Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intraabdominal microdialysis – methodological challenges

Abstract Microdialysis is used for in vivo sampling of extracellular molecules. The technique provides a continuous and dynamic view of concentrations of both endogenous released and exogenous administered substances. Microdialysis carries a low risk of complications and has proven to be a safe procedure in humans. The technique has been applied in several clinical areas, including gastrointestinal surgery. Microdialysis may be used for studies of tissue metabolism, and the technique is also a promising tool for pharmacological studies of drug penetration into abdominal organ tissue and the peritoneal cavity. The clinical significance of intraabdominal microdialysis in postoperative monitoring of surgical patients has yet to be proven. In this review, we introduce the microdialysis technique, and we present an overview of theoretical and practical considerations that should be taken into account when using microdialysis in intraabdominal clinical research.
Future cache design using STT MRAMs for improved energy efficiency: Devices, circuits and architecture

Spin-transfer torque magnetic RAM (STT MRAM) has emerged as a promising candidate for on-chip memory in future computing platforms. We present a cross-layer (device-circuit-architecture) approach to energy-efficient cache design using STT MRAM. At the device and circuit levels, we consider different genres of MTJs and bitcells, and evaluate their impact on the area, energy and performance of caches. In addition, we propose microarchitectural techniques viz. sequential cache read and partial cache line update, which exploit the non-volatility of STT MRAM to further improve energy efficiency of STT MRAM caches. A detailed comparison of STT MRAM caches with SRAM-based caches is also presented. Our results indicate that the proposed optimizations significantly enhance the efficiency of STT MRAM for designing lower level caches.
Iconic studies relevant for research in marketing and the Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science

Here, an “icon” refers to a study widely and critically admired, a study symbolizing a movement or field of activity; iconic marketing studies offer exceptional contributions to marketing theory and/or data collection, and/or data analysis, and/or interpretations/implications of qualitative and/or quantitative empirical findings. This article identifies antecedent conditions associated with achieving iconic status in research in marketing and proposes 10 tenets useful for identifying and planning iconic studies in marketing. The study reviews examples of iconic studies in the marketing literature. The study also addresses a few telling mistakes that researchers in the marketing discipline frequently make. The study of iconic research is helpful for crafting high-quality theory and planning high-quality research designs, as well as increasing vigilance and skill in identifying truly exceptionally high-quality studies and studies that are plainly just bad. The essay briefly reviews 10 JGSMS articles appearing also in this virtual issue as possible candidates for the achievement of iconic status in marketing.
On Steiner Loops of cardinality 20

It is well known that there are five classes of sloops of cardinality 16 " SL(16)s" according to the number of sub-SL(8)s (4, 6). In this article, we will show that there are exactly 8 classes of nonsimple sloops and 6 classes of simple sloops of cardinality 20 "SL(20)s". Based on the cardinality and the number of (normal) subsloops of SL(20), we will construct in section 3 all possible classes of nonsimple SL(20)s and in section 4 all possible classes of simple SL(20)s. We exhibit the algebraic and combinatoric properties of SL(20)s to distinguish each class. So we may say that there are six classes of SL(20)s having one sub-SL(10) and n sub- SL(8)s for n = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 or 6. All these sloops are subdirectly irreducible having exactly one proper homomorphic image isomorphic to SL(2). For n = 0, the associated SL(20) is a nonsimple subdirectly irreducible having one sub-SL(10) and no sub-SL(8)s. Indeed, the associated Steiner quasigroup SQ(19) of this case supplies us with a new example for a semi- planar SQ(19), where the smallest well-known example of semi-planar squags is of cardinality 21 " cf. (3)". It is well known that there is a class of planar Steiner triple systems (STS(19)s) due to Doyen (7), where the associated planar SL(20) has no sub-SL(10) and no sub-SL(8). In section 4 we will show that there are other 6 classes of simple SL(20)s having n sub-SL(8)s for n = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, but no sub-SL(10)s. It is well-known that a sub-SL(m) of an SL(2m) is normal. In the last theorem of this section, we give a necessary and sufficient condition for a sub-SL(2) to be normal of an SL(2m). Accordingly, we have shown that if a sloop SL(20) has a sub-SL(10) and 12 sub-SL(8), then this sloop is isomorphic to the direct product SL(10) × SL(2) and if a sloop SL(20) has 12 sub-SL(8)s and no sub-SL(10), then this sloop is a subdirectly irreducible having exactly one proper homomorphic image isomorphic to SL(10). In section 5, we describe how can one construct an example for each class of smiple and of nonsimple SL(20)s.
Compressive sensing based multi-frequency synthesis

Most modern radio telescope arrays observe with wideband receivers to optimise signal-to-noise. However for such wideband visibility data, the changing shape of the source with frequency may limit the performance of existing deconvolution methods. In such a case, it is necessary to estimate explicitly the change in brightness with frequency. This is called multifrequency synthesis (MFS). The current MFS methods either work only for the linear spectral model or take a long time to converge. We propose a new method, MFS-CS, to solve the MFS problem based on the theory of compressive sensing (CS). Experimental results show that it provides superior reconstructions compared to a normal deconvolution method (MSCLEAN) and an MFS-based extension (MFS-MSCLEAN). The main advantages of our method are improved efficiency, compatibility to any spectral model and simplicity implementation. MFS-CS is a potential candidate solution for the next generation telescope
CTX-M-15-producing Escherichia coli clone B2-O25b-ST131 and Klebsiella spp. isolates in municipal wastewater treatment plant effluents.

OBJECTIVES The global occurrence of antibiotic resistance genes in bacteria in water environments is an increasing concern. Treated wastewater was sampled daily over a 45 day period from the outflow of a municipal wastewater treatment plant in Brno, Czech Republic, and examined for extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL)-producing bacteria. METHODS Water samples were cultivated on MacConkey agar with cefotaxime (2 mg/L) and individual colonies were examined for ESBL production. Phenotypic ESBL-positive bacteria identified as Escherichia coli or Klebsiella spp. were tested for the presence of antibiotic resistance genes, the virulence gene afa/dra and the bla(CTX-M) upstream region. Genetic relatedness was analysed by PFGE, multilocus sequence typing and plasmid analysis. RESULTS A total of 68 ESBL-producing Enterobacteriaceae isolates were detected in 34 out of 45 wastewater samples. ESBL-producing isolates included 26 E. coli isolates, 4 Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates and 1 Klebsiella oxytoca isolate. The pandemic and multiresistant B2-O25b-ST131 clone was predominant, being detected among 19 E. coli isolates, and 17 of the B2-O25b-ST131 isolates were positive for the FIA replicon and the afa/dra operon and had an IS26 element flanking bla(CTX-M-15). Seventeen of the B2-O25b-ST131 isolates showed closely related PFGE profiles (defined by 84% band similarity) and belonged to identical clonal groups. CONCLUSIONS The results highlight the inadequacy of the treatment process in removing multiresistant bacteria from municipal wastewater and point to a risk of transmission of clinically important multiresistant strains, such as the pandemic ST131 clone, to the environment. This is the first study demonstrating the pandemic ST131 clone in wastewater.
Effects of the small molecule SIRT1 activator, SRT2104 on arterial stiffness in otherwise healthy cigarette smokers and subjects with type 2 diabetes mellitus

Objective Arterial stiffness increases with age, and is associated with adverse cardiovascular outcome including increased mortality. The effect of the oral small molecule SIRT1 activator, SRT2104, on arterial stiffness was examined in otherwise healthy cigarette smokers and participants with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Methods 24 otherwise healthy cigarette smokers and 15 people with stable type 2 diabetes were randomised in a double-blind placebo-controlled crossover trial and received 28 days of oral SRT2104 (2.0 g/day) or matched placebo. Blood pressure was measured using non-invasive oscillatory sphygmomanometry. Pulse wave analysis and velocity were measured using applanation tonometry at baseline and the end of each treatment period. Owing to the small sample size and similar trends for both groups, data for the two groups were pooled (post hoc analysis). Results Compared to placebo, treatment with SRT2104 was associated with a significant reduction in augmentation pressure (p=0.0273) and a trend towards improvement in the augmentation index and corrected augmentation index (p>0.05 for both). However, no changes were observed in pulse wave velocity and time to wave reflection (p>0.05). Systolic and diastolic blood pressures remained unchanged throughout the study. Treatment by cohort interaction was not significant for any of the pulse wave parameters, suggesting that the response to SRT2104 in otherwise healthy smokers and people with diabetes was consistent. Conclusions SRT2104 may improve measures of arterial stiffness in otherwise healthy cigarette smokers and in participants with type 2 diabetes. Definitive conclusions are not possible given the small sample size and exploratory nature of this analysis. Trial registration number NCT01031108.
Signature-based Filtering Techniques for Structural Joins of XML Data

Queries on XML documents typically combine selections on element contents, and, via path expressions, the structural relationships between tagged elements. Efficient support for structural joins is thus the key to efficient implementation of XML queries. With a stack to keep ancestordescendant structural relationships, stack-tree join algorithm enhances the performance of structural joins by reducing deducible unnecessary comparisons. However, stack-tree join cannot prevent "unwanted" comparisons between elements that do no participate in the join. To solve this problem, we propose a signature filter, which takes advantage of encoding schemes proposed for XML and occupies a little space. Then we present an pointer-based signature filter to skip the "unwanted" elements. In order to further improve the filtering efficiency, we finally propose an optimized pointer-based filter with the conjunction of two signatures. Performance study shows that our signaturebased filters have excellent filtering performance and significantly improve the performance of structural joins.
Socially-aware robot navigation: A learning approach

The ability to act in a socially-aware way is a key skill for robots that share a space with humans. In this paper we address the problem of socially-aware navigation among people that meets objective criteria such as travel time or path length as well as subjective criteria such as social comfort. Opposed to model-based approaches typically taken in related work, we pose the problem as an unsupervised learning problem. We learn a set of dynamic motion prototypes from observations of relative motion behavior of humans found in publicly available surveillance data sets. The learned motion prototypes are then used to compute dynamic cost maps for path planning using an any-angle A* algorithm. In the evaluation we demonstrate that the learned behaviors are better in reproducing human relative motion in both criteria than a Proxemics-based baseline method.
Regulating from the Inside: Can Environmental Management Systems Achieve Policy Goals

Foreword Donald F. Kettl 1. Environmental Management Systems and the New Policy Agenda Cary Coglianese and Jennifer Nash Part 1: Motivations and Impacts 2. Environmental Management Systems: History, Theory, and Implementation Research Richard N.L. Andrews, Nicole Darnall, Deborah Rigling Gallagher, Suellen Terrill Keiner, Eric Feldman, Matthew L. Mitchell, Deborah Amaral, and Jessica Jacoby 3. Factors that Shape EMS Outcomes in Firms Jennifer Nash and John R. Ehrenfeld 4. Whay Do Firms Adopt Advanced Environmental Practices (And Do They Make a Difference? ) Richard Florida and Derek Davison 5. Environmental Management Systems and the Global Economy Theodore Panayotou Part 2: Implications for Public Policy 6. Expanding the Concept of Environmental Management Systems to Meet Multiple Social Goals William R. Moomaw 7. Information, Environmental Performance, and Environmental Management Systems Shelley H. Metzenbaum 8. Policies to Promote Systematic Environmental Management Cary Coglianese 9. EMSs and Tiered Regulation: Getting the Deal Right Jerry Speir Conclusion 10. Toward a Management-Based Environmental Policy Cary Coglianese and Jennifer Nash Index
Testing for Effects of Recombination Rate on Nucleotide Diversity in Natural Populations of Arabidopsis lyrata

We investigated DNA sequence diversity for loci on chromosomes 1 and 2 in six natural populations of Arabidopsis lyrata and tested for the role of natural selection in structuring genomewide patterns of variability, specifically examining the effects of recombination rate on levels of silent polymorphism. In contrast with theoretical predictions from models of genetic hitchhiking, maximum-likelihood-based analyses of diversity and divergence do not suggest reduction of diversity in the region of suppressed recombination near the centromere of chromosome 1, except in a single population from Russia, in which the pericentromeric region may have undergone a local selective sweep or demographic process that reduced variability. We discuss various possibilities that might explain why nucleotide diversity in most A. lyrata populations is not related to recombination rate, including genic recombination hotspots, and low gene density in the low recombination rate region.
Adaptive TTL-Based Caching for Content Delivery

Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) cache and serve a majority of the user-requested content on the Internet, including web pages, videos, and software downloads. We propose two TTL-based caching algorithms that automatically adapt to the heterogeneity, burstiness, and non-stationary nature of real-world content requests. The first algorithm called d-TTL dynamically adapts a TTL parameter using a stochastic approximation approach and achieves a given feasible target hit rate. The second algorithm called f-TTL uses two caches, each with its own TTL. The lower-level cache adaptively filters out non-stationary content, while the higher-level cache stores frequently-accessed stationary content. We implement d-TTL and f-TTL and evaluate both algorithms using an extensive nine-day trace consisting of more than 500 million requests from a production CDN server. We show that both d-TTL and f-TTL converge to their hit rate targets with an error of about 1.3%. We also show that f-TTL requires a significantly smaller cache size than d-TTL to achieve the same hit rate, since it effectively filters out rarely-accessed content.
2 A ug 2 00 3 Temporal patterns of gene expression via nonmetric multidimensional scaling analysis running head : Temporal patterns via nonmetric MDS

Temporal patterns of gene expression via nonmetric multidimensional scaling analysis running head: Temporal patterns via nonmetric MDS ABSTRACT Motivation: Microarray experiments result in large scale data sets that require extensive mining and refining to extract useful information. We have been developing an efficient novel algorithm for nonmetric multi-dimensional scaling (nMDS) analysis for very large data sets as a maximally unsupervised data mining device. We wish to demonstrate its usefulness in the context of bioinformatics. In our motivation is also an aim to demonstrate that intrinsically nonlinear methods are generally advantageous in data mining. Results: The Pearson correlation distance measure is used to indicate the dissimilarity of the gene activities in transcriptional response of cell cycle-synchronized human fibroblasts to serum [Iyer et al., Science 283, 83 (1999)]. These dissimilarity data have been analyzed with our nMDS algorithm to produce an almost circular arrangement of the genes. The temporal expression patterns of the genes rotate along this circular arrangement. If an appropriate preparation procedure may be applied to the original data set, linear methods such as the principal component analysis (PCA) could achieve reasonable results, but without data preprocessing linear methods such as PCA cannot achieve a useful picture. Furthermore, even with an appropriate data pre-processing, the outcomes of linear procedures are not as clearcut as those by nMDS without preprocessing. Availability: The fortran source code of the method used in this analysis ('pure nMDS') is available at INTRODUCTION Each DNA microarray experiment can give us information about the relative populations of mRNAs for thousands of genes. This implies that without extensive data mining it is often hard to recognize any useful information from the experimental results. In this paper we demonstrate that a nonmetric multidimensional scaling (nMDS) method can be a powerful unsupervised means to extract temporal expression patterns of genes. A data mining procedure may be useful, if it is flexible enough to incorporate any level of supervision, but we believe that the most basic feature required for any good data mining method is to be able to extract recognizable patterns reproducibly without supervision. In this sense our nMDS method is clearly demonstrated to be a useful means of data mining.
Study on Information Fusion Algorithm in Tightly Coupled GPS/SINS Integrated Navigation System

The tightly coupled GPS/SINS integrated navigation system is studied in this paper. In order to meet the requirement of precision and stability, a nonlinear error model of SINS based on additive quaternion is established and a kind of SRUKF(Square-Root Unscented Kalman Filter) algorithm is designed. Compared whith EKF, The SRUKF not only improves the location precision greatly but also avoids the calculating burden of Jacobin matrices. Simulation results show the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in tightly coupled GPS/SINS integrated navigation system.
Lentiviral vectors with a defective integrase allow efficient and sustained transgene expression in vitro and in vivo

Lentivirus-derived vectors are among the most promising viral vectors for gene therapy currently available, but their use in clinical practice is limited by the associated risk of insertional mutagenesis. We have overcome this problem by developing a nonintegrative lentiviral vector derived from HIV type 1 with a class 1 integrase (IN) mutation (replacement of the 262RRK motif by AAH). We generated and characterized HIV type 1 vectors carrying this deficient enzyme and expressing the GFP or neomycin phosphotransferase transgene (NEO) under control of the immediate early promoter of human CMV. These mutant vectors efficiently transduced dividing cell lines and nondividing neural primary cultures in vitro. After transduction, transient GFP fluorescence was observed in dividing cells, whereas long-term GFP fluorescence was observed in nondividing cells, consistent with the viral genome remaining episomal. Moreover, G418 selection of cells transduced with vectors expressing the NEO gene showed that residual integration activity was lower than that of the intact IN by a factor of 500–1,250. These nonintegrative vectors were also efficient in vivo, allowing GFP expression in mouse brain cells after the stereotactic injection of IN-deficient vector particles. Thus, we have developed a generation of lentiviral vectors with a nonintegrative phenotype of great potential value for secure viral gene transfer in clinical applications.
An Empir

GSAT is a randomized local search procedure for solving propositional satisfiability problems. GSAT can solve hard, randomly generated problems that are an order of magnitude larger than those that can be handled by more traditional approaches, such as the Davis-Putnam procedure. This paper presents the results of numerous experiments we have performed with GSAT, in order to improve our understanding of its capabilities and limitations. We first characterize the space traversed by GSAT. We will see that for nearly all problem classes we have encountered, the space consists of a steep descent followed by broad flat plateaus. We then compare GSAT with simulated annealing, and show how GSAT can be viewed as an efficient method for executing the low-temperature tail of an annealing schedule. Finally, we report on extensions to the basic GSAT procedure. We discuss two general, domain-independent extensions that dramatically improve GSAT's performance on structured problems: the use of clause weights, and a way to average in near-solutions when initializing the procedure before each try.
Constructions of musical ability

Historically, musical ability was conceptualised in relation to aural abilities. Recently, this view has been challenged. Musical ability is now viewed by many as a social construction, acquiring different meanings in different cultures, sub-groups within cultures and at the individual level. This study aimed to explore these constructions. Based on an earlier qualitative study, a series of statements were developed describing aspects of musical ability to which participants responded on a five point rating scale. Participants were drawn from five groups, musicians, nonmusician educators, other adults, children with experience of extra-curricula music and children with no such experience. The findings showed that musical ability was most strongly conceptualised in relation to rhythmic ability, organisation of sound, communication, motivation, personal characteristics, an integration of skills and performing in a group. Exploration of differences between the responses of members of different groups demonstrated that there was considerable consensus between the groups regarding some aspects of musical ability but differences between others. These similarities and differences are discussed in relation to the extent of musical experience of the respondents and the music curriculum.
Face Identification from Manipulated Facial Images Using SIFT

Editing on digital images is ubiquitous. Identification of deliberately modified facial images is a new challenge for face identification system. In this paper, we address the problem of identification of a face or person from heavily altered facial images. In this face identification problem, the input to the system is a manipulated or transformed face image and the system reports back the determined identity from a database of known individuals. Such a system can be useful in mugs hot identification in which mugs hot database contains two views (frontal and profile) of each criminal. We considered only frontal view from the available database for face identification and the query image is a manipulated face generated by face transformation software tool available online. We propose SIFT features for efficient face identification in this scenario. Further comparative analysis has been given with well known eigenface approach. Experiments have been conducted with real case images to evaluate the performance of both methods.