Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Survival in chronic myelogenous leukemia: Influence of treatment and extent of disease at diagnosis

A retrospective study was conducted on the survival of 178 patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia from January 1948 through December 1967. Through analysis of survival time, comparison has been made between a group of 50 patients treated with chemotherapy alone vs. a group of 84 patients treated with radiation therapy to the spleen and chemotherapy. No difference could be found in these two major therapeutic groups (median survival 31 months for both). Further analysis has been made to determine whether survival could be correlated to the initial extent of disease. Initial hemoglobin value, WBC, platelet counts, absolute blast count, spleen size, and selected combination of these factors showed no significant correlation with survival. Acute blastic transformation occurred in 60% of 117 patients. Infection as a cause of death was less frequent in patients with progressive disease without acute blastic transformation, while renal failure due to hyperuricemia and thromboembolic phenomena occurred more often in this group as compared with patients dying in acute blastic phase.
Overview of Cyberattack on Saudi Organizations

The beginning of Twenty first century saw a new dimension of security, the cybersecurity. Developed countries have started exploiting the vulnerabilities of cybersecurity to gain supremacy and influence over the rival countries. Hence, over the past decade, malware, i.e., malicious software, has become a major security threat in regards to the cybersecurity. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has become a major target of cyber conflicts due to increased economic activity, digital transformation, high rate of technology adoption between citizen and organizations and rise of the oil and gas industry. However, unfortunately, there is a lack of research or scientific investigation of cyberattacks on KSA. This fact motivated us in conducting this work. This paper presents, a case study of attacks on Saudi Organization by malwares. We concentrate on two particular malwares: Shamoon and Ransomware. The timeline of attacks by these malware, also presented, along with their structures and methodologies in order to shield ourselves against similar attacks in the future.
Elucidating the structure of an infectious protein

1 Deutsches Zentrum für Neurodegenerative Erkrankungen, Göttingen, Germany, 2 Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, Germany, 3 University Medical Center Göttingen, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany, 4 CIMUS Biomedical Research Institute, University of Santiago de Compostela-IDIS, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, 5 Department of Biochemistry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, 6 Centre for Prions and Protein Folding Diseases, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Evaluation by multislice computed tomography of atherosclerotic coronary artery plaques in non-culprit, remote coronary arteries of patients with acute coronary syndrome.

BACKGROUND Patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) frequently have vulnerable plaques in the remote coronary arteries, suggesting that ACS is part of the pan-coronary process. In the present study the computed tomography (CT) plaque density in non-culprit atherosclerotic coronary artery lesions was evaluated by multislice computed tomography (MSCT) in patients with ACS and non-ACS. METHODS AND RESULTS MSCT was performed in 21 patients with ACS and 53 patients with non-ACS: 16 of the 21 ACS patients (76%) and 30 of the non-ACS 53 patients (57 %) had non-calcified plaques in the non-culprit coronary arteries (p=0.18). CT-low-density plaques (CT density <68 Hounsfield units (HU)) were more frequent in the ACS group (13/16 patients, 81%) than in the non-ACS group (13/30 patients, 43%, p=0.03). In addition, the CT density of the non-culprit lesion was significantly lower in patients with ACS than in those with non-ACS (44.1+/-22.9 and 77.3+/-33.7 HU, respectively). CONCLUSION Patients with ACS more frequently had CT-low-density plaques in the non-culprit, remote arteries than those with non-ACS, which suggests that ACS treatment should focus not only on stabilizing the culprit lesion but also on systemic stabilization of non-culprit lesions.
Corporate Social Responsibility: An Islamic Approach

Social responsibility has become increasingly important in recent times. The term â€œcorporate social responsibilityâ€ (CSR) is also found in the literature, treated by the Islamic economy and finance. Islamic CSR is based on the principles of Shariah. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to study CSR approaches of Islamic and Conventional Economics. Financial institutions, corporations and enterprises need much more to do CSR practices, to promote CSR that underpinned under the principles of Shariah. The main goal of the paper is to analyse and explore the theoretical and practical aspects of social responsibility from the aspect of Islamic economy and finance. The conducted research showed that there is no significant deviation of the principles of Islamic economy and finances versus the traditional principles of social responsibility. The only difference is that the principles of Islamic economy and finances include a higher degree of application of ethical principles, which should result in moral and ethical economic development of society.
Online Display Advertising Markets: A Literature Review and Future Directions

Display advertising is a $50 billion industry in which advertisers’ (e.g., P&G, Geico) demand for impressions is matched to publishers’ (e.g., Facebook, Wall Street Journal) supply of them. An ideal match is one wherein the publisher’s ad impression is assigned to the advertiser with the highest value for it. Intermediaries (e.g., Google) facilitate this match between advertisers and publishers by managing data and providing optimization tools and algorithms for serving ads. Although these markets exhibit high allocative efficiency, we argue there is considerable scope for improvement.
Salient object detection based on global contrast on texture and color

Computationally detecting salient image object based on human attention is of great significance for image understanding. In this paper, we introduce a method for saliency map generation with a novel way of extracting texture feature and a strategy for feature fusion. Our method combines texture and color region contrasts to make the salient object stand out from images. We compare our algorithm to five salient region detection methods with ground truth and salient object segmentation. Our method outperforms the five algorithms on both the ground-truth evaluation and salient object segmentation.
CONSUMER DEPENDENCE ON SMART PHONES: THE EFFECT OF SOCIAL NEEDS, SOCIAL INFLUENCE AND CONVENIENCE IN SURABAYA

This research aims to examine the affects of social needs, social influence and convenience to customers’ dependence on smart phone. This quantitative and causal type research uses questionnaires for one-site survey. Purposive sampling method was used. The sample consisted of 200 respondents whose age is 21 years old above, have owned and used smart phone in Surabaya at least last two years. The result were analyzed through descriptive statistics using SPSS 18.0 and LISREL 8.0 The result was found that there is a positive impact of social needs toward dependence on smart phone. There is a positive impact of social influence toward dependence on smart phone. Furthermore, there is also positive impact of convenience toward dependence on smart phone. However, the result shows no significant impact of dependence on smart phone toward purchase behavior.
Efficient Retirement Portfolios: Using Life Insurance to Meet Income and Bequest Goals in Retirement

Life Insurance Retirement Plans (LIRPs) offer tax-deferred cash value accumulation, tax-free withdrawals (if properly structured), and a tax-free death benefit to beneficiaries. Thus, LIRPs share many of the tax advantages of other retirement savings vehicles but with less restrictive limitations on income and contributions. Opinions are mixed about the effectiveness of LIRPs; some financial advisers recommend them enthusiastically, while others are more skeptical. In this paper, we examine the potential of LIRPs to meet both income and bequest needs in retirement. We contrast retirement portfolios that include a LIRP with those that include only investment products with no life insurance. We consider different issue ages, face amounts, and withdrawal patterns. We simulate market scenarios and we demonstrate that portfolios that include LIRPs yield higher legacy potential and smaller income risk than those that exclude it. Thus, we conclude that the inclusion of a LIRP can improve financial outcomes in retirement.
Image-Based Localization Using the Plenoptic Function

In this report we study the ways to exploit the vast amount of information inherent in the plenoptic space and constraints of the plenoptic function to improve the efficiency of image retrieval, recognition and matching techniques. The specific application we are concerned with is image-based location recognition on mobile devices. The plenoptic space is formed by extending the notion of traditional two-dimensional by adding more dimensions for viewing direction, time and wavelength. Using current mobile devices' built-in cameras, one can easily capture a large sequence of pictures from a single static scene by moving the camera in one direction, which form a three dimensional plenoptic function.
How intonation contrains pragmatic inference

In this paper, we present two experiments that investigate how intonation can constrain pragmatic inference. While prior research has shown that intonation can increase the likelihood of an inference being made, less is known about how it affects the mechanisms involved in processing of inferences. In the first experiment, listeners had more direct mouse paths towards target responses for stronger interpretations after hearing utterances with referents with pitch accents than without. In the second experiment, we replicate the finding of the first study and found more direct mouse paths towards weaker interpretations after hearing de-accented referents Our findings suggest that intonation constrains the online processing of pragmatic inference by increasing the availability of stronger interpretations.
Long-term survival of patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension associated with connective tissue disease : beneficial effects of beraprost sodium , an oral prostacyclin analog

Received 8 December 2016, accepted 26 December 2016 Correspondence to: Sumiaki Tanaka, Department of Rheumatology and Infectious Diseases, Kitasato University School of Medicine 1-15-1 Kitasato, Minami-ku, Sagamihara, Kanagawa 252-0374, Japan E-mail: sumi@med.kitasato-u.ac. jp Long-term survival of patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension associated with connective tissue disease: beneficial effects of beraprost sodium, an oral prostacyclin analog
Detection of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) in urine cell pellets from HIV-1-seropositive individuals

Fresh urine pellets from human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1)-seropositive individuals were examined for the presence of the HIV-1 genomic sequence and gene products. By using the polymerase chain reaction technique, HIV-1 DNA proviral sequences were detected in 53 of 80 (66.25%) fresh urine pellets from HIV-1-seropositive individuals, while urine pellets from all 24 healthy heterosexual controls were negative. HIV-1 RNA in urine pellets was detected by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction in 2 of 43 (4.7%) HIV-1-seropositive individuals. In addition, HIV-1 p24 core antigen was demonstrated in 3 of 80 urine pellets from HIV-1-seropositive individuals by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Moreover, HIV-1 p24 core antigen and HIV-1 RNA were shown in the cellular component of urine pellets from HIV-1-seropositive individuals by immunohistochemical staining and in situ hybridization. These results indicate that HIV-1 can be present in urine pellets from HIV-1-infected individuals.
Phosphorylation of Ga14p at a single C-terminal residue is necessary for galactose-inducible transcription

Gal4p regulates expression of genes necessary for galactose catabolism in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We have previously shown that phosphorylation of Gal4p requires both its DNA binding and transcriptional-activation functions and have suggested that phosphorylation occurs as a consequence of interaction with general transcription factors. In this study, we show that phosphorylation occurs rapidly on a limited fraction of overexpressed Gal4p present in a sodium dodecyl sulfate-extractable subcellular fraction while a significant fraction remains stably unphosphorylated. Taken together with our previous observations, we conclude that Gal4p is phosphorylated only if it becomes localized to the nucleus and is capable of both DNA binding and transcriptional activation. We demonstrate that Gal4p is multiply phosphorylated at both the C and N termini, and we identify the precise locations of three sites of phosphorylation at serines 691, 696, and 699. Of these sites, only serine 699 must be phosphorylated for galactose-inducible transcription to occur. Mutation of S-699 to alanine significantly impairs GAL induction by galactose in GAL80+ cells but does not affect transcriptional activation by Gal4p in gal80- cells. In gal80- cells, Gal4p phosphorylation, including that of serine 699, is stimulated by the presence of both galactose and glucose, indicating that phosphorylation at this site is not specifically activated by galactose. Serine 699 phosphorylation requires Gal4p's DNA binding function and is influenced by the function of the RNA polymerase II holoenzyme component Gal11p. These results suggest that a phosphorylation on Gal4p, likely resulting from interaction with the holoenzyme, modulates the induction process by regulating interaction between Gal4p and Gal80p.
On the Role of Agile Software Development Practices in Software Process Improvement Master’s Thesis (30 ECTS)

Software development in general is still a fairly new and evolving field. Software development companies have been looking for software process improvement (SPI) for years, but the field of SPI is a diverse one. The goal of the Master’s thesis at hand is to provide the big picture of the use of agile methodologies along with its practices in the context of SPI within the current literature. Furthermore, the paper at hand aims to provide more insight into the subset of agile practices of a bigger, more general systematic mapping study on the current state of the art of software process improvement. To find answers to the research questions stated in the thesis, systematic literature review was conducted. The results of the literature review were validated by conducting surveys amongst professionals in several Estonian software development companies with varying sizes. The publication rate of papers concerning agile practices in the context of SPI shows a steady rise over the years. Results of the literature review show that the field of agile practices in SPI is fairly evenly balanced regarding being a concept or being adapted and evaluated in the industry. Furthermore, the results indicate that the there are many papers published that are of high relevance to industry professionals. By far the most discussed agile methods in the literature regarding SPI are Scrum and Extreme Programming while the most addressed practices include integrating often, testing first and conducting daily meetings. Within the analysed papers there are plenty of evidence from the industry of using agile methods in SPI. The survey conducted amongst several Estonian companies confirms that the use of agile practices in SPI is a relevant topic and that Scrum being the most popular topic in the literature is not a coincidence.
A modulation depth and output power tunable 5.8-GHz CMOS direct-conversion transmitter

A modulation depth and output power tunable 5.8-GHz CMOS direct-conversion transmitter based on current-mode operation is proposed in this paper. The proposed transmitter consists of an 8bit DAC, LPF, direct up-conversion mixer, a divided-by-two circuit, and PA. The matching network of PA is outside the chip. A binary, unary, segmented current steering DAC is used with the function to achieve 16 levels modulation depth. A problem about the connection of DAC and LPF is discussed in this paper. The transmitter output power can also be set through 3-bit control word in the PA circuit on chip whose range is from −7.1dBm to 2.4dBm.
The effect of tax aggressiveness, violation regulation of FSA, and foreign ownership on CSR disclosure

Legitimacy theory considers that the company can be maintaining its existence by gaining legitimacy from stakeholders to comply with regulations and norms in the area of operation. This research aims to analyze the effect of tax aggressiveness, violation regulation of Financial Services Authority (FSA), and foreign ownership on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) disclosure. The sample of research consists of 52 companies listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange (BEI). The research data use annual financial statement during the period 2011-2014 collected from Indonesia Capital Exchange (IDX). The analysis technique of data uses multiple linear regression. The empirical results find that tax aggressiveness and violation regulation of financial services authority are not the determinants of CSR disclosure, while foreign ownership has positive affect on Corporate Social Responsibility disclosure. Multinational companies will be more concerned with fulfilling the information needs of stakeholders to produce broader CSR disclosure. In addition, transfer of culture in the presence of foreign ownership can contribute to CSR disclosure. Although the phenomenon in this study was not able to corroborate the legitimacy theory in the context of CSR, it can be explained by using stakeholder theory Keywords— legitimacy theory, tax aggressiveness, foreign ownership, CSR
Speech endpoint detection with low SNR based on HHTSM

Speech endpoint detection is difficult in low SNR environment. The article presents a detection method based on Hilbert-Huang Transform Spectral Matrix (HHTSM) for improving speech endpoint detection accuracy in low signal-to-noise ratios (SNR). The method analyses signal time-frequency-energy distribution with Hilbert-Huang Transform (HHT), and constructs HHTSM by frames. The frame size is chosen by energy focus character. The speech and noise energy distribution can be distinguished by HHTSM in low SNR. By estimating noise energy distribution, it sets threshold automatically. The result indicates that the method can detect speech endpoint effectively in the negative SNR. So the method based on HHTSM is effective.
Modèles markoviens uni- et bidimensionnels pour la reconnaissance de l'écriture manuscrite hors-ligne. (One and two-dimensional Markov models for off-line handwriting recognition)

Cette these porte sur l'etude de modelisations stochastiques markoviennes de nature et dimension variables et sur leur application a la reconnaissance de l'ecriture manuscrite hors-ligne dans un vocabulaire reduit. Pour les modeles ID, une comparaison est faite entre les HMMs (discrets et semi-continus ) et le modele a base de trajectoires stochastiques (STM). Les modeles pseudo-2D ou planaires constituent une etape intermediaire importante dans l'extension de l'appariement elastique au plan. L'accent est mis ensuite sur l'utilisation des champs aleatoires causaux ou nous introduisons un nouveau modele appele NSHP-HMM. Les proprietes de ce modele ainsi que les experimentations effectuees sur la reconnaissance de caracteres (imprimes et manuscrits), chiffres manuscrits et mots manuscrits non-contraints dans un vocabulaire reduit sont traitees en detail. L'etude des mecanismes d'apprentissage et des strategies de reconnaissance est transversale a toutes les modelisations considerees. Dans cette lignee, des reflexions sur la combinaison de classifieurs et sur l'etude du rejet sont emises. Un calcul de complexite accompagne d'elements lies a l'implementation montre la faisabilite des modeles proposes dans le cadre d'une application reelle.
Stress-inducible expression of a Cleistogenes songorica ALDH gene enhanced drought tolerance in transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana.

Aldehyde dehydrogenases (ALDHs) have been considered as general detoxifying enzymes which eliminate abiotic stress in a variety of organisms. The ALDH12A participates in preventing proline toxicity. To targeted mining drought responsive genes from Cleistogenes songorica, a xerophytic grass distributed in the arid-desert grasslands of Inner Mongolia China, cDNA libraries from leaves and roots of drought-stressed seedlings were constructed. Here, we cloned an ALDH12A homologue, CsALDH12A1 (GenBank No. FJ972824). The CsALDH12A1 cDNA is 2,016 bp and encodes a deduced polypeptide of 551 amino acids, approximately 93% identical to the Sorghum bicolor homologue. Quantitative RT-PCR was conducted to examine the expression pattern. The results showed that CsALDH12A1 transcripts accumulated a six-fold abundance in response to drought stress. Furthermore, transgenic Arabidopsis plants expressing CsALDH12A1 under the abiotic stress inducible rd29A promoter showed enhanced tolerance to drought stresses. The Malondialdehyde (MDA) content of the transgenic plants with rd29A::CsALDH12A1 were significantly lower (P<0.01) than that in non-transgenic plants, which confirm the crucial role of ALDH12A1 in the detoxification of reactive aldehydes produced from lipid per-oxidation. The data presented here suggest that CsALDH12A1 plays a crucial role in abiotic stress tolerance during plant development.
Neocarzinostatin acts as a sensitive probe of DNA microheterogeneity: switching of chemistry from C-1' to C-4' by a G.T mismatch 5' to the site of DNA damage.

The diradical form of thiol-activated neocarzinostatin chromophore resides in the minor groove of DNA, where it has access to hydrogen atoms at the C-5', C-1', and C-4' positions of deoxyribose on each strand. In a dodecamer oligodeoxyribonucleotide containing the sequence AGC.GCT, a bistranded lesion staggered two nucleotides in the 3' direction, is generated that consists primarily of an abasic site (2'-deoxyribonolactone) at the C due to 1' chemistry and a direct strand break at the T due to 5' chemistry. Sequencing-gel analysis reveals that 72% of the damage at the C results from 1' chemistry with minor lesions consisting of a strand break due to 5' chemistry (15%) and 4' chemistry (less than 2%) and an abasic site (4'-hydroxylation product) (12%) due to 4' chemistry. Replacement of the G.C base pair 5' to the C by a G.T wobble mismatch results in a remarkable switching of the chemistry of damage at the C from C-1' to C-4'. The 1' chemistry is almost eliminated and replaced by 4' chemistry, so that the latter accounts for 64% of the damage, mainly in the form of the 4'-hydroxylation product (abasic site) and a smaller amount of the DNA fragment with a phosphoglycolate at the 3' end (strand break). Substitution of the radiation sensitizer misonidazole for dioxygen markedly enhances partitioning of the 4' chemistry in favor of the glycolate-containing product. On the complementary strand the G.T mismatch results in an increase in 4' chemistry at the T residue, but 5' chemistry remains the main mechanism. When a G.A mismatch is inserted 5' to the C, there is a marked decrease in all damage at this site without detectable switching of chemistry. These results show that the diradical form of thiol-activated neocarzinostatin chromophore acts as sensitive probe of DNA microheterogeneity.