Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Longitudinal mechanical tension induces growth in the small bowel of juvenile rats

Introduction: The aim of our study was to apply longitudinal force to the small bowel to increase the length of intestine in juvenile rats. Methods: Fifty juvenile rats had double barrelled, blind loop ostomies created using an isolated segment of bowel. Our intestinal lengthening device was inserted into one of the loops and the second loop served as a control. Once the device was deployed, the experimental, control, and in situ segments of bowel were evaluated for length, weight, histology, and disaccharidase enzyme activity. Results: Mechanical tension increased intestinal length by 149%. The lengthened bowel also exhibited a greater total weight (218%), greater mucosal weight (122%), and increased protein mass (164%) compared with the control limb of bowel. Histologically, there was a markedly increased thickness of the muscularis propria in the lengthened bowel (200% increase compared with the control limb). Functionally, we found increased total disaccharidase activity in the lengthened bowel (between 47% and 350%, depending on the particular enzyme tested; p<0.01). Conclusion: Mechanical tension induces intestinal growth by increasing length, weight of the bowel and mucosa, and protein mass. Histological changes, such as increases in Paneth cells, suggest that increased proliferation and reorganisation of the mucosa and muscularis propria are a response to mechanical tension. Functionally, increased intestinal length corresponds with increased disaccharidase activity, thus implying potential increased absorptive capacity of the lengthened bowel.
Research on Community Grid Management System Based on 3D GIS

Since the traditional community management mode and method have been unable to adapt to the pace of urbanization process, the urban grid management model becomes the trend of community management. The community environment is shown in the form of two-dimensional maps in traditional community information platform, which is not intuitive and not realistic. The three-dimensional display can both express the plane and vertical relationship among community management objects, which is more intuitive, thus creating a vivid three-dimensional interactive scenery can facilitate the management of community. The grid management model of the experimental community is designed in this paper. We build the model of the terrain and objects which are classified in the community, design and develop a grid community management system. The system realizes the integration of the resources in the community. The management process has been gradually realized in the system, which meets the management requirement of informational and integrative, makes the community management services more precise and efficient, and provides a new way for urban community management.
Survey Paper on Different Approaches for Noise Level Estimation and Denoising of an Image

: Estimation of noise level in an image is a very important parameter to improve the efficiency of denoising. This article presents different approaches used so far by the researchers for the estimation of blind noise level using statistical and averaging method and denoising of an image. The paper also contains problems in different approaches identified by the survey.
The Association Between Goodwill Impairment and Discretionary Accruals: Portuguese Evidence

Portuguese listed firms (as well all EU companies) have been required to use IFRS and consequently IFRS 3 -- Business Combinations and IAS 36 -- Impairments of Assets since 2005. On adopting IFRS 3 goodwill is no longer amortised but is subject to an annual impairment test in accordance with IAS 36. Previous studies suggest that the impairment of goodwill decision is influenced by managers (e.g. Beatty and Weber, 2006; Jahmani et al., 2010; Van de Poel et al., 2009), which may exercise discretion in determining the recoverable value of goodwill. Therefore, this paper investigates whether Portuguese listed companies use goodwill impairment loss to manage earnings. Using a sample of 33 Euro next Lisbon non-financial firms over a period of 6 years, from 2005 through 2010, we find that the goodwill impairment amount is significantly positively related to earnings management, suggesting that IAS 36 provides managers with discretion for goodwill write-off.
Transfer of plasmid RP4 to Myxococcus xanthus and evidence for its integration into the chromosome

The broad-host-range plasmid RP4 and its derivative R68.45 were transferred to Myxococcus xanthus DK101 and DZ1; RP4 was maintained integrated in the chromosome. Loss of plasmid markers occurred during the growth of the transconjugants, which could be prevented by selective pressure with oxytetracycline. The integrated plasmid was transferred back to Escherichia coli often as RP4-prime plasmids carrying various segments of the M. xanthus chromosome. It also mediated chromosomal transfer between M. xanthus strains.
Stated Preference Surveys and the Valuation of Urban Transport Systems

This paper on the use of Stated Preference (SP) surveys is from the proceedings of 14th International Conference on Urban Transport and the Environment in the 21st Century, which was held in Malta in 2008. This type of survey is widely used in the transport sector for travel behavior and demand modeling. The authors of this paper report on results from SP surveys that were carried out in the city of Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1999, for various transportation projects, including the metro system, the submerged tunnel, the sea transport system, a modern technology parking station, and a bus passenger information system. The authors focus on the willingness-to-pay (WTP) values that can be elucidated with the SP survey technique. The authors conclude that SP surveys can provides valuable information as part of the planning process for an efficient transport system. The WTP data is particularly useful in evaluating whether proposed transportation projects will be economically viable.
Competitive Price-Matching Guarantees Contingent on Product Availability

Price-matching guarantees (PMGs) involve a retailer matching the lower price of a competitor for an identical product. In practice, retailers often make such guarantees contingent on verification of product availability at the competitor location and decline the price-match request if the product is not available there. In this paper, we model a multi-stage duopoly game where the stochastic customer demand is sensitive to both price and product availability. The objective is to understand why and when retailers should verify availability as a price-match prerequisite, and how it affects the intensity of price and inventory competition. Our results establish that the verification of availability may have pro-competitive or anti-competitive effects depending on how cognizant customers are to the implications of demand uncertainty.We first analyze a model where customers are mindful of the fact that retailers will decline their price-match requests based on the unavailability of the product at the competing retailer while making store choice decisions, and show that verification of availability is not the equilibrium strategy since it (weakly) increases the intensity of price and inventory competition between the retailers, increases consumers' surplus, and decreases retail profits. We show that one possible reason for retailers to offer availability contingent PMG is that customers concentrate on price and discount the effects of product availability while making store decisions. In fact, if customers ignore product availability issues while making store choices, then verification of availability is indeed the equilibrium strategy for retailers since it increases prices and order quantities, allows them to price discriminate against customers, decreases consumers' surplus, and increases retail profits. Finally, we show that the above results are valid irrespective of whether customers are homogenous or heterogenous in terms of the price information they have prior to their store visits.
The sigma 54-dependent promoter Ps of the TOL plasmid of Pseudomonas putida requires HU for transcriptional activation in vivo by XylR

In the presence of toluene and xylenes, the sigma 54-dependent Ps promoter of the TOL (toluene biodegradation) plasmid pWW0 of Pseudomonas putida is activated at a distance by the XylR protein, of the NtrC family of transcriptional regulators. Since contacts between XylR bound to upstream activating sites and the RNA polymerase require the looping out of the intervening DNA segment, the intrinsic curvature, the bendability of the corresponding sequence, and the spatial effects of protein-induced DNA bending have an influence on promoter activity. Unlike other sigma 54-dependent promoters, Ps does not require the structural aid of the integration host factor to assemble a specific promoter geometry required for transcriptional initiation. In vivo analysis of transcriptional activity in various genetic backgrounds suggests, instead, that the looping out of intervening DNA sequences in Ps would result from the exacerbation of a preexisting static bend within the region, assisted by the histone-like protein HU.
A self-organizing fuzzy logic controller for dynamic systems using a fuzzy auto-regressive moving average (FARMA) model

The paper proposes a complete design method for an online self-organizing fuzzy logic controller without using any plant model. By mimicking the human learning process, the control algorithm finds control rules of a system for which little knowledge has been known. In a conventional fuzzy logic control, knowledge on the system supplied by an expert is required in developing control rules, however, the proposed new fuzzy logic controller needs no expert in making control rules, Instead, rules are generated using the history of input-output pairs, and new inference and defuzzification methods are developed. The generated rules are stored in the fuzzy rule space and updated online by a self-organizing procedure. The validity of the proposed fuzzy logic control method has been demonstrated numerically in controlling an inverted pendulum. >
IgM anti-P1 immunoblotting. A standard for the rapid serologic diagnosis of Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection in pediatric care.

STUDY OBJECTIVE To prospectively evaluate the use of an IgM anti-P1 immunoblotting assay for the rapid diagnosis of Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection in a pediatric setting. PATIENTS AND METHODS Blood specimens from 107 children representing 108 predominantly respiratory illnesses were obtained for a prospective evaluation of the IgM anti-P1 assay. Primary patient diagnoses were determined by a combination of the complement fixation test and supplementary microbiologic and nonmicrobiologic diagnostic tests. The potential effect of the assay results on antibiotic therapy was assessed by observing concurrent therapy. RESULTS M pneumoniae was the primary etiologic agent of disease in 19 patients. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of the IgM test to determine a case of primary M pneumoniae disease was 84.2 percent, 95.5 percent, 80.0 percent, and 96.6 percent, respectively. Twenty-seven children may have had antimicrobial therapy appropriately modified if results of the assay were directly utilized. Three of four patients with positive assays, which would have been falsely indicative of primary disease, had evidence of a recent probable M pneumoniae infection shortly preceding the acute illness. CONCLUSION The rapid IgM anti-P1 assay is reasonably specific for the diagnosis of M pneumoniae infection. Apart from establishing prompt and accurate diagnosis, the results have the potential to change treatment measures in a significant proportion of patients.
The Usefulness of a New Technical Indicator, Rate of Change - Alpha (ROC-α) on Stock Markets: A Study of Malaysian Top Capitalization Stocks

This study examines the usefulness of technical analysis indicators, in particular a new technical indicator named Rate of Change–Alpha (ROC-α) in Malaysian stock market. The aim of this study is to test and validate how ROC-α outperforms the passive threshold buy and hold as well as the best trading systems in Bloomberg in terms of profit performance for the Malaysian stock market by significant margins. The backtest dates back to 2005 and covers a period of 9 years on the Malaysian stock market benchmark index, FBMKLCI30 and its 30 component stocks. An out-of-sample live test conducted for a period of the first 9 months of 2013 is used to valid the findings. The results indicates that technical indicators do outperform the buy-and-hold and that ROC-α outperforms the Accumulation/Distribution Oscillator (ADO) and Directional Moving Index (DMI) which are ranked second and third best trading systems as well as the conventional ROC for the FBMKLCI30 and most of its component stocks. The results of this study show that ROC-α is a useful technical analysis tool that can be used by practitioners in Malaysia, and it is worthwhile to test its usefulness in other stock, futures and foreign exchange markets. The findings of this study are of particular interest and importance to academicians and practitioners; for academicians, this study shows that stock market prices trend and do not move randomly and for practitioners, ROC-α can be used in their technical analysis, trading strategies and portfolio management to improve and enhance their profit performances.
Ryanodine Inhibits Caffeine‐Evoked Ca2+ Mobilization and Catecholamine Secretion from Cultured Bovine Adrenal Chromaffin Cells

The effects of ryanodine, a selective inhibitor of the Ca2+‐induced Ca2+ release mechanism, on caffeine‐evoked changes in cytosolic Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i) and cate‐cholamine secretion were investigated using cultured bovine adrenal chromaffin cells. Caffeine (5–40 mM) caused a concentration‐dependent transient rise in [Ca2+]i and catecholamine secretion in Ca2+/Mg2+‐free medium containing 0.2 mM EGTA. Ryanodine (5 × 10–5M) alone had no effect on either [Ca2+]i or catecholamine secretion. Although the application of ryanodine plus caffeine caused the same increase in both [Ca2+]i and catecholamine secretion as those induced by caffeine alone, ryanodine (4 × 10–7–5 × 10–5M) irreversibly prevented the increase in both [Ca2+]i and catecholamine secretion resulting from subsequent caffeine application over a range of concentrations. The secretory response to caffeine was markedly enhanced by replacement of Na+ with sucrose in Ca2/Mg2+‐free medium, and this enhanced response was also blocked by ryanodine. Caffeine was found to decrease the susceptibility of the secretory apparatus to Ca2+ in digitonin‐permeabilized cells. These results indicate that caffeine mobilizes Ca2+ from intracellular stores, the function of which is irreversibly blocked by ryanodine, resulting in the increase in catecholamine secretion in the bovine adrenal chromaffin cell.
Is family leadership always beneficial

There has been much debate concerning the performance of family firms and the drivers of their performance. Some scholars have argued that family management is to blame when family firms go wrong; others claim that family management removes costly agency problems and encourages stewardship. Our thesis is that these disagreements can only be resolved by distinguishing among different types of family firms. We argue that family CEOs will outperform in smaller firms with more concentrated ownership and underperform in larger firms with more dispersed ownership; they will do neither where firms are smaller and ownership is more dispersed or firms are larger and ownership is more concentrated. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A framework for dynamic evidence based medicine using data mining

Dynamic evidence-based medicine (DEBM) is defined as the process of finding evidence about the care of individual patients automatically and dynamically in those cases when we cannot rely on any literature or guidelines. In this paper, we develop a framework for DEBM using data mining technologies that make it possible to automatically analyze huge clinical databases and to discover patterns behind them. We define the requirements of a data mining system for DEBM. The following functions are required of the system: (1) support for clinical decision making, and (2) discovery of rare patterns which human beings can hardly find. In order to support clinical decision making, rule discovery methods such as association rule mining are applied to this framework. We adopt a post-analysis approach using a rule base and queries. The discovered rules are collected into a rule base for further analysis. By submitting queries to the rule base, users can obtain keys to evidence for making decisions about clinical care. We preliminarily implement a prototype of a rule base and a post-analysis tool based on our framework. This tool can assist users in analyzing the discovered rules.
Improved Vehicle Navigation Using Aiding with Tightly Coupled Integration

Vehicle navigation poses difficulties as it requires the uninterrupted availability of accurate positioning information, even in circumstances without an ideal condition. Global Positioning System (GPS) provides consistently accurate positioning solutions if four or more GPS satellites can be observed. Unfortunately, this condition is usually not satisfied if a vehicle is going through urban canyon, tunnel or forest canopy. Even with High Sensitivity and Assisted GPS receivers, reliable positioning using GPS alone in difficult urban situations is still a challenge. Inertial Navigation System (INS), consists of self- contained sensors that can continuously provide accurate short term positioning solutions. The integration of GPS and INS can overcome the GPS drawback and provide continuous navigation solutions even during GPS signal outages. Though newly developed MEMS-based INS sensors have relatively low accuracy, they are compact and inexpensive, which is very suitable for vehicle navigation. Hence, there is a growing interest in exploring the capabilities of these sensors in the field of vehicle navigation. This paper presents the integration of GPS with MEMS-based INS in a tightly coupled scheme. Tightly coupled integration can make use of GPS signals even if less than four GPS satellites are observed. Thus it offers better integration options. To further improve the GPS/INS integration results, non- holonomic constraints and heading observations were used in this study to improve the online positioning accuracies. The results showed the drift errors could be significantly reduced when non- holonomic constraints and/or heading information were used, during periods with GPS signal outage. In addition, a backward smoother called Rauch-Tung-Striebel (RTS) was also implemented for offline processing needs purpose. The integration results showed that the RTS smoother can significantly reduce the drift errors even if neither non-holonomic constraints nor heading information were used.
Game usability in Northern European game industry

In today’s heavily competitive game market making a game that stands out from the huge amount of available games has become very important. Even though the game might not be the most unique one out there, it still can offer a better playing experience than a similar competitor’s product by having better usability. Usability research could provide game companies with the tools needed to improve their games usability. The aim of this survey was to find out if game companies are doing usability research and investigate their views on game usability. This research was conducted by sending a survey to Northern European game companies’ and the results were analyzed using descriptive statistics and content analysis. Game companies regarded game usability to be very important in games and saw it as a broad concept. Their view corresponded well with the literature view that emphasises user experience. Companies used multitude of usability methods to improve their games usability but these methods and their usage has not stabilized. The most used methods were playtesting and observation whereas heuristic evaluation was one of the least used methods which seemed to be unknown method among the respondents.
P2y12 Receptor Promotes Pressure Overload–Induced Cardiac Remodeling via Platelet-Driven Inflammation in Mice

Inflammation plays a critical role in adverse cardiac remodeling and heart failure. The P2y12 receptor is one of the predominant activating receptors for platelets, thus initiating inflammatory responses under various diseases. In this study, we investigated the functional significance of P2y12-mediated platelet activation in pressure overload–induced cardiac remodeling. Notably, P2y12 knockout (P2y12−/−) mice exhibited suppressed transverse aortic constriction–induced changes in cardiac hypertrophy, collagen synthesis, inflammatory cell recruitment, and cardiac dysfunction. Activated platelets and platelet–leukocyte aggregates were markedly downregulated in P2y12 knockout mice compared with wild-type counterparts after transverse aortic constriction. Moreover, bone marrow chimera experiments revealed that wild-type recipients of P2y12 knockout bone marrow markedly improved cardiac function and attenuated cardiac remodeling, reversed by wild-type platelets reinjection. Platelet depletion and P-selectin inhibition mimicked these protective effects by limiting the interaction between activated platelets and leukocytes. Furthermore, activated wild-type platelets directly induced cardiomyocyte hypertrophy and collagen synthesis via &agr;-granule exocytosis, vanished in P2y12 knockout platelets or those administered anti-NSF (N-ethlymalimide-sensitive factor) antibodies. The results suggest that P2y12-mediated platelet activation promotes cardiac remodeling by triggering a series of inflammatory changes and interacting with leukocytes and endotheliocytes.
Ensemble classifiers for supervised anomaly based network intrusion detection

This paper focuses on the problem of machine learning classifier choice for network intrusion detection, taking into consideration several ensemble classifiers from the supervised learning category. We have evaluated Bagged trees, AdaBoost, RUSBoost, LogitBoost and GentleBoost algorithms, provided an analysis of the performance of the classifiers and compared their learning capabilities, taking for the reference UNSW-NB15 dataset. The obtained results have indicated that in the defined environment and under analyzed conditions Bagged tree and GentleBoost perform with highest accuracy and ROC values, while RUSBoost has the lowest performances.