Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Characterization of thiL, Encoding Thiamin-monophosphate Kinase, in Salmonella typhimurium *

Thiamin pyrophosphate is an essential cofactor that is synthesized de novo by Salmonella typhimurium. In bacteria, the end product of the de novo biosynthetic pathway is thiamin monophosphate, which is then phosphorylated by thiamin-monophosphate kinase (EC 2.7.4.16) to form thiamin pyrophosphate. We have isolated and characterized thethiL gene of S. typhimurium and showed thatthiL is a 978-base pair open reading frame encoding a 35-kDa protein with thiamin-monophosphate kinase activity.thiL was located in the 10-centisome region of the S. typhimurium chromosome. We demonstrated that altered thiamin-monophosphate kinase activity resulted in decreased repression of transcription of thiamin pyrophosphate-regulated thiamin biosynthetic genes. In contrast to other thi loci,thiL is not transcriptionally regulated by thiamin pyrophosphate. This result is consistent with a dual role for ThiL inde novo biosynthesis and in salvage of exogenous thiamin.
In vivo evaluation of the cornea and conjunctiva of the normal laboratory beagle using time- and Fourier-domain optical coherence tomography and ultrasound pachymetry.

OBJECTIVE To obtain normative data for the canine cornea and conjunctiva using high-resolution time- and Fourier-domain optical coherence tomography (TD-OCT and FD-OCT) and ultrasound pachymetry (USP). ANIMALS One hundred sixty-eight eyes of 133 healthy young intact laboratory beagles. PROCEDURES The cornea and conjunctiva of 16 eyes of 8 healthy young intact female beagles were imaged using FD-OCT. Corneal thickness was measured with FD-OCT and USP, while corneal epithelial thickness and conjunctival epithelial thickness were measured with FD-OCT. The central corneal thickness (CCT) was determined in 152 eyes of 125 healthy young adult intact female (35) and male (90) beagles using TD-OCT. Mixed effects linear regression was used for statistical analysis. RESULTS The CCT was (mean ± standard deviation) 497.54 ± 29.76, 555.49 ± 17.19, and 594.81 ± 33.02 μm as measured by FD-OCT, USP, and TD-OCT, respectively. The central, superior paraxial, superior perilimbal corneal epithelial thickness and superior bulbar conjunctival epithelial thickness were 52.38 ± 7.27, 56.96 ± 6.47, 69.06 ± 8.84 and 42.98 ± 6.17 μm, respectively. When comparing techniques used for measuring CCT (USP vs. FD-OCT and FD-OCT vs. TD-OCT), USP and TD-OCT generated significantly greater values in comparison with FD-OCT (both P < 0.001). For all dogs, CCT increased with increasing age and body weight (both P < 0.001) and was higher in intact males vs. females using TD-OCT (P = 0.034). CONCLUSION High-resolution FD-OCT and TD-OCT provide detailed noninvasive evaluation of in vivo canine anterior segment structures. Normative values of the canine cornea and conjunctiva are reported.
Enabling mixed-precision quantized neural networks in extreme-edge devices

The deployment of Quantized Neural Networks (QNN) on advanced microcontrollers requires optimized software to exploit digital signal processing (DSP) extensions of modern instruction set architectures (ISA). As such, recent research proposed optimized libraries for QNNs (from 8-bit to 2-bit) such as CMSIS-NN and PULP-NN. This work presents an extension to the PULP-NN library targeting the acceleration of mixed-precision Deep Neural Networks, an emerging paradigm able to significantly shrink the memory footprint of deep neural networks with negligible accuracy loss. The library, composed of 27 kernels, one for each permutation of input feature maps, weights, and output feature maps precision (considering 8-bit, 4-bit and 2-bit), enables efficient inference of QNN on parallel ultra-low-power (PULP) clusters of RISC-V based processors, featuring the RV32IMCXpulpV2 ISA. The proposed solution, benchmarked on an 8-cores GAP-8 PULP cluster, reaches peak performance of 16 MACs/cycle on 8 cores, performing 21× to 25× faster than an STM32H7 (powered by an ARM Cortex M7 processor) with 15× to 21× better energy efficiency.
Efficacy and safety of mitomycin C as an agent to treat corneal scarring in horses using an in vitro model.

OBJECTIVE Mitomycin C (MMC) is used clinically to treat corneal scarring in human patients. We investigated the safety and efficacy of MMC to treat corneal scarring in horses by examining its effects at the early and late stages of disease using an in vitro model. PROCEDURE An in vitro model of equine corneal fibroblast (ECF) developed was used. The ECF or myofibroblast cultures were produced by growing primary ECF in the presence or absence of transforming growth factor beta-1 (TGFbeta1) under serum-free conditions. The MMC dose for the equine cornea was defined with dose-dependent trypan blue exclusion and (3-4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assays after applying MMC to the cultures once for 2 min. The efficacy of MMC to control corneal scarring in horses was determined by measuring mRNA and protein expression of corneal scarring markers (alpha-smooth muscle actin and F-actin) with western blotting, immunocytochemistry and/or quantitative real-time polymerase chain reactions. RESULTS A single 2-min treatment of 0.02% or less MMC did not alter ECF phenotype, viability, or cellular proliferation whereas 0.05% or higher MMC doses showed mild-to-moderate cellular toxicity. The TGFbeta1 at 1 ng/mL showed significant myofibroblast formation in ECF under serum-free conditions. A single 2-min, 0.02% MMC treatment 24 h (early) after TGFbeta1 stimulation significantly reduced conversion of ECF to myofibroblasts, however, a single 0.02% MMC treatment 11 days after TGFbeta1 stimulation showed moderate myofibroblast inhibition. CONCLUSIONS That MMC safely and effectively reduced scarring in ECF by reducing the degree of transdifferentiation of corneal fibroblasts to myofibroblasts in vitro. Further clinical in vivo investigations are warranted using MMC in horses.
Association between masseter muscle activity levels recorded during sleep and signs and symptoms of temporomandibular disorders in healthy young adults.

AIMS To examine whether any signs and symptoms of temporomandibular disorders were significantly associated with masseter muscle activity levels during sleep. METHODS One hundred three healthy adult subjects (age range, 22 to 32 years) participated in the study. They were asked to fill out questionnaires, undergo a calibrated clinical examination of their jaws and teeth, and perform 6 consecutive nightly masseter electromyographic (EMG) recordings with a portable EMG recording system in their home. The EMG data were considered dependent variables, while the questionnaire and examination data were considered independent variables. Multiple stepwise linear regression analysis was utilized to assess possible associations between these variables. RESULTS Both gender and joint sound scores were significantly related to the duration of EMG activity. None of the other independent variables were found to be related to any of the muscle activity variables. CONCLUSION The results suggest that both gender and clicking are significantly related to duration of masseter EMG activity during sleep.
Factors for analysing and improving performance of R&D in Malaysian universities

This paper presents a model for analysing and improving performance of R&D in Malaysian universities. There are various general models for R&D analysis, but none is specific for improving the performance of R&D in Malaysian universities. This research attempts to fill a gap in the body of knowledge with regard to developing countries by explicitly focusing on factors that are relevant for analysing and improving R&D performance in Malaysian universities. The project's methodology essentially entails a deductive route to identify and progressively refine the factors that determine R&D performance. It is based on extensive literature study aimed at developing a model that is appropriate for researching and improving R&D in an emerging economy. The paper addresses the development of the model and the research project’s approach. This model will be applied in collecting data from surveys and a number of field studies. The results will be used to improve the model as well as recommending points of improvement for Malaysian universities.
Intranät – en ny arena för kommunikation och lärande

During the 1990s, communication and learning attracted heightened attention in organizational contexts. Generally speaking, there is great faith in the significance of ICT for people’s learning. One form of technology which has had a great impact on Swedish organizations is the intranet. Within the course of a few years, intranets have been implemented in just over half of all Swedish organizations. The aim of this dissertation is threefold. The first, introductory, aim is to provide a theoretical framework which shows the close relationship between communication and learning. It is hoped that this theoretical framework can contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between intranets and organizational learning. The second aim is to try to give a better understanding of how intranets are perceived and used in practice. The third aim is to study how intranets can be understood as a tool for information dissemination and learning in a knowledge-intensive company. The study is based on qualitative interviews with members of an organization at Ericsson Mobile Communications in Lund. The information that is published on the intranet has given the members a chance to have better insight into and grasp of the organization and its processes. The increased and more accessible information on the intranet is also part of the new arena for learning offered by intranets. The pull model which follows with the use of intranets is something that was felt to be generally positive by those whom I interviewed. I have, however, found a number of obstacles which make it more difficult for members of the organization to assimilate the content on the intranet, which thereby impedes the prospects for organizational learning. What is often forgotten in the discussions of organizational learning and knowledge management is the need for the production of new knowledge, which require communication among the members. I have found that e-mail is the digital medium with clearly the most important function for communication and organizational learning within the company. A conclusion that I have drawn is that the digital media are primarily suitable for spreading information, but less suitable for the production of new knowledge, unless the users have the occasional opportunity to meet eye-to-eye. If the members of a community meet in person now and then, digital media can function as an important complement to other media in the continuous formation of knowledge.
Role of Positron Emission Tomography in the Management of Neurocutaneous Melanocytosis

Abstract: Management of large congenital melanocytic nevi and neurocutaneous melanocytosis represents a difficult challenge for clinicians, due to the high risk of malignancy in both entities and the difficulty of an early diagnosis of this complication. We report a new case of neurocutaneous melanocytosis (NCM) in association with large congenital melanocytic nevi (LCMN) that illustrates a possible role of positron emission tomography in the work‐up of these patients.
Ongoing egocentric spatial processing during learning of non-spatial information results in temporal-parietal activity during retrieval

Deficits in amnesic patients suggest that spatial cognition and episodic memory are intimately related. Among the different types of spatial processing, the allocentric, relying on the hippocampal formation, and the egocentric-updated, relying on parieto-temporal connections have both been considered to functionally underlie episodic memory encoding and retrieval. We explore the cerebral correlates underlying the episodic retrieval of words previously learnt outside the magnet while performing different spatial processes, allocentric and egocentric-updated. Subsequently and during fMRI, participants performed an episodic word recognition task. Data processing revealed that the correct recognition of words learnt in egocentric-updated condition enhanced activity of the medial and lateral parietal, as well as temporal cortices. No additional regions were activated in the present study by retrieving words learnt in allocentric condition. This study sheds new light on the functional links between episodic memory and spatial processing: The temporo-parietal network is confirmed to be crucial in episodic memory in healthy participants and could be linked to the egocentric-updated process.
Discriminating Flash Events from DDoS Attacks: A Comprehensive Review

Millions of people across the globe access Internet-based applications and web services in their day to day activities. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is one of the prominent attacks that cripple down the computing and communication resources of a web server hosting these services and applications. The situation turns further crucial when DDoS attacks are launch during similar looking legitimate traﬃc called a ﬂash event (FE). Both DDoS attacks and FEs causes a sudden surge in the network traﬃc leading to delay in the responses from the web server. It often leads to massive ﬁnancial losses, and thus, require timely actions. This paper presents a comprehensive review that broadly discusses the DDoS and FE problem, and recapitulates the recently published strategies in this ﬁeld. As part of the work, a pragmatic list of rationales to discriminate the two has been proposed. This list can help the researcher community for better understanding the problem and can provide more eﬀective solutions to the ongoing problem of discriminating DDoS attacks from FEs.
Anatomy of thyroid and parathyroid glands and neurovascular relations

Historically, thyroid surgery has been fraught with complications. Injury to the recurrent laryngeal nerve, superior laryngeal nerve, or the parathyroid glands may result in profound life‐long consequences for the patient. To minimize the morbidity of the operation, a surgeon must have an in‐depth understanding of the anatomy of the thyroid and parathyroid glands and be able to apply this information to perform a safe and effective operation. This article will review the pertinent anatomy and embryology of the thyroid and parathyroid glands and the critical structures that lie in their proximity. This information should aid the surgeon in appropriate identification and preservation of the function of these structures and to avoid the pitfalls of the operation. Clin. Anat. 25:19–31, 2012. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Becoming Jack London*

What gave early 20th-century author Jack London his distinctive writing style? Are good writers born, or made? And to what extent can quantitative methods shed light on the developing voice of an author over his/her career? The same techniques that have been used to determine authorship (Burrows, 1989; Holmes, 1994) can also be used (Can & Patton, 2004) to analyze stylistic changes within an author’s career. In particular, differences in entropy (Shannon, 1948) have been shown (Juola, 1997; Juola, 1998; Juola, 2003) to be a highly informative, universal measurement of linguistic variation and change. This framework has been applied to a diachronic analysis of 18 novels written by Jack London, published between 1904 and 1818. The second chapter was extracted from each novel and all cross-document ‘‘distances’’ were computed. These distances were processed to improve the topological ‘‘distancelike’’ properties of this measurement, in keeping with a theoretical analysis of the sources of variance in cross-entropy. The resulting distance matrix was analysed using multidimensional scaling (MDS) via simulated annealing. This technique identifies a set of points in a low-dimensional Euclidean space that mimics as closely as possible the measured inter-document distances. Thus, one can infer computationally the best andmost salient description in a few dimensions. Preliminary analysis in three-dimensions reveals interesting findings. First, there is a strong correlation (r1⁄470.645, p5 0.0038) between time change and location in ‘‘dimension 1’’, but no such correlation was found for the other two dimensions. Second, variation in all dimensions is approximately equal. This provides strong evidence of systematic stylistic
Receding horizon control with iLQG method considering computational delay and its application to nonholonomic systems

Receding Horizon Control (RHC) is a method that determines the control inputs for a plant by repeatedly solving a finite-horizon optimal control problem. We propose an RHC method considering a delay for the computation of the control input. The optimal control problem for each step is solved by the trajectory optimization, which calculates an optimal sequence of control inputs and its corresponding state trajectory that minimizes a given cost function. We apply the proposed method to a four-wheeled vehicle to perform a driving task. The simulation result shows the vehicle heading towards the target position along an acceptable path.
Improving prediction of neural networks: a study of tow financial prediction tasks

Neural networks are excellent mapping tools for complex financial data. Their mapping capabilities however do not always result in good generalizability for financial prediction models. Increasing the number of nodes and hidden layers in a neural network model produces better mapping of the data since the number of parameters available to the model increases. This is determinal to generalizabilitiy of the model since the model memorizes idiosyncratic patterns in the data. A neural network model can be expected to be more generalizable if the model architecture is made less complex by using fewer input nodes. In this study we simplify the neural network by eliminating input nodes that have the least contribution to the prediction of a desired outcome. We also provide a theoretical relationship of the sensitivity of output variables to the input variables under certain conditions. This research initiates an effort in identifying methods that would improve the generalizability of neural networks in financial prediction tasks by using mergers and bankruptcy models. The result indicates that incorporating more variables that appear relevant in a model does not necessarily improve prediction performance.
Survival advantage for adult Hispanic hemodialysis patients? Findings from the end-stage renal disease clinical performance measures project.

One-year follow-up mortality in Hispanic and non-Hispanic patients and its association with intermediate outcomes of dialytic care were examined utilizing the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS) ESRD Clinical Performance Measures (CPM) Project and administrative data. Demographic and clinical information was collected on a national random sample of adult in-center hemodialysis (HD) patients for the period of October through December, 1998. Patients were categorized as Hispanic, non-Hispanic White, or non-Hispanic Black. Of 8336 patients 994 (12%) were identified as Hispanic, 3618 (43%) as non-Hispanic White, and 3111 (37%) as non-Hispanic Black. The adjusted 12-mo mortality risk (99% CI) for Hispanics was 0.76 (0.60 to 0.96; P < 0.01) and for non-Hispanic Blacks 0.66 (0.56 to 0.78, P < 0.001) compared with non-Hispanic Whites (referent). Similar 12-mo mortality risks were noted in the groups with diabetes mellitus or hypertension as the causes of ESRD and among patients > or = 65 yr. After controlling for demographic and geographic variables, Hispanics compared with the referent group, non-Hispanic Whites, were more likely to have a mean serum albumin > or = 4.0/3.7 g/dL (BCG/BCP) (1.5 [1.2 to 1.7]; P < 0.001) and as likely to have a mean Kt/V > or = 1.2, mean hemoglobin > or = 11 g/dL, and an arteriovenous fistula as their vascular access. These data suggest that adult Hispanic HD patients have a 12-mo survival intermediate to non-Hispanic Blacks and non-Hispanic Whites and experience equivalent or better intermediate outcomes of dialytic care compared with non-Hispanic Whites.
Using Model-Based Testing for Testing Application Models in the Context of Domain-Specific Modelling

Domain-Specific Modelling (DSM) has evidently increased productivity and quality in software development. Although productivity and quality gains are remarkable, the modelled applications still need to be tested prior to release. Although traditional testing approaches can be applied also in the context of DSM for testing generated applications, maintaining a comprehensive test suite for all developed applications is tedious. In this paper, the feasibility of utilizing Model-Based Testing (MBT) to generate a test suite for application models is studied. The MBT is seen as a prominent approach for automatically generating comprehensive test cases from models describing externally visible behaviour of a system under testing (SUT). We study the feasibility by developing a domain-specific modelling language and a code generator for a coffee machine laboratorial case and apply MBT to generate a test suite for the application models. The gathered experiences indicate that there are no technical obstacles but the feasibility of the testing approach in large-scale models and languages is still questionable.
An Improved Many Worlds Quantum Genetic Algorithm

An Improved Many Worlds Quantum Genetic Algorithm (IMWQGA) was proposed aiming at the shortcomings of the Quantum Genetic Algorithm, such as the multimodal function optimization problems easily falling into the local optimum and vulnerability to premature convergence. Using the concept of Many Worlds and the derivative way of parallel worlds' parallel evolution, we propose to update the population according to the main body and adopt the transition methods, such as parallel transition, backtracking, travel forth and so on. In addition, the quantum training operator and the combinatorial optimization operator as new operators of quantum genetic algorithm were also proposed.
Association of endometrial cancer risk with a functional polymorphism (Asp327Asn) in the sex hormone‐binding globulin gene

Sex steroid hormones play a central role in the development of endometrial cancer. Sex hormone‐binding globulin (SHBG) modulates the bioavailability of circulating sex hormones and regulates their signaling systems in target cells. Epidemiologic studies have demonstrated that blood SHBG levels are associated inversely with the risk of endometrial cancer. A functional polymorphism, an amino acid substitution of asparagine (Asp) for aspartic acid (Asn) at residue 327 (Asp327Asn) (reference sequence 6259), in the SHBG gene recently was identified and has been associated with an increased half‐life and elevated blood levels of SHBG. The authors tested the hypothesis that this genetic variance is associated with a reduced risk of endometrial cancer in the Shanghai Endometrial Cancer Study, a population‐based, case‐control study that was conducted in urban Shanghai, China between 1997 and 2003.
The Role of Cross-contamination in 4 Chain Restaurant-Associated Outbreaks of Escherichia coli O157:H7 in the Pacific Northwest

Results: Infection was not associated with beef consumption at any of the restaurants. Implicated foods varied by restaurant but all were items served at the salad bar. Among the salad bar items, no single item was implicated in all outbreaks, and no single item seemed to explain most of the cases at any individual restaurant. Molecular subtyping of bacterial isolates indicated that the first 2 outbreaks, which occurred concurrently, were caused by the same strain, the third outbreak was caused by a unique strain, and the fourth was multiclonal.