Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Synovial C-Shaped Tibial Footprint of the Anterior Cruciate Ligament

Background: Although numerous anatomic studies about the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) structure and attachments have been performed, these studies have not reached consensus on the ACL footprint. Purpose: To investigate the existing controversy regarding the morphology of the tibial ACL insertion (footprint) and confirm histologically that the tibial ACL footprint is not completely filled with ligament tissue. Study Design: Descriptive laboratory study. Methods: The tibial ACL footprint was dissected from 20 different fresh-frozen cadaveric knees (all males; mean age, 68.8 ± 5.4 years [range, 55-80 years]; mean weight, 78 ± 6.6 kg [range, 45-93 kg]). Two knees, 1 with severe osteoarthritis and 1 with previous knee surgery, were excluded. The tibial ACL insertion was observed, and this area was longitudinally divided into 4 parallel slices (0%-25%, 25-50%, 50%-75%, and 75%-100%), embedded in paraffin wax, and stained with hematoxylin-eosin, alcian blue, and picrosirius-polarization. The specimens were measured using a microscope to determine the distances from the anterior to the posterior border of the ACL ligament tibial insertion and the distance from the posterior border to the end of the ligament fibers of the ACL ligament tibial insertions. Results: The 18 evaluated knee specimens confirmed the finding of a C-shaped tibial insertion of the ACL. The measurements showed that the ligament (vertical parallel collagen fibers) occupied only 30.8% of the complete insertion. The remaining area was filled with synovial tissue, demonstrating histologically the “C” shape. Conclusion: This study confirms macroscopically the C-shaped tibial insertion of the ACL and shows histologically that synovial tissue is an indirect insertion filling the major part of the footprint. Clinical Relevance: This anatomic study suggests a different shape of the ACL tibial footprint, which may be useful for new perspectives regarding ACL reconstruction surgery research.
Single-Molecule Approach to Bacterial Genomic Comparisons via Optical Mapping

ABSTRACT Modern comparative genomics has been established, in part, by the sequencing and annotation of a broad range of microbial species. To gain further insights, new sequencing efforts are now dealing with the variety of strains or isolates that gives a species definition and range; however, this number vastly outstrips our ability to sequence them. Given the availability of a large number of microbial species, new whole genome approaches must be developed to fully leverage this information at the level of strain diversity that maximize discovery. Here, we describe how optical mapping, a single-molecule system, was used to identify and annotate chromosomal alterations between bacterial strains represented by several species. Since whole-genome optical maps are ordered restriction maps, sequenced strains of Shigella flexneri serotype 2a (2457T and 301), Yersinia pestis (CO 92 and KIM), and Escherichia coli were aligned as maps to identify regions of homology and to further characterize them as possible insertions, deletions, inversions, or translocations. Importantly, an unsequenced Shigella flexneri strain (serotype Y strain AMC[328Y]) was optically mapped and aligned with two sequenced ones to reveal one novel locus implicated in serotype conversion and several other loci containing insertion sequence elements or phage-related gene insertions. Our results suggest that genomic rearrangements and chromosomal breakpoints are readily identified and annotated against a prototypic sequenced strain by using the tools of optical mapping.
Searching Concepts and Association Relationships Based on Domain Ontology

This paper presents an ontology-based semantic search system called Smartch. This system allows users to search concepts and association relationships based on domain ontology. Compared to current search methods, Smartch provides a kind of user-defined graphical queries and a function of searching the association relationships that exist between two concepts or instances. It makes use of a novel ranking method that implements searching for concepts and association relationships. In this paper, we introduce the methods of ranking designed for Smartch. A case study in the academic domain is given in this paper to illustrate the functionalities of Smartch. This system has been developed and tested on the academic websites using an ontology that models the academic domain. The system can be extended to other domains. All of these capabilities allow the system to provide more intelligent functions than traditional search engines. The performance enables the use of the system in real environment.
On the Use of Fractional Brownian Motion Simulations to Determine the Three-dimensional Statistical Properties of Interstellar Gas

Based on fractional Brownian motion (fBm) simulations of three-dimensional gas density and velocity fields, we present a study of the statistical properties of spectroimagery observations (channel maps, integrated emission, and line centroid velocity) in the case of an optically thin medium at various temperatures. The power spectral index γW of the integrated emission is confirmed to be that of the three-dimensional density field (γn) provided that the medium's depth is at least of the order of the largest transverse scale in the image, and the power spectrum of the centroid velocity map is found to have the same index γC as that of the velocity field (γv). Further tests with non-fBm density and velocity fields show that this last result holds and is not modified by the effects of density-velocity correlations. A comparison is made with the theoretical predictions of Lazarian & Pogosyan.
The HI Parkes Zone of Avoidance Shallow Survey

Abstract The HI Parkes Zone of Avoidance Survey is a 21 cm blind search with the multibeam receiver on the 64-m radiotelescope, looking for galaxies hidden behind the southern Milky Way. The first, shallow (15 mJy rms) phase of the survey has uncovered 107 galaxies, two-thirds of which were previously unknown. The addition of these galaxies to existing extragalactic catalogues allows the connectivity of a very long, thin filament across the Zone of Avoidance within 3500 km s−1 to become evident. No local, hidden, very massive objects were uncovered. With similar results in the north (the Dwingeloo Obscured Galaxies Survey) our census of the most dynamically important HI-rich nearby galaxies is now complete, at least for those objects whose HI profiles are not totally buried in the Galactic HI signal. Tests are being devised to better quantify this remaining ZOA for blind HI searches. The full survey is ongoing, and is expected to produce a catalogue of thousands of objects when it is finished.
The Role of the Institutional Environment in Corporate Failure and Restructuring

This project argues that any analysis of corporate failure and subsequent restructuring needs to look beyond issues such as poor management and bad strategy, to the institutional environment in which a company is located in order to fully understand the drivers of failure and the context for the restructuring. This environment influences the contracts that are struck between creditors, shareholders and management, and determines the balance of rights between them. When shareholder and creditor rights are poorly protected, these contracts can create incentives that result in distortions to management and stakeholder behavior, and eventually to financial distress and corporate failure. The world of separated ownership and control as described by Berle and Means (1932), in which owners are widely dispersed, and reliant on the firms managers to protect their interest forms the basis of much of current agency and corporate governance theory, but the reality is that this description does not describe the situation in which the majority of the worlds companies operate, where controlling block shareholders are quite common, and lenders rights may be restricted. It is also of declining influence in the UK and USA, where large investment institutions own an increasing share of the equity market capitalization. A lesson from institutional economics is that the direction in which these corporate governance trends emerge is dependant on the institutional framework on which they are based. In other words, the nature of the creditor and shareholder rights in each country are the result of the differing social and historical influences on the development of institutional structures such as common or civil law legal systems, rule of law and judicial efficiency. Consequently, this project aims to demonstrate that any analysis of the reasons for corporate failure and of the methods of negotiating a restructuring has to be placed into this context. Part 1 of this project consists of two papers that use a case study – Stolt Offshore SA – to illustrate how both weak internal governance and an external lack of creditor and shareholder rights can lead poor management into corporate failure. The first paper in the project, 'M&A Failure and Financial Distress' shows how the M&A strategy pursued by the owner-management of Stolt Offshore in the late 1990's was focused more on building revenue than profitability, and without sufficient attention to business risks, due diligence and post merger integration. The culture of the company led to a failure …
Teacher–researcher role conflict and burnout among Chinese university teachers: a job demand-resources model perspective

ABSTRACT Based on the job demand-resources framework, the present study investigates the association between teacher–researcher role conflict and burnout (including emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment) among Chinese university teachers by testing the moderating effects of perceived organizational support (POS) and political skill. The results from two studies employing quantitative (survey) and qualitative (interview) methods indicate that (1) Chinese university teachers experience a low–to-moderate level of burnout; and (2) there is a partial association between teacher–researcher role conflict and burnout; specifically, role conflict is positively related to teachers’ emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. (3) Although no direct association was found between teacher–researcher role conflict and reduced personal accomplishment, political skill and POS moderate the relationship between role conflict and reduced personal accomplishment. As predicted, POS mitigates the feeling of reduced personal accomplishment led by role conflict. Moreover, the role-conflict-personal accomplishment relationship is strengthened when individuals show low political skill.
Self-responsibility, fatality, and heroism: a discourse analysis of ovarian cancer in women’s magazines

ABSTRACT Ovarian cancer affects many women globally, having numerous physical and psychosocial implications. However, misconceptions abound, symptoms are often overlooked, and diagnosis frequently occurs in advanced stages. As one step to addressing these issues, this research explores the social construction of ovarian cancer in women’s magazines to identify the ideas and discourses surrounding this illness and interpret their explicit and implicit meanings. A constructivist discourse analytic approach guided analysis of 62 print and online articles from 8 women’s magazines available in Canada over a 20-year period. Analysis resulted in identification of three discourses pertaining to: self-responsibility for health, ovarian cancer as uncertain and inevitably fatal, and ovarian cancer as a heroic endeavour. Critical interpretation highlights misinformation, contradictory beliefs, and unrealistic expectations surrounding this illness, which have implications for healthy and affected women. The findings emphasise the importance of identifying and challenging these discursive constructions to expose inconsistencies, minimise harm to women’s well-being, and promote authentic portrayals of ovarian cancer.
Quantitative evaluation of software quality

The study reported in this paper establishes a conceptual framework and some key initial results in the analysis of the characteristics of software quality. Its main results and conclusions are: • Explicit attention to characteristics of software quality can lead to significant savings in software life-cycle costs. • The current software state-of-the-art imposes specific limitations on our ability to automatically and quantitatively evaluate the quality of software. • A definitive hierarchy of well-defined, well-differentiated characteristics of software quality is developed. Its higher-level structure reflects the actual uses to which software quality evaluation would be put; its lower-level characteristics are closely correlated with actual software metric evaluations which can be performed. • A large number of software quality-evaluation metrics have been defined, classified, and evaluated with respect to their potential benefits, quantifiability, and ease of automation. •Particular software life-cycle activities have been identified which have significant leverage on software quality. Most importantly, we believe that the study reported in this paper provides for the first time a clear, well-defined framework for assessing the often slippery issues associated with software quality, via the consistent and mutually supportive sets of definitions, distinctions, guidelines, and experiences cited. This framework is certainly not complete, but it has been brought to a point sufficient to serve as a viable basis for future refinements and extensions.
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Working Paper Series the Bond Yield " Conundrum " from a Macro-finance Perspective the Bond Yield " Conundrum " from a Macro-finance Perspective

The views in this paper are solely the responsibility of the authors and should not be interpreted as reflecting the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco or the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Abstract In 2004 and 2005, long-term interest rates remained remarkably low despite improving economic conditions and rising short-term interest rates, a situation that former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan dubbed a " conundrum. " We document the extent and timing of this conundrum using two empirical no-arbitrage macro-…nance models of the term structure of interest rates. These models con…rm that the recent behavior of long-term yields has been unusual— that is, it cannot be explained within the framework of the models. Therefore, we consider other macroeconomic factors omitted from the models and …nd that some of these variables, particularly declines in long-term bond volatility, may explain a portion of the conundrum. Foreign o¢ cial purchases of U.S Treasuries appear to have played little or no role. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily re ‡ect the views of other individuals within the Federal Reserve System. We thank Brian Sack, John Williams, Jonathan Wright, and seminar participants at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco for helpful discussions and comments. Brian Sack graciously provided us with Matlab code and data. David Thipphavong and Vuong Nguyen provided excellent research assistance. The authors take full responsibility for any remaining errors and omissions. 1 [L]ong-term interest rates have trended lower in recent months even as the Federal Reserve has raised the level of the target federal funds rate by 150 basis points. This development contrasts with most experience, which suggests that, other things being equal, increasing short-term interest rates are normally accompanied by a rise in longer-term yields. For the moment, the broadly unanticipated behavior of world bond markets remains a conundrum.
Differential Proteomics and Functional Research following Gene Therapy in a Mouse Model of Leber Congenital Amaurosis

Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA) is one of the most severe forms of inherited retinal degeneration and can be caused by mutations in at least 15 different genes. To clarify the proteomic differences in LCA eyes, a cohort of retinal degeneration 12 (rd12) mice, an LCA2 model caused by a mutation in the RPE65 gene, were injected subretinally with an AAV vector (scAAV5-smCBA-hRPE65) in one eye, while the contralateral eye served as a control. Proteomics were compared between untreated rd12 and normal control retinas on P14 and P21, and among treated and untreated rd12 retinas and control retinas on P42. Gene therapy in rd12 mice restored retinal function in treated eyes, which was demonstrated by electroretinography (ERG). Proteomic analysis successfully identified 39 proteins expressed differently among the 3 groups. The expression of 3 proteins involved in regulation of apoptosis and neuroptotection (alpha A crystallin, heat shock protein 70 and peroxiredoxin 6) were investigated further. Immunofluorescence, Western blot and real-time PCR confirmed the quantitative changes in their expression. Furthermore, cell culture studies suggested that peroxiredoxin 6 could act in an antioxidant role in rd12 mice. Our findings support the feasibility of gene therapy in LCA2 patients and support a role for alpha A crystallin, heat shock protein 70 and peroxiredoxin 6 in the pathogenetic mechanisms involved in LCA2 disease process.
Teaching Algebra Using Culturally Relevant Virtual Instructors

When culture is integrated into the mathematics classroom, it improves students’ academic achievement [3], helps move classrooms towards an equitable learning environment [30] [31], helps students have positive beliefs about mathematics [23], and integrates mathematics with other disciplines [56], [58]. Moreover, if you observe today’s kids, the use of video games in their daily and/or weekly routines is significant. Lastly, the predominant genre among African-American youth is hiphop/rap. These facts led to the African-American Distributed Multiple Learning Styles System (AADMLSS pronounced ‘adam less’) City Stroll, an adaptive, electronic, speech-enabled algebra learning system that uses culture to influence learning in the form of an animated, music-led interface.
Gender and Public Spending: A Conceptual Model of Employment, an Empirical Application, and Paths for Future Work

Abstract With a focus on the role of public spending, this paper provides a comprehensive model of employment incorporating direct and indirect employment effects with both supply and demand-side determinants. While the pathways within the model function for both genders, the magnitudes of the effects differ strongly for women and men, especially in regard to public spending on infrastructure. Applying the model to data from the United States, I explore potential ramifications of public spending options in regard to gender equality in employment. Finally, detailed paths for future work are provided which aim to direct future studies so as to expand the knowledge of the implications of public policy options to improve women’s relative welfare. I conclude that connections between the economic and the social spheres cannot be ignored without significant detrimental outcomes for women’s welfare.
Discovering Hidden me Edges in a Social Internetworking Scenario

In Social Internetworking analysis, bridge users play a key role when information crossing among different Online Social Networks (OSNs) is investigated. Unfortunately, not always users make explicit that they are bridges by specifying the so-called me edges (i.e., those edges connecting the accounts of the same user in distinct OSNs). Thus, discovering hidden me edges is an important problem to face in this context. In this paper we propose an effective approach giving good results in real life settings. Indeed, an experimental campaign shows that our approach returns precise and complete results.
Reconfigurability in Reactive Multiagent Systems

Reactive agents are suitable for representing physical resources in manufacturing control systems. An important challenge of agent-based manufacturing control systems is to develop formal and structured approaches to support their specification and verification. This paper proposes a logic-based approach, by generalising that of model checking multiagent systems, for the reconfigurability of reactive multiagent systems. Two reconfigurability scenarios are studied, for the resulting system being a monolithic system or an individual module, and their computational complexity results are given.
A stable feedback control of the buffer state using the controlled Lagrange multiplier method

We propose a stable feedback control algorithm of the buffer state using the controlled Lagrange multiplier in combined rate-distortion characteristics for a buffer-constrained adaptive quantization. The proposed algorithm is established using feedback control theory and is described by the state equation with nonlinearity in the feedback path. The nonlinearity of the state equation comes from the average distortion-rate curve of the information source. The stability of this buffer control algorithm is shown using Lyapunov stability theory. It is shown that the stability of the algorithm depends on average distortion-rate curve and buffer size, and sufficient conditions for the algorithm to be stable are obtained from the usual average distortion-rate curve. In addition, it is observed from experimental results that the performance of the proposed algorithm and the optimal algorithm is not significantly different. Although the proposed algorithm does not provide optimal performance, the algorithm can be implemented easily with quite low computational complexity, as compared with others.
Customer portfolio analysis using the SOM

In order to compete for profitable customers, companies are looking to add value using customer relationship management (CRM). One subset of CRM is customer segmentation, which is the process of dividing customers into groups based upon common features or needs. Segmentation methods can be used for customer portfolio analysis (CPA), the process of analysing the profitability of customers. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how the self-organising map (SOM) can be used for CPA. We segment, identify and analyse a case organisation's profitable and unprofitable customers in order to gain knowledge for the organisation to develop its marketing strategies. The results are validated through cross and face validation. The SOM is able to segment the data in an innovative and reliable way and to provide new insights for decision makers.
Do phonetic features help to improve consonant identification in ASR?

The hidden Markov modelling experiments presented in this paper show that consonant identification results can be improved substantially if a neural network is used to extract linguistically relevant information from the acoustic signal before applying hidden Markov modelling. The neural network – or in this case a combination of two Kohonen networks – takes 12 mel-frequency cepstral coefficients, overall energy and the corresponding delta parameters as input and outputs distinctive phonetic features, like [ – uvular] and [ – plosive]. Not only does this preprocessing of the data lead to better consonant identification rates, the confusions that occur between the consonants are less severe from a phonetic viewpoint, as is demonstrated. One reason for the improved consonant identification is that the acoustically variable consonant realisations can be mapped onto identical phonetic features by the neural network. This makes the input to hidden Markov modelling more homogenous and improves consonant identification. Furthermore, by using phonetic features the neural network helps the system to focus on linguistically relevant information in the acoustic signal.