Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of three different bariatric obesity surgery procedures on nutrient and energy digestibility using a swine experimental model

Morbid obesity is a worldwide health concern that compromises life quality and health status of obese human subjects. Bariatric surgery for treating morbid obesity remains as one of the best alternatives to promote excess weight loss and to reduce co-morbidities. We have not found studies reporting nutrients and energy balance considering digestibility trials in humans following surgery. The purpose of this study was to determine protein, lipid, fiber, energy, calcium, and phosphorous digestibility in a swine model that underwent ileal transposition (IT), sleeve gastrectomy with ileal transposition (SGIT), Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGBP), and with sham operated animals (SHAM). Thirty-two pigs were randomly assigned to four laparoscopic procedures: IT (n = 8), RYGBP (n = 8), SGIT (n = 8), and Sham-operated pigs (n = 8). From day 0 postsurgery to 130, pigs were weighed monthly to determine live weight and weight gain was calculated for each month postsurgery until day 130. Food intake in a metabolic weight basis was calculated by measuring ad libitum food intake at day 130. Swine were fitted into metabolic crates to determine digestibility coefficients of dry matter, protein, fat, fiber, ash, energy, calcium, and phosphorous from day 130. A one-way ANOVA and Student–Newman–Keuls were used to detect differences in weight, food intake, and digestibility coefficients. Digestibility values for dry matter, fiber, phosphorus, and energy showed no differences among groups (P > 0.05). However, significant differences (P ≤ 0.05) were encountered among groups for fat, protein, ash, and calcium digestibilities. The RYGBP procedure, when applied to the pig model, significantly reduced calcium, fat, and ash digestibility, which did not occur with SGIT or IT procedure, when compared with Sham-operated animals.
An ontology-driven process for unification of XML instances

XML documents have been widely used for data representation and data interchange, specially on the Web. However, the great number of XML data sources on the Web drawn from the same domain with heterogeneous representations becomes very complex the semantic integration of XML instances for querying purposes, for example. This paper presents an automatic process for the unification of XML documents representing data instances on a same domain. It receives a set of XML instances as input and generates a unique representation for them. Different from related work, the process considers a domain ontology as a basis for nomenclature and structure uniformization of the resulting XML instance. The process core is a set of unification operators that are invoked to provide the necessary adjustments in the instances in order to fit well with the domain ontology schema.
Socioeconomic disadvantage and participation in tertiary education: preliminary thoughts

This paper was written in 2010 to encourage policy-makers to think about how to measure socioeconomic status (SES). The findings show that measurement of SES is a complex issue, and that the Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) measures perform quite well in measuring the aggregate relationship between socioeconomic status and education participation. People who are currently not in any education (typically of higher socioeconomic status) are more likely, in an expanded higher education section, to participate in university than those students studying vocational education and training. ___________________ (free registration to the NCVER site is required to view the paper in full)
Influence of the scattering phase function on light transport measurements in turbid media performed with small source-detector separations.

Many methods of optical tissue diagnosis require that measurements be performed with small source-detector separations in a backscatter geometry. Monte Carlo simulations are used to demonstrate that for these situations light transport depends on the exact form of the angular scattering probability distribution, P(theta). Simulations performed with different forms of P(theta) with the same value of ? cos theta? result in the collection of significantly different fractions of the incident photons, particularly when small-numerical-aperture delivery and collection fibers are employed. More photons are collected for the distribution that has a higher probability of scattering events with theta > 125 degrees . For the clinically relevant optical parameters employed here, the differences in light collection are >60%.
Yield estimates for the TESH multicomputer network

Reconfiguration and yield issues are considered for parallel computing systems based on a new interconnection network, "Tori connected mESHes (TESH). " The network is hierarchical - thus allowing exploitation of computation locality as well as systematic expansion up to a million processors, permits efficient VLSI/ULSI realization, and appears to be well suited for 3-D VLSI/ULSI implementation. Further, it enables efficient implementation of a large variety of computation intensive applications. In a very recent paper, we have reported the methodology for automatic reconfiguration of TESH. The goal of the present paper is to derive theoretical estimates of system yield as a function of the defect density and the various reconfiguration approaches. From these bounds, it is concluded that despite dramatic improvements in defect density in recent years, it is still necessary to provide redundancy and defect circumvention to achieve acceptable system-level yields. The analysis includes consideration of not only cell yield, but also switch and link yields. The latter two are particularly important in view of the emerging interest in interconnected nanotech devices for which the link yields currently are quite low.
A Precoding Scheme for N-Continuous OFDM

In this letter, we present a novel, with-memory precoding scheme for N-continuous OFDM, which is based on the decomposition of a relevant matrix into its null space and orthogonal complement subspace. The transmitted data can be fully recovered by the proposed scheme, while the out-of-band emission performance is retained as other N-continuous OFDM signals. The data rate loss is reduced to half compared to the memory-less scheme. Bit-error-rate performance can be improved by exploiting the redundant information in the subsequent OFDM symbol.
An Advanced Computational Intelligence System for Training of Ballet Dance in a Cave Virtual Reality Environment

This paper presents a computer-based system for assessment and training of ballet dance in a CAVE virtual reality environment. The system utilizes Kinect sensor to capture student's dance and extracts features from skeleton joints. This system depends on a structured posture space, which comprises a set of dance elements that represent key moments -- "postures", that typically will be so briefly held as to experience as a fleeting moment in a flux -- in the dance movements whose performance we are attempting to assess. The recording captured from the Kinect allows the parsing of dance movement into a structured posture space using the spherical self-organizing map (SSOM). From this, a unique descriptor can be obtained by following gesture trajectories through posture space on the SSOM, which appropriately reflects the subtleties of ballet dance movements. Consequently, the system can recognize the category of movement the student is attempting, and this allows us make a quantitative assessment of individual movements. Based on the experimental results, the proposed system appears to be very effective for recognition and offering generalization across instances of movement. Thus, it is possible for the construction of assessment and visualization of ballet dance movements performed by the student in an instructional, virtual reality setting.
A Novel Mechanism for Wnt Activation of Canonical Signaling through the LRP6 Receptor

ABSTRACT LDL receptor-related protein 6 (LRP6) is a Wnt coreceptor in the canonical signaling pathway, which plays essential roles in embryonic development. We demonstrate here that wild-type LRP6 forms an inactive dimer through interactions mediated by epidermal growth factor repeat regions within the extracellular domain. A truncated LRP6 comprising its transmembrane and cytoplasmic domains is expressed as a constitutively active monomer whose signaling ability is inhibited by forced dimerization. Conversely, Wnts are shown to activate canonical signaling through LRP6 by inducing an intracellular conformational switch which relieves allosteric inhibition imposed on the intracellular domains. Thus, Wnt canonical signaling through LRP6 establishes a novel mechanism for receptor activation which is opposite to the general paradigm of ligand-induced receptor oligomerization.
[Relationship between histopathologic characteristics and epidermal growth factor receptor mutation in lung adenocarcinoma].

OBJECTIVE To correlate morphological features with mutations of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) in lung adenocarcinomas. METHODS According to 2011 International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer/American Thoracic Society/European Respiratory Society International Multidisciplinary Lung Adenocarcinoma Classification, a total of 72 surgically resected lung adenocarcinomas were collected and classified into different histological subtypes and different cell types (hobnail, columnar and polygonal). EGFR gene mutation was detected with the amplification refractory mutation method provided by the EGFR mutation test kit. The correlation between these subtypes and EGFR mutations were evaluated. RESULTS Mutations of EGFR were detected in 48.6% (35/72) of lung adenocarcinomas; 19del and L858R were major mutational types (88.6%, 31/35). EGFR mutations were associated with female gender, non-smoking status, and well to moderately differentiated tumor histology. EGFR mutation types were not associated with age, smoking index, lymph node metastasis, stage, status of whether have or not have inclusion bodies or psammoma bodies and mitotic level. Correlations were observed between acinar and papillary adenocarcinoma subtypes and EGFR mutations according to the new classification. EGFR mutation was rare in the subtype of solid adenocarcinoma with mucin production and almost never observed in special subtypes (mainly mucinous and colloid adenocarcinoma). In addition, EGFR mutation was associated with the hobnail cell type. CONCLUSION Lung adenocarcinomas of predominate acinar and papillary histological subtypes with hobnail cell morphology are good predictors for EGFR mutations.
Singularities of the susceptibility of a Sinai–Ruelle–Bowen measure in the presence of stable–unstable tangencies†

Let ρ be a Sinai–Ruelle–Bowen (SRB or ‘physical’) measure for the discrete time evolution given by a map f, and let ρ(A) denote the expectation value of a smooth function A. If f depends on a parameter, the derivative δρ(A) of ρ(A) with respect to the parameter is formally given by the value of the so-called susceptibility function Ψ(z) at z=1. When f is a uniformly hyperbolic diffeomorphism, it has been proved that the power series Ψ(z) has a radius of convergence r(Ψ)>1, and that δρ(A)=Ψ(1), but it is known that r(Ψ)<1 in some other cases. One reason why f may fail to be uniformly hyperbolic is if there are tangencies between the stable and unstable manifolds for (f,ρ). The present paper gives a crude, non-rigorous, analysis of this situation in terms of the Hausdorff dimension d of ρ in the stable direction. We find that the tangencies produce singularities of Ψ(z) for |z|<1 if d<1/2, but only for |z|>1 if d>1/2. In particular, if d>1/2, we may hope that Ψ(1) makes sense, and the derivative δρ(A)=Ψ(1) thus has a chance to be defined.
Identification of the constitutive ultradian oscillator of the circadian clock (ENOX1) in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

A yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) deletion library was screened based on NADH fluorescence using a 384 well plate assay and robotics to identify a yeast isolate lacking the 24 min periodic cell surface oxidase. The oxidase was shown previously to be a candidate ultradian oscillator of the yeast’s biological clock. The cDNA was cloned from a yeast overexpression library and the encoded protein was expressed in bacteria and characterized. Glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase activity was used as the cellular circadian indicator. The identified gene was YML117W which encodes a ca 126 kDa putative RNA-binding protein. The candidate ENOX1 activity from yeast had functional characteristics similar to those of other constitutive ENOX1 proteins of eukaryotes exhibiting oscillating activities with a temperature independent period length of 24 min phased by melatonin and low frequency electromagnetic fields and susceptible to inhibition by the ENOX1 inhibitor, simalikalactone D. The YML117W deletion mutant cells lacked the ENOX1 clock output present in wild type yeast. The findings identify YML117W as the ENOX1 of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and support its proposed function as an ultradian oscillator of the yeast biological clock.
Efficiency robust statistics for genetic linkage and association studies under genetic model uncertainty

When testing genetic linkage and association, test statistics that follow a normal or Chi‐square distributions are often used. These statistics are usually derived under a specific mode of inheritance (genetic model). Common genetic models include, but not limited to, the recessive, additive, multiplicative, and dominant models. For many diseases, their underlying genetic models are often unknown. Instead, a family of scientifically plausible genetic models may be available, which includes the four commonly used models. Hence, the optimal test is not available. Employing a single test statistic which is optimal for one model may suffer from substantial loss of power when the model is misspecified. In this situation efficient robust tests are useful. In this tutorial, we first review several commonly used robust statistics, including maximin efficency robust tests, maximal tests, and constrained likelihood ratio tests for three common designs in genetic studies: (i) linkage analysis using affected sib‐pairs, (ii) association studies using parents–offspring trios, and (iii) case–control association studies (unmatched and matched). Codes in the R statistical language for applying these robust statistics to test for linkage and association are presented with examples. We also provide some comparisons of the performance of the various robust tests via simulation studies. Guidelines for applications are also given for each study design. Finally, applications of robust tests to genome‐wide association studies and meta‐analysis are discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Measuring moral hazard using insurance panel data

This paper describes two new methods for testing and measuring moral hazard that are applicable to a variety of insurance settings where panel data is available. The methods are able to measure moral hazard separately from adverse selection. The rst method uses the variation in risk over dierent objects with dierent levels of insurance owned by the same person to isolate the average eect that insurance has on precautionary eort. For the second method, I show that many insurance contracts imply dierent incentives for precautionary eort for both the beginning and end of the contract period. These dierences can be used to test moral hazard. I demonstrate the methods using a detailed insurance data set of virtual space ship insurance from a large virtual world called EVE Online. Because of moral hazard, the daily hazard rates for insured ships are sixfold compared to uninsured ships. Moral hazard is especially high at the beginning of each contract with newly insured ships having thirteen times higher daily hazard rates compared to ships with only 15 days left in their contract.
Redes Sociales su impacto en la Educación Superior: Caso de estudio Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá

La incorporacion de las Tecnologias de la Informacion y Comunicacion (TIC) a la educacion han trazado nuevas demandas hacia los educadores, los usuarios, las instituciones educativas y en general a las distintas esferas de la sociedad, abriendo procesos de reajuste y transformacion que se manifiestan en nuevos usos culturales que encaminan a la innovacion. Las redes sociales son herramientas que nos dan la oportunidad de mantener una comunicacion constante, teniendo acceso a la informacion en tiempo real y sin importar las distancias. En este articulo se presenta un estudio sobre el grado de aceptacion y participacion de las redes sociales de estudiantes, docentes y administrativos en la Universidad Tecnologica de Panama, Sede Regional de Chiriqui. Finalmente, se hace enfasis en los elementos que se deben tomar en cuenta para decidir las redes que se pueden utilizar en el proceso ensenanza-aprendizaje.
Discovering the structure of large web sites

Several techniques have been recently proposed to automatically generate web wrappers, i.e., programs that extract data from HTML pages, and transform them into a more structured format, typically in XML. These techniques automatically induce a wrapper from a set of sample pages that share a common HTML template. An open issue, however, is how to collect suitable classes of sample pages to feed the wrapper inducer. Presently, the pages are chosen manually. In this paper, we tackle the problem of automatically discovering the main classes of pages offered by a site by exploring only a small yet representative portion of it. We propose a model to describe the structure of a web site as a graph: nodes are classes of pages that share a common structure, edges represent links among instances of the page classes. Based on this model, we have developed an algorithm that accepts the url of an entry point to a target web site, visits a limited number of pages, and produces an accurate model of the site structure. We also report on experiments performed on actual web sites.
Evidence for Surface Entrapment of Cholesterol‐Rich Lipoproteins in Luteinized Ovary

Previous studies showed that perfused125Mabeled low and high density lipoproteins (LDL, HDL) have affinity for specialized mlcrovlllar regions of luteal cells In hormone-primed, luteinized rat ovaries. In the current report, we re-examined the interaction of cholesterol-rich lipoproteins with these specialized plasma membrane regions using native lipoproteins visualized as discrete particles by standard electron microscopic techniques. In ovaries perfused with the various llpoproteins, spherical particles (varying In size from 12 to 28 nm depending on the particle used) were found over the surfaces of all luteal cells and filling up extensive “channel” space formed by the apposed plasma membranes of adjacent mlcrovllll or cytoplasmlc surfaces. Only 30% of these tissue-associated particles were removable after prolonged washing with perfused media or heparln. Few Intact particles were found Inside the cells, despite the fact that the lipoproteins Induced a substantial hormone response by the ovary. To determine the total protein internalized by cells during the course of the experiments, parallel biochemical experiments were carried out with nonreleasable (14C-sucrose-coupled) human LDL. Of the total bound14C-sucroae LDL, only 8.5% was degraded (trlchloroacetlc acid-soluble) and presumed internalized by the cells. Thus, while large numbers of cholesterol-rich llpoprotein particles interact with the luteal cell surface in specialized mlcrovlllar channels and elicit a progesterone response, relatively few Intact llpoprotein particles appear to enter the cells to be degraded. We speculate that In the luteinized ovary, a large majority of the llpoproteln-cholesterol transfer occurs at the surface of the luteal cells, and that the membranes of the mlcrovlllar channels are Involved In this process.
Mild chilling injury of banana (Cavendish cv. Williams) and its control in the field.

Declaration Acknowledgements Abbreviations List of Figures List of Tables Chapter 1 1 General Introduction Chapter 2 2 Literature review 2.1 Banana classification 2.2 Australian banana industry 2.3 Chilling injury and field chilling 2.3. 1 Symptoms 2.3. 2 Mechanisms 2.4 Assessment of chilling injury 2.5 Factors that influence chilling injury 2.6 Control of field chilling 2.6. 1 Breeding for chilling tolerance 2.6. 2 Plantation floor management Page XI XV XVI XVIII XXI XXXI 1 1 3 3 3 4 6 8 11 15 18 23 23 25
Identification of potential inhibitors for AIRS from de novo purine biosynthesis pathway through molecular modeling studies – a computational approach

In cancer, de novo pathway plays an important role in cell proliferation by supplying huge demand of purine nucleotides. Aminoimidazole ribonucleotide synthetase (AIRS) catalyzes the fifth step of de novo purine biosynthesis facilitating in the conversion of formylglycinamidine ribonucleotide to aminoimidazole ribonucleotide. Hence, inhibiting AIRS is crucial due to its involvement in the regulation of uncontrollable cancer cell proliferation. In this study, the three-dimensional structure of AIRS from P. horikoshii OT3 was constructed based on the crystal structure from E. coli and the modeled protein is verified for stability using molecular dynamics for a time frame of 100 ns. Virtual screening and induced fit docking were performed to identify the best antagonists based on their binding mode and affinity. Through mutational studies, the residues necessary for catalytic activity of AIRS were identified and among which the following residues Lys35, Asp103, Glu137, and Thr138 are important in determination of AIRS function. The mutational studies help to understand the structural and energetic characteristics of the specified residues. In addition to Molecular Dynamics, ADME properties, binding free-energy, and density functional theory calculations of the compounds were carried out to find the best lead molecule. Based on these analyses, the compound from the NCI database, NCI_121957 was adjudged as the best molecule and could be suggested as the suitable inhibitor of AIRS. In future studies, experimental validation of these ligands as AIRS inhibitors will be carried out.
A cautionary note on cosmetics containing ingredients that increase aquaporin‐3 expression

Abstract: Aquaporin‐3 (AQP3) is a membrane transport protein that facilitates water and glycerol transport across cell plasma membranes in the basal layer of keratinocytes in normal skin. Motivated by a relation between AQP3 expression and skin water content, several companies have marketed cosmetics containing ingredients that increase AQP3 expression. However, caution seems warranted in targeting AQP3 to increase skin moisturization based on a recently discovered association in mice between epidermal AQP3 expression and skin tumor formation.