Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exploring internal crisis communication in multicultural environments: A study among Danish managers

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore managers’ perspectives on and practices of internal crisis communication in multicultural environments. Design/methodology/approach – After a review of relevant literature on crisis, culture and internal communication to define the framework and relevance of this study, results from qualitative interviews with Danish managers are presented. Findings – Interviewees acknowledge the relevance of the cultural backgrounds of employees in relation to internal communication, especially in crisis situations. Cultural aspects affect message framing and employee sensemaking, especially when it comes to employees located in other countries. Line managers and local communicators are key in the adaptation of verbal and non-verbal communicative features. Employees are also seen as active sensegivers and communicators. Research limitations/implications – Findings show how demographic and globalisation patterns, which are changing domestic and international workplaces, ha.
Lamivudine plus interleukin‐12 combination therapy in chronic hepatitis B: Antiviral and immunological activity

Interleukin‐12 (IL‐12) is an immunomodulatory cytokine that promotes cellular immunity. Pre‐clinical data suggest that IL‐12 inhibits hepatitis B virus (HBV) replication by stimulating interferon‐gamma (IFN‐γ) production. We investigated whether a combination treatment with lamivudine plus recombinant human interleukin‐12 (rhIL‐12) will result in a greater and prolonged suppression of HBV replication in comparison with lamivudine monotherapy. Fifteen patients with HBeAg‐positive chronic hepatitis B were randomized to receive either lamivudine alone for 24 weeks (group 1); combination of lamivudine for 16 weeks and rhIL‐12 (200 ng/kg twice weekly), starting 4 weeks after initiation of lamivudine, for 20 weeks (group 2), or the same schedule as for group 2, with lamivudine and a higher dose of rhIL‐12 (500 ng/kg, group 3). Serum HBV DNA levels, T‐cell proliferation, frequency of virus‐specific T‐cells, and IFN‐γ production were evaluated serially during and 24 weeks posttreatment. Lamivudine plus rhIL‐12/500 showed greater antiviral activity than lamivudine monotherapy. However, after stopping lamivudine in groups 2 and 3, serum HBV DNA increased significantly despite continuing rhIL‐12 administration. Lamivudine plus rhIL‐12 treatment was associated with a greater increase in virus‐specific T‐cell reactivity, IFN‐γ production, and an inverse correlation between the frequency of IFN‐γ–producing CD4+ T‐cells and viremia. The T‐cell proliferative response to HBcAg did not differ between the three groups. In conclusion, the addition of IL‐12 to lamivudine enhances T‐cell reactivity to HBV and IFN‐γ production. However, IL‐12 does not abolish HBV replication in HBeAg‐positive patients and does not maintain inhibition of HBV replication after lamivudine withdrawal. (HEPATOLOGY 2005.)
Detection of near-duplicate images for web search

Among the vast numbers of images on the web are many duplicates and near-duplicates, that is, variants derived from the same original image. Such near-duplicates appear in many web image searches and may represent infringements of copyright or indicate the presence of redundancy. While methods for identifying near-duplicates have been investigated, there has been no analysis of the kinds of alterations that are common on the web or evaluation of whether real cases of near-duplication can in fact be identified. In this paper we use popular queries and a commercial image search service to collect images that we then manually analyse for instances of near-duplication. We show that such duplication is indeed significant, but that not all kinds of image alteration explored in previous literature are evident in web data. Removal of near-duplicates from a collection is impractical, but we propose that they be removed from sets of answers. We evaluate our technique for automatic identification of near duplicates during query evaluation and show that it has promise as an effective mechanism for management of near-duplication in practice.
Simulated annealing based localization in wireless sensor network

In sensor networks, the information obtained from sensors are meaningless without the location information. In this paper, we propose a simulated annealing based localization (SAL) scheme for wireless sensor networks. Simulated annealing (SA) is used to estimate the approximate solution to combinatorial optimization problems. The SAL scheme can bring the convergence out of the local minima in a controlled fashion. Simulation results show that this scheme gives accurate and consistent location estimates of the nodes
Region proximity in metric spaces and its use for approximate similarity search

Similarity search structures for metric data typically bound object partitions by ball regions. Since regions can overlap, a relevant issue is to estimate the proximity of regions in order to predict the number of objects in the regions' intersection. This paper analyzes the problem using a probabilistic approach and provides a solution that effectively computes the proximity through realistic heuristics that only require small amounts of auxiliary data. An extensive simulation to validate the technique is provided. An application is developed to demonstrate how the proximity measure can be successfully applied to the approximate similarity search. Search speedup is achieved by ignoring data regions whose proximity to the query region is smaller than a user-defined threshold. This idea is implemented in a metric tree environment for the similarity range and "nearest neighbors" queries. Several measures of efficiency and effectiveness are applied to evaluate proposed approximate search algorithms on real-life data sets. An analytical model is developed to relate proximity parameters and the quality of search. Improvements of two orders of magnitude are achieved for moderately approximated search results. We demonstrate that the precision of proximity measures can significantly influence the quality of approximated algorithms.
A collaborative video-conferencing system for improving care during neonatal transport

The need for real-time telemedicine to support urgent care is growing. The primary focus of our work has been on improving the care provided to critically ill infants born at community hospitals who need to be transported to tertiary care centers for specialized neonatal treatment. Providing real-time effective communication between community physicians, transport teams, and specialists will lead to better decisions about where to transport patients, better patient care during transfers, and reduced time to proper treatment upon arrival at the receiving hospital. There are a number of challenges in implementing a system that meets these needs: creating a reliable high-bandwidth channel on a moving ambulance by aggregating unreliable low-bandwidth cellular channels, providing a user interface that can be easily and effectively used by physicians, and instrumenting the incubator in which the infants are transported. We have built a bi-directional near real-time video-conferencing system designed to facilitate better communication between physicians and transport teams. In addition to providing much higher-quality video than current mobile telemedicine applications, our application provides collaborative and domain-specific features not offered by a regular teleconferencing system: doctors and transport team members can save and email snapshots and video clips for further analysis and discussion, zoom in on different portions of the video, switch between several cameras for different views of the patient and a vitals signs monitor, and set the video transmission parameters (e.g., frame rate and latency). Thesis Supervisor: John V. Guttag Title: Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
The Development of Parallel Adaptive Sampling Algorithms for Analyzing Biological Networks

The availability of biological data in massive scales continues to represent unlimited opportunities as well as great challenges in bioinformatics research. Developing innovative data mining techniques and efficient parallel computational methods to implement them will be crucial in extracting useful knowledge from this raw unprocessed data, such as in discovering significant cellular subsystems from gene correlation networks. In this paper, we present a scalable combinatorial sampling technique, based on identifying maximum chordal sub graphs, that reduces noise from biological correlation networks, thereby making it possible to find biologically relevant clusters from the filtered network. We show how selecting the appropriate filter is crucial in maintaining the key structures from the original networks and uncovering new ones after removing noisy relationships. We also conduct one of the first comparisons in two important sensitivity criteria - the perturbation due to the vertex numbers of the network and perturbations due to data distribution. We demonstrate that our chordal-graph based filter is effective across many different vertex permutations, as is our parallel implementation of the sampling algorithm.
– Branes in Ten and Six Dimensions

We show how, via T –duality, intersecting D-Brane configurations in ten (six) dimensions can be obtained from the elementary D-Brane configurations by embedding a Type IIB D-Brane into a Type IIB Nine–Brane (Five–Brane) and give a classification of such configurations. We show that only a very specific subclass of these configurations can be realized as (supersymmetric) solutions to the equations of motion of IIA/IIB supergravity. Whereas the elementary D–brane solutions in d = 10 are characterized by a single harmonic function, those in d = 6 contain two independent harmonic functions and may be viewed as the intersection of two d = 10 elementary D-branes. Using string/string/string triality in six dimensions we show that the heterotic version of the elementary d = 6 D-Brane solutions correspond in ten dimensions to intersecting Neveu-Schwarz/Neveu-Schwarz (NS/NS) strings or five-branes and their T –duals. We comment on the implications of our results in other than ten and six dimensions.
Psychiatric diagnoses, sexual and physical victimization, and disability in patients with irritable bowel syndrome or inflammatory bowel disease

Synopsis We compared 71 patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and 40 patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) using structured interviews for psychiatric, gastrointestinal and sexual/physical victimization histories, as well as self-reported measures of personality, functional disability and dissociation. IBS patients had significantly higher lifetime prevalence rates of major depression, current panic disorder, and childhood sexual abuse. Despite the absence of organic pathology, IBS patients had significantly higher numbers of medically unexplained physical symptoms and disability ratings equal to, or greater than, those of patients with severe organic gastrointestinal disease.
Teacher Identity in Language Teaching: Integrating Personal, Contextual, and Professional Factors

This article reviews notions of identity and teacher identity, how these relate to the specific characteristics of language teaching, and how teacher identity can evolve or be developed through experience and teacher education. The notion of teacher identity highlights the individual characteristics of the teacher and how these are integrated with the possibilities and potentials provided in the institutional identity of teacher and the content and methods of a specific field, as these are realized in specific contexts of teaching. The elements of a teacher identity in language teaching are derived from a review of literature on identity and described in terms of the foundational and advanced competences required for language teaching, as illustrated by excerpts from teacher narratives. The discussion concludes with recommendations for teacher education and professional development with a focus on identity.
Analysis and comparison of secondary frequency control reserve activation rules: Pro-rata vs. merit order

This paper investigates the two common activation rules for secondary frequency control, namely pro-rata activation and merit-order activation based on submitted bids. A representative model of power plant and control area is built and then technical and economic comparisons are performed. The study has been done using practical data available to the Swiss TSO, Swissgrid, and one of the German TSOs, TransnetBW.
Transposon mutagenesis in Acinetobacter calcoaceticus RAG-1

Molecular genetic studies of Acinetobacter spp. have been greatly limited by the lack of a method for transposon mutagenesis. In this study, a genetically engineered derivative of Tn10, mini-Tn10PttKm, was conjugally transferred in plate matings from Escherichia coli SM10[(lambda pir)(pLOFPttKm)] to Acinetobacter calcoaceticus RAG-1. Transfer frequencies were dependent on mating ratios and varied from 7.9 x 10(-8) to 3.4 x 10(-7) per recipient cell. The 27 lipase-deficient transconjugants which were isolated exhibited several different phenotypes, including gelatinase mutants, esterase mutants, and putative auxotrophs. Southern blot analysis confirmed the insertion of the mini-Tn10PttKm transposon in single, unique sites in five transconjugants. Four of five lipase mutants contained single insertions of mini-Tn10PttKm in the same chromosomal restriction fragments. To our knowledge, this is the first report of the use of a transposon for direct, generalized mutagenesis in Acinetobacter spp.
Effective Automated Feature Construction and Selection for Classification of Biological Sequences

Background Many open problems in bioinformatics involve elucidating underlying functional signals in biological sequences. DNA sequences, in particular, are characterized by rich architectures in which functional signals are increasingly found to combine local and distal interactions at the nucleotide level. Problems of interest include detection of regulatory regions, splice sites, exons, hypersensitive sites, and more. These problems naturally lend themselves to formulation as classification problems in machine learning. When classification is based on features extracted from the sequences under investigation, success is critically dependent on the chosen set of features. Methodology We present an algorithmic framework (EFFECT) for automated detection of functional signals in biological sequences. We focus here on classification problems involving DNA sequences which state-of-the-art work in machine learning shows to be challenging and involve complex combinations of local and distal features. EFFECT uses a two-stage process to first construct a set of candidate sequence-based features and then select a most effective subset for the classification task at hand. Both stages make heavy use of evolutionary algorithms to efficiently guide the search towards informative features capable of discriminating between sequences that contain a particular functional signal and those that do not. Results To demonstrate its generality, EFFECT is applied to three separate problems of importance in DNA research: the recognition of hypersensitive sites, splice sites, and ALU sites. Comparisons with state-of-the-art algorithms show that the framework is both general and powerful. In addition, a detailed analysis of the constructed features shows that they contain valuable biological information about DNA architecture, allowing biologists and other researchers to directly inspect the features and potentially use the insights obtained to assist wet-laboratory studies on retainment or modification of a specific signal. Code, documentation, and all data for the applications presented here are provided for the community at http://www.cs. gmu.edu/~ashehu/? q=OurTools.
Oral English language proficiency and reading mastery: The role of home language and school supports

ABSTRACT The analysis of 21,409 participants of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten cohort focused on home and school factors sought to understand the level of reading mastery that children experienced throughout elementary school and Grade 8 by relating home language use, timing of oral English language proficiency, and the provision of school-based English language learner services to reading mastery. Results confirm that non-English language use at home is associated with a decreased reading mastery at higher levels of proficiency in Grades 1 and 3, and is reduced to nonsignificance in Grades 5 and 8 with the inclusion of teacher and school factors. Also, the negative association between timing of oral English language proficiency and reading mastery is partially explained by teacher and school factors, particularly children's receipt of English language learner services. The findings provide support for policies that provide language services for language minority children and families during the transition to school and through the elementary school years.
Increased Antistreptococcal Antibody Titers and Anti—Basal Ganglia Antibodies in Patients With Tourette Syndrome: Controlled Cross-Sectional Study

The association between Tourette syndrome, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and obsessive-compulsive disorder following streptococcal infections has been documented, but with conflicting reports. We thus felt it was important to investigate this association in a group of Italian patients not previously documented. We took blood on 69 patients with Tourette syndrome and 72 age- and sex-matched tic-free controls. Laboratory staff were blind to the diagnostic status of the subjects. Evidence of recent streptococcal infection was defined using antistreptolysin titers. Anti-basal ganglia antibodies were determined using human basal ganglia sections. Statistical analysis was conducted using analysis of variance and chi-square tests. Raised antistreptolysin titers were found in 41 of 69 (59%) patients with Tourette syndrome and 14 of 72 (19%) controls (P = .000). Positive anti-basal ganglia antibodies were found in 22 of 69 (32%) subjects with Tourette syndrome compared with 7 of 72 (10%) controls, which was also significant (P = .002). Raised antistreptolysin titers were detected in 18 of 22 (82%) patients with Tourette syndrome with positive anti-basal ganglia antibodies and 22 of 47 (47%) patients with negative anti-basal ganglia antibodies (P = .01). These results support the reported association between streptococcal infection and anti-basal ganglia antibodies and some patients with Tourette syndrome.
Chronic Bronchitis and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Among Textile Workers in Karachi, Pakistan.

OBJECTIVE To determine the frequency and predictors of chronic bronchitis and COPD among textile workers in Karachi, Pakistan. STUDY DESIGN Cross-sectional survey. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY Karachi, Pakistan, from October to December 2009. METHODOLOGY Male textile workers from 15 mills of Karachi were inducted. Data was collected using American Thoracic Society respiratory questionnaire (ATS-DLD-78-a) and spirometry. RESULTS Out of 372 participants, 29 (7.8%) workers had chronic bronchitis (4, 9.1% aged ≥40 years) and 25 (6.7%) had COPD (12, 27.2% aged ≥40 years). Workers with chronic bronchitis had significantly decreased lung function compared to the healthy workers. Those reporting severe self-perceived dust exposure at work, ≥ 10 pack years of smoking, uneducated, longer duration of work (≥11 years), and ever smokers were more likely to have chronic bronchitis or COPD. In the multivariate analyses, severe self-perceived dust exposure at work (AOR = 7.4; 95% CI: 1.9, 28.0), family history of respiratory illness/symptoms (AOR = 4.8; 95% CI: 1.1, 20.9) and lack of education (AOR = 4.2; 95% CI: 1.1, 16.9) were significant predictors of chronic bronchitis. Duration of work ≥11 years (AOR = 5.5; 95% CI: 1.5, 19.7) and pack years of smoking ≥10 years (AOR = 3.5; 95% CI: 1.1, 11.7) were strong predictors for COPD. CONCLUSION There is a high frequency of chronic bronchitis and COPD among textile workers. Multiple important predictors for prevention are identified.
Forkhead-Box-P3 Gene Transfer in Human CD4+ T Conventional Cells for the Generation of Stable and Efficient Regulatory T Cells, Suitable for Immune Modulatory Therapy

The development of novel approaches to control immune responses to self- and allogenic tissues/organs represents an ambitious goal for the management of autoimmune diseases and in transplantation. Regulatory T cells (Tregs) are recognized as key players in the maintenance of peripheral tolerance in physiological and pathological conditions, and Treg-based cell therapies to restore tolerance in T cell-mediated disorders have been designed. However, several hurdles, including insufficient number of Tregs, their stability, and their antigen specificity, have challenged Tregs clinical applicability. In the past decade, the ability to engineer T cells has proven a powerful tool to redirect specificity and function of different cell types for specific therapeutic purposes. By using lentivirus-mediated gene transfer of the thymic-derived Treg transcription factor forkhead-box-P3 (FOXP3) in conventional CD4+ T cells, we converted effector T cells into Treg-like cells, endowed with potent in vitro and in vivo suppressive activity. The resulting CD4FOXP3 T-cell population displays stable phenotype and suppressive function. We showed that this strategy restores Treg function in T lymphocytes from patients carrying mutations in FOXP3 [immune-dysregulation, polyendocrinopathy, enteropathy, X-linked (IPEX)], in whom CD4FOXP3 T cell could be used as therapeutics to control autoimmunity. Here, we will discuss the potential advantages of using CD4FOXP3 T cells for in vivo application in inflammatory diseases, where tissue inflammation may undermine the function of natural Tregs. These findings pave the way for the use of engineered Tregs not only in IPEX syndrome but also in autoimmune disorders of different origin and in the context of stem cell and organ transplantation.
CUMULVS: Collaborative Infrastructure for Developing Distributed Simulations

The CUMULVS software environment provides remote collaboration among scientists by allowing them to dynamically attach to, view, and steer a running simulation. Users can interactively examine intermediate results on demand, saving effort for long-running applications gone awry. In addition, it provides fault tolerance to distributed applications via user-directed checkpointing, heterogeneous task migration and automatic restart. This talk describes CUMULVS and how this tool benefits scientists developing large distributed applications.
Creating a composite index for assessing country performance in the field of human rights: proposal for a new methodology

This article sets out to provide a new methodology for attributing weights to the various indicators of human rights abuse. A number of studies have already collected data on various indicators of human rights abuse. These studies fall short, however, because they do not attribute weight to these indicators, and thus produce neither a composite indicator nor a group classification of countries according to their overall levels of performance. Relative weights can be attributed to these indicators in one of two ways. First, indicators can be weighted to reflect the values of the one constructing the index-an arbitrary scale. Alternatively, our methodology defines the extreme ends of the spectrum of human rights records by some widely acceptable standard, and then assesses the weights for the whole spectrum through Discriminant Analysis. Although this methodology will not end all the controversies on giving each human right indicator its relative place, nor rank individual countries on a world scale, this method is a step closer to a more objective measurement of human rights performance.