Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparative evaluation of 0.2% Chlorhexidine Mouthwash, Xylitol Chewing Gum, and Combination of 0.2% Chlorhexidine Mouthwash and Xylitol Chewing Gum on Salivary Streptococcus mutans and Biofilm Levels in 8- to 12-Year-Old Children

Aim To assess the effect of combining 0.2% chlorhexidine (CHX) mouthwash with xylitol (XYL) chewing gum on Streptococcus mutans and biofilm levels among 8- to 12-year-old children. Materials and methods Sixty children aged 8 to 12 years were selected with moderate and high salivary S. mutans levels. They were divided into three groups of 20 children each: (1) XYL group where the subjects chewed XYL twice daily; (2) CHX where rinsing was done twice daily; and (3) combination of XYL and CHX group (XYL+CHX) where both the agents were used once daily. The S. mutans colony-forming units (CFUs) were counted by using the mitis salivarius agar plate at the beginning of the study and at 15 days, 1, 2, and 6 months from the start of the study. Results The XYL+CHX group showed the maximum reduction in both the biofilm and S. mutans scores throughout the study period. Conclusion The XYL+CHX combination reduced both the biofilm and S. mutans score significantly better than either XYL chewing gums or CHX mouthwash used alone. How to cite this article Syed M, Chopra R, Shrivastava V, Sachdev V. Comparative evaluation of 0.2% Chlorhexidine Mouthwash, Xylitol Chewing Gum, and Combination of 0.2% Chlorhexidine Mouthwash and Xylitol Chewing Gum on Salivary Streptococcus mutans and Biofilm Levels in 8- to 12-Year-Old Children. Int J Clin Pediatr Dent 2016;9(4):313-319.
Shared Cluster Scheduling : a Fair and Efficient Protocol

In this work we focus on the problem of resource allocation in a shared cluster used for data-intensive scalable computing. Specifically, we target the open-source implementation of the MapReduce framework, Hadoop, and design a new scheduling algorithm that caters both to a fair and efficient utilization of a shared cluster. Our scheduler, labelled FSP, achieves both goals by “focusing” the resources of a cluster toward individual jobs rather than partitioning the cluster such that all submitted jobs run in parallel. In this article, we discuss in detail the implementation challenges posed by our scheduler, and suggest a new technique to achieve preemption through Job suspension. Such an approach has several advantages over the traditional method of killing running jobs, but requires to extend the principle of data locality to all phases of a MapReduce Job. Finally, we note that our scheduler is not oblivious to typical Job optimization techniques, a unique feature missing in state-of-the-art approaches.
Accelerated DNA evolution in rats is driven by differential methylation in sperm

Lamarckian inheritance has been largely discredited until the recent discovery of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. However, transgenerational epigenetic inheritance is still under debate for unable to rule out DNA sequence changes as the underlying cause for heritability. Here, through profiling of the sperm methylomes and genomes of two recently diverged rat subspecies, we analyzed the relationship between epigenetic variation and DNA variation, and their relative contribution to evolution of species. We found that only epigenetic markers located in differentially methylated regions (DMRs) between subspecies, but not within subspecies, can be stably and effectively passed through generations. DMRs in response to both random and stable environmental difference show increased nucleotide diversity, and we demonstrated that it is variance of methylation level but not deamination caused by methylation driving increasing of nucleotide diversity in DMRs, indicating strong relationship between environment-associated changes of chromatin accessibility and increased nucleotide diversity. Further, we detected that accelerated fixation of DNA variants occur only in inter-subspecies DMRs in response to stable environmental difference but not intra-subspecies DMRs in response to random environmental difference or non-DMRs, indicating that this process is possibly driven by environment-associated fixation of divergent methylation status. Our results thus establish a bridge between Lamarckian inheritance and Darwinian selection.
Validation of Automated Scoring for a Formative Assessment that Employs Scientific Argumentation

ABSTRACT Scientific argumentation is one of the core practices for teachers to implement in science classrooms. We developed a computer-based formative assessment to support students’ construction and revision of scientific arguments. The assessment is built upon automated scoring of students’ arguments and provides feedback to students and teachers. Preliminary validity evidence was collected in this study to support the use of automated scoring in this formative assessment. The results showed satisfactory psychometric properties related to this formative assessment. The automated scores showed satisfactory agreement with human scores, but small discrepancies still existed. Automated scores and feedback encouraged students to revise their answers. Students’ scientific argumentation skills improved during the revision process. These findings provided preliminary evident to support the use of automated scoring in the formative assessment to diagnose and enhance students’ argumentation skills in the context of climate change in secondary school science classrooms.
Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions Assessment of Hydrological and Seasonal Controls over the Nitrate Flushing from a Forested Watershed Using a Data Mining Technique

Papers published in Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions are under open-access review for the journal Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Abstract A data mining, regression tree algorithm M5 was used to review the understanding of mutual hydrological and seasonal settings which control the streamwater nitrate flushing during hydrological events within a forested watershed in the southwestern part of Slovenia, characterized by distinctive flushing, almost torrential hydrological regime. 5 The basis for the research presented an extensive dataset of continuous, high frequency measurements of seasonal meteorological conditions, watershed hydrological responses and streamwater nitrate concentrations. The dataset contained 16 recorded hydrographs occurring in different seasonal and hydrological conditions. Based on pre-defined regression tree pruning criteria, a comprehensible regression tree model was 10 obtained in the sense of the domain knowledge, which was able to adequately describe most of the streamwater nitrate concentration variations (RMSE=1.02 mg/l-N; r=0.91). The attributes which were found to be the most descriptive in the sense of streamwater nitrate concentrations were the antecedent precipitation index (API) and air temperatures in the preceding periods. The model was most successful in describ-15 ing streamwater concentrations in the range 1–4 mg/l-N, covering large proportion of the dataset. The model performance was poorer during the periods of high streamwa-ter nitrate concentration oscillations (up to 7 mg/l-N during the summer hydrographs and 14 mg/l-N during the extreme November hydrograph) related to highly variable hydrological conditions, which would require a less robust regression tree model.
An effective multi-source energy harvester for low power applications

Small autonomous embedded systems powered by means of energy harvesting techniques, have gained momentum in industry and research. This paper presents a simple, yet effective and complete energy harvesting solution which permits the exploitation of an arbitrary number of ambient energy sources. The proposed modular architecture collects energy from each of the connected harvesting subsystems in a concurrent and independent way. The possibility of connecting a lithiumion or nickel-metal hydride rechargeable battery protects the system against long periods of ambient energy shortage and improves its overall dependability. The simple, fully analogue design of the power management and battery monitoring circuits minimizes the component count and the parasitic consumption of the harvester. The numerical simulation of the system behavior allows an in-depth analysis of its operation under different environmental conditions and validates the effectiveness of the design.
Using Aspect-Oriented Programming in the Development of a Multi-strategy Theorem Prover

When a computer program is written to implement a nondeterministic algorithm, it must have a strategy for choosing the next step that is going to be performed. Automated Theorem Provers (ATP’s) usually implement nondeterministic algorithms, therefore the representation of strategies is a very important part of their design. A multi-strategy theorem prover is an ATP where we can vary the strategy without modifying the implementation. In this paper we present some remarks towards the development of an aspect-oriented multi-strategy prover.
Towards a Client Driven Characterization of Class Hierarchies

Object-oriented legacy systems are hard to maintain because they are hard to understand. One of the main understanding problems is revealed by the so-called "yo-yo effect" that appears when a developer or maintainer wants to track a polymorphic method call. At least part of this understanding problem is due to the dual nature of the inheritance relation i.e., the fact that it can he used both as a code and/or as an interface reuse mechanism. Unfortunately, in order to find out the original intention for a particular hierarchy it is not enough to look at the hierarchy itself; rather than that, an in-depth analysis of the hierarchy's clients is required. In this paper we introduce a new metrics-based approach that helps us characterize the extent to which a base class was intended for interface reuse, by analyzing how clients use the interface of that base class. The idea of the approach is to quantify the extent to which clients treat uniformly the instances of the descendants of the base class, when invoking methods belonging to this common interface, We have evaluated our approach on two medium-sized case studies and we have found that the approach does indeed help to characterize the nature of a base class with respect to interface reuse. Additionally, the approach can be used to detect some interesting patterns in the way clients actually use the descendants through the interface of the base class
An Additional Basal Promoter Element Recognized by Free RNA Polymerase σ Subunit Determines Promoter Recognition by RNA Polymerase Holoenzyme

Molecular Cell Immediate Early Publication Copyright ©2006 by Cell Press Published Online June 22, 2006 DOI: 10.1016/S1097276506004163 An Additional Basal Promoter Element Recognized by Free RNA Polymerase σ Subunit Determines Promoter Recognition by RNA Polymerase Holoenzyme Andrey Feklistov, Nataliya Barinova, Anastasiya Sevostyanova, Ewa Heyduk, Irina Bass, Irina Vvedenskaya, Konstantin Kuznedelov, Eglė Merkienė, Elena Stavrovskaya, Saulius Klimašauskas, Vadim Nikiforov, Tomasz Heyduk, Konstantin Severinov,* and Andrey Kulbachinskiy** Institute of Molecular Genetics Moscow 123182 Russia Department of Molecular Biology Moscow State University Moscow 119992 Russia Public Health Research Institute Newark, New Jersey 07103 St. Louis University School of Medicine St. Louis, Missouri Waksman Institute Rutgers University Piscataway, New Jersey 08854 Institute of Biotechnology Vilnius 2028 Lithuania Institute for Information Transmission Problems Moscow Russia
SMALTA: practical and near-optimal FIB aggregation

IP Routers use sophisticated forwarding table (FIB) lookup algorithms that minimize lookup time, storage, and update time. This paper presents SMALTA, a practical, near-optimal FIB aggregation scheme that shrinks forwarding table size without modifying routing semantics or the external behavior of routers, and without requiring changes to FIB lookup algorithms and associated hardware and software. On typical IP routers using the FIB lookup algorithm Tree Bitmap, SMALTA shrinks FIB storage by at least 50%, representing roughly four years of routing table growth at current rates. SMALTA also reduces average lookup time by 25% for a uniform traffic matrix. Besides the benefits this brings to future routers, SMALTA provides a critical easy-to-deploy one-time benefit to the installed base should IPv4 address depletion result in increased routing table growth rate. The effective cost of this improvement is a sub-second delay in inserting updates into the FIB once every few hours. We describe SMALTA, prove its correctness, measure its performance using data from a Tier-1 provider as well as Route-Views. We also describe an implementation in Quagga that demonstrates its ease of implementation.
Preliminary investigations about interruptibility of smartphone users at specific place types

Smartphones are our ubiquitous, personal, wearable companions. Though, apart from their smartness and usefulness in our everyday lives they can cause displeasure. They allow us to be connected to a load of people and with a vast amount of apps - all of them requiring our attention. There is a growing need for a smart management to not be overwhelmed by the flood of information and notifications. A first step in that direction is to identify detectable contexts in which interruptibility is very high or low. In this paper, we present results of a survey taken by 68 persons. Within the survey, we assess how much smartphone notifications interrupt and disturb users at a specific location. The locations were selected based on the places that can be recognized by the Google Places API. This shall serve as a basis for future interruptibility research. We noticed that people are fairly interruptible while waiting, e.g. at bus stations or at parking lots. In contrast, they must not be disturbed at movie theaters, libraries or restaurants.
Application of Learning from Demonstration to a Mining Tunnel Inspection Robot

Current research for Learning From Demonstration (LfD) seems to concentrate on the learning kernel. This paper outlines the need for a more useful variable selection technique using the training dataset. The paper presents a new training dataset selection method, called Information Extraction (IE). The application area is a complex task involving robot mining tunnel inspection, and IE is applied to the robot for this task. The Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) is adopted to generate a learning curve utilized by a robot. The Gaussian Mixture Regression (GMR) is used to infer actions based on given states. After human demonstration, the robot can finish a pre-defined task independently.
Utilizing SPR as a Novel Technique to Measure Cell Aggregation for Ketamine Treated Brain Gliomas

This work is devoted to a new approach to use of the inhibitor of glutamate-ionotropic NMDA-receptor - ketamine in treatment of rat malignant gliomas. Optimal ketamine concentrations for inhibition of tumor-associated inflammation in gliomas was found through measurement of blood cells aggregation in vitro in patients with gliomas. For the first time, the method of surface plasmon resonance was used to determine the degree of blood cell aggregation as the II phase of inflammation. Experiments for measure of ketamine antitumor activity were performed using the high-invasive and malignant strain of the rat glioma 101.8. The correlation between antitumor activity and blood cells aggregation was found. Unlike highly toxic preparations administered during human gliomas chemotherapies, low doses of ketamine is nontoxic, efficacious and it does not produce side effects.
MDM2 Promoter SNP344T>A (rs1196333) Status Does Not Affect Cancer Risk

The MDM2 proto-oncogene plays a key role in central cellular processes like growth control and apoptosis, and the gene locus is frequently amplified in sarcomas. Two polymorphisms located in the MDM2 promoter P2 have been shown to affect cancer risk. One of these polymorphisms (SNP309T>G; rs2279744) facilitates Sp1 transcription factor binding to the promoter and is associated with increased cancer risk. In contrast, SNP285G>C (rs117039649), located 24 bp upstream of rs2279744, and in complete linkage disequilibrium with the SNP309G allele, reduces Sp1 recruitment and lowers cancer risk. Thus, fine tuning of MDM2 expression has proven to be of significant importance with respect to tumorigenesis. We assessed the potential functional effects of a third MDM2 promoter P2 polymorphism (SNP344T>A; rs1196333) located on the SNP309T allele. While in silico analyses indicated SNP344A to modulate TFAP2A, SPIB and AP1 transcription factor binding, we found no effect of SNP344 status on MDM2 expression levels. Assessing the frequency of SNP344A in healthy Caucasians (n = 2,954) and patients suffering from ovarian (n = 1,927), breast (n = 1,271), endometrial (n = 895) or prostatic cancer (n = 641), we detected no significant difference in the distribution of this polymorphism between any of these cancer forms and healthy controls (6.1% in healthy controls, and 4.9%, 5.0%, 5.4% and 7.2% in the cancer groups, respectively). In conclusion, our findings provide no evidence indicating that SNP344A may affect MDM2 transcription or cancer risk.
Investigating the Potential of Test-Driven Development for Spreadsheet Engineering

It is widely documented that the absence of a structured approach to spreadsheet engineering is a key factor in the high level of spreadsheet errors. In this paper we propose and investigate the application of Test-Driven Development to the creation of spreadsheets. Test-Driven Development is an emerging development technique in software engineering that has been shown to result in better quality software code. It has also been shown that this code requires less testing and is easier to maintain. Through a pair of case studies we demonstrate that Test-Driven Development can be applied to the development of spreadsheets. We present the detail of these studies preceded by a clear explanation of the technique and its application to spreadsheet engineering. A supporting tool under development by the authors is also documented along with proposed research to determine the effectiveness of the methodology and the associated tool.
Components of Recall: The Semantic Specificity Effect and the Monitoring of Cued-Recall

A depressible shaft (14) mounted, switch (16) operating keyboard button (10) is stabilized against rotation about the shaft (14) and in a plane which includes the axis of the shaft (14) by means of a stabilizing arm (24) thereunder which engages a stabilizing surface (30) on the housing of the switch (16).
Optimal Cooperative Jamming to Enhance Physical Layer Security Using Relays

This correspondence studies cooperative jamming (CJ) to increase the physical layer security of a wiretap fading channel via distributed relays. We first provide the feasible conditions on the positiveness of the secrecy rate and then show that the optimization problem can be solved using a combination of convex optimization and a one-dimensional search. Distributed implementation to realize the CJ solution and extension to deal with per group relays' power constraints are discussed.
Thermodynamic and Aerosol Controls in Southeast Pacific Stratocumulus

AbstractA near-large-eddy simulation approach with size-revolving (bin) microphysics is employed to evaluate the relative sensitivity of southeast Pacific marine boundary layer cloud properties to thermodynamic and aerosol parameters. Simulations are based on a heavily drizzling cloud system observed by the NOAA ship Ronald H. Brown during the Variability of the American Monsoon Systems (VAMOS) Ocean–Cloud–Atmosphere–Land Study—Regional Experiment (VOCALS-Rex) field campaign. A suite of numerical experiments examines the sensitivity of drizzle to variations in boundary layer depth and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) concentration in a manner consistent with the variability of those parameters observed during VOCALS-Rex. All four simulations produce cellular structures and turbulence characteristics of a circulation driven predominantly in a bottom-up fashion. The cloud and subcloud layers are coupled by strong convective updrafts that provide moisture to the cloud layer. Distributions of reflectivity calc.
A Method for Robust Receding Horizon Output Feedback Control of Constrained Systems

This paper considers output feedback control of linear discrete-time systems with convex state and input constraints which are subject to bounded state disturbances and output measurement errors. We show that the non-convex problem of finding a constraint admissible affine output feedback policy over a finite horizon, to be used in conjunction with a fixed linear state observer, can be converted to an equivalent convex problem. When used in the design of a time-varying robust receding horizon control (RHC) law, we derive conditions under which the resulting closed-loop system is guaranteed to satisfy the system constraints for all time, given an initial state estimate and bound on the state estimation error. When the state estimation error bound matches the minimal robust positively invariant (mRPI) set for the state estimate error dynamics, we show that this control law is actually time-invariant, but its calculation generally requires solution of an infinite-dimensional optimization problem. Finally, using an invariant outer approximation to the mRPI error set, we develop a time-invariant control law that can be computed by solving a finite-dimensional, tractable optimization problem at each time step, and that guarantees that the closed-loop system satisfies the constraints for all time
Murine Embryonic Stem Cell-Derived Pyramidal Neurons Integrate into the Cerebral Cortex and Appropriately Project Axons to Subcortical Targets

Although embryonic stem (ES) cells have been induced to differentiate into diverse neuronal cell types, the production of cortical projection neurons with the correct morphology and axonal connectivity has not been demonstrated. Here, we show that in vitro patterning is critical for generating neural precursor cells (ES-NPCs) competent to form cortical pyramidal neurons. During the first week of neural induction, these ES-NPCs begin to express genes that are specific for forebrain progenitors; an additional week of differentiation produces mature neurons with many features of cortical pyramidal neurons. After transplantation into the murine cerebral cortex, these specified ES-NPCs manifest the correct dendritic and axonal connectivity for their areal location. ES-NPCs transplanted into the deep layers of the motor cortex differentiate into layer 5 pyramidal neurons and extend axons to distant subcortical targets such as the pons and as far caudal as the pyramidal decussation and descending spinal tract and, importantly, do not extend axons to inappropriate targets such as the superior colliculus (SC). ES-NPCs transplanted into the visual cortex extend axons to the dorsal aspect of the SC and pons but avoid ventral SC and the pyramidal tract, whereas cells transplanted deep into the somatosensory cortex project axons to the ventral SC, avoiding the dorsal SC. Thus, these data establish that ES-derived cortical projection neurons can integrate into anatomically relevant circuits.