Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Uneven Geographies of Organizational Practice: Explaining the Cross-National Transfer and Diffusion of ISO 9000

Abstract There is growing recognition that organizational innovations can have a major influence on the geography of economic activity. Yet, little is known about the mechanisms and geographic preconditions underlying their diffusion, particularly at the global level. In this article, we test a series of hypotheses about the conditions under which organizations are most likely to adopt ISO 9000, the internationally recognized set of standards for quality management, using panel data for 130 countries from 1995 to 2001. Our findings support the idea that transnational networks that connect different countries at the international level provide conduits for the cross-national transfer of new organizational practices. Thus, exports to the European Union, local involvement of transnational corporations (TNCs), European colonial ties, and the availability of telecommunications all emerge as statistically significant determinants of ISO adoptions. Our findings also underscore the importance of national environmental conditions in influencing the receptiveness of organizations to new practices. A low regulatory burden, a high share of manufacturing activity, high rates of secondary school enrollment, and low levels of productivity are positively correlated with the number of ISO 9000 certificates. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for current debates about the mechanisms, preconditions, and scales of organizational transfer, diffusion, and convergence.
Single Event Effects on Digital Integrated Circuits: Origins and Mitigation Techniques

New generation electronic devices have become more and more sensitive to the effects of the natural radiation coming from the surrounding environment. These radiation sources are cosmic rays and radioactive impurities, able to corrupt the content of memory cells or to induce transient pulses in combinational logic. The growing sensitivity seems to be related to two main factors: the lower and lower charge needed to define the logic levels in advanced devices and the increasing number of basic components inside the modern integrated circuits. In this paper, are described state-of-art techniques to mitigate these effects as well as typical tests to verify the radiation-tolerance of the devices and/or systems.
Wide baseline stereo based on background modeling

Correspondence is one of the basic and most important problems in computer vision. Correct correspondence can be achieved through stereopsis and state of art algorithms have emerged for computation of dense correspondence incase of short baseline. Incase of wide baseline, maintaining correspondence in outdoor environment is a challenging task. First, A new concept of "motion from stereo" is presented, in which wide baseline is treated as summation of small baselines and correspondence is maintained all along it. To achieve this, correspondence based background modeling approach is extended to moving camera case. Second, occlusion among images is treated in a probabilistic manner and is modeled through Bayesian network. Third, a complete framework is presented to achieve correct correspondence. Experimental results validate that the framework is robust to nominal jitter, outdoor scenes artifacts e.g. swaying of trees, shimmering of water etc.
Connectivity Maps for Subdivision Surfaces

In this paper, we introduce a hierarchical indexing for adjacency queries specially for applying subdivision schemes on some simple spherical and toroidal polyhedrons as the base model for the content creation process. The indexing method is created from integer coordinates of regular 2D domains (connectivity maps) resulting from unfolding polyhedrons. All connectivities are found using algebraic relationships of the connectivity map’s indices; therefore, no additional data structure is required and operations are extremely fast and efficient. Although connectivity relationships of the polyhedrons are as simple as the first resolution, the models created by our proposed method is not restricted to the subdivided polyhedrons. Using our connectivity based method, complex objects can be created by adding sharp features and holes and applying deformation and remeshing techniques. We demonstrate capacities and the efficiency of the method with several example results and compare its speed with that of the half-edge data structure.
Role of Anti-ganglioside Antibodies in the Diagnosis of Guillain-Barré Syndrome as an Alternate Investigation

Objective The goal of the study was to see if anti-ganglioside antibodies have a role in the diagnosis of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS). Study design Between May 2016 to October 2017, we conducted a prospective pilot study of 15 patients with a clinical diagnosis of GBS with equivocal cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis and/or nerve conduction studies (NCS) . Materials and methods All adult patients (age >18 years) whose clinical diagnosis was GBS but diagnostic tests (either NCS or CSF analysis or both) were not suggestive of GBS were included in the study and were tested for anti-gangliosides antibodies. Data was entered in SPSS, version 21.0 (IBM, Armonk, New York) and analyzed. Results Of the 15 patients fulfilling the inclusion criteria, 60% had a normal CSF analysis while 40% had normal NCS. The percentages of different GBS variants observed in sampled patients were acute inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculopathy (AIDP) 40%, acute motor axonal neuropathy (AMAN) 40%, acute motor and sensory axonal neuropathy (AMSAN) 13.3%, and Miller Fisher syndrome 6.7%. However, the anti-ganglioside antibodies were negative in all patients. Conclusion Anti-gangliosides antibodies cannot be used as an alternative diagnostic investigation in GBS patients as our study failed to show positive results in different GBS variants.
Chemotactic response regulator mutant CheY95IV exhibits enhanced binding to the flagellar switch and phosphorylation‐dependent constitutive signalling

CheY, a response regulator protein in bacterial chemotaxis, mediates swimming behaviour through interaction with the flagellar switch protein, FliM. In its active, phosphorylated state, CheY binds to the motor switch complex and induces a change from counterclockwise (CCW) to clockwise (CW) flagellar rotation. The conformation of a conserved aromatic residue, tyrosine 106, has been proposed to play an important role in this signalling process. Here, we show that an isoleucine to valine substitution in CheY at position 95 — in close proximity to residue 106 — results in an extremely CW, hyperactive phenotype that is dependent on phosphorylation. Further biochemical characterization of this mutant protein revealed phosphorylation and dephosphorylation rates that were indistinguishable from those of wild‐type CheY. CheY95IV, however, exhibited an increased binding affinity to FliM. Taken together, these results show for the first time a correlation between enhanced switch binding and constitutive signalling in bacterial chemotaxis. Considering present structural information, we also propose possible models for the role of residue 95 in the mechanism of CheY signal transduction.
Manitoba inverter — Single phase single-stage buck-boost VSI topology

The paper presents a new transformerless single-phase single-stage buck-boost grid-connected voltage source inverter (VSI) topology. The topology can achieve efficient power conversion with a wide input voltage range, number of magnetic devices reduction and low leakage current. The proposed VSI topology consists of high frequency semiconductors for shaping inductor currents, and low frequency semiconductors to form grid CL filter structure for different conditions. This CL filter uses the same buck-boost inductor, thus no additional line frequency inductor is required. Besides, Common Mode (CM) voltage, a main problem of transformerless grid-connected VSI, is mitigated, since the capacitor in the CL filter clamps the voltage between the grid and the bus terminal. The performance of the proposed VSI is experimentally verified. The results show that the proposed VSI guarantees sinusoidal output current and wide input voltage range, and has a good agreement with the theoretical findings.
Graft-vs-host disease after non-myeloablative hematopoietic cell transplantation

Non-myeloablative preparative regimens have reduced regimen-related toxicities after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT), which allows for the treatment of patients not eligible for myeloablative HCT. The reduced non-relapse mortality associated with non-myeloablative HCT is in part explained by the decreased incidence and severity of acute graft-vs-host disease (GVHD). Compared with conventional HCT, the onset of acute GVHD is delayed, and some patients may present with signs and symptoms characteristic of acute GVHD after day 100, in the absence of hallmarks of chronic GVHD. In contrast to the overall negative impact of acute GVHD on outcome, the net effects of chronic GVHD after non-myeloablative HCT appear to be beneficial, translating into improved progression-free survival among patients with different hematological malignancies. One obvious explanation for this beneficial effect is the strong association between chronic GVHD and protection against recurrent malignancy (graft-vs-tumor effect). Future strategies are aimed at reducing the risk of acute GVHD, in particular "early-onset" GVHD (before day 50), which is associated with increased non-relapse mortality and decreased overall survival, and at decreasing the corticosteroid dependence among patients who require immunosuppressive treatment for clinically established GVHD.
Evaluación de modelos para el manejo del riego: estimación de la evapotranspiración y efectos de la uniformidad de aplicación del riego sobre la producción de los cultivos

La mejora de la gestion del agua a nivel de parcela se debe basar necesariamente en una desarrollada especificamente en la zona donde va a aplicarse. Las investigaciones que se recogen en esta tesis proporcionan nueva informacion para la zona regable de Cordoba, a la vez que desarrollan nuevas metodologias basadas en modelos de simulacion, aplicables a cualquier zona. Se representan resultados experimentales de la evapotranspiracion de referencia (eto) y de los cultivos (et) de trigo, soja y algodon medidos por lisimetria en Cordoba, que permiten en el capitulo 1 evaluar metodos de estimacion de la eto y en el capitulo 2 verificar la aplicabilidad y precision del modelo ritchie y metodo fao. Por otra parte, en el capitulo 3, se desarrolla una nueva metodologia basada en modelos de simulacion para evaluar el impacto de la uniformidad de aplicacion del agua y de los errores en la estimacion de la et sobre las relaciones entre el riego y el rendimiento de los cultivos.
Molecular cloning and characterization of a cDNA encoding cytochrome c oxidase subunit Va from the lesser grain borer, Rhyzopertha dominica (F.) (Coleoptera: Bostrichidae).

A cDNA encoding subunit Va of cytochrome c oxidase (EC 1.9.3.1) was cloned and characterized from a lesser grain borer (Rhyzopertha dominica) cDNA library. The complete cDNA consists of 693-bp and contains an open reading frame of 450-bp that encodes 150 amino acid residues. The sequence includes a 28-bp putative N-terminal and a 122-bp putative mature protein. The estimated molecular weight and pI for the predicted mature protein are 13,962 and 4.60, respectively. The cDNA-deduced amino acid sequence of the mature protein shows 73% identity to that of a corresponding subunit of African malaria mosquito (Anopheles gambiae) and 59% identity to that of the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster). In addition, 31% of all amino acid residues are conserved among six different animal species. Evolutionary distance analysis suggests that cytochrome c oxidase subunit Va from R. dominica is most similar to the corresponding subunit from the malaria mosquito. Northern analysis revealed a single 4.9-kb transcript that is much larger than that found in mammalian species.
Usefulness of multiple dimensions of fatigue in fibromyalgia.

OBJECTIVES To explore in which contexts ratings of multiple dimensions of fatigue are useful in fibromyalgia, and to compare multidimensional fatigue between women with fibromyalgia and healthy women. DESIGN A cross-sectional study. SUBJECTS AND METHODS The Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory (MFI-20), comprising 5 subscales of fatigue, was compared with the 1-dimensional subscale of fatigue from the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ) in 133 women with fibromyalgia (mean age 46 years; standard deviation 8.6), in association with socio-demographic and health-related aspects and analyses of explanatory variables of severe fatigue. The patients were also compared with 158 healthy women (mean age 45 years; standard deviation 9.1) for scores on MFI-20 and FIQ fatigue. RESULTS The MFI-20 was associated with employment, physical activity and walking capacity (rs = -0.27 to -0.36), while FIQ fatigue was not. MFI-20 and FIQ fatigue were equally associated with pain, sleep, depression and anxiety (rs = 0.32-0.63). Regression analyses showed that the MFI-20 increased the explained variance (R2) for the models of pain intensity, sleep, depression and anxiety, by between 7 and 29 percentage points, compared with if FIQ fatigue alone was included in the models. Women with fibromyalgia rated their fatigue higher than healthy women for all subscales of the MFI-20 and the FIQ fatigue (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION Dimensions of fatigue, assessed by the MFI-20, appear to be valuable in studies of employment, pain intensity, sleep, distress and physical function in women with fibromyalgia. The patients reported higher levels on all fatigue dimensions in comparison with healthy women.
Risk of Mortality and Cancer Incidence in Barrett's Esophagus

Background: There are very few prospective follow-up studies of Barrett esophagus (BE) cohorts assessing the risk of extraesophageal cancer incidence or mortality. Such studies are necessary in order to understand the overall risks of cancer and death experienced by patients with BE. Methods: A cohort of 502 patients with BE were identified at Leeds General Infirmary, England. Mortality and cancer incidence information were provided by the Office for National Statistics. Standardized mortality ratios (SMR) and standardized incidence ratios (SIR) were calculated using indirect standardization. Results: All-cause mortality was found to be elevated in patients with BE [SMR, 1.21; 95% confidence interval (95% CI), 1.06, 1.37] and remained so after esophageal cancers were excluded (SMR, 1.16; 95% CI, 1.01-1.32). Increased mortality risks were also found for malignant neoplasms of the esophagus (SMR, 7.26; 95% CI, 3.87-12.42) and diseases of the digestive system (SMR, 2.03; 95% CI, 1.11-3.40). The remaining disease categories produced no altered risk estimates. Circulatory disease mortality was borderline statistically significant (SMR, 1.24; 95% CI, 1.00-1.52; P = 0.053) for those with a specialized intestinal metaplasia diagnosis of BE. In the cancer incidence analyses, esophageal malignancies (SIR, 8.66; 95% CI, 4.73-14.53) and esophageal adenocarcinomas (SIR, 14.29; 95% CI, 7.13-22.56) were found to be increased in BE. All remaining analyses provided unaltered risks, including that of colorectal cancer. Conclusions: This study has shown evidence of an increased risk of esophageal cancer incidence and mortality in BE. It has also shown that those who have a histologic BE diagnosis may also have an increased risk of circulatory disease mortality. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2007;16(10):2090–6)
Fast multifield optimization of the biological effect in ion therapy

In this paper, we present a new technique for simultaneous multifield optimization of the biological effect (i.e. relative biological effectiveness times dose) for intensity modulated radiotherapy with ion beams. It offers complete inverse treatment planning by taking into account planning constraints for the target volume as well as for organs at risk. The approach is based on the mixed irradiation formalism of the linear-quadratic model from radiobiology. We employ a novel objective function to directly optimize the biological effect rather than the physical dose. The required biological input data are reduced to a minimum and are completely independent from the optimization itself. They can be derived from any radiobiological model or even from directly measured data. The new optimization method was fully integrated into our inverse treatment planning tool KonRad. Comparisons with the TRiP98 treatment planning code were done for simple spread-out Bragg peaks as well as for three-dimensional treatment plans, where all fields were optimized separately. While the agreement between both planning systems was very good, the calculation time was substantially reduced in KonRad. By enabling the multifield optimization, the quality of the treatment plans and the sparing of healthy tissues can be clearly improved.
Oral Health Care for Underserved Children in the United States

Dental caries is the most common chronic disease of childhood with approximately 25% of children from low-income families entering kindergarten without ever having seen a dentist (Larsen, Larsen, Handwerker, Kim, & Rosenthal, 2009). Youth, poverty, and race are characteristics of populations susceptible to oral disease (Dye, Xianfen, & Thorton-Evans, 2012). Services delivering oral health care to underserved populations are referred to as dental safety-net clinics. This article explores the impact of the dental safety-net on improving access to oral health care for underserved children in the United States.
Cutting Edge: Th17 and Regulatory T Cell Dynamics and the Regulation by IL-2 in the Tumor Microenvironment1

Th17 cells play an active role in inflammation and autoimmune diseases. However, the nature and regulation of Th17 in the context of tumor immunity remain unknown. In this study, we show that parallel to regulatory T (Treg) cells, IL-17+ CD4+ and CD8+ T cells are kinetically induced in multiple tumor microenvironments in mice and humans. Treg cells play a crucial role in tumor immune pathogenesis and temper immune therapeutic efficacy. IL-2 is crucial for the production and function of Treg cells. We now show that IL-2 reduces IL-17+ T cell differentiation in the tumor microenvironment accompanied with an enhanced Treg cell compartment in vitro and in vivo. Altogether, our work demonstrates a dynamic differentiation of IL-17+ T cells in the tumor microenvironment, reveals a novel role for IL-2 in controlling the balance between IL-17+ and Treg cells, and provides new insight of IL-17+ T cells in tumor immune pathology and therapy.
Efficacy of topical Aloe vera in patients with oral lichen planus: a randomized double-blind study.

BACKGROUND Different treatments have been used in application to symptomatic oral lichen planus (OLP), with variable results, perhaps caused by the refractory nature of the disease. The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of the topical application of aloe vera (AV) in OLP compared with placebo. METHODS A total of 64 patients with OLP were randomized in a double-blind study to either AV (32 patients) or placebo (32 patients), at a dose of 0.4 ml (70% concentration) three times a day. A Visual Analog Scale was used for rating pain, with the application of a clinical scale for scoring the lesions, the Oral Health Impact Profile 49 (OHIP-49), and the Hospital Anxiety-Depression (HAD) scale. The patients were evaluated after 6 and 12 weeks. RESULTS No statistically significant differences were recorded between both groups in relation to pain after 6 and 12 weeks. In the AV group, complete pain remission was achieved in 31.2% of the cases after 6 weeks, and in 61% after 12 weeks. In the placebo group, these percentages were 17.2% and 41.6%, respectively. There were no adverse effects in any of the groups. In relation to quality of life, significant differences were observed between the two groups in the psychological disability domain and total OHIP-49 score. CONCLUSION The topical application of AV improves the total quality of life score in patients with OLP.
Does the Volume of CSF Removed Affect the Response to a Tap in Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus?

We read with great interest the article by Thakur et al,[1][1] in which they investigated the association of CSF volume removed by a tap test and the clinical response in patients with normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH). In the “Conclusions” of their study, they found no evidence to support a
Layer‐specific immunocytochemical localization of GABABR1a and GABABR1b receptors in the rat piriform cortex

A peculiar, layer‐segregated immunoreactive distribution of GABABR1a and GABABR1b receptor antibodies is present in the piriform cortex of adult rats. The GABABR1a antibody selectively marked the neuropile in layer Ia, where afferent olfactory fibres and intrinsic GABAergic (γ‐aminobutyric acid) axons terminate on the distal apical dendrites of pyramidal neurons. The GABABR1b antibody was detected in the soma and the large basal dendrites of layer II and III neurons. The pattern of distribution observed supports the hypothesis that (presynaptic) GABABR1a receptors in the superficial molecular layer modulate neurotransmitter release in a feedforward synaptic circuit, whereas GABABR1b (postsynaptic) receptors mediate feedback inhibitory potentials on principal cells.
Remittances, the diffusion of information and industrialisation in Africa

ABSTRACT This study examines the role of information and communication technology (ICT) on remittances for industrialisation in a panel of 49 African countries for the period 1980–2014. The empirical evidence is based on three simultaneity-robust estimation techniques, namely: (i) Instrumental Fixed Effects (FE) in order to control for the unobserved heterogeneity; (ii) Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) to account for persistence in industrialisation; and (iii) Instrumental Quantile Regressions (QR) to control for initial levels of industrialisation. Our best estimators are from FE and QR estimations because the GMM regression outputs largely fail post-estimation diagnostic tests. The following findings are established: (i) There are positive marginal effects from the interaction between remittances and ICT in the FE regressions whereas there are negative marginal impacts from the interaction between remittances and ICT; (ii) Interactions between remittances and mobile phone penetration are positive in the bottom and 90th quantile whereas the interaction between internet penetration and remittances is positive in the bottom and top quantiles of the industrialisation distribution. Overall, the role of ICT in remittances for industrialisation is much more apparent when existing levels of industrialisation are accounted for.
Élaboration d'un guide sur la santé bucco-dentaire des enfants de 0 à 3 ans à usage des professionnels de santé de la petite enfance

Les pediatres, medecins generalistes, sages-femmes, puericultrices et auxiliaires de puericultures sont les premiers professionnels a etre confrontes aux enfants de moins de 3 ans. Ils semblent donc etre des interlocuteurs privilegies des parents et futurs parents. Pourtant, certaines connaissances concernant la sante bucco-dentaire semblent encore fragiles, comme demontre dans les theses des Dr C. Barbet-Massin et Dr M. Theillaud. Un depliant iconographie sur la carie precoce de l’enfance (CPE) a usage des professionnels de la petite enfance a ete realise. Le contenu a ete etabli par une equipe pluridisciplinaire. La composition graphique et visuelle a ete realisee par un graphiste professionnel. Le depliant comporte 3 parties : « Diagnostiquer les signes precoces de CPE », « Communiquer les bonnes pratiques » et « Indiquer la prise en charge ». Ce document sera evalue ulterieurement a l’occasion de deux theses.