The research was conducted through an online survey administered to college recruiters, using a modified snowball approach. Analysis of the data indicated that, while hospitality industry recruiters place importance on college-level applicants’ socially-responsible values, they do not necessarily place importance on socially-responsible activities of college-level applicants as a selection factor.
A Rap guanine nucleotide exchange factor enriched highly in the basal ganglia.

Ras proteins, key regulators of growth, differentiation, and malignant transformation, recently have been implicated in synaptic function and region-specific learning and memory functions in the brain. Rap proteins, members of the Ras small G protein superfamily, can inhibit Ras signaling through the Ras/Raf-1/mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase pathway or, through B-Raf, can activate MAP kinase. Rap and Ras proteins both can be activated through guanine nucleotide exchange factors (GEFs). Many Ras GEFs, but to date only one Rap GEF, have been identified. We now report the cloning of a brain-enriched gene, CalDAG-GEFI, which has substrate specificity for Rap1A, dual binding domains for calcium (Ca2+) and diacylglycerol (DAG), and enriched expression in brain basal ganglia pathways and their axon-terminal regions. Expression of CalDAG-GEFI activates Rap1A and inhibits Ras-dependent activation of the Erk/MAP kinase cascade in 293T cells. Ca2+ ionophore and phorbol ester strongly and additively enhance this Rap1A activation. By contrast, CalDAG-GEFII, a second CalDAG-GEF family member that we cloned and found identical to RasGRP [Ebinu, J. O. , Bottorff, D. A. , Chan, E. Y. W. , Stang, S. L. , Dunn, R. J. & Stone, J. C. (1998) Science 280, 1082-1088], exhibits a different brain expression pattern and fails to activate Rap1A, but activates H-Ras, R-Ras, and the Erk/MAP kinase cascade under Ca2+ and DAG modulation. We propose that CalDAG-GEF proteins have a critical neuronal function in determining the relative activation of Ras and Rap1 signaling induced by Ca2+ and DAG mobilization. The expression of CalDAG-GEFI and CalDAG-GEFII in hematopoietic organs suggests that such control may have broad significance in Ras/Rap regulation of normal and malignant states.
Influence of zoning on whole word recognition

This paper presents the investigations carried out in improving the performance of a holistic cursive word recogniser using approximating splines. The holistic cursive word recogniser and the spline based zone line extraction mechanism are described. A series of tests are carried out using 3600 word images from 18 writes and a 200 word lexicon to compare the performance of the histogram based zone extraction with that of the spline based approach and the results are presented. It is found that the spline based zone extraction significantly improves the recognition results. The future directions of the research for further improvement of recognition performance are presented.
Privacy Preserving Anonymity for Periodical SRS Data Publishing

Nowadays, spontaneous reporting systems (SRS) have been widely established to collect adverse drug events for ADR detection and analysis, e.g., the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS). The SRS data are provided to the researchers, even open to the public, to foster the research of ADR detection and analysis. Normally, SRS data contains personal information and some sensitive value such as indication. It is necessary to de-identify the SRS data for preventing the disclosure of individual privacy before the data are published. Although there have been many different privacy preserving models and anonymization methods in the literature, they are not suitable for protecting SRS data from disclosure due to some features of SRS data. As such, we previously have proposed a privacy model called MS(k, θ*)-bounding and the associated algorithm MS-Anonymization. In the real world, the SRS data is dynamically growing and needs to be published periodically, which thwarts our single-release-focus method, i.e., MS(k, θ*)-bounding. In this paper, we present some potential attacks on periodically published SRS data and propose a new privacy model called PPMS(k, θ*)-bounding and the associated PPMS-Anonymization algorithm. Experimental results on selected FAERS datasets show that our new method can prevent privacy disclosure from the attacks in periodical data publishing scenario with reasonable sacrifice of data utility and acceptable deviation to the strength of ADR signals.
Major lower extremity amputation: outcome of a modern series.

HYPOTHESIS Major lower extremity amputation results in significant morbidity and mortality. DESIGN Retrospective database query and medical record review for January 1, 1990, to December 31, 2001. Mean follow-up was 33.6 months. SETTING Academic tertiary care center. PATIENTS Nine hundred fifty-nine consecutive major lower extremity amputations in 788 patients, including 704 below-knee amputations (BKAs) (73.4%) and 255 above-knee amputations (AKAs) (26.6%). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Patient survival, cardiac morbidity, infectious complications, and subsequent operation. RESULTS Overall 30-day mortality was 8.6%, worse for AKA (16.5%) than BKA (5.7%) patients (P<.001). Thirty-day mortality for guillotine amputation for sepsis control was 14.3% compared with 7.8% for closed amputation (P =.03). Complications included cardiac (10.2%), wound infection (5.5%), and pneumonia (4.5%). Twelve AKA (4.7%) and 129 BKA (18.4%) limbs required subsequent operation. Only 66 BKAs (9.4%) required conversion to AKA (average, 77.1 days postoperatively). Overall survival was 69.7% and 34.7% at 1 and 5 years, respectively. Survival was significantly worse for AKAs (50.6% and 22.5%) than BKAs (74.5% and 37.8%) (P<.001). Survival in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) was 69.4% and 30.9% vs 70.8% and 51.0% in patients without DM at 1 and 5 years, respectively (P =.002). Survival in end-stage renal disease patients was 51.9% and 14.4% vs 75.4% and 42.2% in patients without renal failure at 1 and 5 years, respectively (P<.001). CONCLUSIONS Major amputation continues to result in significant morbidity and mortality. Survivors with BKA require revision or conversion to AKA infrequently. Long-term survival is dismal for patients with DM and end-stage renal disease and those undergoing AKA.