Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Study on using individual differences in facial expressions for a face recognition system immune to spoofing attacks

Although current face recognition systems in biometrics field are accurate enough to be used as substitutes for passwords or keys, most of them are prone to face spoofing attacks. Different techniques for face spoofing identification have been researched but most of them introduce additional sensors and are not cost or computationally efficient. In this study, the authors study the possibility of using individual differences in facial expressions for improving a face recognition system and make it immune to spoofing attacks. The authors develop a soft biometric neural-network-based system for video-based face recognition by analysing patterns in individual facial expressions on multiple frames. Results show that such a system is possible and has accuracies higher than 85%. Used alongside with a standard principal component analysis-based face recognition system, the combined method achieved 94.5% accuracy on Honda/UCSD Video Database and 92.9% on Youtube Faces DB, comparable with state-of-the-art. When tested against photo spoofing attacks on three public anti-spoofing databases the proposed method was immune. In terms of video spoofing, the error rate for the authors' proposed method was 1% surpassing state-of-the-art methods.
Microbiological Hazards from Red Meat and Their Control

Contamination of red meat with foodborne pathogens is associated with symptom‐less carriage of the organisms in the live animal. In the United Kingdom, meat is an acknowledged source of human food poisoning from Salmonella and Clostridium perfringens, and other pathogens that are sometimes present may also be important in this respect. Within the EU, much attention has been given to improving the design and structure of abattoirs, although, in themselves, such changes do not ensure low levels of microbial contamination. However, it has been suggested that, with due care in slaughtering and meat handling, microbial counts from carcasses can be reduced from around 103‐104 to 102‐103/cm2 and that contamination with any foodborne pathogens can also be reduced. Discusses those stages in meat handling which have the greatest effect on carcass contamination and the importance of using a system of quality assurance that incorporates the hazard analysis critical control point concept (HACCP). As an adjunct to good.
INVESTIGATION AND IDENTIFICATION OF EFFECTIVE ELEMENTS ON ATTRACTING DEBTS IN COMPANIES LISTED IN TEHRAN STOCK EXCHANGE

The purpose of this research is to investigate and identify the effective elements on attracting debts in companies listed in Tehran stock exchange. The population includes all listed companies in Tehran's stock exchange as 500 entities. Among the population, a number of 99 companies were selected as the sample. Data collection instrument in this research is the issued financial statements of the listed companies in Tehran's stock exchange between 2006 and 2013. In order to analyze the collected data, the regression test was used. Results of correlation matrices between variables indicates that attracting debts has an insignificant positive relation with institutional ownership, firm size, Payment ratio of dividend stock and volume of company's sales and also it has a negative insignificant relation with growth and investment opportunities, fixed assets, profitability, volatility of profits, tax considerations, liquidity, firm value, exclusiveness of firm products and business risk. Also with respect to the identification coefficient of R 2 it can be stated that about 66.3% of changes of the dependent variable (attracting debts) are as a result of changes in dependent variables (institutional ownership, firm size, and Payment ratio of dividend stock, volume of company's sales, growth and investment opportunities, fixed assets, profitability, volatility of profits, tax considerations, liquidity, firm value, exclusiveness of firm products and business risk).
Exploring nonlinear effects of family power on the performance of Italian wine businesses

Purpose – This work seeks to investigate the performance of wine businesses operating in the Campania region in the South of Italy and aims to verify the family power effect on company performance.Design/methodology/approach – The study was conducted on a sample of 114 firms that operate in the quality wines industry. Using a panel data regression model with time fixed effects, the authors analyzed the firm performance during the interval 2007‐2010 to detect the effect of family power on the firm performance. Family power was measured through the degree of family involvement in ownership and on the board. Performance was measured in terms of revenue and profitability.Findings – The research highlights a U‐shaped relationship between family power and revenue and an inverted U‐shaped relationship between family power and profitability.Originality/value – The findings show an empirical framework which could stimulate the academic debate on family effect in order to draw implications for marketing management .
Epidemiology and Consequences of Drinking and Driving

Alcohol is a major factor in traffic crashes, and crashes involving alcohol are more likely to result in injuries and deaths than crashes where alcohol is not a factor. Increasing blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) have been linked to increased crash risk. Male drivers, particularly those ages 22 to 45; people with drinking problems and prior drinking and driving convictions; and drivers who do not wear safety belts are disproportionately likely to be involved in alcohol-related fatal crashes. Alcohol-dependent people are over-represented in all alcohol-related traffic crashes, as are those who begin drinking at younger ages. Though there are more than 82 million drinking–driving trips in a given year at BACs of 0.08 percent and higher (and 10 percent of drinking–driving trips are at BACs of 0.08 percent and higher), there are only 1.5 million arrests for drinking and driving each year. Despite overall marked reductions in alcohol-related traffic deaths since the early 1980s, there has been little reduction since the mid-1990s, and alcohol-related traffic deaths have increased slightly in the past 3 years.
Small scale mechanization of thinning in artificial coniferous plantation.

Nacrtak In Italy, where conventional forests have a protective rather than productive purpose, some silvicultural operations as first and second thinning could be carried out in an economic way adopting systems based on small scale mechanization. Authors tested a system based on small scale mechanization for bunching and skidding operations, using an All Terrain Vehicle (ATV), a compact, agile and versatile vehicle that adapts well to dense and rather inaccessible forests, such as forests of artificial origin where no kind of intervention, particularly thinning, had ever been carried out. The vehicle was used for bunching, using an electric winch, and for skidding whole trees. The use of the ATV showed that it is a competitive vehicle with both traditional and cutting edge vehicles, performing a traction power average of 313 daN and PHS0 productivity variable from 1.20 to 3.05 td.m. h -1. Such figures confirm how in first thinning, on level ground but also on slopes (max 50%), over distances not exceeding 200 m, the ATV is a perfectly suitable vehicle. Furthermore, the impact of the vehicle on the ground and especially on the shallow soil horizons was negligible and had no effect on tree roots.
Export market expansion strategy: Differences between market concentration and market spreading

In light of certain important gaps observed in the export marketing literature, a study was conducted to investigate the presence of significant differences in the profile and behaviour between the two generic export market expansion strategic alternatives of concentration and spreading. Following a review of the extant literature, certain firm characteristics, export marketing effort and policy elements, and export‐related perception variables were viewed as potentially important discriminating factors between these two approaches. Based upon data generated from a focus on firms in a small EU country, the findings suggest the existence of several significant differences between market concentration and market spreading. These differences facilitate the development of extensive export profiles of concentrators and spreaders. The implications of the study for managers and public policy markers are discussed, and future research directions identified.
Developing a novel method for homology detection of transmembrane proteins

Analysis of the complete genomic sequences for several organisms indicates that 20-25% of all genes code for transmembrane proteins (Jones, 1998, Wallin and von Heijne, 1998), yet only a very small number of transmembrane 3D structures are known. Hence, it is of great importance to develop theoretical methods capable of predicting transmembrane protein structure and function based on protein sequence alone. To address this, we sought to devise a systematic and high throughput method for identifying homologous transmembrane proteins. Since protein structure is more evolutionarily conserved than amino acid sequence, we predicted that adding structural information to simple sequence alignment would improve homology detection of transmembrane proteins. In the present work, we describe development of a search method that combines sequence alignment with structural information. In our method the initial sequence alignment searches are performed using PSI-BLAST. Then profiles derived from the multiple sequence alignments are input into a neural network, developed in this work to predict which transmembrane residues are buried (core of the helix-bundle) or exposed (to the lipid environment). A maximum accuracy of 86% was achieved. Moreover, for almost half of the query set, the predicted residue orientation was more than 70% accurate. In the last step of the work presented here, the predicted helix locations, residue orientations and loop length scores are added to the PSI-BLAST E-value, to create a ‘combined’ classifier. A linear equation was built for calculating the 'combined’ classifier score. Our method was evaluated using two databases of proteins: Pfam and GPCRDB. The Pfam database was chosen, as transmembrane proteins in this database have been classified into various families. GPCRDB was employed as this database, though narrow, is well-studied and maintained. Before building the ‘combined’ classifier, PSI-BLAST sequence alignment was benchmarked using the Pfam database. We found that our 'combined’ classifier, as compared to a classifier based solely on PSI-BLAST, resulted in more true positives with less false positives when tested using GPCRDB and could differentiate between GPCRDB families. However, our ‘combined’ classifier did not improve homology detection when searching transmembrane proteins from the Pfam database. A comparison of our ‘combined’ classifier method with two other published methods suggested that profile-profile based searches could be more powerful than profile-sequence based searches, even after the addition of structural information as described here. In light of our study, we propose that combining structural information with profile-profile sequence alignment into a 'combined’ classifier could result in a search method superior to any existing ones for detecting homologous transmembrane proteins.
Substance use, gender inequity, violence and sexual risk among couples in Cape Town

Alcohol and other drug use, gender power inequities and violence are key contributors to sexual risks for HIV among South African men and women. Little is known about the intersection between these sex-risk behaviours among couples in established heterosexual relationships. We conducted 10 focus-group discussions with men and women in relationships of 1 year or longer recruited from shebeens (informal taverns) in Cape Town, South Africa. Participants described: high levels of alcohol consumption at shebeens; low levels of condom use with main and casual sex partners; gender roles disfavouring women's condom negotiating power that also promoted economic dependency on male partners; men often spending a portion of the household income on alcohol and other drugs and sex with others in shebeens; loss of household income driving women to trade sex to provide for their families; and sexual violence and the exploitation of women occurring in shebeens. Findings highlight how the social contexts of alcohol and other drug use, gender inequitable norms and gender violence promote HIV risk within established heterosexual relationships in South African communities. Evidence of this kind should inform the design of HIV-risk-reduction interventions tailored to heterosexual couples who drink alcohol in shebeens.
Clinical improvement in cystic fibrosis with early insulin treatment

Diabetes mellitus is an increasingly prevalent complication of cystic fibrosis (CF) as a result of the increased life expectancy resulting from advances in CF treatment. The management of cystic fibrosis related diabetes (CFRD) has previously focused on symptomatic relief under the assumption that, with limited life expectancy, aggressive treatment was unnecessary. However, there is now evidence of a clear association between CFRD and increased morbidity and mortality.1,2 Lung function and clinical status deteriorate up to 2–4 years before a diagnosis of CFRD based on the oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT),2,3 suggesting that insulin deficiency may have adverse clinical effects prior to the development of sufficient hyperglycaemia to make a diagnosis of diabetes on conventional OGTT criteria. The introduction of insulin treatment can produce clinical improvement in weight and lung function as well as glycaemia.4,5 We noticed that in CF patients with diabetes the initiation of insulin treatment was associated with a notable clinical improvement that could not be explained by the treatment of their relatively mild hyperglycaemia. In addition glucose values on home or ward monitoring were often higher than those seen during the OGTT. We therefore gave insulin treatment to four patients with long standing CF, who had weight loss and deteriorating lung function without a clear cause, and had high random glucose values even when their OGTT showed normal glucose tolerance. We report improvement in all four patients in objective markers of clinical status. Case 1 was a 20 year old male, homozygous for DF508, diagnosed at 6 years of age with failure to thrive and a positive sweat test, with …
Roscovitine, a specific inhibitor of cyclin-dependent protein kinases, reversibly inhibits chromatin condensation during in vitro maturation of porcine oocytes

In the present study the effects of roscovitine on the in vitro nuclear maturation of porcine oocytes were investigated. Roscovitine, a specific inhibitor of cyclin-dependent protein kinases, prevented chromatin condensation in a concentration-dependent manner. This inhibition was reversible and was accompanied by non-activation of p34cdc2/histone H1 kinase. It also decreased enzyme activity of MAP kinase, suggesting a correlation between histone H1 kinase activation and the onset of chromatin condensation. The addition of roscovitine (50 μM) to extracts of metaphase II oocytes revealed that the MAP kinase activity was not directly affected by roscovitine, which indicates a possible link between histone H1 and MAP kinase. Chromatin condensation occurred between 20 and 28 h of culture of cumulus-oocyte complexes (COCs) in inhibitor-free medium (germinal vesicle stage I, GV1: 74.6% and 13.7%, respectively). Nearly the same proportion of chromatin condensation was detected in COCs incubated initially in inhibitor-free medium for 20-28 h and subsequently in roscovitine-supplemented medium (50 μM) for a further 2-10 h (GV I: 76.2% and 18.8%, respectively). This observation indicates that roscovitine prevents chromatin condensation even after an initial inhibitor-free cultivation for 20 h. Extending this initial incubation period to ≥22 h led to an activation of histone H1 and MAP kinase and increasing proportions of oocytes exhibiting chromatin condensation in the presence of roscovitine. It is concluded that histone H1 kinase is involved in the induction of chromatin condensation during in vitro maturation of porcine oocytes.
Evaluation of emotional influence in communicating with a robot

Communicative robots have studied as a mediator to obtain the information in Human-robot interaction research field. The study in this paper presents that people have emotional feelings during interacting with robot by the comparison experiment conducted as two assignment, ifbot-assignment and web-assignment. 62 subjects are participated in both assignments. Ifbot assignment is to get a particular information by verbal communication with a robot. Web assignment is to search the same information by using a limited search engine. The emotions of participants are assessed by the questionnaire regarding eight different emotional status. As a result, the participants experienced more strongly emotional feelings, such as “Depression”, “Boredom”, “Liveliness”, “Friendliness”, and “Startlement”, in the ifbot assignment than web assignment. Moreover, participants are divided into five groups based on the statistical tests.
Enhanced neuronal and blunted hemodynamic reactivity to cocaine in the prefrontal cortex following extended cocaine access: optical imaging study in anesthetized rats

Cocaine addiction is associated with dysfunction of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), which facilitates relapse and compulsive drug taking. To assess if cocaine's effects on both neuronal and vascular activity contribute to PFC dysfunction, we used optical coherence tomography and multi‐wavelength laser speckle to measure vascularization and hemodynamics and used GCaMP6f to monitor intracellular Ca2+ levels ([Ca2+]in) as a marker of neuronal activity. Rats were given short (1 hour; ShA) or long (6 hours; LgA) access cocaine self‐administration. As expected, LgA but not ShA rats escalated cocaine intake. In naïve rats, acute cocaine decreased oxygenated hemoglobin, increased deoxygenated hemoglobin and reduced cerebral blood flow in PFC, likely due to cocaine‐induced vasoconstriction. ShA rats showed enhanced hemodynamic response and slower recovery after cocaine, versus naïve. LgA rats showed a blunted hemodynamic response, but an enhanced PFC neuronal [Ca2+]in increase after cocaine challenge associated with drug intake. Both ShA and LgA groups had higher vessel density, indicative of angiogenesis, presumably to compensate for cocaine's vasoconstricting effects. Cocaine self‐administration modified the PFC cerebrovascular responses enhancing it in ShA and attenuating it in LgA animals. In contrast, LgA but not ShA animals showed sensitized neuronal reactivity to acute cocaine in the PFC. The opposite changes in hemodynamics (decreased) and neuronal responses (enhanced) in LgA rats indicate that these constitute distinct effects and suggest that the neuronal and not the vascular effects are associated with escalation of cocaine intake in addiction whereas its vascular effect in PFC might contribute to cognitive deficits that increase vulnerability to relapse.
Phase III study of concurrent versus sequential thoracic radiotherapy in combination with mitomycin, vindesine, and cisplatin in unresectable stage III non-small-cell lung cancer.

PURPOSE A phase III study was performed to determine whether concurrent or sequential treatment with radiotherapy (RT) and chemotherapy (CT) improves survival in unresectable stage III non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). PATIENTS AND METHODS Patients were assigned to the two treatment arms. In the concurrent arm, chemotherapy consisted of cisplatin (80 mg/m(2) on days 1 and 29), vindesine (3 mg/m(2) on days 1, 8, 29, and 36), and mitomycin (8 mg/m(2) on days 1 and 29). RT began on day 2 at a dose of 28 Gy (2 Gy per fraction and 5 fractions per week for a total of 14 fractions) followed by a rest period of 10 days, and then repeated. In the sequential arm, the same CT was given, but RT was initiated after completing CT and consisted of 56 Gy (2 Gy per fraction and 5 fractions per week for a total of 28 fractions). RESULTS Three hundred twenty patients were entered onto the study. Pretreatment characteristics were well balanced between the treatment arms. The response rate for the concurrent arm was significantly higher (84. 0%) than that of the sequential arm (66%) (P =.0002). The median survival duration was significantly superior in patients receiving concurrent therapy (16.5 months), as compared with those receiving sequential therapy (13.3 months) (P =.03998). Two-, 3-, 4-, and 5-year survival rates in the concurrent group (34.6%, 22.3%, 16.9%, and 15.8%, respectively) were better than those in the sequential group (27.4%, 14.7%, 10.1%, and 8.9%, respectively). Myelosuppression was significantly greater among patients on the concurrent arm than on the sequential arm (P =.0001). CONCLUSION In selected patients with unresectable stage III NSCLC, the concurrent approach yields a significantly increased response rate and enhanced median survival duration when compared with the sequential approach.
The Impact of Customer Services in International Markets

Traditionally distribution service has been viewed as an ancillary part of the product, “a necessary evil”. As a consequence service levels tended to emerge over time to meet corporate goals. In the past managers would point out the fact that they had shipped 90 per cent of cases ordered within 24 hours when answering the question “what level of customer service does your company give? ” This isolation of one element of customer service as representative of the level of service offered was a very common practice.
The sphingosine kinase 1/sphingosine-1-phosphate pathway in pulmonary arterial hypertension.

RATIONALE Sphingosine kinases (SphKs) 1 and 2 regulate the synthesis of the bioactive sphingolipid sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P), an important lipid mediator that promotes cell proliferation, migration, and angiogenesis. OBJECTIVES We aimed to examine whether SphKs and their product, S1P, play a role in the development of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). METHODS SphK1(-/-), SphK2(-/-), and S1P lyase heterozygous (Sgpl1(+/-)) mice, a pharmacologic SphK inhibitor (SKI2), and a S1P receptor 2 (S1PR2) antagonist (JTE013) were used in rodent models of hypoxia-mediated pulmonary hypertension (HPH). S1P levels in lung tissues from patients with PAH and pulmonary arteries (PAs) from rodent models of HPH were measured. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS mRNA and protein levels of SphK1, but not SphK2, were significantly increased in the lungs and isolated PA smooth muscle cells (PASMCs) from patients with PAH, and in lungs of experimental rodent models of HPH. S1P levels were increased in lungs of patients with PAH and PAs from rodent models of HPH. Unlike SphK2(-/-) mice, SphK1(-/-) mice were protected against HPH, whereas Sgpl1(+/-) mice were more susceptible to HPH. Pharmacologic SphK1 and S1PR2 inhibition prevented the development of HPH in rodent models of HPH. Overexpression of SphK1 and stimulation with S1P potentially via ligation of S1PR2 promoted PASMC proliferation in vitro, whereas SphK1 deficiency inhibited PASMC proliferation. CONCLUSIONS The SphK1/S1P axis is a novel pathway in PAH that promotes PASMC proliferation, a major contributor to pulmonary vascular remodeling. Our results suggest that this pathway is a potential therapeutic target in PAH.