Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Methodology for Identifying the Poorest at Local Level

This article argues that the extreme poor warrant specific analytical and policy focus. It attempts to identify the extreme poor in rural Bangladesh by devising sensitive targeting indicators that are effective in minimising leakage to the non-poor while ensuring broad coverage of the target group. A number of indicators are examined, resulting in the conclusion that since no single indicator contains sufficient information, it is better to combine those which are most effective. Regional targeting and household-based indicators are also recommended for the design of extreme-poor oriented programmes. However, if the process of administering is left to the bureaucratic discretion of programme managers, it is unlikely that better identification will have an effect on the extreme poor. This risk can be minimised through consultation with communities and NGOs, and facilitated by effective local government. Information exchange with like-minded programmes can also contribute to the development of more socially equitable and inclusive pro-poor policies.
Strategic information technology management: Perspectives on organizational growth and competitive advantage

Assessing IT performance What the experts say Banking on IT investment - where are the returns? IT investment impact on competing delivery conditions estimating the value of IT through resource analysis Acquisition, ownership and use of IT property rights as a competitive weapon Information technology in changing economies - necessity or luxury? Managing information technology - an integrative model Incorporating learning, and information technology Ho IT expenditures differ for growing versus declining organizations IT investment impact on quality management Economic impact of the diversity of IT applications When IT creates a threat and an opportunity and much more!
Exercise Training The Effect of Combined Aerobic and Resistance Exercise Training on Vascular Function in Type 2 Diabetes

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to examine whether exercise training stimulates a generalized improvement in vascular function in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. BACKGROUND Exercise is often recommended for patients with type 2 diabetes to improve physical conditioning and glycemic control. This study examined the effect of eight weeks of exercise training on conduit and resistance vessel function in patients with type 2 diabetes, using a randomized crossover design. METHODS Both resistance vessel endothelium-dependent and -independent functions were determined by forearm plethysmography and intrabrachial infusions of acetylcholine (ACh) and sodium nitroprusside (SNP), respectively, in 16 patients with type 2 diabetes. Conduit vessel endothelial function was assessed in 15 of these patients using high-resolution ultrasound and flow-mediated dilation of the brachial artery; glyceryl trinitrate (GTN) was used as an endothelium-independent dilator. RESULTS Flow-mediated dilation increased from 1.7 6 0.5% to 5.0 6 0.4% following training (p , 0.001). The forearm blood flow ratio to ACh was significantly improved (analysis of variance, p , 0.05). Responses to SNP and GTN were unchanged. Endothelium-dependent vasodilation was enhanced in both conduit and resistance vessels. CONCLUSIONS If endothelial dysfunction is an integral component of the pathogenesis of vascular disease, as currently believed, this study supports the value of an exercise program in the management of type 2 diabetes. (J Am Coll Cardiol 2001;38:860–6) © 2001 by the American College of Cardiology
Voicing level control with application in voice conversion

Speech processing related changes in the speech spectra may often lead to unwanted changes in the effective degree of voicing, which in turn may degrade the speech quality. This phenomenon is studied more closely in this paper, first on a theoretical level and then in the context of voice conversion. Moreover, a simple but efficient approach for avoiding the unwanted changes in the effective level of voicing is proposed. The usefulness of the proposed voicing level control is demonstrated in a practical voice conversion system. The compensation of the changes in the degree of voicing is found to reduce the average level of noise in the output and to enhance the perceptual speech quality.
An Evaluation of Techniques for the Extraction and Amplification of DNA from Naturally Shed Hairs

Abstract Hair can be a valuable source of DNA for the noninvasive study of human and nonhuman populations. However, hairs contain extremely small quantities of DNA, making the method used to extract the DNA of paramount importance. This study compares the effectiveness of 4 different methods of DNA extraction from shed chimpanzee hair, as measured by the ability to amplify mtDNA targets using PCR. The most successful method is also the simplest, requiring only digestion of the root end in a buffer compatible with subsequent PCR without a prior purification or extraction step. Strategies to non-specifically preamplify the template are not successful with DNA from stored shed hairs.
Domestic supplier integration in the Chinese automotive industry : the buyer’s perspective

This paper presents the results of an empirical analysis of the current practices of, and key challenges to, domestic supplier integration in the Chinese automotive industry from the buyer's perspective. The results are based on case interviews with thirty automotive firms from various countries of origin with manufacturing operations in China. The research findings indicate that domestic supplier integration in terms of joint product development and advanced production planning activities between buyers and suppliers currently takes place to a relatively low extent. The study results also reveal that a lack of critical supplier capabilities as well as buyer-side constraints act as inhibiting factors.
Mode security: an infrastructure for covert channel suppression

The paper discusses a theory of covert channels called mode security. The general idea is to organize the state transitions of a multilevel state machine into distinct sets called modes. Roughly speaking, each machine mode is totally secure when considered in isolation of all other modes. Covert channels can therefore only occur when the machine executes a mode change decision; thus the name, mode security. The claim that all covert channels in a mode secure system are connected with mode change decisions can be satisfied by a generalization of the Turing test model of non-information flow. <<ETX>>
Perfect fractional matchings in k-out hypergraphs

Extending the notion of (random) $k$-out graphs, we consider when the $k$-out hypergraph is likely to have a perfect fractional matching. In particular, we show that for each $r$ there is a $k=k(r)$ such that the $k$-out $r$-uniform hypergraph on $n$ vertices has a perfect fractional matching with high probability (i.e., with probability tending to $1$ as $n\to \infty$) and prove an analogous result for $r$-uniform $r$-partite hypergraphs. This is based on a new notion of hypergraph expansion and the observation that sufficiently expansive hypergraphs admit perfect fractional matchings. As a further application, we give a short proof of a stopping-time result originally due to Krivelevich.
Extended sequence preferences for oligodeoxyribonucleotide activity

Synthetic type B phosphorothioate oligodeoxyribonucleotides (ODN) activate mouse B cells via Toll‐like receptor 9 (TLR9). Starting with closely related 15‐mer prototype ODN, the sequence requirements for stimulatory (ST‐) and inhibitory (IN‐) activity were contrasted, by measuring apoptosis protection, G1 entry and interleukin‐6 secretion. ST‐ODN and IN‐ODN differ in that (1) ST‐ODN require a 5′ T, (2) the central CG is obligatory, (3) CG must be flanked 3′ specifically by TT at the position where IN‐ODN have GG, and (4) IN‐ODN tolerate truncation of the 3′ end better than ST‐ODN. Features shared by ST‐ODN and IN‐ODN include (1) requiring CC adjacent to the 5′ end, and (2) avoiding CC immediately 5′ to the CG. This pattern is used to create a model of how ST‐ODN binding might function to aggregate TLR9 so as to initiate the signal, and how the 5′ ends of ST‐ODN and IN‐ODN compete for binding. Further justification for considering TLR9 to be the ODN receptor was provided by a demonstration that in HEK293 cells transfected with TLR9, the potency of a panel of ODN for activating NF‐κB roughly parallels that seen in the biological assays in mouse B cells.
The Impact of Nursing Leadership Training on Evidence-Based Leadership and Practice

Aim: To assess the impact of leadership training on nurse leaders’ perceptions of evidence-based leadership (EBL) and practice (EBP). Background: Nurse leaders are the key persons for promoting EBP. They have to use evidence skillfully both in practice and leadership. Methods: 47 nurse leaders participated in EBL training (2010 – 2011) for the “At Safe” project. Data were collected from 42 leaders before the training and 34 after. The questionnaires were developed as part of the project. The data were analyzed using frequency analysis. Results: Before the training most of the nurse leaders had the positive perceptions of using research knowledge to develop the practice and leadership. The training had helped nurse leaders to understand that decisions can be justified with research knowledge, which strengthened the leaders’ responsibility to develop EBP, EBL and their work unit. Most of the nurse leaders seldom brought research publications for their staff to read or discussed findings with them. Conclusions: Nurse leaders have a positive attitude to EBP and EBL but they need to more promote it to their staff and use it for their own leadership. The EBL courses might highlight the importance of using evidence in leadership, but changing their leadership style needs time and willingness. The nurse leaders should become aware of the importance of EBL and EBP. There is an urgent need for training and new innovations to support EBL.
Managing knowledge for personal and organisational benefit

The authors build on a recent article which highlighted the difficulty that many managers have in understanding why knowledge management (KM) is important for them personally and their organisation. It argued that the issue can be addressed by ensuring that KM is understood in ways that illustrate its managerial currency, actionability and relevance and described how to achieve currency and actionability of the KM idea. This second paper addresses “personal relevance”, the other essential characteristic of usable ideas. The authors illustrate how different managerial roles can appreciate this personal relevance by focusing their activity selectively on different domains of managerial knowledge and specific, targeted knowledge management activities. KM is revealed as a usable idea which enhances their personal effectiveness, organisational influence and credibility as well as long‐term organisational interest. A personal KM audit is presented.
Determinants of Capital Structure: Evidence From Real Sector Firms Listed in ISE

This paper investigates the determinants of capital structure of production firms listed in ISE. The data of 196 firms are obtained from the quarterly financial statements between 2001q2 – 2008q2. We used the method of Panel Corrected Standard Errors developed by Beck and Katz (1995) to examine the data set in which, in total, we have 5684 observations. The findings can be interpreted as the relevance of pecking order theory for the short term debts whereas the relevance of static tradeoff theory for the long term debts, of firms listed in ISE.
GATA4 sequence variants in patients with congenital heart disease

Background: Recent reports have identified mutations in the transcription factor GATA4 in familial cases of cardiac septal defects. The prevalence of GATA4 mutations in the population of patients with septal defects is unknown. Given that patients with septal and conotruncal defect can share a common genetic basis, it is unclear whether patients with additional types of CHD might also have GATA4 mutations. Aims: To explore these questions by investigating a large population of 628 patients with either septal or conotruncal defects for GATA4 sequence variants. Methods: The GATA4 coding region and exon–intron boundaries were investigated for sequence variants using denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography or conformation-sensitive gel electrophoresis. Samples showing peak or band shifts were reamplified from genomic DNA and sequenced. Results: Four missense sequence variants (Gly93Ala, Gln316Glu, Ala411Val, Asp425Asn) were identified in five patients (two with atrial septal defect, two with ventricular septal defect and one with tetralogy of Fallot), which were not seen in a control population. All four affected amino acid residues are conserved across species, and two of the sequence variants lead to changes in polarity. Ten synonymous sequence variants were also identified in 18 patients, which were not seen in the control population. Conclusions: These data suggest that non-synonymous GATA4 sequence variants are found in a small percentage of patients with septal defects and are very uncommonly found in patients with conotruncal defects.
Phenotypic manifestations of MECP2 mutations in classical and atypical rett syndrome

Since the identification of mutations in MECP2 in girls and women with apparent Rett syndrome, numerous efforts have been made to develop phenotype‐genotype correlations. These studies have produced conflicting results in part related to use of different clinical severity scales, different diagnostic criteria, and different stratification by age and mutation group as well as the possible effects of unbalanced X‐chromosome inactivation. The present study applied a revised ordinal scoring system that allowed for correction for patient ages. We analyzed 85 patients with mutation in MECP2. Sixty‐five (76%) had one of eight common mutations. Patients with missense mutations had lower total severity scores and better language performance than those with nonsense mutations. No difference was noted between severity scores for mutations in the methyl‐binding domain (MBD) and the transcriptional repression domain (TRD). However, patients with missense mutations in TRD had the best overall scores and better preservation of head growth and language skills. Analysis of specific mutation groups demonstrated a striking difference for patients with the R306C mutation including better overall score, later regression, and better language with less motoric impairment. Indeed, these patients as a group accounted for the differences in overall scores between the missense and nonsense groups. Thus, the impact of specific mutations coupled with possible variation in X‐chromosome inactivation must be considered carefully in the derivation of phenotype‐genotype correlations. These results emphasize the limitations of such analyses in larger mutation groups, either by type or position. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Virtual Servers Allocated Dynamically With Support of Dps for Saving Energy and Reducing Operational Cost

Cloud computing is a model for delivering services in which resources are retrieved from the internet through web-based tools and applications, rather than a direct connection to a server. Data is stored in servers. Cloud computing structure allows access to information as long as an electronic device has access to the web. According to National institute of standards and Technology (NIST) – “the major objective of cloud computing is to maximize the shared resources and at the same time the disadvantage is its high infrastructure cost and unnecessary energy consumption. ” Global warming has been a big concern of late, with high power consumption and CO2 emission. With the continuously increasing popularity and usage of cloud computing, high power consumed and harmful gasses released by data centers. Cloud uses thousands of data centers to processes user queries and to run these data centers bulk amount of power is used for cooling and other processes. This power consumption increases gradually every year and green computing playing a helpful role to curb these issues. This type of system allows employees to work remotely. It enables hosting of applications from consumer, scientific and business domains. But data centers hosting cloud computing applications consume huge amounts of energy, contributing to high operational costs and carbon footprints to the environment. With energy shortages and global climate change leading our concerns these days, the power consumption of data centers has become a key issue. Therefore, green cloud computing solutions saves energy as well as reduces operational costs. The vision for energy efficient management of cloud computing environments is presented here. The proposed scheme has a two important features . These approaches (DPS(by using Dvfs technology), VM migration technology based on threshold value) have been tried out to make cloud computing environments more environmental friendly . These approaches have been tried out in the data centers under experimental conditions.
THE EFFECT OF ANTIGEN ON THE PROLIFERATION OF SPLEEN CELL SUSPENSIONS FROM TOLERANT RABBITS.

DNA synthesis is stimulated when homologous antigen is added to suspensions of spleen cells from previously immunized rabbits. This has been taken to represent the in vitro counterpart of the proliferative response seen in vivo and which leads to the appearance of differentiated cells which synthesize antibody. The results described show that cells from a rabbit made tolerant by neonatal exposure to antigen do not respond to that antigen when challenged in vitro even after an intensive course of immunization. (It should be noted that small quantities of antigen were probably still present in the circulation at the time of sacrifice.) Thus, not only is no antibody synthesized but there is no proliferative response of precursor cells. In addition, it has been shown that simultaneous exposure of the cells to the antigen to which they are tolerant does not affect their response to a second antigen to which they are immune. These findings are consonant with the reports of in vivo studies (1–4) referred to in the introduction and confirm the complete lack of a response at the cellular level in immunologically unresponsive animals.
Vespa velutina nest distribution at a local scale: An 8‐year survey of the invasive honeybee predator

Vespa velutina is an invasive species that was observed for the first time in France and Europe in 2004, which rapidly threatened domestic honeybees with active predation. For the first time in this study, we analyzed the distribution of V. velutina nests at a local scale to understand the pattern of nesting, and in 8 years of monitoring, a total of 528 nests were surveyed. With the exception of 2 years, the nests of V. velutina were randomly distributed within the monitored area, which suggested that intraspecific competition for nesting sites and/or food was unlikely. When the data for all years were combined, an aggregated distribution of nests at the seafront in the vicinity of the oyster farm and sportfishing activities was observed. This distribution suggested that seafood, attractive to vespids, might provide a valuable alternative food source that favored colony development. We also tested the effect of spring queen trapping of V. velutina on the distribution of nests in 2014, which was the year with the greatest number of colonies within the area; the position of the traps did not influence the distribution of the nests. For the first time, this study showed that (i) intraspecific competition was unlikely to be a mechanism for population regulation, (ii) some areas were more likely favored for hornet nests, and (iii) spring queen wasp trapping was inefficient as a method to limit the distribution of the V. velutina population.
Acoustic Gaits: Gait Analysis With Footstep Sounds

We describe the acoustic gaits-the natural human gait quantitative characteristics derived from the sound of footsteps as the person walks normally. We introduce the acoustic gait profile, which is obtained from temporal signal analysis of sound of footsteps collected by microphones and illustrate some of the spatio-temporal gait parameters that can be extracted from the acoustic gait profile by using three temporal signal analysis methods-the squared energy estimate, Hilbert transform and Teager-Kaiser energy operator. Based on the statistical analysis of the parameter estimates, we show that the spatio-temporal parameters and gait characteristics obtained using the acoustic gait profile can consistently and reliably estimate a subset of clinical and biometric gait parameters currently in use for standardized gait assessments. We conclude that the Teager-Kaiser energy operator provides the most consistent gait parameter estimates showing the least variation across different sessions and zones. Acoustic gaits use an inexpensive set of microphones with a computing device as an accurate and unintrusive gait analysis system. This is in contrast to the expensive and intrusive systems currently used in laboratory gait analysis such as the force plates, pressure mats and wearable sensors, some of which may change the gait parameters that are being measured.
Spring temperature responses of oaks are synchronous with North Atlantic conditions during the last deglaciation

Paleoclimate proxies based on the measurement of xylem cell anatomy have rarely been developed across the temperature range of a species or applied to wood predating the most recent millennium. Here we describe wood anatomy-based proxies for spring temperatures in central North America from modern bur oaks (Quercus macrocarpa Michx.). The strong coherence of temperature signals across the species range supports the use of these proxies across thousands of years of climatic change. We also used 79 subfossil oak log cross sections from northern Missouri, 14C-dated to 9.9–13.63 ka (ka is 1000 cal yr BP), to assess the frequency of oak deposition into alluvial sediments and a subset of these oaks for a wood anatomy-based reconstruction of spring paleotemperatures. Temperatures during the Younger Dryas cold period (YD) were up to 3.5°C lower than modern temperatures for that region, equivalent to or lower than those experienced at the northern edge of the modern species range. Compared to extant oaks growing a.
Pathological Laughter as a Symptom of Midbrain Infarction

Pathological laughter is an uncommon symptom usually caused by bilateral, diffuse cerebral lesions. It has rarely been reported in association with isolated cerebral lesions. Midbrain involvement causing pathological laughter is extremely unusual. We describe three patients who developed pathological laughter after midbrain and pontine-midbrain infarction. In two patients a small infarction in the left paramedian midbrain was detected, whereas the third one sustained a massive bilateral pontine infarction extending to the midbrain. Laughter heralded stroke by one day in one patient and occurred as a delayed phenomenon three months after stroke in another. Pathological laughter ceased within a few days in two patients and was still present at a two year follow-up in the patient with delayed-onset laughter. Pathological laughter can herald midbrain infarction or follow stroke either shortly after onset of symptoms or as a delayed phenomenon. Furthermore, small unilateral midbrain infarctions can cause this rare complication.
A Modified Approach to Sural Nerve Biopsy: Minimizing Complications

The traditional sural nerve biopsy is performed through a distal incision at or just above the ankle. Although a simple procedure, these biopsies are associated with significant morbidity. The authors review the anatomy of the sural nerve, biopsy techniques described in the literature, and potential complications. A modified approach, based on a more proximal incision, and its outcomes are described.