Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Free Elicitation Of Descriptive Adjectives For Tourism Image Assessment

An accurate assessment of product image is a prerequisite to designing an effective marketing strategy. Studies of products, brands, retail stores, and tourism destinations have typically used either multidimensional scaling or semantic differential scales to assess images. The current study suggests thatfree elicitation of descriptive adjectives can serve a similar function with advantages in ease of data collection, straightforward analysis, and ability to specify intersegment differences. The use of the procedure is demonstrated with data from two tourism studies, one on the state of Montana and onefrom an on-slope interview at a ski area.
Photonic Integrator-Based Optical Memory Unit

A concept for an ultrahigh-speed loadable and erasable optical memory unit using a photonic temporal integrator is proposed and demonstrated. As a proof-of-concept experiment, a 1-bit fiber Bragg grating-based optical memory element is implemented, demonstrating an unprecedented switching time of ~1.4 ps with a total memory lifetime approaching 800 ps.
Assessing effect sizes of influence factors towards a QoE model for HTTP adaptive streaming

HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS) is employed by more and more video streaming services in the Internet. It allows to adapt the downloaded video quality to the current network conditions, and thus, avoids stalling (i.e., playback interruptions) to the greatest possible extend. The adaptation of video streams is done by switching between different quality representation levels, which influences the user perceived quality of the video stream. In this work, the influence of several adaptation parameters, namely, switch amplitude (i.e., quality level difference), switching frequency, and recency effects, on Quality of Experience (QoE) is investigated. Therefore, crowdsourcing experiments were conducted in order to collect subjective ratings for different adaptation-related test conditions. The results of these subjective studies indicate the influence of the adaptation parameters, and based on these findings a simplified QoE model for HAS is presented, which only relies on the switch amplitude and the playback time of each layer.
Measuring Labor&Apos;S Share

This paper considers conceptual and practical issues that arise in measuring labor's share of national income. Most importantly: How are workers defined? How is compensation defined? The current definition of labor compensation used the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) includes the salary of business owners and payments to retired workers in labor compensation. An alternative series to the BEA's standard series is presented. In addition, a simple method for decomposing labor compensation into a component due to raw labor' and a component due to human capital is presented. Raw labor's share of national income is estimated using Census and CPS data. The share of national income attributable to raw labor increased from 9.6 percent to 13 percent between 1939 and 1959, remained at 12-13 percent between 1959 and 1979, and fell to 5 percent by 1996.
Typical urban water supply provision in developing countries: a case study of Semarang City, Indonesia.

Low service coverage of public water supply companies and high dependency on groundwater are typical characteristics of urban water supply provision in developing countries. A case study of Semarang, Indonesia, shows that such phenomena have a detrimental effect on the environment. Land subsidence, seawater intrusion and sea flooding are, to some extent, the results of the failure of the public water supply company to service all Semarang City inhabitants. The study of the Semarang coastal area shows that the lack of access, especially to the poor, is a business opportunity for small-scale water supply providers. The problem with these providers is that all of them use groundwater as sources. The worse the service of the public water supply company the more necessary it is to regulate groundwater extraction. The poor will become very dependent on groundwater while also becoming victims of environmental degradation due to excessive groundwater extraction. The study shows that all inhabitants, poor and rich alike, are waiting to be supplied by the public water supply company. They will change to the public water supply whenever the service is available.
Convergenza: un'utopia per le regioni europee?

Convergenza: un'utopia per le regioni europee? (di Antonio Acconcia) - ABSTRACT: Looking at the distribution of income per capita across a large set of European regions since 1975 up to 1999, we conclude for a substantial stability of regional inequalities. It seems that on average the process of economic growth affect all regions in the same proportional way, that is, initial relative positions remain largely unaltered. A different conclusion is reached, however, if we concentrate on the evolution of labour productivity and employment ratio, respectively. In particular, our data suggest a process of decreasing dispersion in labour productivity (convergence), as well as a tendency for regions with relatively low (high) productivity levels to advantage of growth of employment ratio at a rate less (more) than the average. This determined an increase of the correlation between productivity and employment ratio. The latter conclusion is in line with both the traditional neoclassical theory and some of new growth theory models.
The Concept of Market Value: A Critical Note on Itoh's Theory

The objective of this article is to show that Itoh's identification of market value with the individual value of the dominant methods of production obscures the fact that dominant capitals producing below market value realize extra surplus value and thus obtain higher profit rates than average. It is argued, following Marx's procedure, that the formation of market values is prior to the formation of prices of production, a procedure which runs contrary to Itoh's suggested simultaneous determination of market prices and prices of production.
Tobacco consumption in Swedish twins reared apart and reared together.

BACKGROUND Prior studies of twins reared together suggest that regular tobacco use (RTU) is substantially heritable. However, strong social influences on RTU might have biased these results. METHODS We examine the self-report lifetime history of RTU in members of 778 male-male and female-female twin pairs, raised together and apart, born from 1890 to 1958 and ascertained through the population-based Swedish Twin Registry. RESULTS In men, the pattern of twin resemblance for RTU suggested both genetic and rearing-environmental effects, which, in the best-fit biometrical model, accounted for 61% and 20% of the variance in liability to RTU, respectively. For women, overall results were hard to interpret, but became clearer when divided by birth cohort. In women born before 1925, rates of RTU were low and twin resemblance was environmental in origin. In later cohorts, rates of RTU in women increased substantially, as did heritability. For women born after 1940, heritability of RTU was similar to that seen in men (63%). CONCLUSIONS Genetic factors play an important etiologic role in RTU. In women, the impact of genetic factors increased in more recent cohorts, suggesting that, as social restrictions on female tobacco use relaxed over time, heritable influences increased in importance.
Equilibria in networks

We study a model in which two carriers choose networks to connect cities and compete for travelling customers. We show that if carriers compete aggressively (e.g., Bertrand-like behavior), one carrier operating a single hub-spoke network is an equilibrium outcome. Competing hub-spoke networks are not an equilibrium outcome, although duopoly equilibria in non-hub networks can exist. If carriers do not compete aggressively, a duopoly equilibrium in hub-spoke networks exists if the number of cities is not small. We provide conditions under which all equilibria consist of hub-spoke networks.
An analysis on the behavioural traits of salaried class investors in Tamil Nadu

Investors exhibit different types of behavioural traits when they are involved in the investment activities like information search, evaluating investment avenues and reviewing the investment made. These behavioural traits might vary from individual to individual. To identify these behavioural traits 37 statements were used with five point Likert scale to collect opinion from investors. Some of the behavioural traits identified from this research are commitment, rationale, variety seeking, dissonance reducing and external locus control. These behavioural traits have impact on investor's decision. Therefore, studying behavioural traits is important for the investment intermediaries who offer investment instruments.
Persistence of Vibrio vulnificus in tissues of Gulf Coast oysters, Crassostrea virginica, exposed to seawater disinfected with UV light

Vibrio vulnificus is an estuarine bacterium which can cause opportunistic infections in humans consuming raw Gulf Coast oysters, Crassostrea virginica. Although V. vulnificus is known as a ubiquitous organism in the Gulf of Mexico, its ecological relationship with C. virginica has not been adequately defined. The objective of the present study was to test the hypothesis that V. vulnificus is a persistent microbial flora of oysters and unamenable to traditional methods of controlled purification, such as UV light depuration. Experimental depuration systems consisted of aquaria containing temperature-controlled seawater treated with UV light and 0.2-microns-pore-size filtration. V. vulnificus was enumerated in seawater, oyster shell biofilms, homogenates of whole oyster meats, and tissues including the hemolymph, digestive region, gills, mantle, and adductor muscle. Results showed that depuration systems conducted at temperatures greater than 23 degrees C caused V. vulnificus counts to increase in oysters, especially in the hemolymph, adductor muscle, and mantle. Throughout the process, depuration water contained high concentrations of V. vulnificus, indicating that the disinfection properties of UV radiation and 0.2-microns-pore-size filtration were less than the rate at which V. vulnificus was released into seawater. Approximately 10(5) to 10(6) V. vulnificus organisms were released from each oyster per hour, with 0.05 to 35% originating from shell surfaces. These surfaces contained greater than 10(3) V. vulnificus organisms per cm2. In contrast, when depuration seawater was maintained at 15 degrees C, V. vulnificus was not detected in seawater and multiplication in oyster tissues was inhibited.
CodeAuditor: A Vulnerability Detection Framework Based on Constraint Analysis and Model Checking

Open source applications have flourished over recent years. Meanwhile security vulnerabilities in such applications have grown. Since manual code auditing is error-prone, time- consuming and costly, automatic solutions have become neces- sary. In this paper we address program vulnerabilities by static code analysis. First, we use flow-insensitive and interprocedural constraint-based analysis to extract the vulnerability detection model from the source code. Second, we employ model checking to solve the model. In addition, we do alias analysis to improve the correctness and precision of the detection model. The presented concepts are targeted at the general class of buffer-related vulnerabilities and can be applied to the detection of vulnerability types such as buffer overflow, format string attack, and code injection. CodeAuditor, the prototype implementation of our methods, is targeted at detecting buffer overflow vulnerabilities in C source code. It can be regarded as a vulnerability framework in which a variety of analysis and model checking tools can be incorporated. With this tool, 18 previously unknown vulnerabilities in six open source applications were discovered and the observed false positive rate was at around 23%.
Aromatic Amino Acid Auxotrophs Constructed by Recombinant Marker Exchange in Methylophilus methylotrophus AS1 Cells Expressing the aroP-Encoded Transporter of Escherichia coli

ABSTRACT The isolation of auxotrophic mutants, which is a prerequisite for a substantial genetic analysis and metabolic engineering of obligate methylotrophs, remains a rather complicated task. We describe a novel method of constructing mutants of the bacterium Methylophilus methylotrophus AS1 that are auxotrophic for aromatic amino acids. The procedure begins with the Mu-driven integration of the Escherichia coli gene aroP, which encodes the common aromatic amino acid transporter, into the genome of M. methylotrophus. The resulting recombinant strain, with improved permeability to certain amino acids and their analogues, was used for mutagenesis. Mutagenesis was carried out by recombinant substitution of the target genes in the chromosome by linear DNA using the FLP-excisable marker flanked with cloned homologous arms longer than 1,000 bp. M. methylotrophus AS1 genes trpE, tyrA, pheA, and aroG were cloned in E. coli, sequenced, disrupted in vitro using a Kmr marker, and electroporated into an aroP carrier recipient strain. This approach led to the construction of a set of marker-less M. methylotrophus AS1 mutants auxotrophic for aromatic amino acids. Thus, introduction of foreign amino acid transporter genes appeared promising for the following isolation of desired auxotrophs on the basis of different methylotrophic bacteria.
A theoretical assessment of the empirical literature on the impact of multinationality on performance

I assess the theoretical basis for the existence of a relationship between the size of a firm's foreign footprint (its multinationality) and its performance. I argue that multinationality results from a firm's choice between coordinating internally the stages of its value chain and letting them be organized on the market and hence that there are no reasons to expect net gains from an increase or a decrease in multinationality, the only profitability impact coming from a firm having made the wrong choice and being over- or under-integrated compared to the optimum. I then show that the way the literature has operationalized multinationality does not match the theoretical arguments it has advanced. I conclude that a reassessment of the literature is overdue and point to some new directions.
Can rye intake decrease risk of human breast cancer?

Background Rye contains more fibre and bioactive compounds than other cereals used for bread production. The fibre and compounds of the fibre complex could provide protection against breast cancer (BC). Objective To review the evidence and theoretical background for a role of rye and some of its components in the prevention of BC. Design A short review based to a great extent on the work by scientists in the Nordic countries. Results Some of the possible mechanisms by which the fibre complex could reduce BC risk are presented. The fibre through its effect on fermentation increases esterification of bile acids reducing toxicity of the free bile acids and is involved in the production of butyrate with potential anticancer effects including BC. The fibre reduces the enterohepatic circulation of the oestrogens leading to lower plasma oestrogen concentrations. The fibre complex contains bioactive compounds such as lignans and alkylresorcinols that are antioxidative and potentially anticarcinogenic. In addition, vitamins, minerals, and phytic acid in rye may provide protection against BC. Conclusion Rye products made from wholegrain rye flour are likely to contribute to reduced BC risk.
Latent human papillomavirus infection is comparable in the larynx and trachea

Recurrent respiratory papillomas are benign airway tumors caused by Human Papillomaviruses (HPVs) types 6 and 11. The disease is characterized by multiple recurrences of papillomas following surgical removal, caused by activation of latent HPV DNA. Most patients have laryngeal disease, while only a small subset has tracheal involvement. We have asked whether the lower frequency of tracheal papillomas was due to reduced prevalence of latent/subclinical tracheal HPV infection or reduced likelihood of activation to clinically apparent disease. A total of 121 biopsies of clinically normal laryngeal and tracheal tissues from 61 patients with laryngeal papillomas were analyzed for HPV DNA by polymerase chain reaction, confirmed by Southern blot hybridization. Patients were followed for 3–18 years (mean = 5.5 ± 4.4), with only one developing subsequent tracheal disease. There was no significant difference in prevalence of latent HPV DNA between larynx and trachea, analyzing either those patients with a single biopsy or those with more than one biopsy of larynx, trachea, or both. There was also no significant difference between tracheal latency with HPV 6 and HPV 11. We conclude that HPV infects tracheal mucosa and is maintained as a latent infection in the trachea as efficiently as in the larynx. Therefore, we propose that the low frequency of tracheal disease reflects a lower frequency of HPV activation, and postulate that cellular factors that differ between the stratified squamous epithelium of the larynx and the ciliated pseudo‐stratified columnar epithelium of the trachea contribute to this difference. J. Med. Virol. 72:473–477, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill

This Perception of the Environment 2011 version is a reissue and ten-year-on update of the original publication. The book is a collection of essays by Professor Tim Ingold, an anthropologist based at the University of Aberdeen. The key difference between this reissue and the original is that this edition contains an additional new preface. In one sentence, the ‘fundamental postulate of the book is how we understand everything relationally as a movement along a way of life’ (p. xv). This postulate also captures how this book will either work or not work for the reader, depending upon how that reader understands their world. To explain and develop: the central claim of the essays in the book is:
Promoting Social Integration

Byres, T. (2003) ‘Structural Change, the Agrarian Question and the Possible Impact of Globalization’, in J. Ghosh and C.P. Chandrasekhar (eds)Work and Well-Being in the Age of Finance (pp. 171–211). New Delhi: Tulika. Chant, S. (2008) ‘The “Feminisation of Poverty” and the “Feminisation” of Anti-poverty Programmes: Room for Revision? ’, Journal of Development Studies 4(2): 165–97. Elson, D. (2004) ‘Social Policy and Macroeconomic Performance: Integrating “the Economic” and “the Social”’, in T. Mkandawire (ed.) Social Policy in a Development Context (pp. 63–79). Basingstoke: UNRISD/Palgrave Macmillan. Ghai, D. and Hewitt de Alcantara, C. (1994) ‘Globalization and Social Integration: Patterns and Processes’, Occasional Paper No.2 WSSD, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, Geneva. Melo, M.A. (2007) ‘Unexpected Successes, Unanticipated Failures: Social Policy from Cardoso to Lula’, in Timothy Power and Peter Kingston (eds) Democratic Brazil Revisited. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Mkandawire, T. (2004) ‘Social Policy in a Development Context: Introduction’, in T. Mkandawire (ed.) Social Policy in a Development Context (pp. 1–33). Basingstoke: UNRISD/Palgrave Macmillan. Molyneux, M. (2002) ‘Gender and the Silences of Social Capital: Lessons from Latin America’, Development and Change 33(2): 167–88. Phillips, A. (2006) ‘“Really” Equal: Opportunities and Autonomy’, The Journal of Political Philosophy 14(1): 18–32. Townsend, P. (2007) ‘The Right to Social Security and National Development: Lessons from OECD Experience for Low-Income Countries’, Issues in Social Protection Discussion Paper No.18, Social Security Department, ILO, Geneva.
Evidence of p53-Dependent Cross-Talk between Ribosome Biogenesis and the Cell Cycle: Effects of Nucleolar Protein Bop1 on G1/S Transition

ABSTRACT Bop1 is a novel nucleolar protein involved in rRNA processing and ribosome assembly. We have previously shown that expression of Bop1Δ, an amino-terminally truncated Bop1 that acts as a dominant negative mutant in mouse cells, results in inhibition of 28S and 5.8S rRNA formation and deficiency of newly synthesized 60S ribosomal subunits (Z. Strezoska, D. G. Pestov, and L. F. Lau, Mol. Cell. Biol. 20:5516–5528, 2000). Perturbation of Bop1 activities by Bop1Δ also induces a powerful yet reversible cell cycle arrest in 3T3 fibroblasts. In the present study, we show that asynchronously growing cells are arrested by Bop1Δ in a highly concerted fashion in the G1phase. Kinase activities of the G1-specific Cdk2 and Cdk4 complexes were downregulated in cells expressing Bop1Δ, whereas levels of the Cdk inhibitors p21 and p27 were concomitantly increased. The cells also displayed lack of hyperphosphorylation of retinoblastoma protein (pRb) and decreased expression of cyclin A, indicating their inability to progress through the restriction point. Inactivation of functional p53 abrogated this Bop1Δ-induced cell cycle arrest but did not restore normal rRNA processing. These findings show that deficiencies in ribosome synthesis can be uncoupled from cell cycle arrest and reveal a new role for the p53 pathway as a mediator of the signaling link between ribosome biogenesis and the cell cycle. We propose that aberrant rRNA processing and/or ribosome biogenesis may cause “nucleolar stress,” leading to cell cycle arrest in a p53-dependent manner.
Prognostic model for total mortality in patients with haemodialysis from the Assessments of Survival and Cardiovascular Events (AURORA) study

Abstract. Holme I, Fellström BC, Jardin AG, Schmieder RE, Zannad F, Holdaas H (Oslo University Hospital, Ullevål, Oslo, Norway; British Heart Foundation Glasgow Cardiovascular Research Centre, Glasgow, UK; University Hospital, Erlangen, Germany; Centre d`Investigation Clinique; Centre Hospitalier Universitaire, and Nancy Université, Nancy, France; and Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway). Prognostic model for total mortality in patients with haemodialysis from the Assessments of Survival and Cardiovascular Events (AURORA) study. J Intern Med 2012; 271: 463–471.
Work/Family Reconciliation, Gender Wage Equity and Occupational Segregation: The Role of Firms and Public Policy

This paper presents international comparisons of policies and practices for assisting work/life reconciliation and discusses their relevance for gender wage equity and occupational segregation by gender. It dwells on the contribution of firms, where international analyses are less well developed. Labour market outcomes in different countries are compared with the policies in place. Based on these empirical findings, and a survey of the literature, it offers some guidelines for the development of work/life reconciliation policies, stressing the importance of a longer term perspective on careers, flexible working time, and the balance of activities within the home.
Accuracy of Estimating Project Costs and Benefits : An Overview of Research in Information Systems

Estimating information systems project costs and benefits is a challenging endeavor and is notoriously prone to uncertainties and errors. The purpose of this study is to review research publications on quantitative estimating accuracy of costs and benefits (financial returns). The importance of the problem is due to the wide use of cost and benefits evaluations in making critical business decisions. The study reveals existing quantitative levels of estimating costs and benefits accuracy in the context of the information systems implementations.