Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Track matching over disjoint camera views based on an incremental major color spectrum histogram

Matching tracks from a single individual across disjoint camera views is a challenging task in video surveillance. In this paper, a major color spectrum histogram representation (MCSHR) is introduced to represent a moving object by using a normalized distance between two points in the RGB space. Then, an incremental MCSHR is proposed to cope with small pose changes and segmentation errors occurring along the track. Finally, a similarity measurement algorithm is proposed based on the incremental MCSHR to measure the similarity of any two tracked moving objects. The proposed similarity measurement algorithm proved capable of measuring the similarity of the two moving objects accurately. Experimental results show that with three to five frames integration, the proposed incremental MCSHR algorithm can make matching more robust and reliable than single-frame matching, especially for small pose changes. The matching performance is not obviously improved instead when the number of integration is more than five. The similarity of a same moving object in two different tracks has been improved from 92% to 95% with the integration number increased from three to five, while two different moving objects have been easily discriminated. The proposed algorithm can be used to match tracks from single individuals in camera networks, which do not provide full coverage of the monitored space.
Human papillomavirus type distribution in anal cancer and anal intraepithelial lesions

A systematic review was conducted of HPV type distribution in anal cancer and anal high‐grade and low‐grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HSIL and LSIL). A Medline search of studies using PCR or hybrid capture for HPV DNA detection was completed. A total of 1,824 cases were included: 992 invasive anal cancers, 472 HSIL cases and 360 LSIL cases. Crude HPV prevalence in anal cancer, HSIL, and LSIL was 71, 91 and 88%, respectively. HPV16/18 prevalence was 72% in invasive anal cancer, 69% in HSIL and 27% in LSIL. The HPV 16 and/or 18 prevalence in invasive anal cancer cases was similar to that reported in invasive cervical cancer. If ongoing clinical trials show efficacy in preventing anal HPV infection and associated anal lesions, prophylactic HPV vaccines may play an important role for the primary prevention of these cancers in both genders. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Business Education In The Present Society: Problems, Challenges And Solutions

The popularity of business studies in today’s University system is clearly demonstrated by the number of candidates, places and specialisations available in higher education institutions. On the other hand, the existence of multiple social, economic and ecological crises raises valid questions regarding the content, purpose and focus of these studies for the wellbeing of the modern society. Despite the growing number of students enrolled or graduating in business studies, the present-day society is fraught with economic crisis, disequilibria and waste, which manifest at society, group and individual levels. Analysing the existent literature, the paper presents and discusses three main problems of the business studies available in higher education institution: focus on short-term profitability; fragmentation and specialisation; and, lack of connection with other types of studies. Emphasizing the importance of considering the role of business education from the perspective of a generalized and complex stakeholder analysis, the paper proposes four possible, interconnected solutions to the identified problems: business schools should become not only specialized institutions of teaching and learning, but also centres of knowledge creation and dissemination, oriented towards developing creative thinking and a holistic vision regarding the role and impact of business activities in the present day society; business schools’ curriculum should be modified to include, on one hand, information regarding the short- and the long-term impact of business decisions and activities on society and environment, and on the other hand, courses designed to increase the responsibility of business specialists for the harmonious development of the present day society (such as business ethics, ecological and equitable business, social corporate responsibility); business studies should adopt a more holistic, integrative approach, by including into the curricula methods of research and analysis derived from the theory of ecology and complex systems; the criteria for evaluating academic research in business studies should be centred around its impact on an extended set of socio-economic values, which go beyond simple profit maximization to include increasing and balancing stakeholder value, creating more social and economic justice at organisation, national and international level, and creatively solving the socio-economic problems of the modern society.
Prevalence of anxiety disorders and their comorbidity with mood and addictive disorders

Background The co-occurrence of anxiety disorders with other mental, addictive, and physical disorders has important implications for treatment and for prediction of clinical course and associated morbidity. Method Cross-sectional and prospective data on 20 291 individuals from the Epidemiologic Catchment Area (ECA) study were analysed to determine one-month, current disorders, one-year incidence, and one-year and lifetime prevalence of anxiety, mood, and addictive disorders, and to identify the onset and offset of disorders within the one-year prospective period. Results Nearly half (47.2%) of those meeting lifetime criteria for major depression also have met criteria for a comorbid anxiety disorder. The average age of onset of any lifetime anxiety disorder (16.4 years) and social phobia (11.6 years) among those with major depression was much younger than the onset age for major depression (23.2 years) and panic disorder. Conclusions Anxiety disorders, especially social and simple phobias, appear to have an early onset in adolescence with potentially severe consequences, predisposing those affected to greater vulnerability to major depression and addictive disorders.
Incentive Systems for Forest-Based Ecosystem Services with Missing Financial Service Markets

Payments for ecosystem services (PES) is a popular paradigm to address underprovision of ecosystem services in developing economies. Potential PES recipients often experience other market imperfections, which can influence PES uptake and environmental performance. These include poorly functioning financial services markets. We develop a model of nonindustrial timber production with poorly functioning financial service markets and PES. We calibrate the model to the Panama Canal Watershed and solve the dynamic allocation decision using dynamic programming. The results of our model show that improving financial services markets, including improved access to borrowing and savings, can reduce the costs of acquiring ecosystem services. Nonenvironmental market frictions can influence the incentive properties of PES payment vehicles. Our model predicts that wealthier individuals are likely to provide the desired land uses at least cost if incentivized land uses involve production. In these cases cost-effective PES is unlikely to advance development objectives.
A NATURAL GRADIENT ALGORITHM FOR THE SOLUTION OF LYAPUNOV EQUATIONS BASED ON THE GEODESIC DISTANCE

A new framework based on the curved Riemannian manifold is proposed to calculate the numerical solution of the Lyapunov matrix equation by using a natural gradient descent algorithm and taking the geodesic distance as the objective function. Moreover, a gradient descent algorithm based on the classical Euclidean distance is provided to compare with this natural gradient descent algorithm. Furthermore, the behaviors of two proposed algorithms and the conventional modified conjugate gradient algorithm are compared and demonstrated by two simulation examples. By comparison, it is shown that the convergence speed of the natural gradient descent algorithm is faster than both of the gradient descent algorithm and the conventional modified conjugate gradient algorithm in solving the Lyapunov equation.
Long-term decision making in the presence of financial disasters

The research question focuses on three areas. First, what is the most appropriate model and estimation method for studying portfolio optimisation under tail risk with an aim towards managerial incentives. Second, how outcomes differ for investors who take jumps into account compared to those who do not. Third, how managerial incentives in the form of fees and compensation structures create a conflict of interest between investors and funds in the presence of jumps, leading to a need for policy suggestions. To answer those questions the thesis builds up from a CARA single-state model to an SV model to an SVCJ model with jumps in returns and volatility, leverage and heteroskedasticity. The model and its SV only counterpart are estimated via MCMC. A closed-form solution for the portfolio weights is derived and used in subsequent simulations. The results are that the investor always has an incentive to knowingly ignore tail risk in terms of wealth but never in terms of utility, the manager has an incentive in the short- and mid-run to undertake excess risk but not in the long-run, the criteria for the incentive horizon are risk aversion and how investor wealth moves between funds, and policy suggestions are made based on those grounds.
On Deep Learning in Cross-Domain Sentiment Classification

: Cross-domain sentiment classiﬁcation consists in distinguishing positive and negative reviews of a target domain by using knowledge extracted and transferred from a heterogeneous source domain. Cross-domain solutions aim at overcoming the costly pre-classiﬁcation of each new training set by human experts. Despite the potential business relevance of this research thread, the existing ad hoc solutions are still not scalable with real large text sets. Scalable Deep Learning techniques have been effectively applied to in-domain text classiﬁcation, by training and categorising documents belonging to the same domain. This work analyses the cross-domain efﬁcacy of a well-known unsupervised Deep Learning approach for text mining, called Paragraph Vector, comparing its performance with a method based on Markov Chain developed ad hoc for cross-domain sentiment classiﬁcation. The experiments show that, once enough data is available for training, Paragraph Vector achieves accuracy equivalent to Markov Chain both in-domain and cross-domain, despite no explicit transfer learning capability. The outcome suggests that combining Deep Learning with transfer learning techniques could be a breakthrough of ad hoc cross-domain sentiment solutions in big data scenarios. This opinion is conﬁrmed by a really simple multi-source experiment we tried to improve transfer learning, which increases the accuracy of cross-domain sentiment classiﬁcation.
Development and reliability of performance indicators for measuring adherence to a guideline for depression by insurance physicians

Introduction. We wanted to measure adherence to the guideline for depression in disability assessments. The research questions we addressed were: How can we develop performance indicators (PIs) for adherence to the Dutch guideline for disability assessment of patients with depression and how can we measure the quality of the scores? What is the inter-rater reliability of these PIs? What is the quality of the PI scores? Methods. PIs, developed by the researchers, were reviewed on various aspects, by a panel of seven experts in several consulting rounds. After adjustments, senior insurance physicians (IPs) attended two training sessions and scored the PIs on 10 different simulated case reports. Two researchers developed proxy ‘gold standard’ scores for these 10 case reports. To assess the inter-rater reliability and the quality of the scores, we calculated the intra-class correlations (ICC) and 95%% confidence intervals (CI) of the PI scores and of the PI scores compared to the proxy ‘gold standard’, respectively. Results. Six specific and relevant PIs resulted from the consultation of the panel of experts. The PI scores for the 10 case reports, rated by seven (of the eight) senior IPs who completed both training sessions, showed that the PIs were not reliable at individual level (ICC == 0.543; 95%% CI 0.426–0.642). However, the ICC became more reliable as an average of two raters was calculated (ICC == 0.704). The ICC of the PI scores with the proxy ‘gold standard’ was 0.538 (95%% CI 0.419–0.640), but the quality was higher when calculated as an average of two raters (ICC == 0.700). Conclusion. The PIs for adherence to the guideline were sufficiently reliable, and the quality of their scores was adequate if at least two well-trained raters were involved. The senior IPs evaluated the feasibility of the PIs as good, with a prerequisite of sufficient training. This method may be interesting for measuring guideline adherence and quality of disability assessments in general.
λ-GRASP with bi-directional path relinking for the bi-objective orienteering problem

This paper presents a new approach to solve the bi-objective orienteering problem (BOOP). The BOOP is a multi-objective extension of the well-known orienteering problem (OP). The multi-objective aspect stems from the personalised tourist routes planning problem, in which each point of interest in a city provides different profits associated with different categories. The aim of the BOOP is to find routes satisfying a given travel cost restriction, and visiting some points of interest that maximise the total collected of different profits. To generate a good approximation of Pareto-optimal solutions, we develop a new metaheuristic method based on hybridisation of λ-GRASP and a new variant of the path relinking procedure called bi-directional path relinking (BDPR). The latter is used as an intensification phase, with the goal to obtain new solutions that can eventually be part of the set of the Pareto-optimal solutions. The proposed approach is tested on benchmark instances taken from the literature. It is compared with the Pareto ant colony optimisation algorithm (P-ACO) and the variable neighbourhood search method (VNS). Computational results show that, compared to the P-ACO and the VNS procedures, the proposed method provide a good approximation of the Pareto front for the bi-objective orienteering problem.
Mumps: resurgence of a vanquished virus.

> A 37-year-old man presented to the emergency department of a local hospital complaining of neck stiffness, swollen glands, anorexia, fever, and trismus. Five days before presentation he experienced a prodromal period of headache, anorexia, fever, and stiffness in the paraspinal muscles of his neck
Curcumin Analog CH-5 Suppresses the Proliferation, Migration, and Invasion of the Human Gastric Cancer Cell Line HGC-27

Gastric cancer is one of the most frequent malignant tumors in the world. The majority of patients are diagnosed with metastatic gastric cancer, which has a low survival rate. These data reinforce the importance of studying the anticancer activity of new molecules with the potential to suppress gastric cancer metastasis. Curcumin is a well-studied compound that has demonstrated anti-metastatic effects. Here we investigated if CH-5, a curcumin derivative compound, has anti-metastatic properties in the human gastric cancer cell line HGC-27. Firstly, we found that CH-5 decreased viability and induced apoptosis in HGC-27 cells in a dose-dependent manner. Additionally, CH-5 suppressed the migration and invasion of HGC-27 cells by downregulating the expression and collagenase activity of matrix metalloproteinase 2 in a dose-dependent manner. In conclusion, CH-5 showed anticancer activities, including the induction of apoptosis, and the suppression of migration and invasion in HGC-27 cells, suggesting that CH-5 can be a lead molecule for the development of anti-metastatic drugs for gastric cancer therapy.
Pressure-dependent quenching of Rb 5P states in liquid helium.

The decay times of ${\mathit{D}}_{1}$ emission lines of Rb and Cs atoms in superfluid helium were measured at 1.6 K as functions of helium pressure in a range from the saturated vapor pressure to about 25 atm. In the case of Cs, the measured decay time is almost independent of the helium pressure and is given by the lifetime of the 6${\mathit{P}}_{1/2}$ state of the free atom. However, we have found that the decay time of the Rb ${\mathit{D}}_{1}$ line decreases with increasing pressure. This suggests the coexistence of two processes leading from the excited P state to the ground state, one an ordinary ${\mathit{D}}_{1}$ emission transition and the other a process decaying via a lower energy state before reaching the ground state. The pressure-dependent quenching observed only for the Rb atom can be explained by the competition of the above two processes. A possible mechanism for quenching of the Rb 5P states is discussed in terms of the interaction potentials of the alkali-metal-atom\char21{}${\mathrm{He}}_{\mathit{N}}$ system, where two or six helium atoms are localized near the alkali core in a particular anisotropic configuration. The dynamics of processes leading from the excited P states of Na and Cs atoms are also discussed. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.
Strategic Complements or Substitutes? The Case of Adopting Health Information Technology by U.S. Hospitals

Abstract This paper explores the adoption choice of electronic medical records by U.S. hospitals, which could exhibit strategic complements or substitutes. I find complementarities in adoption through a reduced-form analysis with instruments for unobserved market characteristics. I further develop a dynamic oligopoly model to allow for strategic timing incentives that are missing in the static model. Adopting a dominant local vendor could increase per period profits from adoption by 9.2% over choosing a marginal vendor. A counterfactual analysis suggests that an incentive program rewarding coordination, not just adoption, is more effective in achieving interoperability, especially before the widespread adoption of the technology.
VZV gB endocytosis and Golgi localization are mediated by YXXphi motifs in its cytoplasmic domain.

The cytoplasmic domains of many membrane proteins contain sorting signals that mediate their endocytosis from the plasma membrane. VZV gB contains three consensus internalization motifs within its cytoplasmic domain: YMTL (aa 818-821), YSRV (aa 857-860), and LL (aa 841-842). To determine whether VZV gB is internalized from the plasma membrane, and whether these motifs are required for its endocytosis, we compared the internalization of native gB to that of gB containing mutations in each of the predicted internalization motifs. VZV gB present on the surface of transfected cells associated with clathrin and was efficiently internalized to the Golgi apparatus within 60 min at 37 degrees C. VZV gB containing the mutation Y857 failed to be internalized, while gB-Y818A was internalized but did not accumulate in the Golgi. These data indicate that the internalization of VZV gB, and its subsequent localization to the Golgi, is mediated by two tyrosine-based sequence motifs in its cytoplasmic domain.
Topographic analysis of morphologic features of ECG beats

In this work, the arrhythmias in the electrocardiograph (ECG) signals are analyzed by using Self Organizing Maps (SOM). Morphologic features obtained from consecutive sample values of each R peak are used for training the SOM networks. The maps are examined using U-matrix representation method. Consequently, the high dimensional data are examined in two dimensions. When the shapes of the distributions obtained by U-matrix representation are considered, it is realized that a simple linear classifier is not able to classify these patterns correctly.
Sorting or Steering: Experimental Evidence on the Economic Effects of Housing Discrimination

Housing discrimination is illegal. However, paired-tester audit experiments have revealed evidence of discrimination in the interactions between potential buyers and real estate agents, raising concern about whether certain groups are systematically excluded from the beneficial effects of healthy neighborhoods. Using data from HUD’s most recent Housing Discrimination Study and micro-level data on key attributes of neighborhoods in 28 US cities, we find strong evidence of discrimination in the characteristics of neighborhoods towards which individuals are steered. Conditional upon the characteristics of the house suggested by the audit tester, minorities are significantly more likely to be steered towards neighborhoods with less economic opportunity and greater exposures to crime and local pollutants. We find that holding locational preferences or income constant, discriminatory steering alone can contribute substantially to the disproportionate number of minority households found in high poverty neighborhoods in the United States. The steering effect is also large enough to fully explain the differential in proximity to Superfund sites among African American mothers. These results have important implications for studies of “neighborhood effects” and confirm an important mechanism underlying observed correlations between race and pollution in the environmental justice literature. Our results also suggest that the basic utility maximization assumptions underlying hedonic and residential sorting models may often be violated, resulting in an important distortion in the provision of local public goods.
Investigating the implementation of the employment equity plan at Amatola Water Board in the province of the Eastern Cape

With the advent of democracy in South Africa in the early 1990s, the new government had to introduce major social, economic and political changes in order to undo the damages inflicted by many years of both colonialism and apartheid. These changes included the scrapping of discriminatory legislations and drafting of new laws to regulate employment practices. Amongst the pieces of legislation that the new South African government put in place, the Employment Equity Act, (Act 55 of 1998) was a major turning point in the elimination of discrimination at the workplace and redressing the injustices of the previous regimes. The Act is aimed at regulating the employment practices in an attempt to make the workplace a true reflection of the South African demographics. As a result, the promulgation of the Act had a major impact on the organisations in South Africa and has affected the way they now do business. Although the Act has been in existence for 14 years, progress in the implementation of employment equity and affirmative action in organisations in South Africa has been far less significant, particularly in the representation of women in managerial positions. In South Africa, an overwhelming majority of managerial positions are still occupied by men, with marginal women occupying management positions. Thus, women are still experiencing discrimination and under-representation at the workplace. Noting this trend at Amatola Water Board, the researcher decided to investigate the extent of progress the organisation has achieved in the implementation of its Employment Equity Plan 2009-2014. The objectives of the study were to identify factors that could assist the organisation to effectively implement the Plan, identify the impediments that pose challenges to effective implementation of the Plan in the organisation, and establish the perceptions of employees on the implementation of the Plan in the organisation. To collect data for the study, the researcher used a qualitative research approach. In this regard, the researcher used questionnaires and interviews to collect qualitative data. A sample of fifty employees was selected for the administration of questionnaires and four additional employees were selected for interviews. Both samples were selected by purposive sampling.