Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Framework of Discrete-Event Simulation Modeling for Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) in Airline Industry

Prognostics and system health management (PHM) conceptually integrates the advanced sensing and signal processing technology to predict the occurrence time of faults in the airline industry. A discrete-event logistics system (DELS) simulation model provides an effective way to evaluate overall performance by modeling the system behaviors. However, when taking PHM into account, the DELS model would be more complicated, and there lacks related research on how to establish a DELS model fulfilling PHM requirement. This paper proposes a framework of establishing such models incorporating PHM disciplines. With the prognostic horizon and remaining useful life estimation, the maintenance and logistics preparations are brought in advance, splitting the system model into two parallel lines. A combination of maintenance and logistics strategies is proposed in the dimensions of spare delivery and maintenance plan, respectively. The temporal sequential relations for the strategies are exploited, in detail, showing how the two parallel lines coordinate. The quantitative metrics for system utility, as well as the costs factors, are investigated. Finally, the framework is implemented and tested with the case of an airline network with an all-round performance evaluation for decision making.
An exploratory study of food in destination marketing

While food, as an element of culture, is increasingly being used in many destination marketing strategies, most research on food-related tourism marketing has been conducted from the demand-side focusing on food-related visitor experiences. Moreover, most research in this domain has been dominated by Asian perspectives, neglecting emerging Western destinations. Considering these shortcomings, the overarching aim of this PhD study was to explore the use of food in destination marketing in selected destinations in Yorkshire, England, to address this gap in knowledge, and to develop recommendations for destination marketers and other industry stakeholders to assist in planning and utilising food as a cultural resource more effectively at the destination level. The research strategy was based on an embedded single-case study with multiple units of analysis: four destination marketing organisations (DMOs) at regional and local levels. During the first stage of the data collection process, a qualitative content analysis of DMO websites was undertaken to explore how food was used in the current marketing strategies. This approach enabled the researcher to evaluate textual and visual information used to represent food on the official DMO websites at regional and local levels. The second stage involved semi-structured interviews with DMO representatives and “industry experts” and aimed to seek deeper insights into the use of food in destination marketing strategies. The findings indicate that food in destination marketing is an area in which DMOs are increasingly active, but in which there is considerable variance. This is visible in the changing and evolving nature of the English cuisine, but also in the differences which were identified in the marketing of food in rural and urban destinations reflecting both cultural heterogenisation and homogenisation. Moreover, this study found that despite the increasing use of “local” food in destination marketing, there is a lack of consensus over what counts as “local”. Accordingly, this study proposes four key dimensions representing different perceptions and judgments about what counts as “local”, as indicated in this study by interview participants as well as the review of the literature. In addition, this study identified the changing nature of DMOs and destination marketing as well as numerous challenges that DMOs face in delivering value to consumers and stakeholders. In particular, in view of the increasingly important role of food, this study has identified the activities of cooperation and networking among and between public and private sectors as pre-requisites to the effective implementation of food in destination marketing activities.
Functional asymmetries in the movement kinematics of patients with Tourette’s syndrome

OBJECTIVES This study adopted a concurrent task design and aimed to quantify the efficiency and smoothness of voluntary movement in Tourette’s syndrome via the use of a graphics tablet which permits analysis of movement profiles. In particular, the aim was to ascertain whether a concurrent task (digit span) would affect the kinematics of goal directed movements, and whether patients with Tourette’s syndrome would exhibit abnormal functional asymmetries compared with their matched controls. Methods—Twelve patients with Tourette’s syndrome and their matched controls performed 12 vertical zig zag movements, with both left and right hands (with and without the concurrent task), to large or small targets over long or short extents. Results—With short strokes, controls showed the predicted right hand superiority in movement time more strongly than patients with Tourette’s syndrome, who instead showed greater hand symmetry with short strokes. The right hand of controls was less force efficient with long strokes and more force efficient with short strokes, whereas either hand of patients with Tourette’s syndrome was equally force efficient, irrespective of stroke length, with an overall performance profile similar to but better than that of the controls’ left hand. The concurrent task, however, increased the force efficiency of the right hand in patients with Tourette’s syndrome and the left hand in controls. Conclusions—Patients with Tourette’s syndrome, compared with controls, were not impaired in the performance of fast, goal directed movements such as aiming at targets; they performed in certain respects better than controls. The findings clearly add to the growing literature on anomalous lateralisation in Tourette’s syndrome, which may be explained by the recently reported loss of normal basal ganglia asymmetries in that disorder.
Current Techniques in Preoperative Imaging for Abdomen-based Perforator Flap Microsurgical Breast Reconstruction

Abstract Perforator-based microsurgical reconstruction of the breast has steadily increased since the introduction of the technique in the 1990s. The procedure appears to offer less postoperative pain, lower abdominal morbidity, and better preservation of the rectus muscles than the more conventional flaps. However, the major disadvantage of these flaps that they can be difficult to harvest, resulting in a longer operative times. The challenges in flap dissection are a result of the variability in the vascular anatomy of the deep inferior epigastric artery (DIEA) and its perforating branches through the rectus muscle. The location, number, and caliber of the perforators and the intramuscular trajectory of the DIEA branches vary greatly not only from individual to individual, but from one hemiabdomen to the other. The establishment of a presurgical map of the vessels on the abdomen facilitates surgical planning and may decrease operating room time, reduce intraoperative complications, and possibly improve outcomes. This article reviews the available techniques for preoperative planning with the currently available imaging modalities of handheld Doppler, color Doppler (duplex) ultrasound, computed tomography angiography, and magnetic resonance angiography.
Formation of diagnostics indicator base of the university scientific activity system

The object of research is the indicators for the diagnosis of the state of the system of scientific activity of higher educational institutions (HEIs), including universities. Diagnostics of scientific activity today takes on special significance for the HEIs that are in a highly competitive environment in the market of educational and scientific services. During the research methods of expert evaluation, analysis and synthesis, logical generalization were used. A set of representative indicators reflecting the resource support of scientific activity, its effectiveness, and also characterize the stability, adaptability and reliability of the system are obtained. All indicators are grouped by the following subsystems: conducting research; training of highly qualified scientific personnel; maintenance of creative activity of participants of educational process; use of scientific results obtained in the educational process. The proposed set of indicators forms the basis for further interpretation of the state of the system of scientific activity of the university, obtaining a holistic view of the problems, shortcomings and threats to the implementation of scientific activity, and making informed management decisions. Proposals have been formulated to complement the forms of «Indicators of Scientific and Technical and Technological Activities of HEI» with additional indicators, in particular on the level of qualifications of the SSPW and the HEI scientific infrastructure, which provide more reliable data for diagnosing the HEI scientific activity. Interpretation of monitoring results and assessment of the state of the scientific activity system on the proposed indicators will allow to form an information array of data on existing problems, potential threats and risks in the field of scientific activity. And also in the future – to develop proposals to eliminate these problems, to prevent threats and risks.
The Genesis of Voluntary Disclosure: An Analysis of Firms’ First Earnings Guidance

The decision to provide earnings guidance for the first time is an important disclosure decision that has a significant effect on subsequent earnings guidance decisions. We explore how soon managers initiate earnings guidance after an initial public offering (IPO) and the factors associated with the adoption of this new disclosure policy. Our results suggest that managers in the current environment often initiate public guidance soon after their IPOs. Specifically, we find that more than 31 (59) percent of our sample firms provide earnings guidance within 90 (365) days of going public. We explore factors that are likely related to the supply of and demand for early earnings guidance. We find evidence of a positive association between the timing of earnings guidance initiation and the involvement of influential external parties (analysts, venture capital firms, and private equity firms) and the proportion of industry peers that guide and a negative association between the timing of first guidance and IPO information uncertainty. In addition, we find a positive association between abnormal returns and first guidance forecast news, consistent with investors generally relying on first-time guidance. We also find that firms in short-term focused industries tend to provide shorter-horizon initial guidance. Overall, the results indicate that, while the timing of first guidance varies with firm-specific measures of the costs and benefits of disclosure predicted by theory, the horizon of first guidance depends mostly on industry factors.
Clonal deletion of thymocytes as a tumor escape mechanism

Clonal deletion of thymocytes is a major event in T‐cell tolerance and might represent a tumor escape mechanism. Previously, we have shown that class II‐restricted, Id‐specific, CD4+ T cells in T‐cell receptor (TCR)‐transgenic mice confer resistance against the MOPC315 plasmacytoma. In this report, we have investigated whether monoclonal immunoglobulin (Ig) produced by a plasmacytoma can induce deletion of thymocytes specific for the variable parts of Ig, i.e., the idiotype (Id). Large numbers of MOPC315 tumor cells were injected s.c. in the TCR‐transgenic mice to overwhelm the CD4+ T‐cell‐mediated protection. When the MOPC315 plasmacytomas reached a weight of approximately 0.5 g (serum myeloma protein M315 about 50 μg/ml), immature CD4+8+ and mature CD4+ transgenic thymocytes became progressively deleted. Apoptotic thymocytes were already detectable when tumors were 2 mm in diameter (serum M315: 5 μg/ml, or 0.03 μM). The negative selection was Id‐specific, because an Id‐negative plasmacytoma failed to induce deletion. Injection of purified MOPC315‐myeloma protein (M315) i.p. caused a profound reduction of Id‐specific thymocytes. Enriched thymic dendritic cells (DC) from tumor‐bearing animals were found to be primed with λ2315 and induced apoptosis of thymocytes in vitro. Our results indicate that circulating myeloma protein is processed and presented by thymic antigen‐presenting cells (APC), and induces deletion of Id‐specific thymocytes. Deletion of tumor‐specific thymocytes may represent a tumor escape mechanism in patients with cancers that secrete or shed tumor antigens. The possibility that vaccination with tumor Ig or genes encoding for it may induce tolerance instead of protection should be taken into consideration. Int. J. Cancer 78:216–222, 1998. © 1998 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Glioma Risk in Relation to Serum Levels of Insulin-Like Growth Factors

Several studies have suggested that insulin-like growth factors (IGF) are related to cancer risk. We investigated the associations between serum levels of IGF-I and IGF-binding protein-3 and glioma risk. A nested case-control study was conducted within a cancer prevention study, including 29,133 men (ages 50-69 years). In total, 22 glioma cases and 400 randomly selected controls were included. Serum samples were collected a minimum of 5 years before cancer diagnosis. Serum concentrations were measured using ELISA and divided into tertiles based on measurements among controls. Odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were calculated using the lowest tertile as the reference category. No statistical association was detected between glioma and IGF-binding protein-3. IGF-I was inversely associated with glioma when comparing the lowest tertile with the other tertiles combined (odds ratio, 0.3; 95% confidence interval, 0.1-0.7). The results encourage future research on IGFs in relation to brain tumors in larger studies. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2007;16(4):844–6)
Ifosfamide plus etoposide combined with regional hyperthermia in patients with locally advanced sarcomas: a phase II study.

From July 1986 to July 1989, 40 patients (92% pretreated) with deep-seated, advanced soft tissue sarcomas (STS, 25 patients), Ewing's sarcomas (ES, eight patients), osteosarcomas (OS, three patients) and chondrosarcomas (ChS, four patients) were treated at the University of Munich in a protocol involving regional hyperthermia (RHT) combined with ifosfamide plus etoposide. A total of 265 RHT treatments (mean, 6.6 RHT per patient) were applied including 33 pelvic, four extremity, and three abdominal sites. The mean tumor volume was 537 cc (range, 50 to 2,980 cc). For systemic chemotherapy, all patients received ifosfamide (1.5 g/m2, days 1 to 5), etoposide (100 mg/m2, days 1, 3, and 5), and mesna (300 mg/m2 x 4, days 1 to 5) with RHT given only on days 1 and 5 in repeated cycles every 4 weeks. Acute toxicity consisted primarily of pain (57%) combined with local discomfort within the annular phased array applicator (AA) of the BSD hyperthermia system (BSD Medical Corp, Salt Lake City, UT). The average maximum systemic temperature was 37.4 +/- 0.5 degrees C, and there was no indication of enhanced bone marrow toxicity due to the addition of RHT to the systemic chemotherapy. Detailed thermal mapping by invasive thermometry was performed in all patients. In 38 assessable patients, the overall objective response rate was 37%: six complete responses (CRs), four partial responses (PRs), and four favorable histologic responses (FHRs) (95% confidence limits, 22% to 54%). Complete responders are alive and disease-free at 40, 35, 23, 19, 19, and 8 months. Of patients with PR and FHR, two died from metastatic disease after 4 and 17 months and one died from other disease after 27 months. The remaining five patients are stable at 37, 25, 21, 13, and 8 months. Eleven patients showed no change (NC), and 13 patients showed local tumor progression (PD). The mean observation time for all patients was 11.6 months. The time-averaged temperatures (Ts) of all RHT treatments calculated as 20% (T20), 50% (T50), or 90% (T90) of measured tumor sites differed significantly between responders and nonresponders (T20, P = .003; T50, P = .006; and T90, P = .004; respectively). These data support activity for ifosfamide-etoposide combined with RHT in pretreated patients with advanced sarcomas.
Improving Question Answering Sentence Selection by Rank Propagation

Open-domain Question Answering (QA) systems typically leverage an answer selection component to rank candidate answer sentences based on how likely they will contain the answer to a given question. This component plays a crucial rule in the QA system as it usually dictates how down-stream processing modules (e.g., answer extraction) retain and present answers to users. Most existing works in this ﬁeld use machine learning techniques that captures relations between question and answer sentences to train models for ranking answer candidates. In this paper, we introduce RankProp , a method that can be used as a post processing step for improving the quality of the ranking results from classiﬁers. Based on the assumption that similar sentences should be ranked closer and answer sentences that ranked at the top by classiﬁers are more likely to contain the answer, our algorithm makes use of similarities among the answer sentences and propagate this information. It takes ranking scores and similarities as input and uses convex optimization to perform further ranking adjustment. Similarities can be evaluated through word embedding techniques. In addition, if the expected answer type can be generated from the answer type prediction module, our algorithm will also incorporate this information together with the entity types extracted from the candidate answers to further improve the quality of the ranking. Experimental results on Jacana-QA system demonstrate that our method generally improve the performance of ranking module by 5% on average. More-over, this RankProp algorithm is generic in the sense that it does not make any assumption about how the overall QA system works. Therefore, in principle, it can be inserted into an existing QA system to improve its performance without modifying any other components.
Cefotaxime diffusion into cerebrospinal fluid of children with meningitis

Cefotaxime diffused consistently and in therapeutic levels into the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of 13 children successfully treated for bacterial meningitis. CSF cefotaxime levels early (6.0 micrograms/ml) and late (1.2 micrograms/ml) in treatment were severalfold the MBCs for the infecting organisms. After a single 40-mg/kg dose to each of five infants with ventriculostomies, mean CSF levels of cefotaxime were 6.4, 5.7, and 4.5 micrograms/ml at 2, 4, and 6 h, respectively.
Simulating circuits with impasse points

Abstract. In this paper circuits with impasse points, i.e. with jumps in their configuration space will be analyzed. These non-regularized circuits exhibit a fold in their configuration space, which can lead to difficulties during the simulation with standard circuit simulators like SPICE. The former developed geometric approach to simulate these circuits without regularization will be extended by a detailed discussion of which coordinate system has to be chosen. Furthermore, two new approaches for a numerically efficient calculation of the hit points will be shown.
Preoperative radiation therapy for carcinoma of the esophagus

From 1960 through 1973, 415 patients with carcinoma of the esophagus were treated with radiation therapy. Three hundred and thirty‐two patients had planned preoperative irradiation to a dose of 4500 rads in 18 fractions, and 101 of these had subsequent resections with either colon or stomach replacement. The operative mortality in this group was 18% and the 2‐ and 5‐year survivals were 22.8 and 13.6%, respectively. The dose of 4500 rads in 18 fractions produced tumor sterilization in 3% and reduction to in situ carcinoma in 10% of these 101 patients. The survival was considerably improved in this small group of patients. Those patients not amenable to exploration had a 3% 5‐year and a 5.6% 2‐year survival. Thirty‐three patients were given high‐dose curative radiation therapy and the 2‐year survival was 12.1%. The overall survival was 9% at 2 years and 6% at 5 years. The results in this series are compared with the most recent reports in the literature.
Role of Trust and Customer Satisfaction as a Mediation Effect of Human Resource Competence on Customer Loyalty (Study on Commercial Customer BCA Kanwil VII Malang)

Increasing competition in the banking services business make the customer's demands growing. So that competent human resources are needed to keep customers loyal. This study aims to analyze and explain the role of trust and customer satisfaction as a mediator of the influence of human resource competence on customer loyalty. The research population is BCA Kanwil VII's commercial customers in Malang. Samples of 100 customers using probability sampling method. Data collection techniques with questionnaires and interviews. Analysis method used SEM (Structural Equation Modeling) with SmartPLS program (Partial Least Square) version 2.0. The research findings show that the competence of human resources has a positive and significant impact on customer loyalty directly or with trust as the mediation variable. However, the effect of using satisfaction as a mediation variable is not significant. This is because a high customer’s variety seeking range that is found from more in-depth interviews with customers. Under these conditions, BCA must accommodate all customers' interests in order to be fulfilled with one bank. Given the role of human resource competence is very significant to customer loyalty then the competence should be periodically evaluated in order to remain able to follow the increasing demands of customers along with the influence of globalization.
Effect of CYP2A13 Active Site Mutation N297A on Metabolism of Coumarin and Tobacco-Specific Nitrosamines

Cytochrome P450 2A13-catalyzed α-hydroxylation is a critical step in the activation of the tobacco carcinogens 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone (NNK) and (S)-N′-nitrosonornicotine [(S)-NNN]. In the enzyme's active site, a single polar residue, Asn297, can influence substrate binding, orientation, and metabolism. We determined the effects of N297A mutation on enzyme kinetics and specificity for NNK, NNN, and coumarin metabolism. [5-3H]-NNK, [5-3H]-(S)-NNN, [14C]coumarin, and radioflow high-performance liquid chromatography analysis were used to quantify metabolites. Cytochrome P450 (P450) 2A13 N297A catalyzed NNK α-hydroxylation, with a 3-fold preference for methylene versus methyl hydroxylation, similar to wild type. Docking studies using the P450 2A13 crystal structure predicted that when the pyridine ring of NNK cannot hydrogen bond to residue 297 it tilts and orients NNK in positions unfavorable for α-hydroxylation. The N297A mutation resulted in a 5- and 4-fold decrease in catalytic efficiency of NNK and NNN metabolism, respectively, primarily because of increased Km values. The N297A mutation strikingly affected coumarin metabolism. The ratio of coumarin 7-hydroxylation to coumarin 3,4-epoxidation is approximately equal for wild-type enzyme, whereas the ratio was 1:9 for the N297A mutant. Coumarin 3,4-epoxidation was significantly underestimated unless the epoxide was trapped and quantified as its glutathione conjugate. The Km value for this reaction was 4-fold greater for the mutant enzyme; the Vmax value increased nearly 40-fold. The observed shift toward coumarin 3,4-epoxidation is consistent with docking studies. In summary, Asn297 in P450 2A13 is important for orienting NNK and coumarin in the active site, changing this residue to Ala results in altered enzyme kinetics for NNK, NNN, and coumarin.