Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
PARALLEL IMPORTS IN PHARMACEUTICALS : IMPLICATIONS FOR COMPETITION AND PRICES IN

The poorest nations of the world suffer from extreme disease burdens, which go largely untreated because weak incomes and the prevailing system of intellectual property rights fail to provide sufficient incentives to develop new treatments and distribute them at low cost. Recent price reductions for HIV/AIDS drugs are encouraging but offer only a limited solution. We discuss the economic tradeoffs involved in supporting drug and vaccine research through exclusive rights and distributing the fruits of that research to poor countries. We offer a proposal to overcome these incentive problems. Our DEFEND ("Developing Economies' Fund for Essential New Drugs") proposal would work within the existing international legal structure but significantly would raise the returns to R&D in critical medicines and expand distribution programs. A public international organization would purchase the license rights for designated areas and distribute the drugs at low cost with a required co-payment from local governments. Furthermore, governments would restrict parallel trade to support desirable price discrimination. Costs would be funded largely by increased foreign assistance from the developed nations, but these costs would be low in relation to current aid budgets. We believe a strong program could be mounted for $8 billion to $12 billion per year and would be an extremely effective use of foreign aid. Ganslandt: IUI (The Research Institute of Industrial Economics), P.O. Box 5501, SE11485 Stockholm, SWEDEN; email mattias.ganslandt@iui.se. Maskus and Wong: Department of Economics, UCB 256, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0256, USA; email maskus@spot.colorado. edu
Hiding in plain sight: handwriting and applications to steganography

Steganography, the process of hiding secret information within normal-looking data (a cover), lies at the intersection of computer science and security. Recently, these covers have come in the form of images. The steganographic task must pass two visual inspections: by humans and by machines. If a human examines the image and fails to spot the hidden data, the algorithm successfully passes the first test. The second task is preventing a machine from detecting patterns to reverse engineer the secret information. In 2017, researchers achieved some success [1], but there were two main issues: the steganography only worked with (a) fully saturated, (b) fixed-size (100 x 100) images. To curb these limitations, a new pipeline is explored to generate non-fixed size cover images with steganographic modification rather than embedding. This paper explores this new form of steganography with several key processes. First, the secret information is encrypted before combining it with the cover using neural cryptography. Second, the information hides in the stroke data of a person's handwriting on a white background, increasing task difficulty, forcing the steganographic approach to be robust to a plethora of data, including sparse images. In this sense, the strokes are directly modified, rather than inserted or embedded in-between pixels. The result is a toy problem utilizing realistic, generated, coordinate sequences of human handwriting modified with slight offsets dependent on the information combined with the coordinates in the sequence. With these slight offsets, the new generated coordinates are nearly identical to the original coordinates, preserving the primary structure of the handwriting, but shining light on a new avenue of steganography based on data modification rather than embedding.
α-Actinin and Filamin Cooperatively Enhance the Stiffness of Actin Filament Networks

Background The close subcellular proximity of different actin filament crosslinking proteins suggests that these proteins may cooperate to organize F-actin structures to drive complex cellular functions during cell adhesion, motility and division. Here we hypothesize that α-actinin and filamin, two major F-actin crosslinking proteins that are both present in the lamella of adherent cells, display synergistic mechanical functions. Methodology/Principal Findings Using quantitative rheology, we find that combining α-actinin and filamin is much more effective at producing elastic, solid-like actin filament networks than α-actinin and filamin separately. Moreover, F-actin networks assembled in the presence of α-actinin and filamin strain-harden more readily than networks in the presence of either α-actinin or filamin. Significance These results suggest that cells combine auxiliary proteins with similar ability to crosslink filaments to generate stiff cytoskeletal structures, which are required for the production of internal propulsive forces for cell migration, and that these proteins do not have redundant mechanical functions.
Towards robust, scalable and secure network storage in Cloud Computing

The term Cloud Computing is not something that appeared overnight, it may come from the time when computer system remotely accessed the applications and services. Cloud computing is Ubiquitous technology and receiving a huge attention in the scientific and industrial community. Cloud computing is ubiquitous, next generation's in-formation technology architecture which offers on-demand access to the network. It is dynamic, virtualized, scalable and pay per use model over internet. In a cloud computing environment, a cloud service provider offers “house of resources” includes applications, data, runtime, middleware, operating system, virtualization, servers, data storage and sharing and networking and tries to take up most of the overhead of client. Cloud computing offers lots of benefits, but the journey of the cloud is not very easy. It has several pitfalls along the road because most of the services are outsourced to third parties with added enough level of risk. Cloud computing is suffering from several issues and one of the most significant is Security, privacy, service availability, confidentiality, integrity, authentication, and compliance. Security is a shared responsibility of both client and service provider and we believe security must be information centric, adaptive, proactive and built in. Cloud computing and its security are emerging study area nowadays. In this paper, we are discussing about data security in cloud at the service provider end and proposing a network storage architecture of data which make sure availability, reliability, scalability and security.
Swift Regular Expression Matching Paper # 706

Queries involving Regular Expressions (RegEx) have a wide range of applications including document stores, bioinformatics and information retrieval. However, efficiently executing RegEx queries over large datasets remains a challenging task. Data scans do not scale well with input size; however, existing techniques that avoid data scans — referred to as “black-box” approaches — offer little or no benefit over data scans for RegEx. The latter typically execute RegEx queries by decomposing the query along operators, computing intermediate results for individual sub-queries (using indexes and/or partial data scans) and combining the intermediate results along respective operators. We analyze the black-box approach and identify operators for which the execution time of the black-box approach can be far from optimal. We then propose Swift, a set of transformations over the original RegEx that allow avoiding the black-box approach for such operators. We implement Swift over several data structures (including suffix trees, suffix arrays, compressed indexes, etc.) and show that Swift achieves significant speedups over the black-box approach and over popular open-source data stores that support RegEx via data scans, sometimes by as much as two orders of magnitude.
Surface and Subsurface Tillage Effects on Mine Soil Properties and Vegetative Response Soil

Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. doi:10.2136/sssaj2017.09. 0329 Received 22 Sept. 2017. Accepted 5 Jan. 2018. *Corresponding author (angelhz@vt.edu). † Current address: Dep. of Crop and Soil Environmental Sciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ., Blacksburg, VA 24061 © Soil Science Society of America. This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) Surface and Subsurface Tillage Effects on Mine Soil Properties and Vegetative Response Soil & Water Management & Conservation
A Reconfigurable Wireless Sensor Network for Structural Health Monitoring

The paper presents a reconfigurable wireless sensor network for structural health monitoring. Real-time and periodic structural health monitoring can reduce the probability of collapse and the consequences of potential life-threatening conditions. The monitoring system is composed of two parts: the wireless network in which the sensor nodes are equipped with a 3- axis accelerometer and a temperature and humidity sensor, and a Matlab program that processes and visualizes the data in real-time. The first records acceleration signals in different locations of the monitored infrastructure and conveys them at the sink node. The latter plots the collected signals and computes their frequency spectrum in real-time. The wireless sensor node and the implemented network architecture were tested on a bridge structure built to scale. The results show that the sensor nodes provide data that, if processed in the frequency domain, allow the correct identification of the vibrations frequencies of the structure.
Absence of CC Chemokine Ligand 2 Does Not Limit Obesity-Associated Infiltration of Macrophages Into Adipose Tissue

Macrophage recruitment to adipose tissue in obesity contributes to enhanced adipose tissue inflammatory activity and thus may underlie obesity-associated metabolic dysfunction. Obese adipose tissue exhibits increases in CC chemokine ligand 2 (CCL2, or monocyte chemoattractant protein-1), an important macrophage-recruiting factor. We therefore hypothesized that elevated CCL2 may contribute to obesity-associated adipose tissue macrophage recruitment. Male 6-week-old CCL2−/− and wild-type mice (n = 11–14 per group) were fed standard and high-fat diets until 34 weeks of age. At 12–16 and 25–29 weeks of age, blood was collected for plasma glucose and hormone measurements, and glucose tolerance and insulin tolerance tests were performed. Adipose tissue was collected at 34 weeks for analysis of macrophage infiltration. Surprisingly, CCL2−/− mice on high-fat diet showed no reductions in adipose tissue macrophages. CCL2−/− mice on standard and high-fat diet were also glucose intolerant and had mildly increased plasma glucose and decreased serum adiponectin levels compared with wild-type mice. On high-fat diet, CCL2−/− mice also gained slightly more weight and were hyperinsulinemic compared with wild-type mice. Because macrophage levels were unchanged in CCL2−/− mice, the phenotype appears to be caused by lack of CCL2 itself. The fact that metabolic function was altered in CCL2−/− mice, despite no changes in adipose tissue macrophage levels, suggests that CCL2 has effects on metabolism that are independent of its macrophage-recruiting capabilities. Importantly, we conclude that CCL2 is not critical for adipose tissue macrophage recruitment. The dominant factor for recruiting macrophages in adipose tissue during obesity therefore remains to be identified.
Entropy Measures of Street-Network Dispersion: Analysis of Coastal Cities in Brazil and Britain

Geographical location and landforms of various types have strong effects on the developments of many cities and associated street networks. This study presents new results of landform effects, in particular the geometry of shorelines, on the grid street networks (a total of 10,442 streets) of three Brazilian coastal cities. The results are compared with the street networks of three coastal cities in Britain (a total of 22,002 streets) that have evolved through a more natural “bottom-up” process. Gibbs/Shannon entropy (a measure of dispersion) generally has a positive linear correlation with length ranges and the average lengths of the street, and for the power-law tails in particular. The geometry of the adjacent shorelines has great effect on the spatial orientation of streets in the Brazilian cities but less so for the networks of the British cities. More specifically, the more curved the shoreline, the greater is the dispersion in the street orientation and the greater the associated entropy. The results also show that the length-entropies of the outer parts of the Brazilian cities are generally lower than those of the inner parts, whereas the entropies of outer parts of the British cities are higher than those of the inner parts, indicating dispersion during street-network growth in the British cities.
2 Gliricidia sepium-a Multipurpose Forage Tree Legume

Gliricidia sepium is a medium-sized leguminous tree which occurs in abundance throughout its native range in Mesoamerica. Domestication of gliricidia has been in progress for several millennia and the multitude of indigenous common names from Mayan and Quiche peoples (Pertchik and Pertchik 1951) reveals the importance of this species to early occupants of the region. Spanish colonists adapted the local vernacular in naming the species 'madre de cacao' (mother of cocoa) to describe its use as a cocoa shade tree. The toxic properties of the seeds and bark of G. sepium give rise to the generic epithet of this species (Gliricidia = mouse killer) as well as a number of common names (e.g. mata-raton). Present day uses of this species throughout the native range (e.g. firewood, living fences, shade, construction and as an ornamental) are likely extensions of early utilisation and popularity (Rico-Gray et al. 1991).
Iterated function system based adaptive Differential Evolution algorithm

In this paper, we propose a new adaptive Differential Evolution algorithm, in which a simple mechanism based on Iterated Function System is applied to the control parameters F and CR. The performance is reported on a set of benchmark functions, which shows that our algorithm is better than, or at least comparable to the standard DE algorithm and the other adaptive versions of DE algorithm.
Durum wheat production chain : research , quality and future challenges

Barilla ranks as one of today’s top Italian food groups, leading in the global pasta business, the pasta sauces business in continental Europe, the bakery products business in Italy, and the crispbread business in Scandinavia. Being the irst user of durum wheat worldwide for its pasta production, Barilla focused its research activity, since more than 20 years ago, on durum wheat breeding to meet its needs in terms of quality for pasta manufacturing. Moreover, the limited availability of durum wheat at the global level, compared to the other major cereals, led Barilla to adopt an integrated approach to manage its production chain from the ield to the inish product. Recently, Barilla has carried out a study on the environmental impacts of pasta conducted with the life cycle assessment methodology, through the publication of the Environmental Product Declaration. The study showed that, through durum wheat production chain, the cropping system is responsible for more than 80% of the ecological footprint, approximately 60% of the carbon footprint and almost for the entirety of the water footprint. As a consequence, Barilla launched a speciic project, the “Barilla Sustainable Farming” with the aim to increase the widespread use of sustainable cropping systems. The project has been focusing on identifying potential improvements of the most diffused cropping systems for the cultivation of durum wheat in Italy, maintaining high levels of quality and plant health conditions.
CHEST RADIOGRAPHS: A SURVEY

Tuberculosis (TB) is very dangerous and rapidly spread disease in the world. In the investigating cases for suspected tuberculosis (TB), chest radiography is not only the key techniques of diagnosis based on the medical imaging but also the diagnostic radiology. So, Computer aided diagnosis (CAD) has been popular and many researchers are interested in this research areas and different approaches have been proposed for the TB detection and lung decease classification. In this paper, the medical background history of TB decease in chest X-rays and a survey of the various approaches in TB detection and classification are presented. The literature in the related methods is surveyed papers in this research area until now 2014.
A Simulation Investigation on Impacts of Transportation Disruption for Vendor Managed Inventory Model and Traditional

Nowadays, Supply Chain Management (SCM) becomes an important issue and involves managing integrated information about product flow, improving efficiencies. One of the important issues of SC is implementing close coordination and relationship among its members. This paper considers two different approach of inventory management which called Traditional Inventory Management (TIM) and Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) and propose a simulation method to observe the impacts on system efficiency and average inventory level while a transportation disruption situation happened through supply chain comparing with a normal situation. The stimulated members of SC are such as Distributor and Manufacturer. The model supposed that Manufacturer as a producer member has two separate warehouses which called here Raw Material and Product inventories. The models were simulated for 34 months (12,000 hours) by five times replications. Likewise, a disruption is supposed about two months thorough transportation on supply chains. The results show that the reduction of efficiency for TIM model was 17% while for VMI it was obtained by 12% when the disruption occurred in SC. In this context, it can be concluded that VMI is less sensitive when disruption happened and TIM is more vulnerable rather than VMI. The reason belong to this result is due to a great information sharing through all supply chain members. Furthermore, the fluctuation of average inventory level occurred much more on TIM rather than VMI. In proposed VMI model, manufacturer inventory (Product) experienced the largest fluctuation in its average inventory level and it is the most sensitive partner while disruption occurred. However, distributor member in TIM experienced the largest fluctuation in its average inventory level, therefore, it is the most sensitive member towards transportation disruption.
CharacteristicsShare Phenotypic and Genetic TLR7- and TLR9-Responsive Human B Cells

B cells activated by nucleic acid–sensing TLR7 and TLR9 proliferate and secrete immune globulins. Memory B cells are presumably more responsive due to higher TLR expression levels, but selectivity and differential outcomes remain largely unknown. In this study, peripheral blood human B cells were stimulated by TLR7 or TLR9 ligands, with or without IFN- a , and compared with activators CD40L plus IL-21, to identify differentially responsive cell populations, deﬁned phenotypically and by BCR characteristics. Whereas all activators induced differentiation and Ab secretion, TLR stimulation expanded IgM + memory and plasma cell lineage committed populations, and favored secretion of IgM, unlike CD40L/IL-21, which drove IgM and IgG more evenly. Patterns of proliferation similarly differed, with CD40L/IL-21 inducing proliferation of most memory and naive B cells, in contrast with TLRs that induced robust proliferation in a subset of these cells. On deep sequencing of the IgH locus, TLR-responsive B cells shared patterns of IgHV and IgHJ usage, clustering apart from CD40L/IL-21 and control conditions. TLR activators, but not CD40L/IL-21, similarly promoted increased sharing of CDR3 sequences. TLR-responsive B cells were characterized by more somatic hypermutation, shorter CDR3 segments, and less negative charges. TLR activation also induced long positively charged CDR3 segments, suggestive of autoreactive Abs. Testing this, we found culture supernatants from TLR-stimulated B cells to bind HEp-2 cells, whereas those from CD40L/IL-21–stimulated cells did not. Human B cells possess selective sensitivity to TLR stimulation, with distinctive phenotypic and genetic signatures. The Journal of Immunology , 2015, 194: 000–000.
Perceptive Parallel Processes Coordinating Geometry and Texture

Finding and classifying specific objects is a key part in most of the tasks autonomous systems could face. Properly being able to reach objects and find their exact location is very important for successfully achieving higher level robotic behaviors. To perform full object detection and recognition tasks in a wide environment several perception approaches need to be brought together to achieve a good performance. In this paper we present a dual parallel system for object finding in wide environments. Our system implements two main parts. One texture based approach for wide scenes, composed by a Multimodal Deep Learning Neural Network and a syntactic distribution based parser. And another specific geometry based process, using three dimensional data and geometry constrains to look for specific objects and their position within a whole scene. Both systems run in parallel and compliment each other to fulfill an object search and locate task. The major contribution of this paper consists on the success of combining texture and geometry based solutions running in parallel and sharing information in real time to allow a full generic solution to be able to find almost any present object in a wide environment. To validate our system we test it with real environment data injected into a simulated environment. We test 25 tasks in a household environment obtaining a 92% overall success rate finally delivering the correct position of the object.
Usability of Back of Device Virtual Buttons

Back of device touch screen capable game systems have been commercially available since the release of the Playstation Vita in 2012, however the use of these touch screens in games has been limited. With the release of the touch screen lacking Playstation Vita TV, it seemed as though the use of the second touch screen would become even less common as developers produce games with features common to both platforms. Back of device touch was revived with the release of the Playstation 4 with the purpose of mapping DualShock 4 inputs unavailable on the Vita to sections on the back of the device during remote play. This paper seeks to understand the limitations of using back of device touch screens for game input. Four selection tasks involving a total of 30 participants compared the reaction times and accuracy for 13 diﬀerent back of device touch region layouts. The re-sults found that the usability of the back touch screen on a Playstation Vita was in line with standard game controllers and the performance signiﬁcantly decreased when 12 or more virtual buttons were present.
Maximum intelligibility-based close-loop speech synthesis framework for noisy environments

This paper proposes a maximum intelligibility (MI)-based close-loop speech synthesis framework to actively compensate for the distortion of background noises. In this framework, an extra environmental noise-sensing microphone and an automatic speech recognition (ASR) module are utilized to approximate a subjective intelligibility measure. The hidden Markov model-based speech synthesis system (HTS) is then online adjusted by using the MI-based model adaptation algorithm. Experimental results of two subjective listening tests in noisy environments show that the proposed approach obtains 64% of the votes in an A/B preference test and helps the participants reduce word dictation errors by relative 26% when compared to an HTS baseline.