Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Adoption of Green ICT practices as a Driver in Supply Chain Management

Green information and communication technology (ICT) continues to play a role in stimulating and enabling Supply Chain Management (SCM) toward ecological sustainability. Supply chain management, Green ICT and ecological sustainability are closely interdependent in ensuring greater energy and environmental efficiency. All companies seek to incorporate “green thinking” at various levels of their strategic plan that will have a positive effect on the environment, and on the company’s profit and reputation. This paper discusses the green ICT practices and their influences on SCM activities to achieve the ecological sustainability. A survey questionnaire distributed to companies in a pilot study to find out their level of awareness on environmental issues and economic. The target group of the pilot study was food-manufacturing companies in Palestine. Green ICT practices play the main role in enhancing flexibility and visibility in decision-making. The issues addressed were actions taken to minimize energy consumption, carbon emissions and waste management through SCM activities. This study proposes a conceptual framework for the green ICT practices that guide the supply chain activities to implement environment friendly activities to achieve sustainability. The initial findings indicate that Green ICT practices have a positive influence on SCM and they play a major role in influencing the organization on their economic growth and preserving the environment.
The impact of reserve requirements of central banks on macroeconomic indicators

This article explores the central banks’ awareness of the potential and application of reserve requirements for stimulating economic growth. The authors examined the differences in the impact of reserve requirements of central banks on the economic indicators in five countries, namely: Japan, Norway, South Africa, Brazil, and China. These countries have different levels of economic development and different banking systems and required reserve systems, which determined their inclusion in the study. The article assesses the possible impact of central banks on GDP and GNI through changes in reserve ratios. Thus, this research contributed to the discussion about the role of reserve requirements of central banks in the development of a country’s economy and industry. The results were obtained with a new mathematical apparatus that analyzed and assessed various aspects of the impact of monetary policy tools on macroeconomic indicators that are not considered in classical econometric models. The authors made an assumption that the reserve requirements of the central banks should not be considered as the controlling factor in the changes in the economic indicators of the countries under study or as a tool that can operate independently of other instruments.
Interested Intermediaries

We examine the implications of interested intermediaries on corporate actions, stock prices, and investors’portfolio decisions. An interested intermediary is an asset manager who has private preferences over corporate actions, which could relate to corporate governance policies, social or environmental performance, payout policy, etc. While large intermediaries can help solve the free-riding problem that prevents small investors from exerting beneficial influence activities, the free-rider problem persists as investors optimally choose not to delegate to the intermediary, absent frictions. We show that, due to free riding, intermediaries benefit from mechanisms that allow them to economize on costly influence efforts, such as interests aligned with managers, negative externalities across portfolio firms, and similarly-interested insiders. Our findings have implications for research and policy-making related to asset management, investor activism, and corporate social responsibility. Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3662699
Vehicle Logo Recognition with Small Sample Problem in Complex Scene Based on Data Augmentation

Automatic identification for vehicles is an important topic in the field of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), and the vehicle logo is one of the most important characteristics of a vehicle. Therefore, vehicle logo detection and recognition are important research topics. Because of the problems that the area of a vehicle logo is too small to be detected and the dataset is too small to train for complex scenes, considering the speed of recognition and the robustness to complex scenes, we use deep learning methods which are based on data optimization for vehicle logo in complex scenes. We propose three augmentation strategies for vehicle logo data: cross-sliding segmentation method, small frame method, and Gaussian Distribution Segmentation method. For the problem of small sample size, we use cross-sliding segmentation method, which can effectively increase the amount of data without changing the aspect ratio of the original vehicle logo image. To expand the area of the logos in the images, we develop the small frame method which improves the detection results of the small area vehicle logos. In order to enrich the position diversity of vehicle logo in the image, we propose Gaussian Distribution Segmentation method, and the result shows that this method is very effective. The F1 value of our method in the YOLO framework is 0.7765, and the precision is greatly improved to 0.9295. In the Faster R-CNN framework, the F1 value of our method is 0.7799, which is also better than before. The results of experiments show that the above optimization methods can better represent the features of the vehicle logos than the traditional method, and the experimental results have been improved.
ANALYSIS OF STRUCTURAL DYNAMICS IN LIVING CELLS WITH FLUORESCENCE VIDEO MICROSCOPY

Recent advances in fluorescence microscopy and digital image processing have allowed direct observations of structural components in living cells (Wang and Taylor, 1989; Taylor and Wang, 1989). Specific targets in the cell are labeled with a tracer amount of fluorescently labeled ligands or structural components. Using low light level imaging systems, sufficient signals can be obtained while maintaining the viability of the cell. Images of a relatively high quality are generated with simple manipulations such as frame averagin~ and background subtraction. Quantitative studies can also be performed based on the distribution of fluorescence intensity.
An Efficient Radiative Wireless Power Transfer Algorithm

Radiative wireless power transfer(RWPT) is a key technology to supply energy to sensors in wireless sensor network(WSN). For power transfer efficiency, the accurate estimation on receiver position is required. In this paper, a receiver localization algorithm for the RWPT is proposed. The proposed algorithm transmits reference beams from the transmitter and estimates the position by comparing the received power based on the receiver feedback for each reference beam. While considering the low complexity, the proposed algorithm is verified through simulation and experiment that the power transmission efficiency is improved by about 18% compared to the existing methods.
Discontinuous Ventilation in Terrestrial Insects

Current knowledge concerning the occurrence, distribution, and mechanism of the insect discontinuous ventilation cycle, or DVC, is evaluated in the light of recent data. The congruence between the emerging body of data and the generally accepted theoretical understanding of the DVC, the modulation of the DVC to accommodate varying metabolic rates, the mass scaling characteristics of the DVC, and general issues concerning the measurement and quantification of the DVC are discussed. In addition, new experimental data on respiratory water loss during the open-spiracle and fluttering-spiracle phases are described.
Vardenafil increases intracellular accumulation of the most prevalent mutant cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CTFR) in human bronchial epithelial cells

ABSTRACT Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a genetic disease characterized by progressive lung and chronic digestive manifestations. We have shown that therapeutic doses of vardenafil, a phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5) inhibitor, corrects CF Transmembrane conductance Regulator (CFTR)-dependent chloride transport in respiratory and intestinal tissues of F508del homozygous mice. Here, we studied the effect of vardenafil on CFTR in 16HBE14o– and CFBE41o− cell lines. First, the expression levels of PDE5 mRNA in these cell lines were monitored. The two cell lines were exposed to different drugs (dimethyl sulfoxide, 8-Br-cGMP, forskolin or vardenafil). The cAMP and cGMP intracellular concentrations were measured. Finally, we localised the CFTR by immunolabelling. PDE5 was similarly expressed in both wild-type and in CF cells. A fast and transient rise in cGMP intracellular contents followed treatment with vardenafil, confirming its PDE5 inhibitory effect. We showed that vardenafil promoted both the early steps of the cellular processing and the trafficking of F508del without fully addressing the protein to the plasma membrane. The effect was not reproduced by the brominated cGMP analogue and it was not prevented by the combination of a protein kinase G (PKG) inhibitor and vardenafil. These findings support the view that vardenafil partially rescues F508del through cGMP/PKG-independent mechanisms. Summary: Our findings support the view that vardenafil, a phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitor, partially rescues F508del protein through cGMP/PKG-independent mechanisms in cystic fibrosis cell line.
An Analysis of Mobile Financial Services and Financial Inclusion in Bangladesh

In a short span of time, starting in 2011, mobile financial services (MFSs) have burgeoned in Bangladesh, and elsewhere in the developing world. MFSs have brought about major changes in financial products and institutional structures in the financial services market. The study of Bangladesh’s experience with MFS shows that financial inclusion has greatly improved along with efficiency of provision. This article shows that the probability of using MFSs by a household increases by about 43 per cent if the households have temporary domestic migrant members. Female household heads are less likely to use MFS compared to male household head. Out of 1,588 micro merchants in the sample, around 30 per cent have access to MFSs. Individuals engaged in the non-agriculture sector, those from households with the head having higher education, those from non-poor households and those from urban areas have higher probabilities of MFS use. But more research must be done to design appropriate MFS products for the poor, so that they too can also leverage the benefits of MFSs.
Technical Perspective

For many applications, data are worthy only if they are trustworthy. The concept of trust is sometimes elusive, and yet it is fundamental in data management. Even when not expressed explicitly, the correctness of computations and reliability of applications depend on trustworthy management of the data. These notions received new attention with the advent of blockchain and distributed ledger technology.
Technical Perspective

There has been an explosion of interest in fairness in machine learning. In large part, this has been motivated by societal issues highlighted in a string of well publicized cases such as gender biased job recommendation and racially biased criminal risk prediction algorithms. Both the recognition of the potential disparate impacts of machine learning due to historical bias in the data and the realization of how algorithmic decision making can exaggerate existing structural inequities has become increasingly well known.
Viscosupplementation ( All Lines of Business Except Medicare ) Effective Date : 07 / 01 / 2020

Page 1 of 26 MP203 See Policy CPT/HCPCS CODE section below for any prior authorization requirements SCOPE: Providence Health Plan, Providence Health Assurance, Providence Plan Partners, and Ayin Health Solutions as applicable (referred to individually as “Company” and collectively as “Companies”). APPLIES TO: All lines of business except Medicare BENEFIT APPLICATION Medicaid Members Oregon: Services requested for Oregon Health Plan (OHP) members follow the OHP Prioritized List and Oregon Administrative Rules (OARs) as the primary resource for coverage determinations. Medical policy criteria below may be applied when there are no criteria available in the OARs and the OHP Prioritized List.
Using a Satisficing Model of Experimenter Decision-Making to Guide Finite-Sample Inference for Compromised Experiments

This paper presents a simple decision-theoretic economic approach for analyzing social experiments with compromised random assignment protocols that are only partially documented. We model administratively constrained experimenters who satisfice in seeking covariate balance. We develop design-based small-sample hypothesis tests that use worst-case (least favorable) randomization null distributions. Our approach accommodates a variety of compromised experiments, including imperfectly documented re-randomization designs. To make our analysis concrete, we focus much of our discussion on the influential Perry Preschool Project. We reexamine previous estimates of program effectiveness using our methods. The choice of how to model reassignment vitally affects inference.
Dataset for Depression Detection from Speech Emotion Recognition

The recognition of internal emotional state of a person plays an important role in several human related fields. Emotions constitute an essential part of our existence as it exerts great influence on the physical and mental health of people. Depression is a common mental disorder. Developments in affective sensing technology with focus on acoustic features will potentially bring a change due to depressed patients’ slow, hesitating, monotonous voice as remarkable characteristics. The system is intended for classification of emotions and depression by using speech signals. Both time and frequency domain features will be used in feature vector extraction. In feature extraction, the system will use wavelet transform and MFCC. DenseNet will be used to detect the emotion, classify the type of emotion and then depression. This paper will present about the datasets collected for the system and the experimental results on the dataset using Support Vector Machine.
Circ_0004913 sponges miR-1290 and regulates FOXC1 to inhibit the proliferation of hepatocellular carcinoma

Background Circular RNA (circRNA), an novel type of non-coding RNA, could interact with miRNA and protein molecules to regulate the occurrence and progression of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, little is known about the pathogenesis of circ_0004913 in HCC. Materials Through the GEO (Gene Expression Omnibus database) to find dysfunctional circRNAs in HCC, and circ_0004913 was selected as the research object. Quantitative reverse transcription PCR (qRT-PCR) was used to detect the expression level of circ_0067934 in HCC tissues and cells. CCK-8, Edu and flow cytometry assays were used to determine the malignant behavior of transfected HCC cells. Mechanistically, RNA immunoprecipitation and dual-luciferase reporter gene assay were performed to explore the relation between circ_0067934, miR-1290 and FOXC1 (Forkhead box C1) in HCC. Results The expression of circ_0004913 was down-regulated in HCC tissues and cell lines, while the overexpression of circ_0004913 attenuates the malignant behavior of HCC cells. Bioinformatics predicted that circ_0004913 interacts with miR-1290, which targeted FOXC1 mRNA. In fact, miR-1290 promoted the malignant behavior of HCC cells, while FOXC1 had the opposite effect. In addition, circ_0004913 overexpression enhanced FOXC1 expression by reducing miR-1290 expression, thereby inhibiting the proliferation of HCC cells. Conclusions Circ_0004913 / miR-1290 / FOXC1 regulatory axis could inhibit the progress of HCC. Our findings may provide potential new targets for the diagnosis and treatment of HCC.
Multi-targeted protein tyrosine kinase inhibitor:research advances

The growth and development of cancer involve in more than one receptors and signal pathways. Recent data have shown that multi-targeted drugs could be much more efficient than drugs directed at a single target. Blocking multiple signal transduction pathways simultaneously has become an important new direction in tumor therapeutic agent discovery. The development of multi-targeted tyrosine kinase inhibitors is reviewed based on their chemical structures.
CIRRELT-2020-11 A Guide to Parcel Lockers in Last Mile Distribution – Highlighting Challenges and Opportunities from an OR Perspective

Current growth in e-commerce and online sales has confronted companies with major logistical challenges arising in the area of last mile distribution. Small order quantities, the urban environment and changing consumer behaviour require companies to adapt logistical processes and to invest in more resilient concepts that are able to cope with these new developments. In this context, parcel locker stations provide opportunities for companies to ensure smooth and more efficient delivery to the final customer. As such, locker stations may further contribute to the creation of more sustainable and customer-friendly last mile solutions. In this research, we give an overview of the different concepts for alternative delivery and parcel locker stations that can be found in practice. Based on these concepts, we investigate current challenges and possible decision problems that arise in the context of parcel locker stations, review the related literature and identify potential gaps and future research directions from an OR perspective. With this contribution, we hope to shape a new research agenda of practical relevance and stimulate future research within this promising area.
An SJT to predict expressions of subclinical personality disorders at work

Although cognitive ability is generally considered the best predictor of job performance (e.g., Schmidt & Hunter, 2004), some individuals who perform well on cognitive ability assessments may not ultimately have high job performance. For instance, there is evidence to suggest that expressions of certain personality disorders have a negative effect on job performance (e.g., Moscoso & Salagado, 2004). Yet, many psychologists now consider personality to exist on a continuum, such that individuals may have some symptoms associated with personality disorders (and decreased job performance), but not a clinically diagnosable disorder (e.g., De Fruyt & Salagado, 2003; Trull & Durrett, 2005). Therefore, as part of a selection process, it may be beneficial to identify individuals that are likely to exhibit behaviors associated with subclinical levels of personality disorders in the workplace. Situational judgement tests (SJTs) are particularly well suited to assessing subclinical levels of personality as part of an employment selection process. First, SJTs are low fidelity simulations (e.g., Motowidlo, Dunnette, & Carter, 1990) that use workplace-specific scenarios and response options. Second, SJTs with knowledge instructions (e.g., how effective is each behavior likely to be) are less susceptible to faking than typical personality inventories (Nguyen,
R248W Mutations in p53 Gene are Rare Among Indian Patients with Head-and-Neck Cancer

Abstract Aim Cancer is one of the curses to humankind, decades of research in eradicating the disease from the society is proven difficult. Close interaction between clinicians and scientists helps us to translate clinical observations into molecular mechanism of the disease. The Cancer Genome Atlas data suggest that genetic alterations in p53 gene play a crucial role in head-and-neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) tumorigenesis. Understanding p53 aberrations and their impact on other cellular activities can help with the design of new, more effective therapeutic strategy that target p53 mutation-bearing HNSCC, thereby producing a personalized medicine approach for the disease. Materials and Methods In an effort to identify the role of R248W mutation of p53 gene in HNSCC patients of Indian origin, tumor samples were collected from 55 patients (n = 55), and polymerase chain reaction–restriction fragment length polymorphism technique was used to screen for the mutation using genomic DNA isolated from the tumors. Results The results reveal that except for one patient (heterozygous), all the patients were negative for the mutation. Conclusion These results suggest that p53 R248W mutations are less prevalent in HNSCC Indian patients.
Are Nursing Students Learning About Social Determinants of Health?

Abstract Nurses must be knowledgeable about social determinants of health (SDH) to provide holistic care with improved patient outcomes. When evaluating the Baccalaureate of Science in Nursing curriculum, it is unclear if SDH are adequately identified, assessed, and discussed, or if students grasp their importance. To move to a population health approach, faculty need to be more inclusive of community and public health. For purposes of this study, the factors comprising SDH were identified as childhood experiences, housing, education, social support, family income, employment, communities, and access to health services. These eight factors were used to categorize participants’ qualitative responses to baseline and completion surveys.
Respiratory infections: Role of Vitamin D and surfactant proteins A and D

Respiratory tract infection is the common viral infection and the principal cause of death among children under 5 years of age. It damages lung epithelium and increases mucus production and inflammation, leading to dyspnea. The sunshine vitamin (Vitamin D) and surfactant protein (SP) A and D along with their usual function play an important role in host defense. This article reviews with immune role of Vitamin D and SP A and D which aids excessive cytokines production, boosts phagocytosis, hinders inflammatory activity, and thus acts as a first-line defense against lung pathogens.
Addictions Causing Head-and-Neck Cancers

Abstract Background Head-and-neck cancers pose a serious economic burden, with most countries investing significant resources to reduce the incidence, primarily focusing on understanding addictive etiologies. The traditional literature focused on tobacco and alcohol use, with few studies on contemporary factors such as e-cigarette, waterpipe smoking, and human papillomavirus. This article attempts to collate and present an update on the globally identified etiologic factors. Aims The aim of this study was to identify and review the addictive etiologic factors causing head-and-neck cancers. Methods An electronic search was performed on Medline, Embase, and Google Scholar to identify the etiologies causing head-and-neck cancers and narrowed down on those driven by addiction. Further, we identified their constituents, mechanism of action, and the risks attributable to various forms of products. Results Substances identified included smoked and chewed tobacco, alcohol, mate, marijuana, areca nut and betel quid, and viruses. An alarming majority of youth are now utilizing these substances. Furthermore, migrant movements have led to the spread of traditional practices across the regions, especially from the Asian subcontinent. Conclusion Ironically, despite modern advances and technology, we still see that a large proportion of population succumb to these cancers, emphasizing the need for more effective and targeted policies to combat this menace at the grassroots level.