Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ML Estimation of the Multivariate t Distribution and the EM Algorithm

Maximum likelihood estimation of the multivariate t distribution, especially with unknown degrees of freedom, has been an interesting topic in the development of the EM algorithm. After a brief review of the EM algorithm and its application to finding the maximum likelihood estimates of the parameters of the t distribution, this paper provides new versions of the ECME algorithm for maximum likelihood estimation of the multivariate t distribution from data with possibly missing values. The results show that the new versions of the ECME algorithm converge faster than the previous procedures. Most important, the idea of this new implementation is quite general and useful for the development of the EM algorithm. Comparisons of different methods based on two datasets are presented. 1997 Academic Press
Cloning and in silico study of an endoglucanase from a thermophilic bacterium isolated from a hydrothermal vent of West Kawio, Sangihe‐Talaud waters, North Sulawesi, Indonesia

Endoglucanase is used in industries that apply high temperatures, such as bioethanol, detergent, paper, and animal feed industries. Most available endoglucanases have very low stability at high temperatures. Therefore, this study aimed to identfy a new thermostable endoglucanase that is able to maintain its actvity at high temperatures. Five isolates of thermophilic bacteria were previously isolated from the hydrothermal vent of West Kawio, Indonesia. Among them, the DSI2 isolate showed the highest endoglucanase actvity, and was identfed and named as Bacillus safensis DSI2. The Eg DSI2 gene was cloned from B. safensis DSI2. Eg DSI2 is 1851 bp long encoding a protein of 616 amino acids. The encoded protein, EgDSI2, has high sequence identty to other B. safensis endoglucanases and was predicted with the Compute pI/Mw tool to be 69.41 kDa. EgDSI2 was high in hydrophobic amino acids. The enzyme had higher percentage of Ala and Pro, and lower percentage of Gly compared to thermolabile endoglucanases from two Bacillus species. EgDSI2 harbored a catalytc domain belonging to glycosyl hydrolase family 9 (GH9) and a type 3 cellulose‐binding domain (CBM3). Propertes of endoglucanases with GH9‐CBM3 modular organizaton include actvity over a wide pH range, high optmum temperature, and thermostablity. Therefore, EgDSI2 has potental applicatons in the industries.
Selection of Canadian potato clones for agronomic and frying quality traits

ABSTRACT The demand for cultivars suitable for processing, especially as frozen French fries, is increasing in Brazil. The Canadian expertise is high regarding the development of cultivars with processing characteristics; however, the growing conditions in Canada are quite different from those observed in Brazil. Thus, the aim of this work was to evaluate the performance of Canadian potato clones for their tuber yield, frying quality, plant vigor, and plant cycle, as potential new cultivars or to be used as a new source of variability for crosses. The experiments were conducted in Pelotas-RS and Canoinhas-SC, Brazil, in spring 2017. A set of 12 advanced Canadian potato clones from the Centre de Recherche Les Buissons, QB, Canada, were compared to three control cultivars used for processing. A randomized complete block design with three replicates, with two rows of 20 plants each per plot was used. Tuber yield, frying quality, plant vigor, and plant cycle traits were evaluated. Data were submitted to analysis of variance, grouping of means, and selection gains. It is possible to select genotypes with higher tuber yield and better frying quality, but it is difficult to add also a short cycle. In an attempt to select productive genotypes, with good frying quality, a not so long cycle, and vigor at least equivalent to the control cultivars, clones 15 and 16 were the best at both sites.
Expression of Foxp3 and interleukin-7 receptor and clinicopathological characteristics of patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma

The most specific biomarker on the surface of regulatory T cells (Tregs) is the forkhead/wingeded-helix protein 3 (Foxp3). In contrast, the expression of interleukin-7 receptor (IL-7R) is low or negative in Tregs. The present study aimed to investigate the expression of Foxp3 and IL-7R in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), and to analyse the clinicopathological characteristics of patients with DLBCL and their association with overall survival (OS). Immunohistochemistry was performed to detect the expression of Foxp3 and IL-7R on routinely processed formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded specimens. The χ2 test was used to analyse the association between the expression of Foxp3 and IL-7R and the clinicopathological characteristics of patients with DLBCL. Survival curves were used to investigate the effect of Foxp3 and IL-7R on patient prognosis. The results demonstrated that high Foxp3 expression in tissue was associated with non- germinal centre B-cell (GCB)-type disease (P=0.012), International Prognostic Index score >0 (P=0.012), stage 3 or 4 tumour (P=0.045) and disease progression and stabilization period (P=0.032). In addition, IL-7R expression was associated with non-GCB-type disease (P=0.001) and extranodal lymphoma (P=0.008). Furthermore, expression of Foxp3 and IL-7R was not associated with OS (P=0.447 and P=0.201, respectively). Foxp3 and IL-7R expression in non-GCB-type lymphoma was significantly higher compared with that in GCB lymphoma. The expression of Foxp3 and IL-7R may therefore help the development of individualized treatment, prognostic prediction and therapy stratification.
"Black gold" grade12-learners: relationship between leisure/sport and satisfaction with life

There tends to be an increase in scholarly literature regarding the leisure and sport participation of high school learners. However, in the South African context there are many black high school learners within townships who might not have access to leisure/recreation and sport facilities. "Black gold" (based on ethnicity and different cultural backgrounds), refers to black Grade 12 learners from a diverse group of South Africans. This study aimed to determine whether "black gold" leisure and sport participation during a previous holiday influenced their satisfaction with life. Questionnaires were used and 288 were completed. An Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) on attitude towards and viewpoint on leisure and sport activities, as well as leisure and sport benefits after participation during a previous school holiday resulted in two factors. The highest means belonged to physical/mental health aspects and physical benefits. Satisfaction with life (SWL) was identified as a single factor. Positive medium to high correlations were achieved between the factors. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) revealed that statistical significant relationships exist between attitude towards and viewpoint on leisure and sport, leisure and sport benefits and satisfaction with life. Overall, a good model fit was achieved. Key words: Leisure; Sport; "Black gold"; Satisfaction with life; Holiday; Rural townships; Structural Equation Model.
Ovarian follicle dynamics and hormonal changes during early pregnancy in Saanen goats

This study is aimed at describing the ovarian follicular dynamics, corpora lutea and their hormonal control during early pregnancy in Saanen goats. The ovaries of pregnant goats (n = 10) were monitored daily for follicles (≥ 2 mm) and corpora lutea by transrectal ultrasound over the 35 days after mating. Blood samples were collected by jugular venipuncture at the time of ultrasonography and were analysed for the concentrations of oestradiol (E2) and progesterone (P4), inhibin, FSH (follicle-stimulating hormone) and LH (luteinizing hormone). The pattern of follicular growth was characterised by five (n = 2; 20 %), six (n = 5; 50 %) and seven (n = 3; 30 %) follicular waves during early pregnancy. The first corpora lutea (size 6.8 ± 0.4 mm, mean + SEM) were detected at 5.0 ± 0.3 days after the mating with a maximum diameter (12.2 ± 0.3 mm) observed on day 24.0 ± 1.1 of pregnancy. The dominant follicle diameter of waves 1 and 4, and the duration of waves 1–4 and 7 were maximal during the early pregnancy period (P < 0.05). In addition, the inter-wave interval of the 5 waves was significantly (P < 0.05) longer compared to the six and seven inter-wave intervals (7.0 ± 0.1, 5.8 ± 0.1 and 5.0 ± 0.2 days, respectively). Although the number of small and medium-sized follicles did not differ with the days post-breeding, the number of large-sized follicles in the same period significantly decreased between 16 and 26 days and was negatively correlated with the period of pregnancy (P < 0.05). The plasma LH and E2 concentrations were negatively correlated with the P4 concentration. The inhibin concentrations were negatively correlated with FSH, but positively correlated with the number of large-sized follicles. These results indicate that ovarian follicular growth during the first 35 days of pregnancy in goats was characterised by a wave-like pattern and there was a close relationship between the number of FSH peaks and the number of follicular waves.
Factors affecting young adults’ purchase intention of green food products in Malaysia

This study aims to analyse how factors such as willingness to pay, green advertisement and trust affect the intention to purchase green food. Furthermore, this study also intends to explore the role of green food product attributes as a mediator. Survey questionnaires were collected from 306 university students through purposive sampling technique. The data was analysed using Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) method. The findings indicated that green food product attributes have a significant mediation effect between the independent variables and purchase intention. The green advertisement was also found to have a complementary partial mediating effect. The interpretation of the results would shed light on the aspects that consumers value the most when considering purchasing green food products and how green food producers could better position and market their green food products to entice more people to try it.
Aerobic bacterial isolates, incidence rate and associated risk factors of heifer and cow mastitis in and around Debre-Libanos district, Oromia, Ethiopia

The investigation was led from February-November 2014 longitudinally to recognize aerobic bacterial isolates, estimate incidence rate, identify the associated risk factors and antimicrobial sensitivity patterns of heifer and cow mastitis in and around Debre-Libanos district. An aggregate of 31 Jersey and Holstein-Fresian cross heifers that were left for less than a month to calve were sampled and pursued for the initial two lactation stages after calving. Clinical heifer mastitis was distinguished by physical examination of the udder and milk while sub-clinical one was recognized by California mastitis test. The incidence rate of heifer mastitis per gland month at risk was observed to be 37.4%. The event of new contamination in heifers and cows was not altogether influenced by gland position and udder cleanliness (P>0.05), yet by the management system, lactation stage and dry cow therapy (P<0.01). From 231 isolates, Staphylococcus aureus (25.1%) was the most prevalent pathogen pursued by coagulase negative Staphylococcus and Streptococcus species (each 14.7%). Other bacterial isolates included Micrococcus species (10.38%), Klebsiela pneumoniea (9.95%), Esherishia coli (12.98%), Corynebacterium species (5.62%), Enterobacter aerogens (4.32%) and Bacillus species (4.32%). Antimicrobial sensitivity test demonstrated that tetracycline (71.7%) was observed to be increasingly successful antibiotic among the whole tried antibiotics against all bacterial isolates while the least effective antibiotic was observed to be penicillin G (24.2%). The present investigation has demonstrated that heifer and cow mastitis specifically; sub-clinical mastitis is a critical sickness affecting heifers' milk production. Key words: heifer mastitis, incidence rate, risk factors, Ethiopia, antimicrobial sensitivity test
A Comprehensive Assessment of Food Parenting Practices: Psychometric Properties of the Portuguese Version of the HomeSTEAD Family Food Practices Survey and Associations with Children’s Weight and Food Intake

The Home Self-Administered Tool for Environmental Assessment of Activity and Diet (HomeSTEAD) survey evaluates a broad spectrum of food parenting practices related to parental use of control, autonomy support, and structure. This study aims to test the psychometric properties of the Portuguese version of the HomeSTEAD family food practices survey in parents of 3–12 year old children. Data were collected from 184 parents/caregivers. We performed an exploratory factor analysis (EFA), calculated the internal consistency coefficients of each subscale, and tested for associations with children’s food intake and weight. Based on the EFA, 61 items were included in the Portuguese version of the HomeSTEAD family food practices survey, and were distributed among four Coercive Control Practices (16 items); five Autonomy Support Practices (17 items); and nine Structure Practices (28 items). All scales demonstrated an acceptable level of internal consistency. A higher body mass index (BMI) SD score in children was associated with higher levels of restriction and weight talk by parents and distractions during meals. Higher levels of distractions during meals were also associated with higher sweets intake in children. Additionally, higher levels of parental modeling and the establishment of rules and limits were associated with lower intake of sugar-sweetened beverages. These associations provide preliminary evidence of the HomeSTEAD family food practices survey’s construct validity and attest to its potential to assess parental strategies and provide useful information to improve children’s eating.
The Fed&Apos;S Response to Economic News Explains the "Fed Information Effect"

High-frequency changes in interest rates around FOMC announcements are a standard method of measuring monetary policy shocks. However, some recent studies have documented puzzling effects of these shocks on private-sector forecasts of GDP, unemployment, or inflation that are opposite in sign to what standard macroeconomic models would predict. This evidence has been viewed as supportive of a "Fed information effect" channel of monetary policy, whereby an FOMC tightening (easing) communicates that the economy is stronger (weaker) than the public had expected. We show that these empirical results are also consistent with a "Fed response to news" channel, in which incoming, publicly available economic news causes both the Fed to change monetary policy and the private sector to revise its forecasts. We provide substantial new evidence that distinguishes between these two channels and strongly favors the latter; for example, (i) high-frequency stock market responses to Fed announcements, (ii) a new survey that we conduct of individual Blue Chip forecasters, and (iii) regressions that include the previously omitted public macroeconomic data releases all indicate that the Fed and Blue Chip forecasters are simply responding to the same public news, and that there is little if any role for a "Fed information effect".
Valuable Patents

Patents. Inventors. The words conjure in the minds of most a vision of the solitary genius, the heroic individual – Edison, Bell, Morse – working late into the evening in a garage to perfect a device that will change the world. But while a few patents are in fact for inventions that change the world, most are not. Inventors come up with a new idea, hire a lawyer, write a patent application, spend years in the arcane and labyrinthine procedures of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), get a patent, and then . nothing. Ninety-nine percent of patent owners never even bother to file suit to enforce their rights. They spend $4.33 billion per year to obtain patents, but no one seems to know exactly what happens to most of them. Call it “The Case of the Disappearing Patents. ”
Accelerating Graph Analytics by Utilising the Memory Locality of Graph Partitioning

This paper investigates how to improve the memory locality of graph-structured analytics on large-scale shared memory systems. We demonstrate that a graph partitioning where all in-edges for a vertex are placed in the same partition improves memory locality. However, realising performance improvement through such graph partitioning poses several challenges and requires rethinking the classification of graph algorithms and preferred data structures. We introduce the notion of medium-dense frontiers, a type of frontier that is sufficiently dense for a bitmap representation, yet benefits from an indexed graph layout. Using three types of frontiers, and three graph layout schemes optimized to each frontier type, we design an edge traversal algorithm that autonomously decides which type to use. The distinction of forward vs. backward graph traversal folds into this decision and need no longer be specified by the programmer. We have implemented our techniques in a NUMA-aware graph analytics framework derived from Ligra and demonstrate a speedup of up to 4.34× over Ligra and up to 2.93× over Polymer.
Searches for new physics in events with top-quark pairs in ATLAS

Many theories beyond the Standard Model (SM) predict new heavy particles that would preferably couple to top quarks. In several direct searches it is assumed that these particles decay to final states with a pair of top quarks. This results either in various signatures with top-quark pairs or in a resonant distribution of the invariant mass of the top-quark pair. In indirect searches it is assumed that SM processes might be affected by massive new particles, such as the enhancement of the rare SM process of four-top-quark production. The results from latest searches, performed by the ATLAS Collaboration with 13 TeV data, for vector-like-quark pair-production, for resonances that decay to a top-quark pair and for four-top-quark production are presented.
Clinical presentation and mortality in pulmonary embolism: The Optimev study

ThEMAS TIMC UMR CNRS 5525 UJF, BP 217, 38043 Grenoble cedex 9, France Vascular medicine unit, hôpital Sud, CHU d’Amiens, 80054 Amiens cedex, France Vascular medicine dept, 11, allée St-Jean-des-Vignes, 71100 Chalon-sur-Saône, France Clinical research center, university hospital, BP 247, 38043 Grenoble cedex 9, France Vascular medicine dept, hôpital Saint-Éloi, university hospital, 80, avenue Augustin-Fliche, 34295 Montpellier cedex 5, France
A Study on the Recognition, Knowledge, and Self-Efficiency of the Basic Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation of Care Helpers

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to help care workers to do their best as first respondents by analysing their recognition, knowledge, and self-efficacy on basic CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) that is directly connected to the lives of patients and thus their education and methods can be improved for their positive basic lifesaving work. Method: For this purpose 360 structured questionnaires were used to the subjects in the eastern area of Jeonnam province from June 20 to July 4, 2011. Of these questionnaires 217 were used excluding 113 incomplete, 27 error, and 3 male ones. The collected data were analysed by the real number, the percentage, the average, the standard deviation, t-test, ANOVA, and Tukey with SPSS WIN 18.0. Results: 1. In the view of subjects, those aged over 51 accounted for 96(44.2%) as the majority, high school graduates, 95(43.8%), worked for 1 or more than 1 year-less than 2 years, 66(30.4%), experienced to see persons collapsed losing their consciousness, 46(21.2%), took the education, 184(85.7%), had 1 session of education, 80(43%), got the last education for 2 or more than 2 years 68(37%), and practiced through mannequin for the education aids, 86(46.7%). 2. There was significant difference in the view of recognition with the length of work (p=.010) and experienced to see persons collapsed losing their consciousness (p=.020), in the view of knowledge with academic background (p=.040) and the length of work, and in the view of self-efficacy with academic background (p=.002), the length of work (p=.010) and experienced to see persons collapsed losing their consciousness (p=.000). 3. There was significant difference in the session of education (p=.000), last education (p=.025) and education aids for basic CPR. Self-efficacy had significant difference according to the session of education for basic CPR (p=.001) and the time of education (p=.000). 4. There was correlation between recognition and self-efficacy (r=.41). The higher the recognition is, the better the self-efficacy improves. However the correlation between knowledge and self-efficacy was so low that the former did not have influence on self-efficacy. Conclusions: It needs to offer education to the lifesaving workers based on their experiences. If there is education more than 2 sessions in a year with mannequin and the simulation providing sufficient hours, care workers' recognition would be increased resulting in higher self-efficacy and thus they could keep the role of active lifesaving worker at the first practical site.
Effect of N-Methyl-D-Aspartate Receptor Blockade on Anxiety-Like Behavior Induced in Rats by Postnatal Chronic Exposure to the Endocrine Disruptor Di-2 (Ethyl-Hexyl Phthalate) in Elevated plus Maze Test

Di-2-Ethylhexyl Phthalate (DEHP) is the widely used to convey flexibility and transparency to plastic products made of polyvinyl chloride and also in the manufacture of medical devices. DEHP disrupts reproductive tract development in an antiandrogenic manner and also may induce neurobehavioral changes. In previous works, we demonstrated that chronic postnatal exposure to DEHP alters the neuroendocrine regulation of the testicular axis, modifying the hypothalamic concentration of excitatory neurotransmitters and therefore induces an anxiogenic effect. In the Elevated Plus Maze (EPM) test, dizocilpine (MK-801) induces a decrease in anxiety-related behaviors throughout NMDA receptor blockade. The objective of this work was to investigate whether the blockade of NMDA receptors of glutamate by the non-competitive antagonist MK-801 could modify the anxiety-like behavior induced by chronic postnatal exposure to DEHP (30 mg/kg body weight/day, orally from birth) in young adult male rats in the EPM test. The results show that NMDA receptor blockade by MK-801 (0.1 mg/kg body weight, i.p.) in DEHP exposed animals is able to produce a significant decrease in time spent in closed arms (TSC) and in Freezing Time (FT) as well as an increase in time spent in open arms (TSO) in the EPM test, indicating an anxiolytic effect. In conclusion, our results suggest: 1) NMDA receptor blockade by MK-801 can reverse anxiety-like behavior induced by exposure to DEHP during the early period of life. 2) The glutamatergic system is involved in the anxiogenic effect of phthalate, which is probably triggered by its known antiandrogenic action.