Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
OS-controlled cache predictability for real-time systems

Cache-partitioning techniques have been invented to make modern processors with an extensive cache structure useful in real-time systems where task switches disrupt cache working sets and hence make execution times unpredictable. This paper describes an OS-controlled application-transparent cache-partitioning technique. The resulting partitions can be transparently assigned to tasks for their exclusive use. The major drawbacks found in other cache-partitioning techniques, namely waste of memory and additions on the critical performance path within CPUs, are avoided using memory coloring techniques that do nor require changes within the chips of modern CPUs or on the critical path for performance. A simple filter algorithm commonly used in real-time systems, a matrix-multiplication algorithm and the interaction of both are analysed with regard to cache-induced worst case penalties. Worst-case penalties are determined for different widely-used cache architectures. Some insights regarding the impact of cache architectures on worst-case execution are described.
Autophagy and Neurodegeneration: Insights from a Cultured Cell Model of ALS

Autophagy plays a major role in the elimination of cellular waste components, the renewal of intracellular proteins and the prevention of the build-up of redundant or defective material. It is fundamental for the maintenance of homeostasis and especially important in post-mitotic neuronal cells, which, without competent autophagy, accumulate protein aggregates and degenerate. Many neurodegenerative diseases are associated with defective autophagy; however, whether altered protein turnover or accumulation of misfolded, aggregate-prone proteins is the primary insult in neurodegeneration has long been a matter of debate. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal disease characterized by selective degeneration of motor neurons. Most of the ALS cases occur in sporadic forms (SALS), while 10%–15% of the cases have a positive familial history (FALS). The accumulation in the cell of misfolded/abnormal proteins is a hallmark of both SALS and FALS, and altered protein degradation due to autophagy dysregulation has been proposed to contribute to ALS pathogenesis. In this review, we focus on the main molecular features of autophagy to provide a framework for discussion of our recent findings about the role in disease pathogenesis of the ALS-linked form of the VAPB gene product, a mutant protein that drives the generation of unusual cytoplasmic inclusions.
Superoxide Dismutase Conjugated to Polyethylene Glycol Provides Sustained Protection Against Myocardial Ischemia/ Reperfusion Injury in Canine Heart

Disagreement regarding the cardioprotective role of superoxide dismutase may relate to the use of different durations for induction of ischemic injury and reperfusion. The present study employed superoxide dismutase conjugated to polyethylene glycol (PEG-SOD), which has a half-life greater than 30 hours. Two protocols differing in the mode of administration and the duration of the reperfusion interval were used. Dogs were subjected to occlusion of the circumflex coronary artery for 90 minutes, then reperfused for 6 hours (Protocol A) or 4 days (Protocol B). The dogs received either polyethylene glycol conjugated to albumin (PEG-ALB) or PEG-SOD (1,000 U/kg). In Protocol A, treatment was administered starting 15 minutes before coronary occlusion and continued for 2 hours, terminating 15 minutes after reperfusion. Infarct size was determined 6 hours later. In Protocol B, the conjugated proteins were given 15 minutes before reperfusion and ended simultaneously with reperfusion. Infarct size was measured after 4 days. Infarct size (percentage of area at risk) in control (n = 9) and treated (n = 9) dogs in Protocol A differed between groups: 46.7±3.5% versus 28.3±2.9%, respectively (p±O.005); risk regions did not differ: 42.8±1.5% versus 43.8±2.1%, respectively. Myocardial salvage also was observed in Protocol B. Infarct size in control (n = 13) and treated (n = 13) groups was 44.2±2.6% versus 29.2±1.6%, respectively (p±0.005), with risk regions being 44.4±1.4% versus 46.0 ±1.6% (p = NS). Hemodynamic variables did not differ during the period of coronary artery occlusion. The respective collateral blood flows to the inner two thirds of the ischemic myocardium determined 60 minutes after occlusion were 0.05 ±0.01 ml/min/g and 0.06±0.04 ml/min/g (p = 0.806) for the PEG-ALB and PEG-SOD treated groups, respectively. Infarct size was related inversely to collateral blood flow in the PEG-ALB treated group. This relation shifted downward (analysis of covariance, p = 0.017). Plasma SOD activity in Protocols A sustained for 6 hours. Significant enzymatic activity was present after 4 days in Protocol B. Previous negative studies with native SOD may be related to the short half-life of its free-radical scavenging capacity, which compromises the chances of observing a protective effect after 4 days of reperfusion. The present results support our previous observations, as well as those of other investigators, demonstrating that superoxide dismutase can reduce that component of myocardial injury associated with reperfusion.
A Method for Presentation of Knowledge Sharing, Based on the Markov Chain Theory

In this paper,a method of modeling knowledge sharing success, has been proposed thru stochastic processes which is using an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) model.The elements in each row of the transition matrix,is calculated.In Previous studies, thru AHP process, only forecasting of knowledge management (KM) project success or failure was possible. But the problem is, It is not desirable for senior managers to invest immensely for development, only with knowing about possibility of project success or failure.this paper, contribute senior management to make much more effective decision in order to increasing or decreasing investment in knowledge sharing thru implement of the Marcov chain transition matrix.
Relationship between English language use and preferences for involvement in medical care among Hispanic women.

OBJECTIVE To assess how English language use by Hispanic women affects their preferences for participating in decision making and information seeking regarding medical care. METHODS The study included 235 Hispanic women aged 35-61 years participating in a larger multicenter study, the Ethnicity, Needs, and Decisions of Women (ENDOW) Project. Participants were recruited from community settings and primary care public health clinics. Bilingual (English and Spanish speaking) interviewers asked participants questions about demographic characteristics, health status, reproductive history, menopausal status, access to healthcare, experience with hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and hysterectomy, outcome expectations about HRT and hysterectomy, medical decision making, and social support. Using univariate and multivariate analyses, we assessed the relationships between the participants' preferences for participating in decision making and information seeking, their language use, and other covariates of interest. RESULTS Overall, the participants expressed a strong desire for information about and participating in medical decisions. However, they expressed a lower preference for participating in decisions related to use of HRT compared with the desire for engaging in decision involving invasive medical procedures (hysterectomy and cholecystectomy) and high blood pressure management. Increased use of English language was significantly associated with preferences for participating in medical care decision making, in general (p < 0.001), and with information seeking (p = 0.044). Decreased use of English language was associated with a lower desire for participating in medical care decision making. CONCLUSIONS Increased use of English language may influence Hispanic women's preferences for participating in medical decisions and their information-seeking behavior.
The maternal and neonatal effects of adding tramadol to 2% lidocaine in epidural anesthesia for cesarean section

Background: Opioid analgesics are commonly added to epidural local anesthetics to improve analgesia during surgery. Objectives: The goal of this study was to evaluate the maternal and neonatal effects of adding different doses of tramadol to 2% lidocaine in the epidural anesthesia for cesarean section. Patients and Methods: Ninety pregnant patients who were candidates for cesarean section under epidural anesthesia were randomly categorized into three groups. Group L received 2% lidocaine. In the LT50 and LT100 groups, 50 and 100 mg of tramadol were added to epidural 2% lidocaine. For additional analgesia during surgery, 2% lidocaine through epidural catheter or IV sufentanil were administered. Analgesia after surgery was provided by IV injection of meperidine. Onset and duration of sensory and motor blockades, total drug consumption, neonatal Apgar score, and complications were recorded. Results: In the LT100 group, onset of complete sensory and motor blockade at T6 was less than in the two other groups, but the highest level of sensory blockade and two segment regression and duration of motor blockades between the LT50 and LT100 groups were not significantly different, although they were higher and more prolonged than in the L group. Average lidocaine and sufentanil consumption during surgery between the LT50 and LT100 groups were not significantly different but were lower than in the L group. The incidence of maternal complications and neonatal Apgar scores were not significantly different between the three groups. In the LT50 and LT100 groups, the time until the first request for analgesics after surgery was prolonged, and average meperidine consumption was less than in the L group. Conclusions: The addition of tramadol to epidural 2% lidocaine offers advantages in cesarean section.
Controlof Pseudomonas aeruginosa algZ Expression bythe Alternative Sigma FactorAlgT

ABSTRACT AlgZ controls Pseudomonas aeruginosa alginate synthesis by activating algD, yet algZ expression is not detectable in nonmucoid strains. Mobility shift and Western blot assays revealed that algZ expression requires the sigma factor AlgT. The mapped algZ transcription start site revealed a consensus AlgT-dependent promoter that, when mutated, substantially reduced algZ transcription.
Visuomotor Transformations for Reaching to Memorized Targets: A PET Study

Positron emission tomography (PET) was used to identify cortical and subcortical regions involved in the control of reaching to visual targets. Regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) was measured in eight healthy subjects using H2(15)O PET during the performance of three different tasks. All tasks required central fixation while a 400-ms target was flashed every 5 s at a random location around a virtual circle centered on the fixation target. Additional instructions differed according to the task: (i) visual detection of the target without overt responses; (ii) immediate pointing to the most recent target in the sequence, and (iii) pointing to the previous target in the sequence. By design, the two motor tasks differed in the cognitive processing required. In each trial of immediate pointing, the spatial location of only the most recent target needed to be processed. In each trial of pointing to the previous, instead, while the most recent target was stored in memory for the movement of the next trial, the previous target had to be retrieved from memory to direct the current movement. Limb trajectories were comparable between the two motor tasks in terms of most spatiotemporal parameters examined. Significant rCBF increases were identified using analysis of covariance and t statistics. Compared with visual detection there was activation of primary sensorimotor cortex, ventrolateral precentral gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus in the opercular region, supramarginal gyrus, and middle occipital gyrus, all these sites in the hemisphere (left) contralateral to the moving limb, and cerebellar vermis, during both immediate pointing and pointing to the previous. During immediate pointing there was additional activation of left inferior parietal lobule close to the intraparietal sulcus, and when compared with pointing to the previous, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex bilaterally. During pointing to the previous, instead, there was additional activation of supplementary motor cortex, anterior and midcingulate, and inferior occipital gyrus in the left hemisphere; superior parietal lobule, supramarginal gyrus, and posterior hippocampus in the right hemisphere; lingual gyri and cerebellar hemispheres bilaterally; anterior thalamus; and pulvinar. The activation of two partially distinct cerebral networks in these two motor tasks reflects the different nature of signal processing involved. In particular, the specific activation of intraparietal sulcus and prefrontal cortex in immediate pointing appears characteristic of a network for visuospatial working memory. By contrast, the corticolimbic network engaged in pointing to the previous could mediate spatial attention and the sequence of encoding, recording, and decoding of spatial memories required by a dual task with two competing targets.
Improving a dynamic ensemble selection method based on oracle information

This work evaluates some strategies to approximate the performance of a dynamic ensemble selection method to the oracle performance of its pool of weak classifiers. For this purpose, we evaluated different distance metrics in the K-nearest-oracles (KNORA) method, the use of statistics related to the class accuracy of each classifier in the pool and some additional information calculated by using a clustering process in the validation dataset. Moreover, different strategies are also evaluated to combine the results of the KNORA dynamic ensemble selection method with the results of its built-in K-nearest neighbour (KNN) used to define the neighbourhood of a test pattern during the ensemble creation. A strong experimental protocol based on more than 60,000 samples of handwriting digits extracted from NIST-SD19 was used to evaluate each strategy. The experiments have shown that the fusion of the KNORA results with the results of its built-in KNN is a very promising strategy.
Households' Adoption of Drought Tolerant Plants: An Adaptation to Climate Change?

Declining water availability is a predicted consequence of climate change, and water conservation by households can be a useful adaptation strategy. Households in the Midwest face increased variation in water availability, in particular, more frequent droughts. Residents’ perception of climate change and interaction with social and environmental systems can contribute to households’ adoption of drought tolerant plant (DTPs) as an innovation to conserve water use. Using data from a household survey conducted in 2014, adoption of DTPs was analyzed with a univariate probit model. Variables were classified into five categories: 1) perceptions of climate change, 2) effects of attitudes and opinions, 3) yard management, 4) trust in information sources about soil and water, and 5) demographic characteristics. The results indicated that concerns about droughts, mowing lawns high, and more time spent gardening were significant determinants of DTPs adoption. More trust in soil and water information from water groups/projects was associated with higher adoption of the water conserving practice. In addition, respondents with either very low or very high household incomes, who own their home, and live in rural areas were significantly more likely to adopt.
Differential effects of ethanol on GABA(A) and glycine receptor-mediated synaptic currents in brain stem motoneurons.

Ethanol potentiates glycinergic synaptic transmission to hypoglossal motoneurons (HMs). This effect on glycinergic transmission changes with postnatal development in that juvenile HMs (P9-13) are more sensitive to ethanol than neonate HMs (P1-3). We have now extended our previous study to investigate ethanol modulation of synaptic GABA(A) receptors (GABA(A)Rs), because both GABA and glycine mediate inhibitory synaptic transmission to brain stem motoneurons. We tested the effects of ethanol on GABAergic and glycinergic miniature inhibitory postsynaptic currents (mIPSCs) recorded from neonate and juvenile rat HMs in an in vitro slice preparation. Bath application of 30 mM ethanol had no significant effect on the GABAergic mIPSC amplitude or frequency recorded at either age. At 100 mM, ethanol significantly decreased the GABAergic mIPSC amplitude recorded from neonate (6 +/- 3%, P < 0.05) and juvenile (16 +/- 3%, P < 0.01) HMs. The same concentration of ethanol increased the GABAergic mIPSC frequency recorded from neonate (64 +/- 17%, P < 0.05) and juvenile (40 +/- 15%, n.s.) HMs. In contrast, 100 mM ethanol robustly potentiated glycinergic mIPSC amplitude in neonate (31 +/- 3%, P < 0.0001) and juvenile (41 +/- 7%, P < 0.001) HMs. These results suggest that glycine receptors are more sensitive to modulation by ethanol than GABA(A) receptors and that 100 mM ethanol has the opposite effect on GABA(A)R-mediated currents in juvenile HMs, that is, inhibition rather than enhancement. Further, comparing ethanol's effects on GABAergic mIPSC amplitude and frequency, ethanol modulates GABAergic synaptic transmission to HMs differentially. Presynaptically, ethanol enhances mIPSC frequency while postsynaptically it decreases mIPSC amplitude.
Price Dynamics in a Markovian Limit Order Market

We propose and study a simple stochastic model for the dynamics of a limit order book, in which arrivals of market order, limit orders and order cancellations are described in terms of a Markovian queueing system. Through its analytical tractability, the model allows to obtain analytical expressions for various quantities of interest such as the distribution of the duration between price changes, the distribution and autocorrelation of price changes, and the probability of an upward move in the price, conditional on the state of the order book. We study the diffusion limit of the price process and express the volatility of price changes in terms of parameters describing the arrival rates of buy and sell orders and cancelations. These analytical results provide some insight into the relation between order flow and price dynamics in order-driven markets.
Hospital Quality and the Cost of Inpatient Surgery in the United States

Context:Payers, policy makers, and professional organizations have launched a variety of initiatives aimed at improving hospital quality with inpatient surgery. Despite their obvious benefits for patients, the likely impact of these efforts on health care costs is uncertain. In this context, we examined relationships between hospital outcomes and expenditures in the US Medicare population. Methods:Using the 100% national claims files, we identified all US hospitals performing coronary artery bypass graft, total hip replacement, abdominal aortic aneurysm repair, or colectomy procedures between 2005 and 2007. For each procedure, we ranked hospitals by their risk- and reliability-adjusted outcomes (complication and mortality rates, respectively) and sorted them into quintiles. We then examined relationships between hospital outcomes and risk-adjusted, 30-day episode payments. Results:There was a strong, positive correlation between hospital complication rates and episode payments for all procedures. With coronary artery bypass graft, for example, hospitals in the highest complication quintile had average payments that were $5353 per patient higher than at hospitals in the lowest quintile ($46,024 vs $40,671, P < 0.001). Payments to hospitals with high complication rates were also higher for colectomy ($2719 per patient), abdominal aortic aneurysm repair ($5279), and hip replacement ($2436). Higher episode payments at lower-quality hospitals were attributable in large part to higher payments for the index hospitalization, although 30-day readmissions, physician services, and postdischarge ancillary care also contributed. Despite the strong association between hospital complication rates and payments, hospital mortality was not associated with expenditures. Conclusions:Medicare payments around episodes of inpatient surgery are substantially higher at hospitals with high complications. These findings suggest that local, regional, and national efforts aimed at improving surgical quality may ultimately reduce costs and improve outcomes.
CD8+ T Lymphocyte Epitopes From The Herpes Simplex Virus Type 2 ICP27, VP22 and VP13/14 Proteins To Facilitate Vaccine Design And Characterization

CD8+ T cells have the potential to control HSV-2 infection. However, limited information has been available on CD8+ T cell epitopes or the functionality of antigen specific T cells during infection or following immunization with experimental vaccines. Peptide panels from HSV-2 proteins ICP27, VP22 and VP13/14 were selected from in silico predictions of binding to human HLA-A*0201 and mouse H-2Kd, Ld and Dd molecules. Nine previously uncharacterized CD8+ T cell epitopes were identified from HSV-2 infected BALB/c mice. HSV-2 specific peptide sequences stabilized HLA-A*02 surface expression with intermediate or high affinity binding. Peptide specific CD8+ human T cell lines from peripheral blood lymphocytes were generated from a HLA-A*02+ donor. High frequencies of peptide specific CD8+ T cell responses were elicited in mice by DNA vaccination with ICP27, VP22 and VP13/14, as demonstrated by CD107a mobilization. Vaccine driven T cell responses displayed a more focused immune response than those induced by viral infection. Furthermore, vaccination with ICP27 reduced viral shedding and reduced the clinical impact of disease. In conclusion, this study describes novel HSV-2 epitopes eliciting strong CD8+ T cell responses that may facilitate epitope based vaccine design and aid immunomonitoring of antigen specific T cell frequencies in preclinical and clinical settings.
Cutaneous human papillomavirus infection, the EVER2 gene and incidence of squamous cell carcinoma: A case‐control study

The first evidence of an association between HPV and non‐melanoma skin cancer comes from patients with epidermodysplasia verruciformis (EV). EV is a rare heritable disease characterized by cutaneous warts that display not only a high rate of progression to squamous cell carcinoma on sun‐exposed sites, but also a strong predisposition to infection by β‐HPVs, for which HPV 5 and 8 predominate. Two EV genes (EVER1 and EVER2) have been identified, and we tested the hypothesis that variation in the EVER2 gene (rs7208422) is related to seropositivity to HPV (of the genus β types) and risk of squamous cell carcinoma in a population‐based case‐control study of SCC (n = 239 cases and 432 controls). Among controls, variant genotype was associated with β‐HPV seropositvity (OR = 2.3, 95%CI = 1.2–4.3), specifically HPV5 or 8 seropositivity (OR = 2.4, 95%CI = 1.1–5.1) and seropositivity for multiple β‐HPV types (OR = 2.7, 95%CI = 1.1–6.6). Furthermore, variant genotype was also related to SCC risk [adjusted OR for homozygous variant versus homozygous wild type for the EVER2 polymorphism 1.7, 95% CI 1.1–2.7]. These data provide evidence for a role of genetic variation in the EVER2 gene in β‐HPV infection and risk of SCC, shedding light on the link between HPVs and skin cancers. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.