Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A stochastic periodic review inventory model for vendor–buyer system with setup cost reduction and service–level constraint

Abstract This paper presents a joint economic lot-sizing problem under stochastic demand for a vendor–buyer system by synchronizing ordering and production cycles. The buyer manages its inventory periodically using a periodic review policy. The average demand and the buyer’s ordering cost are assumed to be fuzzy. The vendor’s production process is imperfect and the buyer’s inspection process is also imperfect. The vendor has opportunity to make an investment to reduce the setup cost. Since it is often difficult to calculate the shortage cost in inventory model, a service-level constraint corresponding to the buyer is considered in the mathematical model. The objective of the model is to simultaneously optimize the review period, production rate, setup cost, and the number of deliveries, such that minimize the joint total cost. We suggest an iterative procedure to find the optimal values of decision variables. A numerical example and a sensitivity analysis are given to show the application of the model and to investigate the effect of the changes in key parameters on the behavior of the proposed model.
Modification of BRCA 1-Associated Breast and Ovarian Cancer Risk by BRCA 1-Interacting Genes

Inherited BRCA1 mutations confer elevated cancer risk. Recent studies have identified genes that encode proteins that interact with BRCA1 as modifiers of BRCA1-associated breast cancer. We evaluated a comprehensive set of genes that encode most known BRCA1 interactors to evaluate the role of these genes as modifiers of cancer risk. A cohort of 2,825 BRCA1 mutation carriers was used to evaluate the association of haplotypes at ATM, BRCC36, BRCC45 (BRE), BRIP1 (BACH1/FANCJ), CTIP, ABRA1 (FAM175A),MERIT40,MRE11A, NBS1, PALB2 (FANCN), RAD50, RAD51, RAP80, and TOPBP1, and was associated with time to breast and ovarian cancer diagnosis. Statistically significant false discovery rate (FDR) adjusted P values for overall association of haplotypes (PFDR) with breast cancer were identified at ATM (PFDR 1⁄4 0.029), BRCC45 (PFDR 1⁄4 0.019), BRIP1 (PFDR 1⁄4 0.008), CTIP (PFDR 1⁄4 0.017), MERIT40 (PFDR 1⁄4 0.019), NBS1 (PFDR 1⁄4 0.003), RAD50 (PFDR 1⁄4 0.014), and TOPBP1 (PFDR 1⁄4 0.011). Haplotypes at ABRA1 (PFDR 1⁄4 0.007), BRCC45 (PFDR 1⁄4 0.016 and PFDR 1⁄4 0.005 in two haplotype blocks), and RAP80 (PFDR < 0.001) were associated with ovarian cancer risk. Overall, the data suggest that genomic variation at multiple loci that encode proteins that interact biologically with BRCA1 are associated with modified breast cancer and ovarian cancer risk in women who carry BRCA1mutations. Cancer Res; 71(17); 5792–805. 2011 AACR.
Simultaneous determination of simvastatin, lovastatin and niacin in human plasma by LC-MS/MS and its application to a human pharmacokinetic study.

A simple, sensitive and specific LC-MS/MS method for simultaneous determination of simvastatin (SV), lovastatin (LV) and niacin (NIA) in human plasma was developed and validated on API-4000 in positive ion mode. Nevirapine was used as internal standard (IS). The assay procedure involved a simple one-step liquid-liquid extraction of SV, LV, NIA and the IS from plasma into ethyl acetate. Separation of SV, LV, NIA and the IS was achieved on an Alltima C₁₈ column with a mobile phase consisting of 5 mm ammonium acetate (pH 4.5) and acetonitrile (20:80, v/v) pumped at a flow rate of 1 mL/min. Nominal retention times obtained for SV, LV, NIA and IS were 2.12, 1.67, 0.50 and 0.65 min, respectively. The lower limits of quantification (LLOQ) for SV, LV and NIA were 0.10, 0.10 and 25.2 ng/mL, respectively. The response function was established for the range of concentrations 0.10-101 ng/mL for SV and LV, and 25.2-5020 ng/mL for NIA, with a coefficient of correlation of >0.99 for all the compounds. Method validation was performed as per FDA guidelines and the results met the acceptance criteria. The proposed method was found to be applicable to clinical studies.
LNG Pricing Differences Across the Atlantic - a Comparison Between the United States and Europe

Projections for the energy market worldwide tend to coincide in one aspect: the increasing importance of natural gas as a source of energy. Although natural gas seems to be a key player in the future world energy mix, there are significant differences in liquefied natural gas (LNG) import prices in each of the main natural gas markets. Our analysis focuses on understanding the price difference between two of the major natural gas markets: The United States and Europe. Therefore we apply a cointegration analysis to derive the long-run main determinants of LNG prices and apply an SVAR analysis to study how the same determinants have different impacts in both regions. JEL-Clasification: L95, C32, Q40
Social ties, prior experience, and venture creation by transnational entrepreneurs

The interaction between resources, and host and home country contexts of transnational entrepreneurs (TEs), is important for understanding their strategies and hence performance of their ventures. Yet, how they deploy their unique experiences and social networks in the founding of ventures in multiple institutional contexts is less understood. Based on 15 in-depth interviews with TEs of Indian origin in the UK, and nine of their counterpart heads of transnational venture (TNV) operations, we explore the use of prior experience, and personal and industry ties in the founding of TNVs in their home country. Our findings show that the way TEs use personal and industry ties in the host and home countries is contingent on whether they have prior experience of: 1) entering the home country; 2) implementing the business opportunity underlying the TNV in the home country, respectively, with a former employer. The implications of these findings are discussed.
Nursing Interventions: Effects of Coma Arousal Technique on the Clinical Outcomes of Unconscious Patients

Unconsciousness is a condition of being unaware of one’s surroundings as in sleep or of being unresponsive to stimulation. Therefore, to facilitate the recovery process, coma arousal technique has been developed. The present study aimed to evaluate the effect of coma arousal technique on clinical outcomes of unconscious patients. Study design: A quasi-experimental design was utilized. Study setting: Neuro, chest and medicine intensive care units at Ain –Shams University Specialized Hospital. Study sample: The purposeful sampling of sixty patients were randomly and alternatively divided into two equal groups (study& control),30 subjects each. Tool of data collection: Demographic and clinical data Sheet, Physiological parameters adverse events assessment, Rappaport coma (RCS), Motor Activity Assessment (MAAS) and Sensory Modality Assessment and Rehabilitation Technique (SMART) were used. Results: The findings of this study revealed that the control group had a significantly higher incidence rate of physiological parameters adverse events. It is observed that 13% of patients in the study group had mild coma after application of coma arousal technique at 4th week compared with no one in the control group and at the 6th week of the study, it increased to 23% in the study group compared with only 3% in the control group. The total mean scores of SMART for the study group increased significantly post application of coma arousal technique compared to the control group throughout the study period. At the 4th and 6th week of the study, it is clear that patients’ sedation in study group was significantly in more appropriate level than control group. It was found that mean length of ICU stay and duration of mechanical ventilation was significantly shorter in the study group than in the control group. Conclusion: application of coma arousal technique had effects on improvement the level of consciousness and sensory and motor modalities associated with a decreased incidence of physiological parameters adverse events. Recommendations: This study recommended that critical care nurses should be incorporated coma arousal technique into a nurse’s daily routine in the care of unconscious patients.
Use of biomarkers for alcohol use disorders in clinical practice.

BACKGROUND Biomedical markers may provide additive objective information in screening and confirmation of acute or recent consumption, intoxication, relapse, heavy drinking, hazardous/harmful use/abuse and dependence and alcohol use related organ dysfunction (alcohol use-related disorders: AUDs). AIMS To review the use of biomarkers in clinical practice to detect AUDs. FINDINGS About one-fifth of the patients seen in clinical practice have AUDs, which offer a variety of treatment options if diagnosed. The diagnosis of AUDs relies on clinical and alcohol-related history, physical examination, questionnaires and laboratory values. No clinical available laboratory test [e.g. for acute abuse: alcohol in blood or breath; for chronic alcohol abuse: gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT), mean corpuscular volume (MCV), carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT)] is reliable enough on its own to support a diagnosis of alcohol dependence, harmful use or abuse. Sensitivities, specificities and the predictive values may vary considerably according to patient and control group characteristics (e.g. gender, age or related comorbidity). In patient groups with limited cooperation markers may be helpful when considering treatment options. CONCLUSIONS More research is needed to determine the value of markers (single or combined, with questionnaires) in the context of clinical decision-making algorithms in defined settings and with defined dichotomous outcome variables.
Production and excretion of cloacin DF13 by Escherichia coli harboring plasmid CloDF13

The production and the mechanism of excretion of cloacin DF13 were investigated in noninduced and mitomycin C-induced cell cultures. A mitomycin C concentration was selected which did not cause lysis of cloacinogenic cells, but at the same time induced a maximal production of cloacin DF13. Native cloacin DF13, possessing killing activity, was first released into the cytoplasm. Shortly thereafter, the bacteriocin was transported through the cytoplasmic membrane and accumulated in the periplasm. Finally, cloacin DF13 was excreted into the culture medium. A small amount of cloacin DF13 remained associated with the cell surface. Producing cells did not become permeable for the cytoplasmic enzyme beta-galactosidase. Apparently the cloacin DF13 leaves the producing cells by an excretion process which is not similar to the mechanism proposed for bacterial secretory proteins. The processes of excretion by producing cells and of uptake by susceptible cells were also not identical because mutant cloacin DF13, which was not transported through the outer membrane into susceptible cells, was excreted like the wild-type cloacin DF13. The composition of the culture medium greatly affected production of cloacin DF13. The presence of sugars known to cause catabolite repression not only inhibited the production but also strongly reduced the excretion of cloacin DF13 into the culture medium.
Building Software Defined Systems on HPC and Clouds Hyungro Lee

Systems for modern applications require dynamic computing resources for various workload with a different type of datasets and a collection of software work together to complete tasks on IaaS, PaaS, SaaS or FaaS. Building a cluster of virtual machines is inevitable to accelerate computation speed for these applications but there are challenging tasks to deploy, configure and manage systems in a virtualized environment or high performance computing. DevOps tools provide automated software deployment and continuous integration yet computing environments and resources for applications need to be prepared manually by system administrator and application developer because of dependency hell. Templatebased infrastructure provisioning permits an repeatable build of a virtual system but the execution of applications is separated from the system built which has no trace of workloads. In this dissertation, we combine these two approaches to fully automate from preparing environments to running workload of applications in a structured way which results in building software defined systems (SDS) on HPC and Clouds. Semantic templates are introduced to complete virtual cluster provisioning with an example of big data applications and role-based DevOps tools are examined to deploy software stacks. There are several tools and libraries to be implemented with several container technologies to enable dynamic computing environments on both HPC and Clouds. In addition, specific application domains i.e. bioinformatics are explored to demonstrate practical experiences of applying use cases with the philosophy of software defined systems.
Nonspecific PCR amplification by high‐fidelity polymerases: implications for next‐generation sequencing of AFLP markers

High‐fidelity ‘proofreading’ polymerases are often used in library construction for next‐generation sequencing projects, in an effort to minimize errors in the resulting sequence data. The increased template fidelity of these polymerases can come at the cost of reduced template specificity, and library preparation methods based on the AFLP technique may be particularly susceptible. Here, we compare AFLP profiles generated with standard Taq and two versions of a high‐fidelity polymerase. We find that Taq produces fewer and brighter peaks than high‐fidelity polymerase, suggesting that Taq performs better at selectively amplifying templates that exactly match the primer sequences. Because the higher accuracy of proofreading polymerases remains important for sequencing applications, we suggest that it may be more effective to use alternative library preparation methods.
Improved nonlocal fuzzy color segmentation-based color reconstruction hybrid approach for white-RGB imaging systems

Abstract. Conventional local-based color reconstruction for a white-RGB (WRGB) imaging system relies excessively on reference pixels. Therefore, it is sensitive to noisy interference. To address this issue, we propose an improved nonlocal fuzzy color segmentation-based color reconstruction hybrid approach for a WRGB imaging system. Unlike local-based approaches, we attempt to reproduce color information based on the statistical color distribution of the raw sensor data. According to the distribution analysis, the color distribution (histogram and cumulative distribution function) is close to that of the full-resolution image. However, brief histogram matching gives rise to zipper artifacts, which result from the multicombination of the red, green, and blue corresponding to one white. Therefore, a hybrid color segmentation is proposed to address this issue. The first step is a brief sorting-based color segmentation in the hue channel. Fuzzy-based color segmentation is then utilized to acquire more subregions in the proposed saturation space. Finally, fast histogram matching is carried out to obtain the full-color information for the white pixel for each region. Compared with state-of-the-art approaches, the proposed nonlocal hybrid approach is capable of significantly reducing the influence of noise with higher peak signal-to-noise ratios. Furthermore, according to the hybrid color segmentation, zipper artifacts are successfully avoided.
Biodistribution and Safety Profile of Recombinant Adeno-Associated Virus Serotype 6 Vectors following Intravenous Delivery

ABSTRACT Recombinant adeno-associated virus vectors based on serotype 6 (rAAV6) efficiently transduce skeletal muscle after intravenous administration and have shown efficacy in the mdx model of muscular dystrophy. As a prelude to future clinical studies, we investigated the biodistribution and safety profile of rAAV6 in mice. Although it was present in all organs tested, rAAV6 was sequestered mainly in the liver and spleen. rAAV6 had a minimal effect on circulating blood cells and caused no apparent hepatotoxicity or coagulation activation. rAAV6 caused some neutrophil infiltration into the liver, with a transient elevation in cytokine and chemokine transcription/secretion. In summary, rAAV6 induces transient toxicity that subsides almost completely within 72 h and causes no significant side effects.
Wages Equal Productivity: Fact or Fiction?

Using a matched employer-employee data set of manufacturing plants in three sub-Saharan countries, I compare the marginal productivity of different categories of workers with the wages they earn. Under certain conditions, the wage premiums for worker characteristics should equal the productivity benefits associated with them. I find that equality holds strongly for the most developed country in the sample (Zimbabwe), but not at all for the least developed country (Tanzania). Differences between wage and productivity premiums are most pronounced for characteristics that are clearly related to human capital, such as schooling, training, experience, and tenure. Localized labor markets, imperfect substitutability of different worker-types, sampling errors, and nonlinear effects are rejected as explanation for the gap between wage and productivity effects.
Transposon-Based Reporter Marking Provides Functional Evidence for Intercellular Bridges in the Male Germline of Rabbits

The Sleeping Beauty transposon system was established as a robust and efficient method for germline transgenesis in different mammalian species. The generation of transgenic mice, rats, rabbits and swine carrying an identical Venus reporter construct delivered by transposon-mediated gene transfer enables comparative studies of gene expression in these lines of mammalian models. Whereas comparable expression patterns of the Venus reporter were found in somatic tissues, preliminary studies suggested that a striking difference in reporter expression may exist in mature spermatozoa of these species. Here we clearly show the differential expression of Venus reporter protein during spermatogenesis of the two compared species, the laboratory rabbit and mice. We provide evidence for the functionality of intercellular bridges in the male germline and genotype-independent transgenic phenotype of rabbit spermatids. Our data suggest that the reporter rabbit line may be a suitable tool to identify molecular mechanisms in testicular development, and may contribute to develop better animal models for male infertility in men.
Comparison of huntingtin proteolytic fragments in human lymphoblast cell lines and human brain

Proteolytic fragments of huntingtin (htt) in human lymphoblast cell lines from HD and control cases were compared to those in human HD striatal and cortical brain regions, by western blots with epitope‐specific antibodies. HD lymphoblast cell lines were heterozygous and homozygous for the expanded CAG triplet repeat mutations, which represented adult onset and juvenile HD. Lymphoblasts contained NH2‐ and COOH‐terminal htt fragments of 20–100 kDa, with many similar htt fragments in HD compared to control lymphoblast cell lines. Detection of htt fragments in a homozygous HD lymphoblast cell line demonstrated proteolysis of mutant htt. It was of interest that adult HD lymphoblasts showed a 63–64 kDa htt fragment detected by the NH2‐domain antibody, which was not found in controls. In addition, control and HD heterozygous cells showed a common 60–61 kDa band (detected by the NH2‐domain antibody), which was absent in homozygous HD lymphoblast cells. These results suggest that the 63–64 kDa and 60–61 kDa NH2‐domain htt fragments may be associated with mutant and normal htt, respectively. In juvenile HD lymphoblasts, the presence of a 66‐kDa, instead of the 63–64 kDa N‐domain htt fragment, may be consistent with the larger polyglutamine expansion of mutant htt in the juvenile case of HD. Lymphoblasts and striatal or cortical regions from HD brains showed similarities and differences in NH2‐ and COOH‐terminal htt fragments. HD striatum showed elevated levels of 50 and 45 kDa NH2‐terminal htt fragments [detected with anti(1–17) serum] compared to controls. Cortex from HD and control brains showed similar NH2‐terminal htt fragments of 50, 43, 40, and 20 kDa; lymphoblasts also showed NH2‐terminal htt fragments of 50, 43, 40, and 20 kDa. In addition, a 48‐kDa COOH‐terminal htt band was elevated in HD striatum, which was also detected in lymphoblasts. Overall, results demonstrate that mutant and normal htt undergo extensive proteolysis in lymphoblast cell lines, with similarities and differences compared to htt fragments observed in HD striatal and cortical brain regions. These data for in vivo proteolysis of htt are consistent with the observed neurotoxicity of recombinant NH2‐terminal mutant htt fragments expressed in transgenic mice and in transfected cell lines that may be related to the pathogenesis of HD.
Fire Severity Modeling of Sagebrush-Steppe Rangelands in Southeastern Idaho

The potential for high-severity fires to affect changes in rangelands is considerable, and for this reason, assessing fire severity is critical. We explored fire severity modeling in rangelands by applying post-fire field observations to Satellite Pour l'Observation de la Terre 5 (SPOT 5) imagery using Classification Tree Analysis (CTA) techniques at two 2005 burns. The results of these analyses demonstrate that CTA is equally adept at classifying areas of low severity as well as those with high severity with reliable accuracy (66-100%). Furthermore, the CTA technique is fairly uncomplicated to apply and provides an error assessment upon which land managers can better justify their recommendations.
Neurosecretory identity conferred by the apterous gene: Lateral horn leucokinin neurons in Drosophila

The LIM‐HD protein Apterous has been shown to regulate expression of the FMRFamide neuropeptide in Drosophila neurons (Benveniste et al. [ 1998 ] Development 125:4757–4765). To test whether Apterous has a broader role in controlling neurosecretory identity, we analyzed the expression of several neuropeptides in apterous (ap) mutants. We show that Apterous is necessary for expression of the Leucokinin neuropeptide in a pair of brain neurons located in the lateral horn region of the protocerebrum (LHLK neurons). ap null mutants are depleted of Leucokinin in these cells, whereas hypomorphic mutants show reduced Leucokinin expression. Other Leucokinin‐containing neurons are not affected by mutations in ap gene. Co‐expression of apterous and Leucokinin is observed exclusively in the LHLK neurons, from larval stages to adulthood. Rescue assays performed in null ap mutants, by expressing Apterous protein under apGAL4 and elavGAL4 drivers, demonstrate the recovery of Leucokinin in the LHLK neurons. These results reinforce the emerging role of the LIM‐HD proteins in determining neuronal identity. They also clarify the neuroendocrine phenotype of apterous mutants. J. Comp. Neurol. 457:123–132, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.