Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
MR-Based Attenuation Correction in Brain PET/MR Studies: A Short Review

In the previous few years we have witnessed to an increased diffusion of positron emission tomography/magnetic resonance (PET/MR) tomographs and equally an increasing number of clinical studies with these hybrid devices in both the neurological and psychiatric fields. Although PET/MR contains many features that facilitate its application in brain imaging, accurate quantification is still hindered by difficulties in developing MR-based attenuation correction methods. In this paper, we have reviewed the three main methods currently used for attenuation correction in PET/MR: namely segmentation-based methods including, atlas and template. In addition to procedures based on the combination of PET emission data and MR anatomical information (or reconstruction-based methods). Many research centers are actively working to refine available methods and substantial improvements are expected in future years. Clinical studies using PET/MR focused mainly on neurooncological and neurodegenerative disorders. Simultaneous PET/MR was shown to provide very promising scientific results and to be logistically more convenient for patients. More studies are expected in the near future, as the availability of PET/MR and the clinical use of new tracers for neurodegenerative disorders will further increase.
Metropolitan Segregation and the Subprime Lending Crisis

Unsustainable high-cost lending was a major contributor to one of the worst financial crises in U.S. history. While several studies examine individual- and community-level predictors of high-cost lending, little research has tested for the possible causal effect of racial segregation. Using two-stage least squares statistical models, we find evidence that even after controlling for percentage minority, poverty, unemployment, low credit scores, home value escalation, and bank branch accessibility, black/white segregation is a significant predictor of the proportion of subprime loans originated in the largest 200 U.S. metropolitan areas. We also find that increased black education levels are important protective factors, while greater shares of mortgages originated by independent mortgage companies increase the risk for subprime lending. We find no evidence for an effect of Hispanic/white segregation on subprime lending. This research suggests that policy initiatives aimed at limiting high-cost lending should address the context of black/white segregation, education, and financial reform.
Aromatic Amino Acids Required for Pili Conductivity and Long-Range Extracellular Electron Transport in Geobacter sulfurreducens

Published 2 April 2013 Citation Vargas M, Malvankar NS, Tremblay P-L, Leang C, Smith JA, Patel P, SnoeyenbosWest O, Nevin KP, Lovley DR. 2013. Aromatic amino acids required for pili conductivity and long-range extracellular electron transport in Geobacter sulfurreducens. mBio 4(2): e00210-13. doi:10.1128/mBio.00210-13. (Erratum.) Copyright © 2013 Vargas et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license, which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. ERRATUM
A point-of-care test for measles diagnosis: detection of measles-specific IgM antibodies and viral nucleic acid.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the performance of a newly developed point-of-care test (POCT) for the detection of measles-specific IgM antibodies in serum and oral fluid specimens and to assess if measles virus nucleic acid could be recovered from used POCT strips. METHODS The POCT was used to test 170 serum specimens collected through measles surveillance or vaccination programmes in Ethiopia, Malaysia and the Russian Federation: 69 were positive for measles immunoglobulin M (IgM) antibodies, 74 were positive for rubella IgM antibodies and 7 were positive for both. Also tested were 282 oral fluid specimens from the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) surveillance programme of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Microimmune measles IgM capture enzyme immunoassay was the gold standard for comparison. A panel of 24 oral fluids was used to investigate if measles virus haemagglutinin (H) and nucleocapsid (N) genes could be amplified by polymerase chain reaction directly from used POCT strips. FINDINGS With serum POCT showed a sensitivity and specificity of 90.8% (69/76) and 93.6% (88/94), respectively; with oral fluids, sensitivity and specificity were 90.0% (63/70) and 96.2% (200/208), respectively. Both H and N genes were reliably detected in POCT strips and the N genes could be sequenced for genotyping. Measles virus genes could be recovered from POCT strips after storage for 5 weeks at 20-25 °C. CONCLUSION The POCT has the sensitivity and specificity required of a field-based test for measles diagnosis. However, its role in global measles control programmes requires further evaluation.
Production of Xanthan employing Xanthomonas campestris using Sugarcane Molasses

Xanthan production by Xanthomonas campestris from pre-treated sugarcane molasses (acidified molasses and acidified aerated molasses) was investigated. The optimization of xanthan yield was done at different pH, temperature, and incubation time for both the pre-treated sugarcane molasses. Maximum yield was achieved in 1% acidified molasses and acidified aerated molasses with 1% yeast extract as nitrogen source for 3 days of incubation time at 30℃. The precipitation of xanthan gum was done after 48 hours and the yield was high in acidified molasses and acidified aerated molasses comparing to acidified sugarcane molasses. Xanthomonas campestris produced xanthan yield of 12.23 g/l using acidified molasses and acidified aerated molasses. This fermentation study has an advantage over some other manufacturing processes with its use of agro industrial wastes as the raw material, allowing the increased xanthan production.
Radial Basis Function Neural Networks : A Review

Radial Basis Function neural networks (RBFNNs) represent an attractive alternative to other neural network models. One reason is that they form a unifying link between function approximation, regularization, noisy interpolation, classification and density estimation. It is also the case that training RBF neural networks is faster than training multi-layer perceptron networks. RBFNN learning is usually split into an unsupervised part, where center and widths of the Gaussian basis functions are set, and a linear supervised part for weight computation. This paper reviews various learning methods for determining centers, widths, and synaptic weights of RBFNN. In addition, we will point to some applications of RBFNN in various fields. In the end, we name software that can be used for implementing RBFNNs.
Make-up Reviews on YouTube: The effect of the context of videos on the effectiveness of native advertising

In recent years, companies have flocked towards alternative, modern media to advertise and market their products. Social media provides the perfect opportunity to target particular audiences and niche markets, as they often consist of thousands of communities with similar interest. One of the communities that is of a particularly vast size is the beauty community that exists on the video-sharing platform YouTube. Companies compensate YouTubers for talking about their brand by sending them products or sponsoring a video. The main problem that arises with this is that these advertisements can be deceptive in nature, as the audience is often not informed about the existence of the sponsorships. Editorial content like this is often extremely hard to recognize. Many governments and even some YouTubers have acknowledged the possible dangers of this type of native advertising, and urge these creators to more distinctly disclose the sponsorships whenever they can as this could possibly help the consumer to make a more informed decision that is free of deception. However, as consumers can often be resistant towards advertising, a disclosure can also have some negative effects on advertising effectiveness and credibility. An online survey-experiment (N = 258) examined whether these assumptions were true. This was done through the use of different titles and description boxes in the same YouTube video, which each presented a different type of disclosure, or lack thereof. The findings of this study indicated that advertising effectiveness was not affected by the contents of the description box, nor by different titles. The additional analyses that were conducted suggested that there is indeed a relationship between advertising effectiveness and sponsorship disclosure, but it is still unclear how this relationship is exactly formed. These findings are in line with the scarce amount of existing literature, which is still inconclusive about the true effects of sponsorship disclosures as different studies state opposite things. Future research should focus on clarifying how exactly sponsorship disclosures, in the various forms that they exist in, affect consumer behaviors and opinions. This could help regulatory bodies, YouTubers and companies alike to establish more ethical ways of advertising, whilst still supporting commercial interests.
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND THE PERFORMANCE OF COMMERCIAL BANKS: A FUZZY-SET QCA APPROACH

This paper examines the role of commercial banks’ governance mechanisms in financial performance and loan quality. The research draws upon corporate governance theory, agency theory, and information asymmetry. Fuzzy-set QCA was used to analyze a sample of 32 commercial banks listed in the UK. Data referred to the pre-crisis period. Results confirm that different combinations of governance mechanisms can yield similar financial performance and loan quality. This research contributes to a better understanding of the relationships among banking governance mechanisms, financial performance, and loan quality. The paper also has practical implications because it identifies alternative governance solutions for the commercial banking sector.
Ameliorative potential of rutin on streptozotocin- induced neuropathic pain in rat

The aim of the present study is to investigate the effect of rutin, a potent antioxidant and antiinflammatory compound on experimentally-induced diabetic neuropathy (DN) in male Wistar rats. In diabetic and normal rats, the pain-related behavior tests were performed before and after rutin (50 and 100 mg/kg/day for 6 weeks) treatments. In serum, fasting glucose, insulin, tumor necrosis factor-α (TNFα), interleukin-6 (IL-6) and interleukin-1β (IL-1β) levels were estimated and in sciatic nerve, thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), reduced glutathione (GSH) levels, and superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione-S-transferase (GST), glutathione-reductase (GR) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) activities were measured. Diabetic rats developed neuropathy which was apparent from decreased tail-flick and paw-withdrawal latencies and by following decrease in performance on Rota-Rod treadmill. Rutin treatments ameliorated the hyperalgesia, analgesia and improved motor coordination. Streptozotocin (STZ) significantly increased TBARS and decreased GSH levels in sciatic nerve where rutin treatment significantly protected those changes. In diabetic rats, SOD, CAT, GST, GSH-Px and GR activities were significantly inhibited. Rutin treatment significantly ameliorated decrease in antioxidant defense. Present results demonstrate protective effect of rutin in diabetic neuropathy through attenuation of oxidative stress and they suggest that rutin is a potential drug for the prevention of early diabetic-induced neuropathy.
Taxonomic diversity of bacterial populations inhabiting gametophytes of Sphagnum mosses from different geographic regions of Russia

In this study we have analyzed the diversity of the endophytic bacterial community associated with Sphagnum mosses from Nort-West Region and Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous District of Russia during the years 2009 -2012. We isolated a more then 400 strains which were identified by means of phenotypic tests and by 16S rRNA sequences. The ribosomal data showed that the isolates belonged to genera Pseudomonas (20 -57%), Colimonas (7 -10%), Flavobacterium (6 -8%), Burkholderia (5 -6%), Serratia (3%). The data reported in this work are consistent with the results of research performed by the Berg group with samples of mosses of the Austrian Alps. It was found that Sphagnum mosses are a promising source for the isolation of beneficial microorganisms.
Neuromorphic models of response time

Abstract A new approach to modelling response time is proposed, based on the activation dynamics of simplified neural units. The proposed neuromorphic decision units are dissipative and have bounded activation, as do real neurons. A decision is made either when the unit s activation exceeds a threshold or when it converges, using a criterion based on the derivative of activation. First, the relationship between varieties of neuromorphic and sequential sampling models is reviewed. Mathematical and simulation results are presented both for deterministic and random versions of the neuromorphic units. These results are used to highlight strengths and weaknesses of this new approach to dynamic models of decision making.
Determination of yield loss and economic threshold density of Scirpus maritimus in winter rice.

Rice is the staple food in Bangladesh. Scirpus maritimus infests rice heavily, causing enormous yield losses and threatening in the sustainability of the rice production system. Information on the interference and economic threshold (ET) of S. maritimus will be useful for the effective management of S. maritimus in rice. This will lead to the rationalization of herbicide use and the reduction of herbicide input into the environment. In this study, it was observed that the weed infestation levels of 80 or more S. maritimus plants per m2 offered higher competition, leading to significant reductions in the growth (dry weight, height, crop growth rate, net assimilation rate and leaf area index) and yield of rice. The regression model was effective in simulating yield losses in relation to a wide range of S. maritimus dry matter. The weed dry matter–crop yield model was found to be effective in simulating rice yield losses in relation to a wide range of S. maritimus dry matter. The ET dry matter of S. maritimus were 18.39, 15.61 and 13.57g/m2 (4, 3 and 3 S. maritimus number m-2, respectively) in first year at the 70, 80, and 90% control efficiencies, respectively, of the herbicide, Bensulfuronmethyl + Pretilachlor 6.6% GR. In the second year, the ET dry matter of S. maritimus were 15.06, 12.38 and 10.51 g/m2 (3, 3 and 2 S. maritimus number m-2, respectively) at the 70, 80, and 90% control efficiencies, respectively, of the herbicide. In rice cultivation, 10 to 18 g S. maritimus per m 2 (2 to 4 number m -2 ) could be allowed without economic yield loss.
Loughborough University Institutional Repository Multidimensional integrable Schrodinger operators with matrix potential

The Schrödinger operators with matrix rational potential, which are D-integrable, i.e. can be intertwined with the pure Laplacian, are investigated. Corresponding potentials are uniquely determined by their singular data which is a configuration of the hyperplanes in C with prescribed matrices. We describe some algebraic conditions (matrix locus equations) on these data, which are sufficient for D-integrability. As the examples some matrix generalisations of the Calogero-Moser operators are considered.
Decentralisation and poverty reduction in Africa: the politics of local–central relations

Decentralisation advocates argue that decentralised governments are more responsive to the needs of the poor than central governments and thus are more likely to conceive and implement pro-poor policies. Recent evidence from a selected group of sub-Saharan African countries is reviewed in a comparative framework that highlights factors associated with success in poverty reduction. It is argued that the degree of responsiveness to the poor and the extent to which there is an impact on poverty are determined primarily by the politics of local–central relations and the general regime context—particularly the ideological commitment of central political authorities to poverty reduction. In most of the cases, ‘elite capture’ of local power structures has been facilitated by the desire of ruling elites to create and sustain power bases in the countryside. Popular perceptions of the logic of patronage politics, combined with weak accountability mechanisms, have reinforced this outcome. The conclusion from these African cases is that decentralisation has not empowered challenges to local elites who are resistant or indifferent to pro-poor policies. Thus, decentralisation is unlikely to lead to more pro-poor outcomes without a serious effort to strengthen and broaden accountability mechanisms at both local and national levels. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Title Parallel program execution on a heterogeneous PC cluster usingtask duplication

—In this paper, we propose to use a duplication based approach in scheduling tasks to a heterogeneous cluster of PCs. In duplication based scheduling, critical tasks are redundantly scheduled to more than one machine in order to reduce the number of inter-task communication operations. The start times of the succeeding tasks are also reduced. The task duplication process is guided given the system heterogeneity in that the critical tasks are scheduled or replicated in faster machines. The algorithm has been implemented in our prototype program parallelization tool for generating MPI code executable on a cluster of Pentium PCs. Our experiments using three numerical applications have indicated that heterogeneity of PC cluster, being an inevitable feature, is indeed useful for optimizing the execution of parallel programs.
Prevalence of various Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato species in Ixodes ticks in three Baltic countries

Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato, a tick-borne spirochete, is the causative agent of Lyme disease, the most prevalent vector-borne disease in Europe and United States. However, the incidence of this disease is variable and the clinical picture depends on the pathogen species. The infectivity of Ixodes ticks with Borrelia, was 46 % and 35 % in 2000 and 2001 in Latvia, respectively, and 14 % in 2002 in Lithuania, assessed by nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplifi cation of the plasmid OspA gene fragment of Borrelia. PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis of the 16S-23S (rrs-rrlA) rRNA intergenic spacer was used for typing of Borrelia directly in ticks. Species-specifi c primers and subsequent sequences analysis were used as another approach for Borrelia species typing. All three clinically relevant B. burgdorferi sensu lato genospecies (B. afzelii, B. garinii, B. burgdorferi sensu stricto) were detected in the ticks collected in Latvia. The same result was obtained earlier in Estonia. B. valaisiana, a possible infectious agent of Lyme borreliosis, was detected only in Latvia. Only B. afzelii and B. garinii species were detected in ticks from Lithuania. Different subspecies were also identifi ed. This study demonstrates the predominance of the genospecies B. afzelii in all three Baltic countries, and the circulation of different B. burgdorferi sensu lato subspecies in the environment. This knowledge might have a signifi cant importance for monitoring of Lyme disease in Europe.
EFFECT OF LONG-CHAIN INULIN AND MODIFIED STARCH ON THE PHYSICOCHEMICAL AND RHEOLOGICAL PROPERTIES OF DOOGH ( IRANIAN YOGURT DRINK )

In this research, simultaneous contribution of long-chain inulin (0–2.34%) and modifi ed starch (0–0.58%) on the physical stability and rheological properties of doogh within 30 days of production was studied. Increased concentration of both hydrocolloids redounded to improvements in physical stability, apparent viscosity, fl ow behaviour, and viscoelastic properties compared to the control sample. Fitting the data to Herschel–Bulkley model showed a decrease in fl ow behaviour index, while consistency coeffi cient (k) increased. Furthermore, for samples containing inulin and starch, G′ was greater than G′′, unlike control sample. Indeed, contribution of long-chain inulin at concentrations above 1.18% and modifi ed starch at above 0.3% promote the formation of gel network structure. The expected viscosity increases in the continuous phase in the presence of starch, and also the interactions established between inulin and yoghurt casein aggregates seem to be responsible in the improvement observed in physical characteristics of the product. Among the concentrations studied here, two samples, containing 2% inulin and 0.5% modifi ed starch and 1.18% inulin and 0.58% modifi ed starch, respectively, were recognized as functional doogh samples presenting premier physicochemical and rheological properties.
Tawhidic paradigm and ethical leadership: the views of students

This paper investigates the influence of Tawhidic paradigm on ethical leadership. The essence of Tawhidic paradigm is in the spiritual built-in conscience and behavior that comply with the law of Allah in discharging duties as servant and vicegerent of Allah religiously. Since Tawhidic paradigm requires a person to discharge duties both for individual and others, it is naturally influences individual to behave ethically and also to be influence others to be equally ethical to seek the Pleasure of Allah. The study obtains the opinions of students through a survey. The preliminary findings suggest that the influence of Tawhidic paradigm is very significant and essential to educate and nurture ethical leadership among students. The informants propose that the academic authority to include Tawhidic paradigm in academic and co-curricular activities as a mean to educate and nurture students to be professional and ethical.
The impact of climate change on the European road network j

j1 Karmen Fifer Bizjak PhD Head of Geotechnics & Traffic Infrastructure Department, ZAG Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia j2 Andrew Dawson BA, MSc, DIC, CEng, MICE, FGS Associate Professor, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK j3 Inge Hoff BA, PhD Professor, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway j4 Lasse Makkonen BA, PhD Adjunct Professor, Principal Assistant, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Helsinki, Finland j5 Jussi S. Ylhäisi BA PhD student, University of Helsinki, Finland j6 Alessandra Carrera PhD Researcher, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland