Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Solving unrestricted parallel machine scheduling problems via evolutionary algorithms

Parallel machine scheduling, also known as parallel task scheduling, involves the assignment of multiple tasks onto the system architecture’s processing components (a bank of machines in parallel). A basic model involving m machines and n independent jobs is the foundation of more complex models. Here, the jobs are allocated according to resource availability following some allocation rule. The completion time of the last job to leave the system, known as the makespan (Cmax), is one of the most important objective functions to be minimized, because it usually implies high utilization of resources, but other important objectives must be also considered. These problems are known in the literature [9, 11] as unrestricted parallel machine scheduling problems. Many of these problems are NP-hard for 2≤ m ≤ n, and conventional heuristics and evolutionary algorithms (EAs) have been developed to provide acceptable schedules as solutions. This presentation shows the problem of allocating a number of non-identical independent tasks in a production system. The model assumes that the system consists of a number of identical machines and only one task may execute on a machine at a time. All schedules and tasks are non-preemptive. A set of well-known conventional heuristics will be contrasted with evolutionary approaches using multiple recombination and indirect representations. 1 The LIDIC is supported by the Universidad Nacional de San Luis and the ANPCYT (National Agency to Promote Science and Technology).
Loss of EGFR induced autophagy sensitizes hormone refractory prostate cancer cells to adriamycin

The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), a receptor tyrosine kinase, is over‐expressed in advanced prostate cancer but tyrosine kinase inhibitors are not clinically effective in the treatment of prostate cancer. Recently it was found that EGFR in cancer cells has a kinase‐independent pro‐survival function, preventing cells from undergoing autophagy. In the present study we investigated whether the anti‐autophagic function of EGFR may contribute to resistance of hormone‐refractory prostate cancer cells to chemotherapeutic‐induced apoptosis.
Proactive Work Behavior: Forward-Thinking and Change-Oriented Action in Organizations

/O Psychology is both a science/practice and an applied/basic research discipline. Appropriately, the APA Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology offers an in-depth examination of the types of behavioral and structural issues that I/O psychologists study every day, from both a theoretical and applied perspective. It explores a natural progression, from how problems are diagnosed to how research is conducted to generate answers to those problems to how interventions are implemented and, finally, to how they are evaluated. It examines what is currently known—including basic historical reviews—and identifies the most pertinent sources of information in both the core and emerging literatures. It pinpoints practical issues, probes unresolved and controversial topics, and looks at future theoretical, research, and practice trends.
Identification of Clostridium difficile as a cause of pseudomembranous colitis.

695 rest was instituted and the temperature resolved in 24 hours, while all signs and symptoms disappeared in five days. Subsequent investigations showed no evidence of streptococcal infection (a throat swab grew no pathogens and the antistreptolysin titre was < 125 units/ml both one day after admission and six weeks later). The antibody titre for psittacosis LGV was > 1/1000 on admission and six weeks later was still raised at 1/128. Inquiry later showed that before his illness he had visited regularly a neighbouring house in which a healthy, psittacine bird was kept. Discussion In this case there are two major and three minor criteria of rheumatic fever present, but without evidence of a recent streptococcal infection. On the contrary, the presence of a cough and constitutional disturbance associated with patchy shadowing on the chest x-ray film and a significant and changing antibody titre all support a diagnosis of psittacosis. The rashes described in association with this disease include "rose spots,"2 erythema nodosum,2 and a macular scaly rash.3 We could find no reports of an exanthem resembling erythema marginatum. Arthritis, which may be migratory,4 is a rare complication of psittacosis in man, though in sheep and cattle polyarthritis it is well recognised.5 This case shows that psittacosis may present with minimal respiratory disturbance and with a clinical picture resembling rheumatic fever with erythema marginatum and polyarthritis. professor of clinical pharmacology and consultant physician Identification of Clostridium difficile as a cause of pseudomembranous colitis The demonstration of a toxinl in the stool of patients with-pseudo-membranous colitis and neutralisation of the toxin by Clostridium sordellii antitoxin2 has provided a valuable tool in the search for the cause of this disease. These findings also implicate Cl sordellii, or an organism producing an antigenically similar toxin, as the causal agent. We tested all clostridial species isolated from patients with pseudomembranous colitis for toxin production and neutralisation by Cl sordellii antitoxin. Eight patients with pseudomembranous colitis3 were studied together with 20 patients with postoperative diarrhoea without evidence of colitis, all of whom had undergone major gastrointestinal surgery within 10 days and had three or more bowel actions each day. Clostridia were isolated on lysed blood agar containing kanamycin sulphate (70 mg/l) or nalidixic acid (10 mg/ 1). Broth cultures of clostridia and faeces from patients were tested for toxin on monolayers of HeLa cells. Toxin was neutralised by incubating samples with antitoxin to Cl perfringens …
The Long‐Term Management of Obesity in General Practice

Getting obese patients to lose weight and avoid regaining such weight is generally recognized to be a long-term problem. Yet most reported studies on weight-reducing regimes relate to periods of only a few months. Exceptions to this are de Ramos (1946) who reported an cightmonth study from a hospital out-patient department, and Lucey and Weaver (1963) who discussed their results following a year's treatment of obese patients at a hospital obesity clinic. In both cases the high defaulter rate was a problem and Lucey and Weaver remarked: "If success in this group is to be achieved, constant supervision is necessary". They went on to imply that the r.1ost suitable person to supply this supervision was the general practitioner. In order to discover in fact what results could be achieved by frequent and continued supervision plus dietary treatment of obese patients in general practice, the present study was undertaken. We considered that in conjunction with such a study it would be of value to assess the useI. fulness of an anorectic agent as an adjunct to
Left thoracic curve patterns and their association with disease.

STUDY DESIGN Analysis of clinical database material collected prospectively. OBJECTIVE Examination of the association between lateralization of scoliotic curves and the existence of underlying disease. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA It has been suggested that left thoracic scoliosis configurations are intrinsically pathologic, whereas the more usual right curve is, in a sense, "normal. " METHODS Research-based records were analyzed. Scoliosis configuration, patient gender, and diagnostic group were correlated. The results were interpreted within a biologic framework. RESULTS Congenital and infantile idiopathic scoliosis showed a random right-left curve distribution. In older age groups, boys were more likely to have a left thoracic curve and to have underlying disease, but there was no association between the two. In girls, occurrence in childhood itself and left thoracic patterns within that group were associated with disease. Nevertheless, most curves were in the right thoracic pattern, regardless of cause. CONCLUSIONS Although an association exists between left thoracic curves and disease, it is not strong enough to determine who should be intensively investigated, to the exclusion of other clinical findings, and it seems inappropriate for a different approach to be adopted on the basis of scoliosis pattern alone. Gender in males and age at occurrence in females are more important risk factors than in scoliosis configuration. All new cases of scoliosis treated by a physician warrant equally meticulous assessment, with more sophisticated investigative techniques where indicated by the complete clinical picture, of which curve lateralization is only a part. Biologic theories of left and right are more capable of dealing with the phenomenon of scoliosis lateralization than are simple mechanics or concepts of specific diseases.
Removing patients from the liver transplant wait list: A survey of US liver transplant programs

Guidelines are in place regarding who is a candidate for liver transplantation. Once a potential candidate is listed, there are no uniform guidelines indicating when he should be removed from the list because of a change in clinical status. A survey with 14 scenarios was sent to the medical and surgical directors of all liver transplant programs in the United States. In each scenario, clinical information was provided about a patient active on the transplant wait list. Data regarding a clinical change were provided, and responders were questioned whether they would remove the patient from the wait list. The scenarios were designed to address the issues of age, etiology of liver disease, renal dysfunction, respiratory failure, infection, failure to thrive, and social support. Two hundred four questionnaires were mailed with 47 responses (23%): 8 return to sender, 24 surgeons, and 15 hepatologists. All 11 United Network for Organ Sharing regions were represented. The responders were well distributed among university programs (n = 28), private practice programs (n = 10), and health maintenance organization programs (n = 1). Nine responses were from small‐volume programs (≤25 transplants), 12 were from medium‐volume programs (26–50 transplants), and 18 were from large‐volume programs (≥51 transplants). There was wide variability between responders regarding which patients should be removed from the transplant wait list. Patient age and etiology of liver disease led to the greatest discordance among responders. In conclusion, there is a lack of agreement and standardization among US liver transplant programs regarding who should be removed from the wait list for a change in clinical status. Liver Transpl 14:303–307, 2008. © 2008 AASLD.
Distribution of Thermus spp. in Icelandic Hot Springs and a Thermal Gradient

The growth range in nature of bacteria belonging to the genus Thermus was investigated by sampling 55 different hot springs in Iceland. The springs ranged in temperature from 32 to 99�C, and in pH from 2.1 to 10.1. Viable counts of Thermus spp. ranging from 10 to 104 CFU/100 ml of spring water were found in 27 of the springs sampled. The temperature range for these bacteria was found to be 55 to 85�C, and the pH range was from about 6.5 to above 10. Thermus spp. were found in springs containing up to 1 mM dissolved sulfide and having conductivity up to 2,000 μS/cm. The distribution of Thermus spp. in a hot spring thermal gradient was also investigated and found to agree well with the overall distribution in individual springs.
Genetic Network Programming for fuzzy association rule-based classification

This paper presents a novel classification approach that integrates fuzzy classification rules and Genetic Network Programming (GNP). A fuzzy discretization technique is applied to transform the dataset, particularly for dealing with quantitative attributes. GNP is an evolutionary optimization technique that uses directed graph structures as genes instead of strings and trees of Genetic Algorithms (GA) and Genetic Programming (GP), respectively. This feature contributes to creating quite compact programs and implicitly memorizing past action sequences. Therefore, in the proposed method, taking the GNP's structure into account 1) extraction of fuzzy classification rules is done without identifying frequent itemsets used in most Apriori-based data mining algorithms, 2) calculation of the support, confidence and x2 value is made in order to quantify the significance of the rules to be integrated into the classifier, 3) fuzzy membership values are used for fuzzy classification rules extraction, 4) fuzzy rules are mined through generations and stored in a general pool. On the other hand, parameters of the membership functions are evolved by non-uniform mutation in order to perform a more global search in the space of candidate membership functions. The performance of our algorithm has been compared with other relevant algorithms and the experimental results have shown the advantages and effectiveness of the proposed model.
Fostering Creativity through Education – A Conceptual Framework of Creative Pedagogy

Capacities and qualities of creativity have been identified by researchers and strategies in fostering children’s creative thinking skills were proposed to create supportive environments in an educational setting. There is little consistent rhetoric, however, among these insights and strategies concerning different aspects of fostering creativity. In light of this, a three-element framework of creative pedagogy is proposed to offer a more holistic view of enhancing creativity through teaching, to cover the aspect of creative learning which was overlooked in the past, and to provide a different explanation to some arguments about teaching creativity. This framework is also a starting point for studies which intend to understand the teachers and pupils’ responses to creative pedagogy, and to provide implications for applying creative pedagogy in a classroom and in Asian context as well. In the end, several possible routes are suggested for future research in creative pedagogy.
Ras‐Association Domain Family 1 Protein, RASSF1C, Is an IGFBP‐5 Binding Partner and a Potential Regulator of Osteoblast Cell Proliferation

The goal of this study was to identify downstream signaling molecules involved in mediating the IGF‐independent effects of IGFBP‐5 in osteoblasts. We identified RASSF1C, a member of the RASSF1 gene products, as a IGFBP‐5 binding partner and as a potential mediator of IGFBP‐5 effects on ERK phosphorylation and cell proliferation.
Blood Myeloid Dendritic Cells from HIV-1-Infected Individuals Display a Proapoptotic Profile Characterized by Decreased Bcl-2 Levels and by Caspase-3+ Frequencies That Are Associated with Levels of Plasma Viremia and T Cell Activation in an Exploratory Study

ABSTRACT Reduced frequencies of myeloid and plasmacytoid dendritic cell (DC) subsets (mDCs and pDCs, respectively) have been observed in the peripheral blood of HIV-1-infected individuals throughout the course of disease. Accumulation of DCs in lymph nodes (LNs) may partly account for the decreased numbers observed in blood, but increased DC death may also be a contributing factor. We used multiparameter flow cytometry to evaluate pro- and antiapoptotic markers in blood mDCs and pDCs from untreated HIV-1-infected donors, from a subset of infected donors before and after receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART), and from uninfected control donors. Blood mDCs, but not pDCs, from untreated HIV-1-infected donors expressed lower levels of antiapoptotic Bcl-2 than DCs from uninfected donors. A subset of HIV-1-infected donors had elevated frequencies of proapoptotic caspase-3+ blood mDCs, and positive correlations were observed between caspase-3+ mDC frequencies and plasma viral load and CD8+ T-cell activation levels. Caspase-3+ mDC frequencies, but not mDC Bcl-2 expression, were reduced with viral suppression on ART. Apoptosis markers on DCs in blood and LN samples from a cohort of untreated, HIV-1-infected donors with chronic disease were also evaluated. LN mDCs displayed higher levels of Bcl-2 and lower caspase-3+ frequencies than did matched blood mDCs. Conversely, LN pDCs expressed lower Bcl-2 levels than their blood counterparts. In summary, blood mDCs from untreated HIV-1-infected subjects displayed a proapoptotic profile that was partially reversed with viral suppression, suggesting that DC death may be a factor contributing to blood DC depletion in the setting of chronic, untreated HIV disease.
Premenstrual Syndrome Diagnosis: A Comparative Study between the Daily Record of Severity of Problems (DRSP) and the Premenstrual Symptoms Screening Tool (PSST)

Abstract Objective To validate the premenstrual symptoms screening tool (PSST) in relation to the daily record of severity of problems (DRSP) for premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) diagnoses. Methods A cross-sectional study with 127 women (20–45 years) with PMS complaints. The women were evaluated in terms of weight, height and body mass index (BMI). After using the primary care evaluation of mental disorders (PRIME-MD) questionnaire to exclude the diagnosis of depression, the PSST was completed and the women were instructed to fill out the DRSP for two consecutive menstrual cycles. The agreement between the two questionnaires was assessed by the Kappa (k) and the prevalence-adjusted, bias-adjusted kappa (PABAK) values. Results Two-hundred and eighty-two women met the eligibility criteria and answered the PSST. The DRSP was completed for two cycles by 127 women. The percentages of women with PMS and PMDD diagnoses by the DRSP were 74.8% and 3.9% respectively; by PSST, the percentages were41.7% and 34.6% respectively. The number of patients considered “normal” (with symptoms below the threshold for the diagnosis of PMS) was similar in both questionnaires. There was no agreement (Kappa = 0.12) in the results of PMS/ PMDD diagnosis (the PABAK coefficient confirmed this result = 0.39). The PSST had a high sensitivity (79%) and a low specificity (33.3%) for PMS/PMDD diagnosis. Conclusion The PSST should be considered a diagnostic screening tool. Positive PMS/PMDD cases by PSST should be further evaluated by DRSP to confirm the diagnosis.
Nonpharmacologic Interventions for Inappropriate Behaviors in Dementia

Inappropriate behaviors are very common in dementia and impose an enormous toll both emotionally and financially. Three main psychosocial theoretical models have generally been utilized to explain inappropriate behaviors in dementia: the “unmet needs” model, a behavioral/learning model, and an environmental vulnerability/ reduced stress-threshold model. A literature search yielded 83 nonpharmacological intervention studies, which utilized the following categories of interventions: sensory, social contact (real or simulated), behavior therapy, staff training, structured activities, environmental interventions, medical/nursing care interventions, and combination therapies. The majority are reported to have a positive, albeit not always significant, impact. Better matching of the available interventions to patients’ needs and capabilities may result in greater benefits to patients and their caregivers. (Am J Geriatr Psychiatry 2001; 9:361–381)
Sleep restriction in rats leads to changes in operant behaviour indicative of reduced prefrontal cortex function

Sleep deprivation has profound effects on cognitive performance, and some of these effects may be mediated by impaired prefrontal cortex function. In search of an animal model to investigate this relationship we studied the influence of restricted sleep on operant conditioning in rats, particularly the performance in a differential reinforcement of low rate responding (DRL) task, which is highly dependent upon an intact prefrontal cortex. Animals were trained to withhold a lever press until an imposed delay of 30 s after the last press had passed in order to achieve a food reward. Once the animals had mastered the task, they were sleep‐restricted for 7 days with 20 h of sleep deprivation per day. At the end of each daily sleep deprivation session, performance on the DRL task was assessed. The results show that sleep‐restricted animals were less able to time their responses correctly, started pressing the lever more randomly and showed signs of behavioural disinhibition, the latter possibly reflecting enhanced impulsivity. Our data support the hypothesis that a sleep debt has disruptive consequences for the functioning of the prefrontal cortex. This model offers possibilities for future studies investigating the underlying biochemical and molecular mechanisms of this relationship.
CAROTENOIDS AFFECT DEVELOPMENT OF UV‐B INDUCED SKIN CANCER

One large dose of UV‐B (8 × 1014 J m‐2: 290‐320 nm) has been found to cause the development of skin tumors in hairless mice, and carotenoid pigments prevent or delay tumor development in this system. This model was used to determine if the protective effect of carotenoid pigments against UV‐B induced skin tumors occurred during the induction phase or progression phase of UV‐B carcinogenesis. The results indicate that the carotenoids canthaxanthin and (J‐carotene interfered with the progression phase in this system; whether they also had an effect during induction could not be definitely determined from our data.
Dose-Dependent, Therapeutic Potential of Angiotensin-(1–7) for the Treatment of Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension

The effects of the heptapeptide angiotensin-(1–7) (Ang-(1–7)), via its receptor Mas, oppose many of the effects of the classic angiotensin II signaling pathway, and pharmacological exploitation of this effect is currently actively pursued for a wide range of cardiovascular, neoplastic, or immunological disorders. On the basis of its vasodilatory and antiproliferative properties, Ang-(1–7) has consequentially also been proposed as a novel therapeutic strategy for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). In this study, we tested the effectiveness of Ang-(1–7) and its stable, cyclic analog cAng-(1–7) over a range of doses for their therapeutic potential in experimental PAH. In the monocrotaline (MCT) rat model of PAH, Ang-(1–7) or cAng-(1–7) were injected in doses of 30, 100, 300, or 900 μg kg–1 day–1, and effects on pulmonary hemodynamics and vascular remodeling were assessed. Five weeks after MCT injection, right ventricular systolic pressure (RVSP) was significantly reduced for 3 dose groups treated with Ang-(1–7) (100, 300, and 900 μg kg–1 day–1) and for all dose groups treated with cAng-(1–7), as compared to untreated controls, yet the total reduction of RVSP was >50% at best and thus markedly lower than that with a positive treatment control with ambrisentan. Medial-wall thickness in pulmonary arterioles was only slightly reduced, without reaching significance, for any of the tested Ang-(1–7) compounds and doses. The reported moderate attenuation of PAH does not confirm the previously postulated high promise of this strategy, and the therapeutic usefulness of Ang-(1–7) may be limited in PAH relative to that in other cardiovascular diseases.