Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prediction intervals for electric load forecast: Evaluation for different profiles

Electricity industries throughout the world have been using load profiles for many years. Electrical load data contain valuable information that can be useful for both electricity producers and consumers. Load forecasting is a fundamental and important task to operate power systems efficiently and economically. Currently, prediction intervals (PIs) are assuming increasing importance comparatively to point forecast that cannot properly handle forecast uncertainties, since they are capable to compromise informativeness and correctness. This paper aims to demonstrate that different demand profiles clearly influence PIs reliability and width. The evaluation is performed using data from different customers on the basis of their electricity behavior using hierarchical clustering, and taking the Kullback-Leibler divergence as the distance metric. PIs are obtained using two different strategies: (1) dual perturb and combine algorithm and (2) conformal prediction. It was possible to demonstrate that different demand profiles clearly influence PI reliability and width for both models. The knowledge retrieved from the analysis of the load patterns is useful and can be used to support the selection of the best method to interval forecast, considering a specific location. And also, it can support the selection of an optimum confidence level, considering that a too wide PI conveys little information and is of no use for decision making.
Face Recognition Using a Gabor Filter Bank Approach

Face recognition is a challenging field of research not only because of the complexity of this subject, but also because of its numerous practical applications. Much progress has been made towards recognising faces under controlled conditions, especially under normalised pose and lighting conditions and with neutral expression. However, the recognition of face images acquired in an outdoor environment with changes in illumination and/or pose remains a largely unsolved problem. This is due to the fact that most of face recognition methods assume that the pose of the face is known. In this paper, we propose the use of a Gabor Filter Bank to extract an augmented Gabor-face vector to solve the pose estimation problem, extract some statistical features such as means and variances. And then the classification is performed using the nearest neighbour algorithm with the Euclidean distance. Finally, experimental results are reported to show the robustness of the extracted feature vectors for the recognition problem
Separate or integrate? The contribution of the workshop model to effectively embedding generic skills

A major question for the generic skills project (Graduate Skills, 2010) was how best to promote the development of these skills for students in business. This question has preoccupied educationalists for decades and a variety of strategies are currently in use. This paper reviews the literature in the area and proposes an additional approach to the development of generic skills ? the use of intensive workshops. Beginning with students and later incorporating teaching staff, a series of one- to three-day workshops were held at various universities around Australia. These were well received by both the students and academics who participated. Student feedback from the workshops showed they had improved their understanding of the four generic skills discussed ? critical thinking, teamwork, sustainability and ethical practice ? and had especially enjoyed learning in a socially interactive and challenging environment. These results suggest that the workshop model has considerable potential either in stand-alone form or as a complement to an existing strategy for generic skills development.
Multifunctional Laryngeal Premotor Neurons: Their Activities during Breathing, Coughing, Sneezing, and Swallowing

To examine whether motor commands of two or more distinct laryngeal motor patterns converge onto a common premotor network, we conducted dual recordings from the laryngeal adductor motoneuron and its premotor neuron within the brainstem respiratory circuitry during fictive breathing, coughing, sneezing, and swallowing in decerebrate paralyzed cats. Expiratory neurons with an augmenting firing pattern (EAUG), whose action potentials evoked monosynaptic IPSPs in the adductor motoneurons, sharply fired during the expulsive phases of fictive coughing and sneezing, during which the adductor motoneurons transiently repolarized. In contrast, these premotor neurons were silent during the swallow-related hyperpolarization in adductor motoneurons. These results show that one class of medullary respiratory neuron, EAUG, is multifunctional and shared among the central pattern generators (CPGs) for breathing, coughing, and sneezing. In addition, although the CPGs underlying these three behaviors and the swallowing CPG do overlap, EAUG neurons are not part of the swallowing CPG and, in contrast to the other three behaviors, are not a source of inhibitory input to adductor motoneurons during swallowing.
Association of literacy of mothers with malnutrition among children under three years of age in rural area of district Malir, Karachi.

OBJECTIVE To determine the association of literacy of mothers with malnutrition among children under three years of age in rural area of district Malir, Karachi. METHODS A cross-sectional study was conducted on four hundred children under three years of age, residing in the rural area of district Malir, Karachi. The selection of the children was irrespective of gender, ethnicity and religion. RESULTS Three hundred nineteen mothers (79.75%) were illiterate and 81 (20.25%) were literate. In the latter group, three mothers could read or write only, 38 had primary, 10 middle, 15 matric, 12 intermediate and 3 mothers had education up to graduate level. Maximum malnutrition regarding stunting (40.75%) was seen in children who's mothers were illiterate and maximum underweight (57.89%) was seen in children who's mothers had education up to primary level and maximum wasting (33.33%) was seen in children who's mothers (only 3 mothers out of 400) were graduates. There was a significant difference regarding underweight between the children who's mothers were illiterate or had education up to primary level in comparison to the children who's mothers had education to more than primary level (P<0.016), but in significant difference regarding stunting and wasting was found. Overall a total of 217 (54.25%) children were underweight, 156 (39%) were stunted and 86 (21.5%), had wasting. CONCLUSION Mother's literacy status has a definite association with the malnutrition of the children <3 years of age regarding underweight. In order to combat this an uplift of mother's literacy status is badly needed especially in the rural areas.
A Resource Pathway to Action Against Discrimination: How Burnout and Work-Family Balance Form Obstacles to Action

Why is it difficult for targets to act out against individual experiences of discrimination? Whereas prior research focuses on normative concerns or failure to perceive discrimination as determinants of (lack of) action, we hypothesize that perceiving frequent discrimination at work undermines the potential to act out against discrimination because it depletes one's resources. We study a sample that is underrepresented in research on discrimination, yet forms a large percentage of the working population: parents experiencing disadvantage in a working context. We measured self-reported disadvantage because of parenthood, action against disadvantage, levels of burnout and work-home self-efficacy. Results reveal that perceptions of discrimination are related to lower levels of action. Importantly, lack of resources could explain this effect: we found simultaneous (and separate) mediation of the exhaustion (but not distancing) burnout subscale as well as separate mediation of work-home self-efficacy. The implications of these results and the importance of studying potential resources in relation to action against discrimination are discussed. Copyright (c) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Multicenter phase II study of mogamulizumab (KW-0761), a defucosylated anti-cc chemokine receptor 4 antibody, in patients with relapsed peripheral T-cell lymphoma and cutaneous T-cell lymphoma.

PURPOSE CC chemokine receptor 4 (CCR4) is expressed by peripheral T-cell lymphomas (PTCLs) and is associated with poor outcomes. Mogamulizumab (KW-0761) is a defucosylated humanized anti-CCR4 antibody engineered to exert potent antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity. This multicenter phase II study evaluated the efficacy and safety of mogamulizumab in patients with relapsed PTCL and cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL). PATIENTS AND METHODS Mogamulizumab (1.0 mg/kg) was administered intravenously once per week for 8 weeks to patients with relapsed CCR4-positive PTCL or CTCL. The primary end point was the overall response rate, and the secondary end points included safety, progression-free survival (PFS), and overall survival (OS). RESULTS A total of 38 patients were enrolled, and 37 patients received mogamulizumab. Objective responses were noted for 13 of 37 patients (35%; 95% CI, 20% to 53%), including five patients (14%) with complete response. The median PFS was 3.0 months (95% CI, 1.6 to 4.9 months), and the median OS was not calculated. The mean maximum and trough mogamulizumab concentrations (± standard deviation) after the eighth infusion were 45.9 ± 9.3 and 29.0 ± 13.3 μg/mL, respectively. The most common adverse events were hematologic events, pyrexia, and skin disorders, all of which were reversible and manageable. CONCLUSION Mogamulizumab exhibited clinically meaningful antitumor activity in patients with relapsed PTCL and CTCL, with an acceptable toxicity profile. Further investigation of mogamulizumab for treatment of T-cell lymphoma is warranted.
Assessment of a HER2 scoring system for gastric cancer: results from a validation study

Aims: Human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) overexpression/amplification is implicated in the development of various solid tumour types. Validated methods and scoring systems for evaluating HER2 status exist in breast cancer, but not in gastric cancer. The aim was to establish a HER2 scoring system for gastric cancer to identify suitable patients for enrolment in a trial of trastuzumab (Herceptin®) in advanced metastatic gastric cancer.
Unsupervised model adaptation on targeted speech segments for LVCSR system combination

In context of Large-Vocabulary Continuous Speech Recognition, systems can reach a high level of performance when dealing with prepared speech, while their performance drops on spontaneous speech. This decrease is due to the fact that these two kinds of speech are marked by strong acoustic and linguistic differences. Previous research works had been done to detect and repair some peculiarities of spontaneous speech, as disfluencies, and to create specific models to improve recognition accuracy: a large amount of data is needed to see improvements and is expensive to collect. In this paper, we present a solution to create specialized acoustic and language models, by automatically extracting a data subset from the initial training corpus containing spontaneous speech, and adapting initial acoustic and linguistic models on it. As we assume these models can be complementary, we propose to combine general and adapted ASR system outputs. Experimental results show statistically significant gain, for a negligible cost (no additional training data and no human intervention).
Spatial Dynamics and Expanded Vertical Niche of Blue Sharks in Oceanographic Fronts Reveal Habitat Targets for Conservation

Dramatic population declines among species of pelagic shark as a result of overfishing have been reported, with some species now at a fraction of their historical biomass. Advanced telemetry techniques enable tracking of spatial dynamics and behaviour, providing fundamental information on habitat preferences of threatened species to aid conservation. We tracked movements of the highest pelagic fisheries by-catch species, the blue shark Prionace glauca, in the North-east Atlantic using pop-off satellite-linked archival tags to determine the degree of space use linked to habitat and to examine vertical niche. Overall, blue sharks moved south-west of tagging sites (English Channel; southern Portugal), exhibiting pronounced site fidelity correlated with localized productive frontal areas, with estimated space-use patterns being significantly different from that of random walks. Tracked female sharks displayed behavioural variability in diel depth preferences, both within and between individuals. Diel depth use ranged from normal DVM (nDVM; dawn descent, dusk ascent), to reverse DVM (rDVM; dawn ascent, dusk descent), to behavioural patterns where no diel differences were apparent. Results showed that blue sharks occupy some of the most productive marine zones for extended periods and structure diel activity patterns across multiple spatio-temporal scales in response to particular habitat types. In so doing, sharks occupied an extraordinarily broad vertical depth range for their size (1.0–2.0 m fork length), from the surface into the bathypelagic realm (max. dive depth, 1160 m). The space-use patterns of blue sharks indicated they spend much of the time in areas where pelagic longlining activities are often highest, and in depth zones where these fisheries particularly target other species, which could account for the rapid declines recently reported for blue sharks in many parts of the world's oceans. Our results provide habitat targets for blue shark conservation that may also be relevant to other pelagic species.
Performance enhancing in the manufacturing industry: An improvement KATA application

As manufacturing firms (MFs) experience increasing competition in the global economy, it is vital to seek competitive advantage through the continuous improvement of performance within manufacturing processes. This requires a systematic approach to enhance performance by engaging staff at all levels to effectively take part in performance-enhancing efforts. The implementation of Toyota Kata has been proven to be highly successful for continuous improvement in a MF. Toyota Kata provides a holistic system of methods for improving performance, which contains processes and behavioral patterns for strategically aligned goal setting, problem solving, coaching, management and training. It is a simple and human factor focused approach, which covers the management of performance improvement efforts. This manuscript presents a case study performed in a wooden frames manufacturing firm for the implementation of Improvement Kata. Lead time has been selected as the performance indicator. The study describes current challenges, Improvement Kata implementation methodology, and the lead time improvement results.
Voting the Agenda: Candidates, Elections and Ballot Propositions

Voting the Agenda: Candidates, Elections and Ballot Propositions. By Stephen P. Nicholson. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005. 208p. $35.00 Many good books are published in political science, but rarely is one so powerful that it restructures the study of politics in multiple subfields. Stephen Nicholson's Voting the Agenda may be such a book, as it forces scholars to reconsider how we study not only voting and elections but also Congress, the presidency, state legislatures, governors, direct democracy, the media, and political campaigns.
How Existing Business Management Concepts Become School Leadership Fashions

Purpose: This article examines the history of three management concepts that originated in the business sector and progressed to the K-12 education sector. Framework: We propose a new conceptual model intended to help illuminate how ideas and strategies originally created for business leadership gain influence in the realm of K-12 school leadership. We build upon existing research into the history of educational reform and relevant studies of organizational management fads and fashions. Methods: We focused on three business management concepts that emerged in the past four decades as school leadership fashions: Management by Objectives, Total Quality Management, and Turnaround. We analyzed relevant data by mapping lines of business management influence on school leadership, tabulating fashion-related document appearances in the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) database, and charting the appearance of business-inspired fashions in consecutive editions of prominent educational leadership textbooks. Findings: An existing business management concept, after a time lag, crosses borders from business to education. Various stakeholders serve as fashion setters who help the incipient innovation become an influential, attention-grabbing school management fashion that receives broad but fleeting attention in K-12 education before fading away as a discarded reform. Over the last four decades, this cyclical process has served as an accumulating fashion trend in which existing (and possibly outdated) business management techniques are routinely positioned as promising, innovative K-12 educational solutions. Implications: We conclude by offering thoughts on implications and suggestions for future study, including asking whether “locally sourced” management innovation can and should exist in K-12 school leadership.
Negotiating Gendered Subjectivity in the Enterprise Culture: Metaphor and Entrepreneurial Discourses

An enterprise culture is one in which ‘certain enterprising qualities — such as self reliance, personal responsibility, boldness and a willingness to take risks in the pursuit of goals — are regarded as human virtues and promoted as such’. Work is not seen as a constraint upon the individual but rather as an opportunity for self-fulfilment. The pervasiveness of enterprise culture has led to observations that it influences aspects of social life beyond the workplace. However, the kind of self that is imagined in enterprise culture is also a male self, with female entrepreneurship measured against a male norm. In this article, then, we present evidence of metaphor as a strategy for coping with the gendered expectations embodied by life in enterprise culture. We show how metaphor is simultaneously an index of and a resource for understanding gendered subjectivities in enterprise culture.
Human Values and Product Symbolism: Do Consumers Form Product Preference by Comparing the Human Values Symbolized by a Product to the Human Values That They Endorse?1

The present study proposes a cognitive process in which consumers form product preference by attending to and evaluating the human values symbolized by a product against the human values that they endorse. Individuals in the treatment group were informed that owners or heavy users of specific products hold certain human values. Results show that, compared with the control group, the treatment group perceived greater human value product symbolism and held more favorable attitudes toward products that symbolized the values that they endorsed. Moreover, the consistency between value endorsement and product preference was strongest for individuals in the treatment group who had a predisposition to attend to the symbolic meanings of products or believed that values in general are personally relevant.
An Offline Planning Approach to Game Plotline Adaptation

Role-playing games, and other types of contemporary video games, usually contain a main storyline consisting of several causally related quests. As players have different motivations, tastes and preferences, it can be beneficial to customize game plotlines. In this paper, we present an offline algorithm for adapting human-authored game plotlines for computer role-playing games to suit the unique needs of individual players, thereby customizing gaming experiences and enhancing re-playability. Our approach uses an plan refinement technique based on partial-order planning to (a) optimize the global structure of the plotline according to input from a player model, (b) maintain plotline coherence, and (c) facilitate authorial intent by preserving as much of the original plotline as possible. A theoretical analysis of the authorial leverage and a user study suggest the benefits of this approach.
Mycolic Acid Structure Determines the Fluidity of the Mycobacterial Cell Wall*

The low permeability of the mycobacterial cell wall is thought to contribute to the well known resistance of mycobacteria to antibiotics and chemotherapeutic agents. We have used differential scanning calorimetry to demonstrate that the high temperature phase transition observed in purified cell walls, usually in the 60-70°C range, suggestive of a lipid environment of extremely low fluidity, can also be observed in whole organisms and in cell walls from which much of the free lipids was removed by extraction with Triton X-114. A survey of seven mycobacterial species demonstrated that this high temperature transition was a general property of these organisms. Cell walls isolated from two Corynebacterium species, which contain much shorter corynemycolic acids, displayed a much lower temperature transition, suggesting that the transition temperature was directly correlated to the length of mycolic acid. Methyl esters of mycolic acids were found to have a phase transition temperature that was linearly related to the amount of trans-mycolate. Both Mycobacterium avium and M. smegmatis responded to increasing growth temperature by increasing the proportion of trans-mycolate and displaying a correspondingly higher melting temperature. Whole cells of M. smegmatis grown at higher temperature allowed a less rapid influx of two lipophilic agents, norfloxacin and chenodeoxycholate. These results provide strong evidence that the nature of mycolic acid plays a crucial role in determining the fluidity and permeability of mycobacterial cell wall.
General Epidemiological Parameters of Viral Hepatitis A, B, C, and E in Six Regions of China: A Cross-Sectional Study in 2007

Background Viral hepatitis is a serious health burden worldwide. To date, few reports have addressed the prevalence of hepatitis A, B, C, and E in China. Therefore, the general epidemiological parameters of viral hepatitis remain unknown. Principal Findings In this cross-sectional study, we performed a serological prevalence analysis of viral hepatitis A, B, C, and E in 8,762 randomly selected Chinese subjects, which represented six areas of China. The overall prevalence of anti-Hepatitis C virus antibody (anti-HCV) was 0.58%, which was much lower than was estimated by WHO. The prevalences of Hepatitis B virus surface antigen (HBsAg), anti-Hepatitis B virus surface protein antibody (HBsAb), and anti-Hepatitis B virus core protein antibody (HBcAb) were 5.84%, 41.31%, and 35.92%, respectively, whereas in the group of subjects less than 5 years old, these prevalences were 1.16%, 46.77%, and 8.69% respectively, which suggests that the Hepatitis B virus (HBV)-carrier population is decreasing, and the nationwide HBV vaccine program has contributed to the lowered HBV prevalence in the younger generation in China. Meanwhile, a large deficit remains in coverage provided by the national HBV immune program. In addition, our data suggested the possibility that HBsAb may not last long enough to protect people from HBV infection throughout life. The overall prevalence of anti-Hepatitis A virus antibody (anti-HAV) and anti-Hepatitis E virus antibody (anti-HEV) were as high as 72.87% and 17.66%, respectively. The indices increased with age, which suggests that a large proportion of Chinese adults are protected by latent infection. Furthermore, the pattern of HEV infection was significantly different among ethnic groups in China. Conclusions Our study provided much important information concerning hepatitis A, B, C, and E prevalence in China and will contribute to worldwide oversight of viral hepatitis.