Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Human Capital and Technology Diffusion

This paper generalizes the Nelson-Phelps catch-up model of technology diffusion facilitated by levels of human capital. We allow for the possibility that the pattern of technology diffusion can be exponential, which would predict that nations would exhibit positive catch-up with the leader nation, or logistic, in which a country with a sufficiently small capital stock may exhibit slower total factor productivity growth than the leader nation. ; We derive a nonlinear specification for total factor productivity growth that nests these two specifications. We estimate this specification for a cross-section of nations from 1960 through 1995. Our results support the logistic specification, and are robust to a number of sensitivity checks. ; Our model also appears to predict slow total factor productivity growth well. 22 of the 27 nations that we identify as lacking the critical human capital levels needed to achieve faster total factor productivity growth than the leader nation in 1960 did achieve lower growth over the next 35 years.
Socio-Demography Characteristics of Parents of the Adolescent Girls in a Nutrition Education Based Intervention Study in Rural Bangladesh

Adolescence is age between 10 to 19years old. In this stage rapid physical, psychological and emotional changes occur in the human body system. For proper human development the stage demands balance of diet.1–3 About one-fifth of the world’s populations are adolescent girls and 84% lives in developing countries.4 Bangladesh has an adolescent and youth population of approximately 52million, which is quantifying to one third of the country’s total population. This major percentage, however, will not remain unchanged and it is proposed that by 2050, only ten to twenty percent of Bangladesh’s population will consist of young people.5 What this means for a country like Bangladesh is that it needs to spend in young people and focus on meeting their health and nutritional needs without further delay. Often health and nutritional status of adolescent girls are direct reflection of the cumulative effects of physical growth, the onset of menarche and increase in fat and muscle mass which place extra nutrition requirements on them. Physical growth of adolescent girls related to their dietary behaviour. If this dietary behaviour is compromised with unhealthy diet, adolescent girls are the worst sufferers of the ravages of various forms of malnutrition because of their increased nutritional needs and low social power. Further low literacy levels, lack of awareness about nutrition and health and poverty aggravate this dismal situation. The cycle of poor nutrition perpetuates itself across generations particularly in girls. The influence of socio-economic status (SES) on health and consequently nutritional status is assumed to begin early in life, perhaps even in the prenatal environment, and continue to accumulate throughout life. SES is thus more than financial well-being or educational achievement; it encompasses a lifetime of access to knowledge, resources, and opportunities.6,7 A large and growing body of evidence shows those socio demographic factorsage, race, ethnicity, and language, for example and socioeconomic status, such as income and education, can influence health and nutritional outcomes.8 Ever-increasing evidence suggests that the health and nutritional status of a population is greatly determined by the social and economic circumstances of that population, as well as its access to health care services.9,10
Nomad Devices Adaptation for Offering Computer Accessible Services

During the last years a transition from desktop computers and fixed phones to nomad devices such as mobile phones, palmtops and mobile Personal Computers has been experienced. Their market penetration is continuously increasing, mainly because they offer to their users the possibility to stay connected with their near ones and with the world whenever and wherever possible. The technological development of the aforementioned nomad devices provides not only the chance but the need to explore these systems in order to provide computer-based interactive applications and services accessible to the broadest possible population. At the same time, this development must also cope with diversity of the end users, the access media and devices, as well as in the contexts of use. The adaptation of nomad devices, applications and services, for the benefit of people with disability and of the elderly is especially challenging. This is because it requires a revision of the traditionally prevailing Human Computer Interaction (HCI) assumptions, such as that of designing for a non-disabled user in a desktop environment. ASK-IT1 (Ambient Intelligence Systems of Agents for Knowledge Based and Integrated Services for Mobility Impaired People) is a European Integrated Project (IST-2003-511298) within the IST 6th Framework Program in the e-Inclusion area. The driving vision behind the project is to develop services based on Ambient Intelligence (AmI) and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) that allow mobility impaired people to move independently, live a quality life, and as a result, establish and secure economic and social inclusion. These services include the provision of relevant and real-time information, primarily for travelling, but also for use at home and at work. Nomad devices allow content access at any time, at any place, and across multiple networks. These devices combined with the ASK-IT platform aim at covering a wide range of the mobility impaired users personal needs (Gardner, 2006). ASK-IT provides applications and services in five main areas: (i) transportation, tourism and leisure; (ii) personal support; (iii) work; (iv) business and education support; and (v) social relations and community building (ASK-IT, 2004).
Synbiotics suppress the release of lactate dehydrogenase, promote non‐specific immunity and integrity of jejunum mucosa in piglets

Abstract The aim of our experiment was to study how synbiotics are able to deal with the problems of post‐weaning piglets. Lactobacillus plantarum – BiocenolTM LP96 (CCM 7512), Lactobacillus fermentum – BiocenolTM LF99 (CCM 7514) and flaxseed (rich in n‐3 polyunsaturated fatty acids) were administered to 36 conventional piglets from a problematic breed with confirmed presence of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli and Coronavirus. The experimental piglets were supplied with probiotic cheeses and crushed flax‐seed in the period starting 10 days before weaning and lasting up to 14 days post‐weaning. Piglets in the control group were supplied only control cheese. The impact of such additives on the release of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH; spectroscopic and electrophoretic assay), alteration of immunity (index of metabolic activity), jejunum histology (light microscopy), and health of conventional piglets from a problematic breed (monitoring of hematology, consistency and moisture of feces and body temperature) were examined. We found significant decrease in LDH leakage in the blood serum and tissue extracts, indicating better cell membrane integrity in the individual organs of animals. Probiotics and flaxseed applied together seem to be a good source of nutrients to improve the immune status and the integrity of jejunum mucosa during infection. © 2015 Japanese Society of Animal Science
Modeling language acquisition in atypical phenotypes.

An increasing number of connectionist models have been proposed to explain behavioral deficits in developmental disorders. These simulations motivate serious consideration of the theoretical implications of the claim that a developmental disorder fits within the parameter space of a particular computational model of normal development. The authors examine these issues in depth with respect to a series of new simulations investigating past-tense formation in Williams syndrome. This syndrome and the past-tense domain are highly relevant because both have been used to make strong theoretical claims about the processes underlying normal language acquisition. The authors conclude that computational models have great potential to advance psychologists' understanding of developmental deficits because they focus on the developmental process itself as a pivotal causal factor in producing atypical phenotypic outcomes.
Optimized Transmission with Improper Gaussian Signaling in the K-User MISO Interference Channel

This paper studies the achievable rate region of the K-user Gaussian multiple-input single-output interference channel (MISO-IC) with the interference treated as noise, when improper or circularly asymmetric complex Gaussian signaling is applied. The transmit optimization with improper Gaussian signaling involves not only the signal covariance matrix as in the conventional proper or circularly symmetric Gaussian signaling, but also the signal pseudo-covariance matrix, which is conventionally set to zero in proper Gaussian signaling. By exploiting the separable rate expression with improper Gaussian signaling, we propose a separate transmit covariance and pseudo-covariance optimization algorithm, which is guaranteed to improve the users' achievable rates over the conventional proper Gaussian signaling. In particular, for the pseudo-covariance optimization, we establish the optimality of rank-1 pseudo-covariance matrices, given the optimal rank-1 transmit covariance matrices for achieving the Pareto boundary of the rate region. Based on this result, we are able to greatly reduce the number of variables in the pseudo-covariance optimization problem and thereby develop an efficient solution by applying the celebrated semidefinite relaxation (SDR) technique. Finally, we extend the result to the Gaussian MISO broadcast channel (MISO-BC) with improper Gaussian signaling or so-called widely linear transmit precoding.
Zonal rumor routing for wireless sensor networks

Routing algorithms for wireless sensor networks are constrained by power, memory and computational resources. Rumor routing algorithm for sensor-networks spreads the information of an event to other nodes in the network, thus enabling queries to discover paths to the events. Zonal rumor routing (ZRR) is an extension to the rumor routing algorithm. ZRR algorithm enables the rumors to spread to a larger part of the network with high energy efficiency by partitioning the network into zones. New algorithm improves the percentage query delivery and requires fewer transmissions, thus reducing the total energy consumption in a sensor network. Rumor routing can be considered as a special case of ZRR when only one node belongs to one zone. The performance of ZRR, the effect of zone size, and the scalability of the algorithm are evaluated using simulations.
Contribution to automatic design of a hierarchical Fuzzy Rule Classifier

In this paper, two ways for automatically designing a hierarchical classifier is checked. This study deals with a specific context where is necessary to work with a few number of training samples (and often unbalanced), to manage the subjectivity of the different output classes and to take into account an imprecision degree in the input data. The aim is also to create an interpretable classification system by reducing its dimensionality with the use of Feature Selection and Fuzzy Association Rules generation. The obtained results over an industrial wood datasets prove their efficacy to select input feature and they are used to make some conclusions about their performance. Finally, an original methodology to automatically build a hierarchical classifier is proposed by merging the both previous methods. Each node of the hierarchical structure corresponds to a Fuzzy Rules Classifier with selected inputs and macro classes for output. The leaves are the outputs of the classification system.
Non-line-of-sight mitigation for reliable urban GNSS vehicle localization using a particle filter

GNSS based localization in the context of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems and autonomous driving raises its attention regarding positioning performance not only related to accuracy but integrity as well. Especially, for safety relevant applications the proper computation of confidence levels under degraded environmental conditions is of major importance. Low cost solutions that integrate GNSS and additional in-vehicle sensor information are able to bridge short periods of time with limited GNSS accessibility and can therefore improve availability and accuracy. Additionally, non-line-of-sight (NLOS) and multipath effects in urban areas need special attention as these error influences violate the estimated confidence and introduce unobservable offsets to the position solution. The mitigation of local influences in urban areas increases the demands for the integration of proper error models for NLOS and multipath errors. The algorithmic detection of these effects and the proper propagation of all uncertainties within a Bayes framework is one of the key technologies towards the adoption of GNSS for safety critical applications. This paper proposes a probabilistic NLOS detection algorithm that is able to improve both - accuracy and integrity of the position estimate in urban areas. As an extension of a previous implementation by the authors based on an unscented Kalman Filter the proposed system is implemented as a particle filter in order to meet automotive requirements in terms of real time and scalability. Both approaches are compared by an evaluation of a data set from an urban test drive in terms of accuracy and integrity.
Hyperlipidemia Attenuates Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor–Induced Angiogenesis, Impairs Cerebral Blood Flow, and Disturbs Stroke Recovery via Decreased Pericyte Coverage of Brain Endothelial Cells

Objective—Therapeutic angiogenesis aims at the promotion of vascular growth, usually under conditions of atherosclerosis. It was unknown how hyperlipidemia, a risk factor that is closely associated with atherosclerosis of brain vessels in humans, influences vascular endothelial growth factor–induced angiogenesis and stroke recovery. Approach and Results—Wild-type and apolipoprotein-E (ApoE)−/− mice were kept on regular or cholesterol-rich diet for mimicking different severities of hyperlipidemia. Mice were treated intracerebroventricularly with recombinant human vascular endothelial growth factor for 21 days (0.02 µg/d) and subsequently subjected to 90-minute middle cerebral artery occlusion followed by 1 or 24 hours of reperfusion. Histochemical, autoradiographic, and regional bioluminescence techniques were used to evaluate effects of blood lipids on postischemic angiogenesis, histopathologic brain injury, cerebral blood flow, protein synthesis and energy state, and pericyte coverage of brain endothelial cells. Hyperlipidemia dose-dependently attenuated vascular endothelial growth factor–induced capillary formation and pericyte coverage of brain endothelial cells, abolishing the improvement of cerebral blood flow during subsequent stroke, resulting in the loss of the metabolic penumbra and increased brain infarction. The enhanced angiogenesis after vascular endothelial growth factor treatment was accompanied by increased expression of the adhesion protein N-cadherin, which mediates endothelial-pericytic interactions, in ischemic brain microvessels of wild-type mice on regular diet that was blunted in wild-type mice on Western diet and ApoE−/− mice on either diet. Conclusions—The compromised vessel formation and hemodynamics question the concept of therapeutic angiogenesis in ischemic stroke where hyperlipidemia is highly prevalent.
A seamless handover scheme for vehicles across heterogeneous networks

Next generation heterogeneous networks require an effective handover scheme, optimised specially to support network mobility. The paper proposes an architecture to support seamless mobility of mobile networks across heterogeneous networks. We consider the vehicular scenario where a vehicle is provided with mobility through different internet service providers (ISPs) and propose to use multiple mobile routers-based handover scheme in vehicles. The multiple mobile routers architecture is extended to include multiple home agents (HAs) where each HA belongs to different administrative domains. We carry out comparative performance evaluation of the handover performance of the proposed scheme in regard to UDP and TCP throughput, service disruption time, and signalling overhead. Moreover, we analyse the impact of vehicle speed and overlapping distance of access routers on packet loss during handover period. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme provides a mobile network with seamless mobility across heterogeneous networks. The overlapped reception of packets from different access routers significantly minimises packet losses during handover even without reducing handover latency.
EMVA 1288 camera characterisation and the influences of radiometric camera characteristics on geometric measurements

Over the past decades, a large number of imaging sensors based mostly on CCD or CMOS technology were developed. Datasheets provided by their developers are usually written on their own standards and no universal figure of merit can be drawn from them for comparison purposes. The EMVA 1288 is a standard aims to overcome this problem by setting parameters and experimental setup for radiometric characterisation of cameras. An implementation of an experimental setup and software environment for radiometric characterisation of imaging sensors following the guidelines of the EMVA 1288 is presented here. Using simulations, the influences and impact of several EMVA 1288 parameters on geometric measurements can be estimated. This paper also presents a signal model and image acquisition chain; measurements of radiometric characteristics of an image sensor; and sensor evaluation for geometric measurements, where the aforementioned influences on geometric measurements are discussed.
Dynamics of the Antigen-binding Grooves in CD1 Proteins

Background: CD1 antigen-presenting proteins are recycled intracellularly via different pathways to sample diverse lipid antigen pools. Results: The hydrophobic binding grooves of CD1b-e but not CD1a collapse without a bound lipid antigen. Conclusion: CD1b-e are likely to be regulated allosterically by lipid transfer proteins not required by CD1a. Significance: We present a testable hypothesis for the mechanism of lipid antigen recycling by CD1 that is consistent with molecular structure and physiology. CD1 proteins mediate the presentation of endogenous and foreign lipids on the cell surface for recognition by T cell receptors. To sample a diverse antigen pool, CD1 proteins are repeatedly internalized and recycled, assisted, in some cases, by lipid transfer proteins such as saposins. The specificity of each CD1 isoform is, therefore, conferred in part by its intracellular pathway but also by distinct structural features of the antigen-binding domain. Crystal structures of CD1-lipid complexes reveal hydrophobic grooves and pockets within these binding domains that appear to be specialized for different lipids. However, the mechanism of lipid loading and release remains to be characterized. Here we gain insights into this mechanism through a meta-analysis of the five human CD1 isoforms, in the lipid-bound and lipid-free states, using all-atom molecular dynamics simulations. Strikingly, for isoforms CD1b through CD1e, our simulations show the near-complete collapse of the hydrophobic cavities in the absence of the antigen. This event results from the spontaneous closure of the binding domain entrance, flanked by two α-helices. Accordingly, we show that the anatomy of the binding cavities is restored if these α-helices are repositioned extrinsically, suggesting that helper proteins encountered during recycling facilitate lipid exchange allosterically. By contrast, we show that the binding cavity of CD1a is largely preserved in the unliganded state because of persistent electrostatic interactions that keep the portal α-helices at a constant separation. The robustness of this binding groove is consistent with the observation that lipid exchange in CD1a is not dependent on cellular internalization.
Amputation: Preoperative Psychological Preparation

More than 90 percent of all amputations are now due to the complications of chronic disease. Because most amputations can be anticipated, the preoperative period allows the opportunity for psychological preparation of the patient. This article highlights the important contribution family physicians can make before patients undergo amputation. Common patient reactions before and after amputation are reviewed, and an illustrative case is described. Our experience and review of the literature suggest that psychological intervention during the preoperative period is associated with a less complicated postoperative adjustment and grieving experience. The family physician can promote patient adjustment by providing accurate information, eliciting unspoken fears, and encouraging the involvement of the patient’s family. By emphasizing the patient’s enduring characteristics and his or her past coping ability, we believe that family physicians can lessen the psychological distress of amputation and facilitate adaptation.
Comparison study of full and subthreshold bulimia nervosa: Personality, clinical characteristics, and short-term response to therapy

Abstract This study compared symptomatological and personality differences between individuals with threshold bulimia nervosa (BN; n=39) and those with subthreshold BN (n=39) and their short-term response to a brief outpatient intervention. Participants were matched using a pairwise matching procedure, taking into account age, age of onset, and duration of the disorder. Both groups received the same brief outpatient psychoeducational therapy. The same assessment measures were used before and after treatment. With the exception of some clinical and psychopathological symptoms (higher depression and phobic anxiety in threshold BN), there were no significant between-group differences on scales of general psychopathology or personality traits. At the end of treatment, there were no significant between-group differences on abstinence rates for binge eating and vomiting, number of sessions attended, or dropout rates. Threshold BN and subthreshold BN share common psychopathological symptoms and personality traits. No differences in therapy outcome were observed for the two groups after a brief group psychoeducational intervention.
Effect of culture conditions on androgen sensitivity of the human prostatic cancer cell line LNCaP

Several effects of androgens on LNCaP‐FGC prostate tumor cells showed a biphasic pattern. Stimulation of growth and inhibition of secretion of prostatic acid phosphatase (PAP) was observed at low androgen concentrations (below 1 nM of the synthetic androgen R1881), and inhibition of growth and stimulation of PAP secretion was observed at higher concentrations. In contrast, prostate specific antigen (PSA) secretion did not show this biphasic response pattern. Comparable effects were found for two sublines of the LNCaP‐FGC cells: an early (passage 20, androgen‐dependent) and relatively late (passage 70, androgen‐sensitive) passage of the cells. Culturing of both sublines in the presence of a high concentration of androgens (10 nM R1881) resulted initially in a decrease in growth rate, but the cells started to proliferate within 3 weeks. These cells became less sensitive to androgens, lost their biphasic response pattern, and showed reduced androgen receptor levels. Three weeks after removal of the excess of androgens, the passage 70 cells regained a biphasic growth response to androgens. Culture in medium without steroids but with EGF resulted in a decrease of both androgen sensitivity and androgen receptor level.