Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Characterization of cochlear transcription, translation and energy extraction in aging and noise-induced pathology

Success in otologic practice is currently limited by the diagnostic tools and treatment options available to address an individual's specific presentation of hearing loss. This limitation results from insufficient characterization of the inner ear's biochemical environment as well as physical hurdles associated with accessing inner ear tissues. The encapsulation of the hearing organ within a bony shell and delicate nature of its tissues make standard tissue biopsy techniques impossible and leave many imaging methods impractical. This thesis sought to approach these clinical limitations in two ways: (1) performing novel transcriptional and translational characterizations of inner ear tissues and (2) development of a novel technique to access and communicate diagnostic information from within the inner ear. The first part of this thesis employs whole transcriptome shotgun sequencing to study murine inner ear transcriptional activity in young, healthy animals as well as changes associated with organ aging and noise-induced auditory neuropathy, an important mechanism of hearing impairment in humans. Knowledge of the inner ear's transcriptional behavior (Part I) is coupled with novel translational insights provided by high-throughput tandem mass-spectrometry (Part III) studies of human inner ear fluids obtained from healthy and pathologic populations. These studies illuminate homeostatic mechanisms employed by the highly specialized inner ear tissues, providing a critical knowledge-base for inner ear scientists and pharmacologists, and identify important expression-level changes which occur during the onset and progression of inner ear pathologies. While these high-throughput studies offer the powerful ability to gain a wealth of knowledge into which genes are active within the inner ear, functional assessment of the specific role these genes play must be assessed in a more focused manner. Phenotypic characterization of mice with specific genetic mutations (Part II) has been performed to provide critical insight into the specific role Fgf23 plays in development and maintenance of the auditory system. The second arm of this thesis seeks to provide clinical practicality to the above work by developing a method to safely access the inner ear environment to gather
DETECTION OF TTV ANTIGEN IN PATIENTS WITH HEPATITIS HBV AND HCV

Background: Several lines of evidence have suggested the presence of new hepatitis agents, in addition to established hepatitis viruses A-E. Torque Teno virus (TTV) was more prevalent in patients with hepatitis, so it was thought to have hepatotropic properties. Objective: To detect TTV Ag in apparently healthy blood donors and patients infected with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) or chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) technique. Also, to find out any possible association between the study population demographic data and TTV status. Methods: This study was conducted from the beginning of November, 2017 to the end of March, 2018. Serum samples were collected from 50 patients who had chronic hepatitis HBV or HCV and attended to Gastroenterology and Hepatology Teaching Hospital. Also, sera were collected from a total 43 healthy blood donors from the Blood Donation Center in Al-Imamein Al-Kadhimein Medical City. The clinical characteristics of both patients and controls such as alanine transaminase (ALT), aspartate transaminase (AST), hepatitis C virus antibody (HCV-Ab), hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and hepatitis B core antibody (HBcAb) were obtained from hospital records. Serum samples were tested by ELISA technique for detection of TTV Ag. Results: TTV was detected in 89.2% (33 out of 37) of the HBV-positive patients and in 30.8% (4 out of 13) of the HCV-positive patients versus 23.3% of the healthy blood donor (10 out of 43). Results of this study showed that the prevalence of TTV in HBV patients is significantly higher than HCV patients and healthy blood donors. Concerning risk factors, it was found that there was statistically significant relationship between TTV positivity and mean level of ALT but results indicated that the presence of TTV was not associated with AST, sex, age and history of transfusion, surgery and tattooing. Conclusion: TTV may play a role in hepatitis and its presence was associated with biochemical signs of liver disease, and among patients infected with chronic HBV or HCV. Keywords: Torque Teno virus, hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus, healthy blood donors Citation: khudair EA, Al-Shuwaikh AMA, Farhan NM. Detection of TTV antigen in patients with hepatitis HBV and HCV. Iraqi JMS. 2019; 17(1): 43-49. doi: 10.22578/IJMS.17. 1.7
Graph Based Physical Models for Sound Synthesis

We focus on physical models in which multiple strings are connected via junctions to form graphs. Starting with the case of the 1D wave equation, we show how to extend it to a string branching into two other strings, and from there how to build complex cyclic and acyclic graphs. We introduce the concept of dense models and show that a discretization of the 2D wave equation can be built us-ing our methods, and that there are more efﬁcient ways of modelling 2D wave propagation than a rectangular grid. We discuss how to apply Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions to a graph model, and show how to compute the frequency content of a graph using common methods. We then prove general lower and upper bounds computational complexity. Lastly, we show how to extend our results to other kinds of acoustical objects, such as linear bars, and how to add dampening to a graph model. A reference implementation in M ATLAB and an interactive JUCE/C++ application is available online.
The calorific value and compressive strength properties of composite briquettes from agro waste

The calorific value and compressive strength properties of composite briquettes from agro waste (palm kernel shell and groundnut shell) using starch as a binder have been investigated. The briquettes were produced with various composition of agro waste (palm kernel shell and groundnut shell) particle size of 100μm and starch binder concentration of 5% of the oven dry weight of agro waste. The briquette producing machine of 10 tonnnes capacity was used to produce various composition of briquette and the composite briquettes produced were evaluated for calorific value, ash content, compressive strength, densi ty and moisture content properties. The results showed that calorific value and compressive strength increased as the palm kernel shell composition in the briquette increased. The optimum briquette calorific value and compressive strength was 16.65 Mj/Kg and of 2587.96 N/m respectively.
Fast, Accurate and Provable Triangle Counting in Fully Dynamic Graph Streams

Given a stream of edge additions and deletions, how can we estimate the count of triangles in it? If we can store only a subset of the edges, how can we obtain unbiased estimates with small variances? Counting triangles (i.e., cliques of size three) in a graph is a classical problem with applications in a wide range of research areas, including social network analysis, data mining, and databases. Recently, streaming algorithms for triangle counting have been extensively studied since they can naturally be used for large dynamic graphs. However, existing algorithms cannot handle edge deletions or suffer from low accuracy. Can we handle edge deletions while achieving high accuracy? We propose ThinkD, which accurately estimates the counts of global triangles (i.e., all triangles) and local triangles associated with each node in a fully dynamic graph stream with additions and deletions of edges. Compared to its best competitors, ThinkD is (a) Accurate: up to 4.3× more accurate within the same memory budget, (b) Fast: up to 2.2× faster for the same accuracy requirements, and (c) Theoretically sound: always maintaining estimates with zero bias (i.e., the difference between the true triangle count and the expected value of its estimate) and small variance. As an application, we use ThinkD to detect suddenly emerging dense subgraphs, and we show its advantages over state-of-the-art methods.
H 6 Transformer less Topology and Its Modulation Strategy for Mitigating Cm Currents in Pv Grid Connected Inverters

MATLABbasedsingle-phase three-level topology for a transformer less photovoltaic system is presented in this paper. Compared with the conventional H-bridge topology, it only needs two additional asymmetrically distributed switches, and the system common-mode voltage can be kept constant with a simple modulation scheme. Family of H6 transformer less inverter topologies with low leakage currents is proposed and highly efficient and reliable inverter concept (HERIC) topology is also presented in this paper. The proposed inverter can also operate with high frequency by retaining high efficiency which enables reduced cooling system. Finally, the proposed new topology is simulated by MATLAB/Simulink software to validate the accuracy of the theoretical explanation.
Geschichte Des Hethitischen Reiches

Klengel's Geschichte des Hethitischen Reiches is the first modern handbook encompassing the whole of the political history of the Hittite Empire (ca. 1700-1200 B.C.). Organized in a strict chronological order, with separate sections on sources and secondary literature preceding each chapter, with chronological tables, a bibliography, and a separate section on political structure, this will be a standard reference work in the field for years to come.
An Indirect Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometric Determination of Cefotaxime in Pharmaceutical Formulations by Using Rhodium ( II ) As a Mediating Metal

A new application of an indirect atomic absorption spectrometric (AAS) method was offered for the assay of low concentrations of cefotaxime (CFX) in pharmaceutical in pure and pharmaceutical dosage form with good accuracy and precision. The method is depended on the formation of chelating complex between the drug cefotaxime and rhodium(II) to form orange-yellowish product. All experimental parameters such as, pH, concentration of rhodium, reaction time, extraction time and phase ratio have been investigated. The linearity (2-50) μg mL, detection limit (S/N) of 0.13 μg mL, accuracy as the %Erel of 1.59, and recoveries ranged from 101.2101. 87%, with mean value of 101.59±0.73. The proposed method was applied for the determination of CFX in the drug Sefotak by both direct calibration and standard additions procedures and found to be 989.87 and 970.93 mg per unite, respectively compared with the stated value of 1000 mg per unite. This method is also compared statistically with direct determination by using UV-VIS spectrophotometric technique which is preformed in our laboratory and found to be insignificant at 95% confidence level. All statistical calculations were implemented via the chemsoftware Minitab version 11.
Time-Varying Conditional Volume and Asset Pricing Relations

We use time-series properties of changes in share turnover with GMM tests to examine the number of factors that drive changes in conditional expected time-varying volume. In the three ten-year subperiods between 1966 and 1996, we detect no more than two factors. These findings support the hypothesis that changes in conditional time-varying expected volume can be represented parsimoniously as a function of a few factors. However, whether we detect one factor (as Tkac (1999) suggests) or two factors (as Lo and Wang (1998) indicates) depends on which sample period we use, on whether we sort portfolios by turnover or returns betas, and on whether we measure those betas relative to the equalor the value-weighted index.
Antibiotherapy and Mortality Rate in Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia and Tracheobronchitis due to Acinetobacter Baumannii

Antibiotherapy and Mortality Rate in Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia and Tracheobronchitis due to Acinetobacter Baumannii E. Tunçay, G. Güngör, S. Güngör, C. Saltürk, E. Aksoy, N. Çiftaslan Gökşenoğlu, İ. Irmak, N. Adıgüzel, Z. Karakurt Causes of Elevated Levels of Serum CA 19.9 in Patients without Prior Diagnosis of Malignant Disease S. Şeber, S. Güzel, A. Yılmaz, S. P. Kara, T. Yetişyiğit The Consumption of Anesthetic Agents During One-Lung Ventilation and A Cost Analysis: A Comparison of Two Techniques F. D. Geyik, Ö. Sezen, B. Çevik, R. Demirhan The Clinical Significance of Complete Blood Count Parameters for Frequent Emergency Department Admissions and Re-hospitalisation in Patients with Asthma Attacks Requiring Hospitalisation F. Tokgoz Akyıl, M. Erdal Ozantürk, A. Topbaş, H. Tütüncüler, G. Söğüt, M. Akyıl, Tulin Sevim Investigation of the Coincidence of Idiopathic Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and Ulnar Nerve Entrapment Neuropathy: Role of the Cutaneous Silent Period Ç. Buğan Kaplan, R. İnan, Ü. Türk Börü Hypofractionated Radiation Therapy with Temozolomide for Patients with Glioblastoma Multiforme Recursive Partitioning Analyzes Class V and VI F. Tuğrul, G. Yaprak, A. Arslankaya, N. Işık Evaluation of Blood Gas Analysis as a Mortality Predictor N. M. Hökenek, A. U. Seyhan, M. Ö. Erdoğan, D. Tekyol, E. Yılmaz, S. Korkut Analyzing Ocular and Systemic Findings of Patients with Down Syndrome A. T. Kaplan, A. Y. Oral, N. Zorlutuna Kaymak, M. C. Özen, Ş. Şimşek Evaluation of Anxiety Status and Reasons for Refusal of Surgical Treatment Among Patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer C. B. Sezen, C. İ. Kocatürk, C. Aker, K. Karapınar, S. Bilen, O. V. Yaran, S. İ. Dinçer, M. A. Bedirhan Random Pattern Rotation Flaps in the Treatment of Advanced Sacrococcygeal Pilonidal Disease with Damaged Skin Structure H. E. Sıkar, K. Çetin Retrospective Evaluation of Frequency, Morbidities and Mortality of Low Birth Weight Infants K. Ö. Çetin, D. Arman, S. Cömert Contribution of Color Doppler Sonography to the Diagnosis of Prostatic Pathologies Ö. Sarıca, S. Nacar Doğan The Reconstructive Options for Lower Extremity Defects: 10-Year Retrospective Study Ç. Çiçek, M. E. Demirseren Metabolic Syndrome in Patients with Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder in a Community Mental Health Center K. S. Karataş, B. Bahçeci, H. Aktürk, F. Alakuş A Comparison of Breast-Conserving Surgery and Subcutaneous Mastectomy with Implant Reconstruction in Terms of Postoperative Quality of Life in Patients with Breast Cancer A. Deniz, K. Çetin, H. E. Sıkar, N. Emrah Goret, H. Küçük Volume 30 • Issue 3 • September 2019 Southern Clinics of Istanbul Eurasia
Assessing the Attributes of Self-service Menu Tablet Ordering Towards Customer Satisfaction

With the advancement of technology nowadays, it is believed that technology will enhance the internal operation of a restaurant and further deliver the best performance to the existing customers. The technology-based ordering system requires the customer to self-perform meal ordering processes by using the tablet menu provided by the restaurant on each dining table. There are three main attributes of self-service menu tablet ordering that can influence customer satisfaction, namely technology usability, menu information and menu design. These attributes may significantly influence customer satisfaction since restaurateurs may still struggling in familiarising themselves with the technology and also in designing an interface for an attractive and informative menu. Hence, this study aims to investigate the relationship between self-service menu tablet ordering attributes and customer satisfaction. A quantitative cross-sectional research design was opted for this study. The findings indicate that all self-service menu tablet ordering attributes significantly contribute to customer satisfaction. This study also reveals that technological usability emerges to be the main predictor for customer satisfaction related to self-service menu tablet ordering. Hence, future studies could be done to investigate the readiness of local restaurant in implementing self-service menu tablet ordering system in their business operations.
Práticas sexuais e o uso do preservatico entre mulheres com HIV/AIDS

It is part of a descriptive-qualitative research that had as one of the objectives to discuss the incidence of women with Aids and its reflex in the care practices in relation to that disease, in what concerns the sexual practices in the extent of relationships involving HIV-positives and HIV-negatives, using testimonies from HIV-positive women. The data was collected in a Specialized Care Service of the STD/HIV/Aids Service in a county of the greater Florianopolis city, Santa Catarina, Brazil. The participants were seven women, all over 18 years of age. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews. After the content analysis, the following categories were constituted: “Vulnerability before HIV infection” and “Vulnerability after HIV infection”. The results indicate that women believe to be protected when they have a stable relationship. After the infection, condom is requested for protection against HIV or other diseases sexually transmissible, and as a contraceptive method. One realizes the difficulty in negotiating this care method with one’s partners, even in dealing with relationships among HIV-negatives, which evidences that women continue to be hostages of their own vulnerability, even after been infected.
Do mutual fund managers have risk factor timing skills?

We investigate whether mutual fund managers exhibit timing skills with regard to different asset pricing risk factors. Using a dynamic state space version of Carhart's (1997) four-factor model, we measure fund managers' timing activity by the variation of different risk factor loadings. Our results indicate no evidence of positive timing skill; instead, timing of market, size, or momentum risk factors is associated with future underperformance and undesirable risk characteristics. A one standard deviation increase of average market, size, or momentum timing leads to a decrease in average fund performance by 30, 39 or 24 basis points p.a. , respectively. Moreover, abnormal return volatility of the most actively timing funds exceeds the abnormal return volatility of the least actively timing funds by 129%. JEL Classification: G11, G14, G20, G23
Mechanisms for Depression Risk Among those with Sexual Abuse Histories: Stress Sensitivity and Emotion Regulation Deficits

The present study examined whether childhood sexual abuse (CSA) predicts depression-related outcomes indirectly via stress sensitivity and emotion regulation (ER) deficits or whether ER difficulties mediate the relationship between CSA and stress sensitivity. Both stress sensitivity and ER deficits have been examined as mechanisms that increase depression risk for those with CSA histories, however their interplay has been largely understudies. Competing models of CSA, stress sensitivity, ER deficits and depression symptoms and affects in daily life were examined. Community dwelling and undergraduate participants (N=99) reported CSA histories via a psychosocial interview, completed measures of trait ER repertoires, perceived stress and depression symptoms, and a 7-day Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) protocol that measured hourly positive (PA) and negative affect (NA) and stress. Multiple mediation models and moderated mediation models were fit to examine study hypotheses. Results suggest that those with CSA histories evidence stress sensitivity for depressive affects, but not depression symptoms. Further, those with such histories tend to exhibit more maladaptive ER repertoires, but this experience was unrelated to adaptive repertoires. Maladaptive ER repertoires mediated the effects of CSA on depression symptoms as well as the effects of CSA on depressive affects via stress sensitivity. Findings emphasize the adverse effects of maladaptive ER responses within this population and suggest that these responses should be a key target of treatment for these individuals.
Which concepts do inexperienced modelers use to model work ? – An exploratory study

Modeling languages are generally designed to meet the requirements imposed on them by the domain to be represented and the intended application area of the resulting models. Their comprehensibility and appropriateness for domain experts, who are not necessarily experienced modelers, usually is not considered during language design. While some aspects such as notational properties of languages and their understandability have been subject to extensive research in this area, the semantic appropriateness of language constructs has hardly been a subject of research so far. This paper presents a set of exploratory studies that examine the use of different conceptual modeling languages by inexperienced modelers. The results indicate that the set of available modeling language concepts seems to influence the focus of articulation for inexperienced modelers. Mismatches between modeling language concepts and modelers’ conceptualizations of the modeling domain appear to be compensated by ad-hoc re-definitions of language element semantics. Based on these findings we identify implications that need to be considered when designing modeling languages suitable for articulation by inexperienced modelers.
Cytotoxic Effects of Essential Oils of Some Iranian Citrus Peels

There have been efforts to overcome the problem in treatment of cancer using medicinal plants. It has been shown that Citrus essential oil of contains different terpens with antitumor activities. In this study we sought to determine the cytotoxicity of essential oils of Iranian Citrus limon (L.), C. medica (L.), C. sinsensis (L.) peels on cancer cell lines. Essential oils were prepared by hydrodistilation and characterized by GC-MS. The effects of C. limon (5-40 µg/ml), C. medica and C. sinensis (0.25-10 µg/ml) on two human tumor cell lines (MCF-7 and Hela) were determined. Different concentrations of essential oils were added to cultured cells and incubated for 72 h. Cell survival was evaluated using the MTT-based cytotoxicity assay. While limonene comprise about 98.4% and 98.8% of content of C. limon and C. sinensis essential oils respectively, its’ percentage in C. medica was only 56.6%. In C. medica there was a considerable amount of β-pinene, γ-terpinene, α-terpinolene and trans-α-bergamotene. IC 50 of essential oil for MCF-7 cell line was: C. limon ≈ 10 µg/ml, C. medica ≈ 1 µg/ml and C. sinensis ≈ 0.5 µg/ml. For Hela cell line IC 50 was: C. limon ≈ 17 µg/ml, C. medica ≈ 1 µg/ml and C. sinensis ≈ 3 µg/ml. Our findings revealed that C. limon and C. sinensis had a greater cytotoxic effect on MCF-7 than that on Hela cells. Also, comparing IC 50 , our findings indicated that C. medica and C. sinensis were more cytotoxic than C. limon. Comparison of the essential oil component of C. limon with C. medica, shows the presence of β-pinene (16.3%), α-terpineol (11.3%), γ-terpinene (4.4%), and trans- α-bergamotene (3.4%), which were not found in C. limon. Hence, it could be concluded that these components may have greater cytotoxic effects or they may also have synergistic effects with limonene.
School effectiveness and school improvement : alternative perspectives

The pressure on schools to improve and to raise achievement continues to be a dominant issue in both school and government policies. School Effectiveness and School Improvement seeks to develop the debate further, providing academics and practitioners alike with a summary and discussion of research on school effectiveness and school improvement up to the present; new perspectives on these fields, developed from other traditions of thinking and research; a consideration of the role of organization theory; an integrated view of these current perspectives; and clear, practical implications for policy and practice. "