Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Risk factors for postoperative complications in total thyroidectomy

Abstract Thyroid cancer incidence is increasing, and with it, an increase in total thyroidectomy. There are limited studies comparing outcomes in total thyroidectomy performed in the inpatient versus outpatient setting. The objective of this study was to perform a comparative analysis of risk factors and outcomes of postoperative morbidity and mortality in total thyroidectomy performed as an inpatient versus outpatient surgery. Retrospective cohort study of data from the 2005 to 2014 multi-institutional, risk-adjusted American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS-NSQIP) database. A multivariate regression model with corresponding odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals was used to determine 30-day morbidity and mortality after total thyroidectomies, and also risk factors of postoperative outcomes. From 2005 to 2014, 40,025 total thyroidectomies were performed (48.5% inpatient, 51.5% outpatient). The 30-day complication rate for all total thyroidectomies was 7.74%. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to control for potential confounding variables. Preoperative factors that affected complications rates for inpatient thyroidectomies included: age ≥70, non-Caucasian race, dependent functional status, history of congestive heart failure, smoking history, bleeding disorder, wound infection, and preoperative sepsis (P < 0.05). In addition, preoperative factors affecting complications in thyroidectomy performed as an outpatient surgery included malignant thyroid pathology (P 0.05). We identified a subset of preoperative conditions that affect risk of complications after total thyroidectomy. Recommendations for patient selection for outpatient total thyroidectomies should be modified to account for pre-existing conditions that increase the risk of postoperative morbidity.
Recursive Neural Networks Can Learn Logical Semantics

Tree-structured recursive neural networks (TreeRNNs) for sentence meaning have been successful for many applications, but it remains an open question whether the fixed-length representations that they learn can support tasks as demanding as logical deduction. We pursue this question by evaluating whether two such models---plain TreeRNNs and tree-structured neural tensor networks (TreeRNTNs)---can correctly learn to identify logical relationships such as entailment and contradiction using these representations. In our first set of experiments, we generate artificial data from a logical grammar and use it to evaluate the models' ability to learn to handle basic relational reasoning, recursive structures, and quantification. We then evaluate the models on the more natural SICK challenge data. Both models perform competitively on the SICK data and generalize well in all three experiments on simulated data, suggesting that they can learn suitable representations for logical inference in natural language.
Identification and Expression Analysis of Ras Gene in Silkworm, Bombyx mori

Ras proteins play important roles in development especially for cell proliferation and differentiation in various organisms. However, their functions in the most insect species are still not clear. We identified three ras cDNAs from the silk worm, Bombyx mori. These sequences corresponded to three Ras of Drosophila melanogaster, but not to three mammalian Ras (H-Ras, K-Ras, N-Ras). Subsequently, the expression profiles of ras were investigated by quantitative real-time PCR using whole body of individuals from the embryonic to adult stages, and various tissues of 4th and 5th instar larvae. Each of three Bombyx ras showed different expression patterns. We also showed membrane localization of their products. These results indicate that the three Bombyx Ras are functional and have different roles.
Functions of Some Capsular Polysaccharide Biosynthetic Genes in Klebsiella pneumoniae NTUH K-2044

The growing number of Klebsiella pneumoniae infections, commonly acquired in hospitals, has drawn great concern. It has been shown that the K1 and K2 capsular serotypes are the most detrimental strains, particularly to those with diabetes. The K1 cps (capsular polysaccharide) locus in the NTUH-2044 strain of the pyogenic liver abscess (PLA) K. pneumoniae has been identified recently, but little is known about the functions of the genes therein. Here we report characterization of a group of cps genes and their roles in the pathogenesis of K1 K. pneumoniae. By sequential gene deletion, the cps gene cluster was first re-delimited between genes galF and ugd, which serve as up- and down-stream ends, respectively. Eight gene products were characterized in vitro and in vivo to be involved in the syntheses of UDP-glucose, UDP-glucuronic acid and GDP-fucose building units. Twelve genes were identified as virulence factors based on the observation that their deletion mutants became avirulent or lost K1 antigenicity. Furthermore, deletion of kp3706, kp3709 or kp3712 (ΔwcaI, ΔwcaG or Δatf, respectively), which are all involved in fucose biosynthesis, led to a broad range of transcriptional suppression for 52 upstream genes. The genes suppressed include those coding for unknown regulatory membrane proteins and six multidrug efflux system proteins, as well as proteins required for the K1 CPS biosynthesis. In support of the suppression of multidrug efflux genes, we showed that these three mutants became more sensitive to antibiotics. Taken together, the results suggest that kp3706, kp3709 or kp3712 genes are strongly related to the pathogenesis of K. pneumoniae K1.
Pedagojik Formasyon Öğrencilerinde Umut ve Mental İyi Oluş: Yapılandırmacı Düşünmenin Aracı Rolü

Bu calismada, pedagojik formasyon ogrencilerinde umut ve mental iyi olus arasindaki iliskide yapilandirmaci dusunmenin araci rolu test edilmistir. Arastirmanin calisma grubu, Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat Universitesi’nde pedagojik formasyon egitimine devam eden, 212’si kadin (% 74.4), 73’u (% 25.6) erkek toplam 285 kisiden olusmaktadir. Arastirmaya katilanlarin yas ortalamalari 20.49, Ss= 2.09’dur. Verilerin toplanmasinda Surekli Umut Olcegi, Warwick Edinburgh Mental Iyi Olus Olcegi ve Yapilandirmaci Dusunme Envanteri kullanilmistir. Arastirmada, betimsel istatistikler, Pearson korelasyon katsayisi ve aracilik analizleri kullanilmistir. Elde edilen bulgular, umut, yapilandirmaci dusunme ve mental iyi olus arasinda pozitif yonde anlamli iliskiler oldugunu ortaya koymustur. Aracilik etkisi icin yapilan analizde ise umut ile mental iyi olus arasindaki iliskide yapilandirmaci dusunmenin kismi araci rolu istatistiksel acidan anlamli bulunmustur. Arastirmanin sonuclari alanyazin isiginda tartisilarak, ruh sagligi alaninda calisan uzmanlara ve arastirmacilaraonerilerde bulunulmustur.
The Best Performing Cilium : E cient or Robust ?

Motile cilia are used by many eukaryotic cells to transport ow. Cilia-driven ows are important to many physiological functions, yet a deep understanding of the interplay between the mechanical structure of cilia and their physiological functions in healthy and diseased conditions remains elusive. For developing such understanding, one needs a quantitative framework for assessing cilia performance and robustness when subject to perturbations in the cilia apparatus. Here, we link cilia design (beating patterns) to function ( ow transport) in the context of experimentallyand theoretically-derived cilia models. We particularly examine the optimality and robustness of cilia design. Optimality refers to e ciency of ow transport, while robustness is de ned as low sensitivity to variations in the design parameters. We nd that suboptimal designs can be more robust than optimal ones. That is, designing for the most e cient cilium does not guarantee robustness. These ndings have signi cant implications on the understanding of cilia design in arti cial and biological systems.
Nominal Wage Rigidity in Contract Data: A Parametric Approach

Using wage agreements reached in the Canadian unionized sector during 1976-99, a period of high as well as exceptionally low inflation, we consider how histograms of wage adjustment change as inflation reaches the low levels of the 1990s. The histograms and parametric tests suggest that wage adjustment is characterized by downward nominal rigidity and significant spikes at zero. There is some evidence of modest menu-cost effects. We examine whether the rigidity features of wage adjustment are sensitive to indexation provisions and investigate whether the distinction between short and long contracts is useful.
Why Do Incumbents Respond Heterogeneously to Disruptive Innovations? The Interplay of Domain Identity and Role Identity

We adopt a multifaceted view of organizational identity to contribute to research on organizational identity and incumbent adaptations to disruptive innovations. Based on a qualitative, multi‐case study on the responses of German publishing houses to the emergence of digitalization, we distill a novel and thus far disregarded facet of organizational identity: organizational role identity. We show how organizational role identity and organizational domain identity – the facet that has so far dominated research on identity and innovation – interactively determine how organizations interpret and respond to a disruptive innovation. In contrast to previous studies, we show that incumbents experience dysfunctional identity‐driven struggles when one of the two identity facets is challenged by the disruptive innovation while the other is enhanced. We also induce that domain and role identities can jointly determine how quickly incumbents react to a disruption, whether they adopt that disruption, and the innovativeness of their responses.
Mean-Square and Asymptotic Stability of the Stochastic Theta Method

Stability analysis of numerical methods for ordinary differential equations (ODEs) is motivated by the question "for what choices of stepsize does the numerical method reproduce the characteristics of the test equation? " We study a linear test equation with a multiplicative noise term, and consider mean-square and asymptotic stability of a stochastic version of the theta method. We extend some mean-square stability results in [Saito and Mitsui, SIAM. J. Numer. Anal. , 33 (1996), pp. 2254--2267]. In particular, we show that an extension of the deterministic A-stability property holds. We also plot mean-square stability regions for the case where the test equation has real parameters. For asymptotic stability, we show that the issue reduces to finding the expected value of a parametrized random variable. We combine analytical and numerical techniques to get insights into the stability properties. For a variant of the method that has been proposed in the literature we obtain precise analytic expressions for the asymptotic stability region. This allows us to prove a number of results. The technique introduced is widely applicable, and we use it to show that a fully implicit method suggested by [Kloeden and Platen, Numerical Solution of Stochastic Differential Equations, Springer-Verlag, 1992] has an asymptotic stability extension of the deterministic A-stability property. We also use the approach to explain some numerical results reported in [Milstein, Platen, and Schurz, SIAM J. Numer. Anal. , 35 (1998), pp. 1010--1019. ]
Working Memory Dimensions as Differential Predictors of the Speed and Error Aspect of Multitasking Performance

Being able to work on several tasks at the same time (multitasking) is an important performance aspect of many jobs. Recent research findings pointed out the important role of working memory for multitasking performance in general. To understand more about the role of working memory in predicting the speed and the error aspect of multitasking performance, this research was based on a newly developed and well-elaborated multidimensional model of working memory (Oberauer, Süß, Wilhelm, & Wittmann, 2003). Its 3 dimensions are storage in the context of processing, coordination, and supervision. In addition, attention and reasoning were controlled when predicting multitasking speed and error. A multitasking scenario, a battery of working memory tests, a battery of reasoning tests, and 2 attention tests were administered to 135 participants. As expected working memory was the best predictor of multitasking performance, followed by reasoning and attention. Working memory components showed a differential validity when predicting multitasking speed and multitasking error: Multitasking speed was predicted mainly by coordination, and multitasking error mainly by storage in the context of processing. Thus, this study provided a deeper insight into the relevant abilities of multitasking. Implications for personnel selection are discussed.
Chilling and Freezing Storage for Keeping Overall Quality of “Deglet Nour” Dates

The effect of storage at 0 and 20°C for 30 days with and without a passive Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP) and the effect of a freezing storage at -20, -40 and -80°C for 10 months followed by 1 week at 5°C on overall quality of Deglet Nour dates were studied. After the storage time, the physicochemical properties and sensory quality, microbial development, and moth infestation (Ectomyelois ceratoniae) of dates were monitored. It was observed that the storage temperature greatly affected the overall quality of dates. The 0°C was recommended for a short-term storage of fresh dates of one month. The MAP technique (6 kPa O2+12 kPa CO2) showed a positive effect on keeping overall quality of dates at 20oC. However, for a long-term storage (10 months in frozen conditions plus 1 week at 5oC), all freezing temperatures assayed kept the overall quality of dates and no differences were observed among them. In order to minimize the global costs, -20°C was considered as the most adequate temperature for a long-term freezing storage period. In conclusion, these chilling and freezing techniques could be recommended for commercial use at industrial scale.
A Model to Qualify the Linguistic Adaptation Phenomenon in Online Conversation Threads: Analyzing Priming Effect in Online Health Community

Previous studies of alignment have focused on two-party conversations. We study multi-party conversation in online health communities, which have shown benefits for their members from forum conversations. So far, our understanding of the relationship between alignment in such multi-party conversations and its possible connection to member benefits has been limited. This paper quantifies linguistic alignment in the oldest and the largest cancer online forum. Alignment at lexical and syntactic levels, as well as decay of alignment was observed in forum threads, although the decay was slower than commonly found in psycholinguistic studies. The different pattern of adaptation to the initial post on a thread suggests that specific roles in the online forum (e.g., seeking support from the community) can potentially be revealed through alignment theory and its extensions.
Deep Learning on FPGAs: Past, Present, and Future

The rapid growth of data size and accessibility in recent years has instigated a shift of philosophy in algorithm design for artificial intelligence. Instead of engineering algorithms by hand, the ability to learn composable systems automatically from massive amounts of data has led to ground-breaking performance in important domains such as computer vision, speech recognition, and natural language processing. The most popular class of techniques used in these domains is called deep learning, and is seeing significant attention from industry. However, these models require incredible amounts of data and compute power to train, and are limited by the need for better hardware acceleration to accommodate scaling beyond current data and model sizes. While the current solution has been to use clusters of graphics processing units (GPU) as general purpose processors (GPGPU), the use of field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) provide an interesting alternative. Current trends in design tools for FPGAs have made them more compatible with the high-level software practices typically practiced in the deep learning community, making FPGAs more accessible to those who build and deploy models. Since FPGA architectures are flexible, this could also allow researchers the ability to explore model-level optimizations beyond what is possible on fixed architectures such as GPUs. As well, FPGAs tend to provide high performance per watt of power consumption, which is of particular importance for application scientists interested in large scale server-based deployment or resource-limited embedded applications. This review takes a look at deep learning and FPGAs from a hardware acceleration perspective, identifying trends and innovations that make these technologies a natural fit, and motivates a discussion on how FPGAs may best serve the needs of the deep learning community moving forward.
Correlation of Klebsiella pneumoniae Comparative Genetic Analyses with Virulence Profiles in a Murine Respiratory Disease Model

Klebsiella pneumoniae is a bacterial pathogen of worldwide importance and a significant contributor to multiple disease presentations associated with both nosocomial and community acquired disease. ATCC 43816 is a well-studied K. pneumoniae strain which is capable of causing an acute respiratory disease in surrogate animal models. In this study, we performed sequencing of the ATCC 43816 genome to support future efforts characterizing genetic elements required for disease. Furthermore, we performed comparative genetic analyses to the previously sequenced genomes from NTUH-K2044 and MGH 78578 to gain an understanding of the conservation of known virulence determinants amongst the three strains. We found that ATCC 43816 and NTUH-K2044 both possess the known virulence determinant for yersiniabactin, as well as a Type 4 secretion system (T4SS), CRISPR system, and an acetonin catabolism locus, all absent from MGH 78578. While both NTUH-K2044 and MGH 78578 are clinical isolates, little is known about the disease potential of these strains in cell culture and animal models. Thus, we also performed functional analyses in the murine macrophage cell lines RAW264.7 and J774A.1 and found that MGH 78578 (K52 serotype) was internalized at higher levels than ATCC 43816 (K2) and NTUH-K2044 (K1), consistent with previous characterization of the antiphagocytic properties of K1 and K2 serotype capsules. We also examined the three K. pneumoniae strains in a novel BALB/c respiratory disease model and found that ATCC 43816 and NTUH-K2044 are highly virulent (LD50<100 CFU) while MGH 78578 is relatively avirulent.
Conceptual Research Model for Studying Students’ Entrepreneurial Competencies

Abstract The literature review shows a lack of research on the impact of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial competencies in relation to entrepreneurial intentions. Further development of the field is needed, but, because of the shortage of suitable research models or because they only partially cover the complex area of entrepreneurial competencies, the purpose of this article is the formulation of a new, updated research model (based on the existing models). Thus, theoretical research of entrepreneurial competencies based on the competence study has been performed. Through in-depth analysis of existing entrepreneurial competencies research models, a congregated hybrid research model is proposed. A new conceptual research model for studying the impact of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial competencies in relation to entrepreneurial intentions has been developed. The model will serve for empirical testing of investigated phenomena. The original contribution is in the formulation of a unique research model and the construction of a customized measuring instrument for studying the phenomena of entrepreneurship education impact on entrepreneurial competencies and entrepreneurial intentions.
THERMAL PROPERTIES OF FOODS

Thermal Properties of Food Constituents . 8.1 Thermal Properties of Food . 8.1 Water Content . 8.1 Initial Freezing Point . 8.1 Ice Fraction . 8.2 Density . 8.7 Specific Heat . 8.7 Enthalpy . 8.8 Thermal Conductivity . 8.9 Thermal Diffusivity . 8.17 Heat of Respiration . 8.17 Transpiration of Fresh Fruits and Vegetables . 8.19 Surface Heat Transfer Coefficient . 8.24 Nomenclature . 8.27
LEARNING ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE IN A COOPERATIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT: DOES PERSONALITY TYPE MATTER?

To examine the effects of cooperative learning and the personality trait of extraversion on ESOL students studying English at an urban, Mid-Western, secondary school, a mixed methods study was designed. The quantitative section of the study used a 5-week quasi-experimental pretest-posttest comparison group research design. Seventy-five students studying in three sections of high-intermediate and two sections of advanced level students participated in the study. Three class sections received instruction through cooperative learning and the other two class sections received wholeclass instruction on seven English parts-speech. Students in sections that received instruction through cooperative learning also were surveyed about their levels of extraversion. Results from the pretest and posttest comparisons were then matched with the students’ levels of extraversion to investigate if they were correlated. For the qualitative section of the study, prior to the treatment, eight students were selected based on their levels of extraversion. The participants were interviewed one week prior to the treatment and again one week after the treatment had concluded to gain their insights into the effects of learning English in cooperative groups and whole-class grouping. Three specific research questions guided the study. The first looked at difference in students’ grammar proficiency development in classes employing cooperative learning activities versus whole-class instructional activities, the second compared student achievement between the cooperative learning groups and whole-class instruction groups in relation to levels of extraversion, and the third focused on a selected sample of students learning
A Resource Optimized Remote-Memory-Access Architecture for Low-latency Communication

This paper introduces a new highly optimized architecture for remote memory access (RMA). RMA, using put and get operations, is a one-sided communication function which amongst others is important in current and upcoming Partitioned Global Address Space (PGAS) systems. In this work, a virtualized hardware unit is described which is resource optimized, exhibits high overlap, processor offload and very good latency characteristics. To start an RMA operation a single HyperTransport packet caused by one CPU instruction is sufficient, thus reducing latency to an absolute minimum. In addition to the basic architecture an implementation in FPGA technology is presented together with an evaluation of the target ASIC-implementation. The current system can sustain more than 4.9 million transactions per second on the FPGA and exhibits an end-to-end latency of 1.2 μs for an 8-byte put operation. Both values are limited by the FPGA technology used for the prototype implementation. An estimation of the performance reachable on ASIC technology suggests that application to application latencies of less than 500 ns are feasible.