Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Splaysort: Fast, Versatile, Practical

Adaptivity in sorting algorithms is sometimes gained at the expense of practicality. We give experimental results showing that Splaysort — sorting by repeated insertion into a Splay tree — is a surprisingly efficient method for in‐memory sorting. Splaysort appears to be adaptive with respect to all accepted measures of presortedness, and it outperforms Quicksort for sequences with modest amounts of existing order. Although Splaysort has a linear space overhead, there are many applications for which this is reasonable. In these situations Splaysort is an attractive alternative to traditional comparison‐based sorting algorithms such as Heapsort, Mergesort, and Quicksort.
Relationship between vascular invasion and microvessel density and micrometastasis.

AIM To evaluate the relationship between vascular invasion and microvessel density (MVD) of tissue and micrometastasis in blood. METHODS Vascular invasion was detected by both hematoxylin and eosin staining and immunohistochemiscal staining. Blood samples were collected from 17 patients with vascular invasion and 29 patients without vascular invasion and examined for cytokeratin20 (CK20) expression by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analysis. Microvessel density of tissue samples was also determined by immunohistochemistry using antibodies to CD105. RESULTS CK20 was detected in 12 of the 17 patients with vascular invasion and in 9 of the 29 patients without vascular invasion. Positive RT-PCR was significantly correlated with vascular invasion (70.6% vs 30.0%, P < 0.05). The average MVD was significantly higher in patients with positive vascular invasion than in patients with negative vascular invasion (29.2 +/- 3.3 vs 25.4 +/- 4.7, P < 0.05). The vascular invasion detected with hematoxylin-eosin staining was less than that with immunohistochemical staining. There was a significant difference between the two staining methods (19.6% vs 36.9%, P < 0.05). CONCLUSION Positive CK20 RT-PCR, depth of tumor invasion, lymph node status, metastasis and MVD are significantly correlated with vascular invasion. Immunohistochemical staining is more sensitive than hematoxylin-eosin staining for detecting vascular invasion.
The assessment of safe nursing care: development and psychometric evaluation

AIM To develop an instrument for the assessment of safe nursing care (ASNC) within the Iranian context and psychometrically evaluate its reliability and validity. BACKGROUND There is a need for a valid and reliable instrument to assess how nurses employ the components of safe nursing care in clinical practice in non-Western countries. METHOD This methodological study was conducted in two phases: (1) a qualitative phase of instrument development, and (2) a quantitative phase of psychometric evaluation of the assessment of safe nursing care (ASNC). The instrument's content validity was assessed by experts in the field of safe nursing care. The reliability of this instrument was examined using internal consistency reliability and intra-rater reliability analysis. Exploratory factor analysis was then conducted to establish the instrument's initial construct validity. RESULTS The instrument developed was a questionnaire with 32 items. The Cronbach's alpha of the scale was 0.92, and Intra-class Correlation Coefficient for intra-rater reliability was 0.78. Exploratory factor analysis resulted in a four-factor solution: (1) evaluation of nursing skills, (2) assessing the patient's psychological needs, (3) assessing the patient's physical need, and (4) Assessing nurses' teamwork. The four factors accounted for 63.54% of the observed variance. CONCLUSION The ASNC can be applied to a wide variety of settings because of the broad range of methods utilised to generate items and domains, its comprehensive consideration of the principles of safe care, and its initial reliability and validity. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT The ASNC can help nurse managers assess whether clinical nurses are prepared to apply their safe care skills in clinical practice. It can also be used by clinical nurses to assess their own and peers' practice to detect potential areas for improvement in nursing care and help nurse managers with planning appropriate quality improvement programmes.
Dual Metric OPC for Complex SRAF Implementation

Sub-Resolution Assist Feature (SRAF) insertion is one of the most important Resolution Enhancement Techniques (RET) for the 65 nm, 45 nm nodes and beyond. In this paper, we are proposing a novel approach for the optimum placement of SRAF structures using state of the art Calibre RET flow. In this approach, the optimal SRAF shapes are achieved simultaneously during the Optical Proximity Correction (OPC) stage. The main features and the SRAFs are optimized to account for their edge placement and process window metrics respectively. The resulting mask shapes deliver some of the properties that can be obtained using the Inverse Lithography Techniques (ILT), such as excellent Process Window Performance, while there is almost no impact on the runtime. The implemented model-based optimization flow remains compatible with the current OPC production flows.
A new way of management: A scrum management

A scrum is widely used since 1990s in software development industry which is a fast changing and demanding industry so companies need to hire qualified employees who can manage themselves in a team based organizational structure to meet and exceed customer expectations. A scrum management offers advantages to software development companies to have and sustain competitive advantages. Its adaptations into other industries may be worthwhile to be explored from a management perspective to make contributions to both software development industry and other industries. The purpose of this paper is to shed a light to a new way of management which is a scrum management to make contributions to both software development industry and other industries. The concept, roles, objects, ceremonies, process and challenges of a scrum will be explained respectively in this paper which provides a comprehensive understanding of a scrum management.
Modélisation et caractérisation spectrale de métamatériaux

Nous etudions dans cette these divers materiaux periodiques, en particulier des metamateriaux, auxquels nous appliquons des methodes d'homogeneisation. Un etat de l'art des formules de melange des parametres electromagnetiques est d'abord brosse. Nous presentons ensuite une technique d'homogeneisation asymptotique, dite de l'eclatement periodique, qui s'applique aux materiaux bianisotropes dispersifs. Les simulations par elements finis sont effectuees aussi bien dans le domaine temporel que frequentiel. Cette methode ne prenant pas en compte les resonances intrinseques de l'inclusion, nous introduisons une deuxieme methode d'homogeneisation, reposant sur la decomposition de Floquet-Bloch. Nous l'appliquons au cas particulier des resonateurs a anneaux fendus. Les simulations par elements finis requiereraient un nombre tres important de mailles dans la region de la fente, raison pour laquelle nous fermons l'anneau, et modelisons mathematiquement son comportement resonnant. Nous abordons enfin dans la derniere partie le calcul des parametres electromagnetiques effectifs a partir de parametres S mesures. La caracterisation est menee en espace libre entre deux cornets focalises dans la gamme 6-18~GHz. Pour pallier l'absence de chambre anechoique, nous filtrons les donnees mesurees dans le domaine temporel, avant de les utiliser dans le domaine frequentiel. Differents metamateriaux sont caracterises. En particulier, la mesure des resonateurs a anneaux fendus permet de valider notre methode d'homogeneisation dynamique.
Effect of dietary Nigella sativa L. on productive performance and nutrients utilization of broiler chicks raised under summer conditions of Egypt.

An experiment was designed to study the effects of feeding different forms and levels of Nigella sativa L. as natural feed additives on productive performance and nutrients utilization of broiler chicks raised under summer conditions of Egypt. A total of 280 unsexed one day old "Ross" broiler chicks was reared in batteries in an open house. Chicks were divided into 7 treatment groups of 40 chicks (4 replicates each). Ambient temperature (C) and relative humidity (%) inside the experimental room were recorded during the experimental period. Experimental diets were formulated to be isonitrogenous and isocaloric according to the strain manual recommendation. Seven experimental diets were used; the first diet (T1) was the control, with no natural feed additives. Diets 2 and 3 (T2 and T3) contained Nigella sativa oil (NSO) at 2 levels of 0.5 and 1.0%, respectively. In diets 4 and 5 (T4 and T5), Nigella sativa seed (NSS) was added at 2 levels of 1.0 and 2.0%, respectively, while diets 6 and 7 (T6 and T7) contained Nigella sativa meal (NSM) at 2 levels of 10 and 20%, respectively. Water and feed were offered ad-libitum during the experimental period, which lasted for 49 days. At the end of the experiment, slaughter tests were performed using 6 birds per treatment. The apparent digestibility coefficients of nutrients of the experimental diets were determined using three male birds from each treatment at the end of the experiment. The trial was continued for five days after a preliminary period of three days. Results could be summarized as follows: 1)- Feeding heat stressed broiler chicks the control diet only during studied periods (0-28, 29-49 and 0-49 days of age) resulted in significantly (P<0.05) poor growth performance (BWG ,FC, FCR, CPC, CCR), high mortality rate, low carcass characteristics, low nutrients digestibility and low relative efficiency but high relative economic efficiency compared with those fed treated groups (T2-T7). 2)- In most cases, during starting period (0-28 days) and overall period (0-49 days), feeding diets supplemented with 10% NSM (T6) or 1.0% NSS (T4) or 0.5% NSO(T2) reflected (P<0.05) an improvement in previous studied criteria compared with
Succession Strategy for Sustainability of the Family Business

This article starts from the complexity that family businesses have with the succession, that is, the transmission to the next generation. So it is important to look for alternatives to make successions more successful, Its objective is to analyze the succession of family businesses to increase the chances of success through the combined application of succession models like Belausteguigoitia (2012) in which identifies five stages, diagnosis, planning, training, transfer and completion and model of the three circles. Tagiuri (1996) which shows the interrelationship of the three roles involved in family businesses, which are: family, owners and employees. Family businesses are of vital importance for the economy of any country and unfortunately a high percentage of these businesses fail when the generational change is made, so it is important to try to find alternatives so that the succession is carried out successfully and these can continue to grow and creating jobs to continue supporting the economies of the countries. This research work has a qualitative approach and the case study method was used in family organizations, the phenomenology and the analysis of documents applying the techniques of open interview and observation, the family business owners and the advisor were interviewed for purposes of triangulation of information. The information obtained and analyzed makes it possible to conclude that by combining the two models studied, the chances of the succession being successful are increased, since aspects are dealt with in a much broader way than individually the models do not cover them.
QoS Recommendation in Cloud Services

As cloud computing becomes increasingly popular, cloud providers compete to offer the same or similar services over the Internet. Quality of service (QoS), which describes how well a service is performed, is an important differentiator among functionally equivalent services. It can help a firm to satisfy and win its customers. As a result, how to assist cloud providers to promote their services and cloud consumers to identify services that meet their QoS requirements becomes an important problem. In this paper, we argue for QoS-based cloud service recommendation, and propose a collaborative filtering approach using the Spearman coefficient to recommend cloud services. The approach is used to predict both QoS ratings and rankings for cloud services. To evaluate the effectiveness of the approach, we conduct extensive simulations. Results show that the approach can achieve more reliable rankings, yet less accurate ratings, than a collaborative filtering approach using the Pearson coefficient.
Two-fold regularization for kernel Fisher discriminant analysis in face recognition

Due to the inherent nature of kernel implementation, the kernel Fisher discriminant suffers from the small sample size problem. In this paper, we introduce a novel variant of the kernel Fisher discriminant formulation to circumvent this problem. By adopting a two-fold regularization scheme on the scatter matrices, we show both effectiveness and reliability of the proposed method particularly regarding the small sample size and the lack of dimensionality issues.
Application of microsatellite markers developed for arvicoline species in a population genetic study of the root vole Microtus oeconomus

Using a root vole Microtus oeconomus (Pallas, 1776) population in NE Poland we applied 31 microsatellite markers previously developed for root voles and closely related species, with the aim to improve the population genetic tools in this species. Here we present 16 polymorphic microsatellite markers grouped into four sets suitable for simultaneous amplification and genetically sex identification in M. oeconomus. The number of alleles per locus in 227 individuals varied from 7 to 26 with a low frequency of null alleles, expected heterozygosity ranged from 0.758 to 0.927, and observed heterozygosity from 0.722 to 0.947. Two loci showed significant deviation from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (p<0.05) and all loci showed independent inheritance. We expect these markers to be useful for studies of genetic population structure and kinship of M. oeconomus populations.
MdCOP 1 Ubiquitin E 3 Ligases Interact with MdMYB 1 to Regulate Light-Induced Anthocyanin Biosynthesis and Red Fruit Coloration in Apple 1 [ W ] [ OA ]

MdMYB1 is a crucial regulator of light-induced anthocyanin biosynthesis and fruit coloration in apple (Malus domestica). In this study, it was found that MdMYB1 protein accumulated in the light but degraded via a ubiquitin-dependent pathway in the dark. Subsequently, the MdCOP1-1 and MdCOP1-2 genes were isolated from apple fruit peel and were functionally characterized in the Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) cop1-4 mutant. Yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) two-hybrid, bimolecular fluorescence complementation, and coimmunoprecipitation assays showed that MdMYB1 interacts with the MdCOP1 proteins. Furthermore, in vitro and in vivo experiments indicated that MdCOP1s are necessary for the ubiquitination and degradation of MdMYB1 protein in the dark and are therefore involved in the light-controlled stability of the MdMYB1 protein. Finally, a viral vectorbased transformation approach demonstrated that MdCOP1s negatively regulate the peel coloration of apple fruits by modulating the degradation of the MdMYB1 protein. Our findings provide new insight into the mechanism by which light controls anthocyanin accumulation and red fruit coloration in apple and even other plant species.
Trust, the "wisdom of crowds", and societal norms: the creation, maintenance, and reasoning about trust in peer networks

In a peer network environment, which is typical in ad-hoc wireless networks, nodes collaborate to achieve some collective end. There is no hierarchy within the network, all nodes being given equal authority. No channel to nodes outside of the peer network is assumed to exist. In this untraditional environment we must provide traditional security properties and assure fairness in order to enable the secure, collaborative success of the network. One solution is to form a Trusted Domain, and exclude perceived dishonest and unfair members. Such solutions have previously been intolerant of masquerading, and have suffered from a lack of precise control over the allocation and exercise of privileges within the Trusted Domain. We introduce a model based on the work of Yang et. al. 2002 and Narasimha et. al. 2003 that provides granular control over privileges, and guards against masquerading. Continued good behavior is rewarded by an escalation of privileges, while requiring an increased commitment of resources. Bad behavior results in expulsion from the Trusted Domain. In colluding with malicious nodes, well behaved nodes risk losing privileges gained over time; collusion is thereby discouraged.
The application of super efficiency technics in measuring the efficiency of bank branches (Case study: Melli Bank of Gilan Province)

In today's competitive world, many manufacturing and service firms, including banks, have been forced to use new managerial approaches, and methods for assessing organizational performance. The Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach is one of these approaches, which has been used to evaluate the performance of organizations since 1978. The purpose of this research is to use the technology super-efficiency in measuring the efficiency of bank branches (Case Study: Melli Bank of Gilan Province). In this research, the input-vector model of data envelopment analysis, in the form of constant return-to-equilibrium, and Anderson-Pearson (AP) superclass, have been used to measure the efficiency of branches 1, 2 and 3 degrees in the Melli Bank of Gilan Province, in 2015. In summary, the results showed that the average of the efficiency score of the surveyed branches in 2015 is 0.75. The grade of a branch of Golsar, Rasht, was introduced as the most efficient case, and Kish Shahr Bandar was introduced as the most inefficient branch, due to a score of 0.8, lower than the average of the total number of branches. The results showed that the most important factor in the weakness of cost management in inefficient branches is the cost of advertising and marketing, and the most weakness in the planning of the field of staff training of the inefficient branches.
Highly Sensitive Optical Multilevel Transmission of Arbitrary Quadrature-Amplitude Modulation (QAM) Signals With Direct Detection

A proposal for the realization of highly sensitive optical direct-detection (incoherent) multilevel transmission with arbitrary signal constellation without optical chromatic dispersion (CD) compensation is reviewed in this paper. We introduce transmitter-side signal processing, ¿CD pre-equalization,¿ and ¿phase preintegration¿ techniques to realize direct-detection CD-compensation free transmission of arbitrary optical quadrature-amplitude modulation (QAM) signals. We also adopt receiver-side signal processing, ¿multi-symbol phase estimation (MSPE),¿ and ¿non-Euclidean metric-based symbol detection¿ to improve the optical SNR (OSNR) sensitivity. We have performed up to 160-km standard single-mode fiber transmission of a 40-Gbit/s 16QAM signal and achieved the OSNR sensitivities only 0.5-2.4 dB away from those of coherent detection.
Whole-cell protein electrophoresis for typing Mycobacterium tuberculosis

A method of discriminating between strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis by using sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of whole-cell proteins combined with a sensitive silver stain is described. Thirty-five isolates of M. tuberculosis and five isolates from other species of Mycobacterium were examined, including serial isolates from the same patients and isolates from a small cluster of hospital cases. Different species of Mycobacterium were clearly distinguished, and within the species M. tuberculosis, different fingerprints were obtained, allowing discrimination of some strains from different patients. The reproducibility and discrimination of the technique are discussed.
A Real-Time Pattern Recognition for Multifunction Myoelectric Hand Control

This paper proposes a novel real-time EMG pattern recognition for the control of a multifunction myoelectric hand from four channel EMG signals. To cope with the nonstationary signal property of the EMG, features are extracted by wavelet packet transform. For dimensionality reduction and nonlinear mapping of the features, we also propose a linear-nonlinear feature projection composed of PCA and SOFM. The dimensionality reduction by PCA simplifies the structure of the classifier, and reduces processing time for the pattern recognition. The nonlinear mapping by SOFM transforms the PCA-reduced features to a new feature space with high class separability. Finally a multilayer neural network is employed as the pattern classifier. We implement a real-time control system for a multifunction virtual hand. From experimental results, we show that all processes, including virtual hand control, are completed within 125 msec, and the proposed method is applicable to real-time myoelectric hand control without an operation time delay.
Factors influencing consumers’ adoption of Islamic mobile banking services in Malaysia

Purpose This paper aims to test the factors that can influence the adoption of Islamic mobile banking services among the current users in Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach A sample of 250 current users of Islamic mobile banking services provided opinions about their intention to adopt Islamic mobile banking services. Later, the data are analysed using partial least squares approach. Findings Perceived usefulness and risk are the factors that influence the intention to adopt Islamic mobile banking services among the existing users. Research limitations/implications There are some limitations of the current study. The sample size and area of study becomes the obvious limitations. Thus, there is a need for caution in the interpretation of the results and the conclusion cannot be as generalised. Besides, the use of current factors might limit the ability to explore other potentially important determinants of the users. Thus, future research can be conducted by incorporating new factors and provide new insights for Islamic mobile banking services. In addition, the sample is biased towards people who are currently using mobile banking services. Practical implications By understanding these factors among the customers, it would help the industry player, particularly Islamic financial institutions to plan and strategise appropriate policies and support necessary programme on diversifying and promoting financial transaction using mobile banking services among their existing and potential customers. Originality/value This paper offers an additional literature on Islamic mobile banking, especially from the Malaysian context. There is a lack of study that focusses on Islamic mobile banking services. The paper is considered to be the first attempt to examine factors that influence Malaysian Islamic banking customers to adopt Islamic mobile banking services, which is not often considered in previous studies.
Mutations in TNK2 in severe autosomal recessive infantile onset epilepsy

We identified a small family with autosomal recessive, infantile onset epilepsy and intellectual disability. Exome sequencing identified a homozygous missense variant in the gene TNK2, encoding a brain‐expressed tyrosine kinase. Sequencing of the coding region of TNK2 in 110 patients with a similar phenotype failed to detect further homozygote or compound heterozygote mutations. Pathogenicity of the variant is supported by the results of our functional studies, which demonstrated that the variant abolishes NEDD4 binding to TNK2, preventing its degradation after epidermal growth factor stimulation. Definitive proof of pathogenicity will require confirmation in unrelated patients. Ann Neurol 2013;74:496–501