Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Uncultured Desulfobacteraceae and Crenarchaeotal group C3 incorporate 13C-acetate in coastal marine sediment.

Stable isotope probing (SIP) of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) was used to identify microbes incorporating (13) C-labeled acetate in sulfate-reducing sediment from Aarhus Bay, Denmark. Sediment was incubated in medium containing 10 mM sulfate and different (13) C-acetate (10, 1, 0.1 mM) concentrations. The resultant changes in microbial community composition were monitored in total and SIP-fractionated DNA during long-term incubations. Chemical analyses demonstrated metabolic activity in all sediment slurries, with sulfate-reducing activity largely determined by initial acetate concentrations. Sequencing of 16S rRNA gene PCR amplicons showed that the incubations shifted the bacterial but not the archaeal community composition. After 3 months of incubation, only sediment slurries incubated with 10 mM (13) C-acetate showed detectable (13) C-DNA labeling. Based on 16S rRNA and dsrB gene PCR amplicon sequencing, the (13) C-labeled DNA pool was dominated by a single type of sulfate reducer representing a novel genus in the family Desulfobacteraceae. In addition, members of the uncultivated Crenarchaeotal group C3 were enriched in the (13) C-labeled DNA. Our results were reproducible across biological replicate experiments and provide new information about the identities of uncultured acetate-consuming bacteria and archaea in marine sediments.
The Impact of Familial and Marital Status on the Performance of Life Insurance Agents-The Case of Taiwan

Using Million Dollar Round Table member qualification as the performance indicator of life insurance agents, this research investigated the relationship of familial and marital status variables with the performance of female life insurance agents in Taiwan by using male insurance agents as the comparison sample. In all samples, the performance of agents who were married, single parent, re-married, or whose spouse or sibling was also a life insurance agent was better than other agents. In the comparison samples, married, or re-married of male life insurance agents had better performance than other male agents. In the female samples, the performance of insurance agents who were single parents and whose spouse or sibling was also a life insurance agent was better than other female agents. Comparing familial and marital status factors with performance between male and female agents, familial responsibilities and economic stress were common significant factors that drove insurance agents to pursue higher levels of performance.
EFFECT OF ANTIPHAGE SERUM ON THE VIRULENCE OF CORYNEBACTERIUM DIPHTHERIAE

There is little doubt that the toxigenicity of diphtheria cultures is associated with the lysogenic state. Blair (1924) noted that filtrates from toxigenic cultures lysed atoxic cultures of the diptheria bacillus but not the toxigenic cultures, but later investigators were able to isolate certain phages which could lyse toxigenic strains. We now know that, in general, lysogenic cultures are resistant to their own and to related phages, and that susceptibility to a phage does not necessarily indicate that a culture is nonlysogenic and nontoxigenic. Freeman (1951) and Freeman and Morse (1952) produced toxigenic cultures from nontoxigenic strains by incubating the latter with certain phages. Although many of the cells lysed, some were resistant and these yielded cultures which were both lysogenic and toxigenic. However, lysogenization does not necessarily impart virulence in this system. Freeman repeated his experiments, using the same avirulent strain but a different phage filtrate. In this experiment the lysogenic cultures obtained were avirulent. Hewitt (1952a, b; 1954a, b, c), Groman (1953a, b; 1955), Parsons and Frobisher (1951, 1953) and Parsons (1955) haxe studied this problem most extensively and have confirmed the dependence of virulence upon lysogenicity and the conversion of the nontoxigenic cultures to toxigenic ones by the incorporation of a specific bacteriophage. In contrast to the previous studies, the present investigation is concerned with the conversion from toxigenicity to nontoxigenicity rather than with the conversion from avirulence to virulence. In the past, when diphtheria was rampant, it was not uncommon to find avirulent, nontoxigenic cultures in convalescent patients. These patients had been admitted with clinical diphtheria
Teamwork training with nursing and medical students: does the method matter? Results of an interinstitutional, interdisciplinary collaboration

Objectives The authors conducted a randomised controlled trial of four pedagogical methods commonly used to deliver teamwork training and measured the effects of each method on the acquisition of student teamwork knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Methods The authors recruited 203 senior nursing students and 235 fourth-year medical students (total N=438) from two major universities for a 1-day interdisciplinary teamwork training course. All participants received a didactic lecture and then were randomly assigned to one of four educational methods: didactic (control), audience response didactic, role play and human patient simulation. Student performance was assessed for teamwork attitudes, knowledge and skills using: (a) a 36-item teamwork attitudes instrument (CHIRP), (b) a 12-item teamwork knowledge test, (c) a 10-item standardised patient (SP) evaluation of student teamwork skills performance and (d) a 20-item modification of items from the Mayo High Performance Teamwork Scale (MHPTS). Results All four cohorts demonstrated an improvement in attitudes (F1,370=48.7, p=0.001) and knowledge (F1,353=87.3, p=0.001) pre- to post-test. No educational modality appeared superior for attitude (F3,370=0.325, p=0.808) or knowledge (F3,353=0.382, p=0.766) acquisition. No modality demonstrated a significant change in teamwork skills (F3,18=2.12, p=0.134). Conclusions Each of the four modalities demonstrated significantly improved teamwork knowledge and attitudes, but no modality was demonstrated to be superior. Institutions should feel free to utilise educational modalities, which are best supported by their resources to deliver interdisciplinary teamwork training.
An Examination of the Appropriateness of Using a Common Peer Assessment Instrument to Assess Physician Skills across Specialties

Problem Statement. To determine whether a common peer assessment instrument can assess competencies across internal medicine, pediatrics, and psychiatry specialties. Method. A common 36 item peer survey assessed psychiatry (n = 101), pediatrics (n = 100), and internal medicine (n = 103) specialists. Cronbach's alpha and generalizability analysis were used to assess reliability and factor analysis to address validity. Results. A total of 2,306 (94.8% response rate) surveys were analyzed. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient was . 98. The generalizabililty coefficient (mean of 7.6 raters) produced an Ep2 = . 83. Four factors emerged with a similar pattern of relative importance for pediatricians and internal medicine specialists whose first factor was patient management. Communication was the first factor for psychiatrists. Conclusions. Reliability and generalizability coefficient data suggest that using the instrument across specialties is appropriate, and differences in factors confirm the instrument's ability to discriminate for specialty differences providing evidence of validity.
Determinants of Corporate Cash Policy: A Comparison of Public and Private Firms

We provide one of the first large sample comparisons of cash policies in public and private U.S. firms. We first show that on average private firms hold less than half as much cash as public firms do. The higher cash holdings of public firms are partially caused by the fact that public firms add more to their cash reserves in a given year, even controlling for a number of spending and savings factors, than do similar private firms. Further, consistent with the presence of financing frictions, we find that private firms adjust much more slowly to their target cash levels when they have a cash deficit than public firms do, and private firms’ cash-to-cash flow sensitivity is higher than that of public firms. Overall, our evidence supports both the agency conflicts and the financing frictions views of corporate cash policy.
Hospitalized community-acquired pneumonia in the elderly: age- and sex-related patterns of care and outcome in the United States.

Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a frequent cause of hospital admission and death among elderly patients, but there is little information on age- and sex-specific incidence, patterns of care (intensive care unit admission and mechanical ventilation), resource use (length of stay and hospital costs), and outcome (mortality). We conducted an observational cohort study of all Medicare recipients, aged 65 years or older, hospitalized in nonfederal U.S. hospitals in 1997, who met ICD-9-CM-based criteria for CAP. We identified 623,718 hospital admissions for CAP (18.3 per 1,000 population > or = 65 years), of which 26,476 (4.3%) were from nursing homes and of which 66,045 (10.6%) died. The incidence rose five-fold and mortality doubled as age increased from 65-69 to older than 90 years. Men had a higher mortality, both unadjusted (odds ratio [OR]: 1.21 [95% CI: 1.19-1.23]) and adjusted for age, location before admission, underlying comorbidity, and microbiologic etiology (OR: 1.15 [95% CI: 1.13-1.17]). Mean hospital length of stay and costs per hospital admission were 7.6 days and $6,949. For those admitted to the intensive care unit (22.4%) and for those receiving mechanical ventilation (7.2%), mean length of stay and costs were 11.3 days and $14,294, and 15.7 days and $23,961, respectively. Overall hospital costs were $4.4 billion (6.3% of the expenditure in the elderly for acute hospital care), of which $2.1 billion was incurred by cases managed in intensive care units. We conclude that in the hospitalized elderly, CAP is a common and frequently fatal disease that often requires intensive care unit admission and mechanical ventilation and consumes considerable health care resources. The sex differences are of concern and require further investigation.
Design of reconfigurable planar antenna using graphene based switch

This paper presents the design of a reconfigurable planar antenna design using graphene based switch, where its working frequencies can be adjusted by applying different voltages to connect or disconnect four patch sections to a midsection of the planar antenna. The switching comes from the varying chemical potential in the range from 0 to 0.8eV of graphene biased by external voltage. The promising results provide an alternative using graphene in frequency reconfigurable antennas.
Distance and Home-market effect : Japanese Local Port Trades with the Asia Region

[Abstract] An increasing returns model with trade cost predicts that firms are located in a larger economy. We recognize that this theory will be more appropriately applied in a context of local regional economy than a nation as a whole. However, as we move on to focus on local regions within a country, we expect to observe ‘epicenter’ (agglomeration) force for domestic market and ‘periphery’ (dispersion) force for export-platform in a complex way. With a very innovative dataset for international trades of Japanese local ports, this paper investigates Japanese local port exports in an empirical gravity model. We obtained strong evidence that difference in international distance due to locations of local ports has significant effect in local port export. More importantly, we found that distance elasticity is larger in absolute value for an industry with higher Asia-intensity and more differentiated products.
Efficiency of viral DNA synthesis during infection of permissive and nonpermissive cells with vif-negative human immunodeficiency virus type 1

The rate-limiting steps in infection by human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) deficient in the viral infectivity factor, Vif, are unknown. As a measurement of completion of the early stages of the HIV-1 life cycle, the levels of viral DNA were examined by polymerase chain reaction amplification during infection by vif-positive and vif-negative viruses of MT-2 and H9 cells, in which vif is required for HIV-1 replication. Viral DNA was detected within hours of infection by both viruses, but the accumulation of vif-negative virus DNA was impeded in terms of both extent and kinetics. Inefficient viral DNA synthesis correlated with restricted replication of the vif-negative virus. Increasing the input dose of vif-negative virus increased viral DNA levels within 24 h of infection but failed to overcome the block to subsequent DNA synthesis and productive infection. Infection of C8166 cells, in which vif function is dispensable, resulted in efficient DNA synthesis by vif-positive and vif-negative viruses. We conclude that one defect in the replication of vif-negative HIV-1 in nonpermissive cells occurs prior to or during viral DNA synthesis and may reflect processes required for efficient nucleocapsid internalization or activation of reverse transcription.
Producing and communicating electronic sales messages in Hong Kong: insights from a discourse study and from industry practitioners

With the globalization of business and the advancement of technology, understanding communication across media is becoming increasingly important. This study compares the discourse structure of 80 online sales letters with that of 80 printed sales letters. These letters were randomly selected from a database of over 10,000 sales letters collected from 36 categories of recipients in Hong Kong. It is argued that an integrated theoretical framework of social discourse analysis and genre analysis is needed to explore how meaning is created in text, context, and interface of new media communication. Similarities and differences are found to exist in the discourse structure of the two corpora. The digital medium seems to provide writers of the online letters with more space for information provision and more choice in persuasive appeals, such as exercising just-in-time pressure tactics. Results of the analysis are verified by findings derived from in-depth interviews with 17 specialist informants working in the field of new media and sales promotion communication. The knowledge and findings derived from this study can be of value to the development of corporate training materials in the field of marketing communication. Although this study is Hong Kong based, the use of electronic sales messages is not limited by geographical regions. Results of this study can thus have both local and global significance.
Plant response to a global greenhouse event 56 million years ago.

PREMISE OF THE STUDY The fossil record provides information about the long-term response of plants to CO2-induced climate change. The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), a 200000-yr-long period of rapid carbon release and warming that occurred ∼56 million years ago, is analogous to future anthropogenic global warming. METHODS We collected plant macrofossils in the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming, United States, from a period spanning the PETM and studied changes in floristic composition. We also compiled and summarized published records of floristic change during the PETM. KEY RESULTS There was radical floristic change in the Bighorn Basin during the PETM reflecting local or regional extirpation of mesophytic plants, notably conifers, and colonization of the area by thermophilic and dry-tolerant species, especially Fabaceae. This floristic change largely reversed itself as the PETM ended, though some immigrant species persisted and some Paleocene species never returned. Less detailed records from other parts of the world show regional variation in floristic response, but are mostly consistent with the Bighorn Basin trends. CONCLUSIONS Despite geologically rapid extirpation, colonization, and recolonization, we detected little extinction during the PETM, suggesting the rate of climate change did not exceed the dispersal capacity of terrestrial plants. Extrapolating the response of plants from the PETM to future anthropogenic climate change likely underestimates risk because rates of climate change during the PETM may have been an order of magnitude slower than current rates of change and because the abundant, widespread species common as fossils are likely resistant to extinction.
IM-Visor: A Pre-IME Guard to Prevent IME Apps from Stealing Sensitive Keystrokes Using TrustZone

Third-party IME (Input Method Editor) apps are often the preference means of interaction for Android users' input. In this paper, we first discuss the insecurity of IME apps, including the Potentially Harmful Apps (PHA) and malicious IME apps, which may leak users' sensitive keystrokes. The current defense system, such as I-BOX, is vulnerable to the prefix-substitution attack and the colluding attack due to the post-IME nature. We provide a deeper understanding that all the designs with the post-IME nature are subject to the prefix-substitution and colluding attacks. To remedy the above post-IME system's flaws, we propose a new idea, pre-IME, which guarantees that "Is this touch event a sensitive keystroke? " analysis will always access user touch events prior to the execution of any IME app code. We designed an innovative TrustZone-based framework named IM-Visor which has the pre-IME nature. Specifically, IM-Visor creates the isolation environment named STIE as soon as a user intends to type on a soft keyboard, then the STIE intercepts, translates and analyzes the user's touch input. If the input is sensitive, the translation of keystrokes will be delivered to user apps through a trusted path. Otherwise, IM-Visor replays non-sensitive keystroke touch events for IME apps or replays non-keystroke touch events for other apps. A prototype of IM-Visor has been implemented and tested with several most popular IMEs. The experimental results show that IM-Visor has small runtime overheads.
Network Governance: Theory Development and Examples

Transaction Byte Analysis (TBA) is developed as a methodology to research firms governed by more than one board. TBA grounds social research in cybernetic laws to create a science of governance. Any co-ordination between social creatures requires the creation, transmission, reception and internal processing of signals measured in bytes. TBA fills a methodological gap for comparing control and communications networks within and/or between individuals and organizations. TBA also explicates why evolution has created contrary instincts in social animals to sustain and regulate themselves in unknowable, dynamic complex environments. TBA reveals why the neurological and/or physiological limits of humans to process bytes requires complex organizations to decompose decision-making labor into a network of control centers described as a “compound board. ” A dominant shareholder represents a control center so compound boards govern most publicly traded firms around the world. Examples of large firms with network governance are used to reveal how compound boards allows contrary views to arise to improve operations, self-regulation, self-governance and sustainability. TBA reveals why regulation of complex firms by a single board and/or government regulators cannot be reliably achieved without network governance to allow stakeholders to become co-regulators with contrary viewpoints. Digital communications facilitate organizational research using TBA.
Neural Network and Swarm Intelligence for Data Mining

This chapter describes the classification task of data mining using nature inspired techniques such as neural network and swarm intelligence algorithm. Neural network and swarm intelligence techniques have an advantage over conventional statistical techniques like maximum likelihood classifier, nearest neighbor classifier etc, because they are distribution free, i.e., no knowledge is required about the distribution of data. The extraction of knowledge from the dataset in the form of weights and rules using various neural network and swarm intelligence methods is increasing over the last few years. In this chapter, we present the knowledge discovery process using three types of testbeds such as the iris data, the pima diabetes data and the shuttle data. The performance analysis of the classification task of data mining is done based on per class accuracy as well as overall accuracy. Finally, we evaluate the computational complexity of neural network and swarm intelligence techniques.
A Comparison Study of Virus Classification by Genome Sequences

In this study, instead of traditional approaches to virus classification, we proposed a novel approach in the vector space model for virus classification via two types of genome sequences, DNA and CDS. For DNA sequence, in this study, the k-mer approach was adopted for pattern extraction and the entropy of the pattern frequency distribution among classes was for pattern weighting. For CDS sequence, however, the pattern extraction was based on the identification of distinctive protein functions which were formed by CDS clustering and a weighting method, similar to $tf*idf$ approach, for these protein functions was proposed. The experimental resources were download from NCBI and there were 35 classes (virus family) consisted of $1,877$ viruses selected. The highest values of classification accuracy via SVM classifier were as high as $94.7\%$ and $91.3\%$ via DNA and CDS sequences, respectively. This study not only proposed a novel approach for virus classification but also provided a new methodology for comparative genomic analysis.
Inhibitors and Enablers to Internet Banking in Oman - A Comparison with Banks in Australia

To fully benefit from moving to new national economies an up-to-date banking industry is important, but Omani banks continue to conduct most of their banking transactions using traditional methods. This paper reports on research to investigate inhibitors and enablers of Internet banking in Oman, comparing this to the situation in Australia. Data was collected from interviews with bank managers in each country, based on a consideration of each bank manager’s perceptions of four factors that might affect their decisions to adopt, or not adopt Internet technologies: Relative Advantage, Organisational Performance, Customer/ Organisational Relationship and Ease of Use. It is hoped that the results will be useful in seeing why Omani banks have been slow to adopt Internet technology and to encourage them to make the change.
Research activities of Spanish antenna groups

When we look at the history of electricity and electromagnetism in Spain we discover that the most important Spanish researchers are generally out of the official institutions or stable research groups until the 20th century [1] [2]. In the 20th century most of the scientific research is done in stable research institutions and universities and the most important electromagnetism research centres in Spain are located in the Faculty of Physics of the most important universities, the National Scientific Research Council (CSIC) and the School for Telecommunication Engineering created in 1923. But the greatest impulse of research in the antenna and radiowave propagation field is done after 1960 reaching the first national URSI conference in 1980. After that year, the relation between groups and the number of research groups is continuously growing and the relation to industry is also increasing. When Spain joins the European research organizations (COST, ERC.) and the European Union in 1985 the research support experience a fast growing and the participation in the European research structures.