Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Highly efficient in-droplet particle concentration and separation by twDEP and EWOD for digital microfluidics

This paper describes highly efficient in-droplet particle concentrations/separations (over 92% efficiency), where target particles are concentrated/separated within a droplet by traveling wave dielectrophoresis (twDEP) and a subsequent EWOD (electrowetting-on-dielectric) actuation physically splits target-rich regions into individual droplets. This in-droplet method will provide a new functionality of separation/concentration for digital (droplet-based) microfluidics [1], thereby possibly eliminating the necessity of adopting the conventional continuous-flow-based separation methods.
Interference by Anti-Cancer Chemotherapeutic Agents in the MTT-Tumor Chemosensitivity Assay

Background: One of the major goals of oncology is to predict the response of patients with cancer to chemotherapeutic agents by employing laboratory methods variously called ‘tumor chemosensitivity assays’, ‘drug response assays’, or ‘drug sensitivity assays’, in vitro. The MTT assay is one of the methods used to predict the drug response in malignancies. However, it may suffer from interference by the anticancer drugs with the MTT assay. Methods: The MTT assay, a colorimetric viability assay, was checked in a cell-free system in terms of its possible chemical interactions with 22 different anticancer drugs. Results: It was found that epirubicine, paclitaxel, doxetaxel, and cisplatin caused a relatively significant increase in absorbance values, resulting in the MTT assay giving rise to false results (untrue increase in viability) although most of the drugs tested did not seem to cause any significant change. Conclusion: It was concluded that before employing the MTT assay, drugs (or any kind of substances) to be included in the assay should be checked first in terms of possible chemical interactions with MTT, otherwise it may be impossible to evaluate the MTT viability assay results correctly.
Modification of gellan gum with nanocrystalline hydroxyapatite facilitates cell expansion and spontaneous osteogenesis

Nanocomposites composed of hydrogels and calcium phosphates are of great interest in the development of bone graft replacements since they may have a structural and compositional resemblance to bone. Culture beads formed from such materials could be used in stirred tank culture and thereby enable cell expansion in a sufficiently efficient manner to allow for the generation of enough large number of cells for large‐scale bone reconstruction. Although combinations of materials such as alginate, collagens, and various calcium phosphates have been investigated as culture beads, these materials are unsuitable for application since they have been shown to rapidly degrade in physiological conditions and enable relatively little tailoring of mechanical properties. In this study, gellan gum‐nano sized hydroxyapatite (nHA) composites, which have been shown to be resistant to degradation and easily modified with respect to modulus, were formulated and characterized as regards their ability to enable cell attachment and proliferation. It was shown that the addition of 5 wt% of nHA to the culture beads enabled cell attachment and that an increase in nHA concentration to up to 25 wt% enhanced the rate of cell proliferation. Most importantly, it was demonstrated that the addition of nHA to the cell culture beads enabled the formation of nodules in culture of MC3T3‐E1 cells and strikingly stimulated the osteogenic differentiation of bone marrow stromal cells in the absence of osteogenic media when compared with tissue culture plastic (TCP) with the same condition. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2016;113: 1568–1576. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Supply chain performance and relationships: the European traditional food sector

This PhD dissertation is based on the compilation of research papers investigating the role of supply chain relationships on supply chain performance in the European traditional food sector. In the frame of this PhD dissertation multiple academic fields (theories) are brought together under supply chain management, namely the SSP paradigm of strategic management, transaction cost analysis, balance theory and the structural hole concept. Firstly, this PhD dissertation identifies supply chain goals and explores the match of supply chain goals with general consumer perceptions and preferences in relation to traditional food as a product category. Secondly, it presents the development of a theoretically grounded classification based on which supply chain level-, product-and countryspecific characteristics of supply chain governance structures are investigated. Thirdly, it investigates if supply chains cluster around performance based on the perspectives of all supply chain members. Fourthly, it studies the relationships between supply chain relationships and performance. Fifthly, it explores the differences in performance within supply chains. Some of the empirical contributions of this PhD dissertation are worth mentioning. In the frame of this PhD dissertation, the focus is on supply chain level analysis (as compared to firm level analysis), collecting data from minimum three firms from one supply chain. Further, this PhD dissertation can be considered as a multiple chain (Chapter 2 investigates nine supply chains, Chapter 3 investigates 27 supply chains, and Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 investigates 90 supply chains). Besides, it benchmarks performance between and within supply chains. These contributions can be considered as extensions and/or innovations as compared to the state of the art. The result of this PhD dissertation highlights the existence of common (i.e. supply chain) goals, and confirms that a wide range of these goals are both relevant and important for consumers. Further, it reveals a certain diversity of governance structures along the supply chain as well as across products and countries. Besides, this PhD dissertation concludes that supply chains cluster around performance based on the perspectives of all supply chain members and that there is a significant relationship between supply chain relationships and performance. Last, it shows that there are differences in performance within supply chains and develops a taxonomy of supply chain performance imbalance.
Prediction of Protein Function by Discriminant Analysis *

Approximately 53% of the protein sequences in the National Biomedical Research Foundation (NBRF) database can be allocated to one of 26 functional classes, each of which can be characterized by the joint occurrence of four or fewer attributes. The attributes reflect collective physicochemical properties of the sequences in a class, ranging from simple characteristics of composition, such as average hydrophobicity and net charge, to amphipathicity and the propensities of various residues to be in certain preferred configurations. In some, though not all instances, these variables can be related in a general way to topological or other structural features of the particular class they characterize. We show that the attributes permit 17 of the 26 groups to be filtered from all other proteins in the database with a misclassification error of less than 2%, and that the remaining 9 groups can be filtered with errors not exceeding 13%. Thus for a given functional class, the results point to the existence of relatively few characteristic variables which capture most of the intraclass similarity and interclass variability that is common and peculiar to members of that class.
Clinical and Serological Follow-Up of Patients with Human Granulocytic Ehrlichiosis in Slovenia

ABSTRACT An evaluation of the clinical outcome and the duration of the antibody response of patients with human granulocytic ehrlichiosis (HGE) was undertaken in Slovenia. Adult patients with a febrile illness occurring within 6 weeks of a tick bite were classified as having probable or confirmed HGE based on the outcome of serological or PCR testing. Thirty patients (median age, 44 years) were enrolled, and clinical evaluations and serum collection were undertaken at initial presentation and at 14 days, 6 to 8 weeks, and 3 to 4, 6, 12, 18, and 24 months. An indirect immunofluorescence assay (IFA) was performed, and reciprocal titers of ≥128 were interpreted as positive. Patients presented a median of 4 days after the onset of fever and were febrile for a median of 7.5 days; four (13.3%) received doxycycline. Seroconversion was observed in 3 of 30 (10.0%) patients, and 25 (83.3%) showed >4-fold change in antibody titer. PCR results were positive in 2 of 3 (66.7%) seronegative patients but in none of 27 seropositive patients at the first presentation. IFA antibody titers of ≥128 were found in 14 of 29 (48.3%), 17 of 30 (56.7%), 13 of 30 (43.4%), and 12 of 30 (40.0%) patients 6, 12, 18, and 24 months after presentation, respectively. Patients reporting additional tick bites during the study had significantly higher antibody titers at most time points during follow-up. No long-term clinical consequences were found during follow-up.
Summarizer: Trading Communication with Computing Near Storage

Modern data center solid state drives (SSDs) integrate multiple general-purpose embedded cores to manage ash translation layer, garbage collection, wear-leveling, and etc., to improve the performance and the reliability of SSDs. As the performance of these cores steadily improves there are opportunities to repurpose these cores to perform application driven computations on stored data, with the aim of reducing the communication between the host processor and the SSD. Reducing host-SSD bandwidth demand cuts down the I/O time which is a bottleneck for many applications operating on large data sets. However, the embedded core performance is still significantly lower than the host processor, as generally wimpy embedded cores are used within SSD for cost effective reasons. So there is a trade-o between the computation overhead associated with near SSD processing and the reduction in communication overhead to the host system. In this work, we design a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) that can be used by the host application to offload a data intensive task to the SSD processor. We describe how these APIs can be implemented by simple modifications to the existing Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) command interface between the host and the SSD processor. We then quantify the computation versus communication tradeoffs for near storage computing using applications from two important domains, namely data analytics and data integration. Using a fully functional SSD evaluation platform we perform design space exploration of our proposed approach by varying the bandwidth and computation capabilities of the SSD processor. We evaluate static and dynamic approaches for dividing the work between the host and SSD processor, and show that our design may improve the performance by up to 20% when compared to processing at the host processor only, and 6when compared to processing at the SSD processor only. CCS CONCEPTS • Computer systems organization → Secondary storage organization; Distributed architectures; Firmware;
Using Learning Analytics to Analyze Writing Skills of Students: A Case Study in a Technological Common Core Curriculum Course

—Pedagogy with learning analytics is shown to facilitate the teaching-learning process through analyzing student’s behaviours. In this paper, we explored the possibility of using learning analytics tools Coh-Metrix and Lightside for analyzing and improving writing skills of students in a technological common core curriculum course. In this study, we i) investigated linguistic characteristics of student’s essays, and ii) applied a machine learning algorithm for giving instant sketch feedback to students. Results illustrated the necessity of improving student’s writing skills in their university learning through e-learning technologies, so that students can effectively circulate their ideas to the public in the future.
Responsivity Enhancement of Metal-Insulator-Semiconductor Photodetectors on Silicon-on-Insulator Substrates by Plasmonic Nanoantennas

We report metal-insulator-semiconductor photodetectors fabricated on a silicon-on-insulator substrate, exhibiting an enhanced responsivity in the near-infrared due to the incorporation of Au-nanoantennas at the optical input port. The optimal antenna design and the photoresponse enhancements have been calculated using detailed finite-difference time-domain simulations. These nanoantennas modify the propagation of the input optical signals. In this regime, strong plasmonic local field enhancements are observed. The maximum responsivity enhancement, 40%, was obtained at 780 nm; while at wavelengths shorter than 720 nm, the responsivity is reduced due to absorption losses in the Au-nanoantennas.
QoS 3D-HoC hybrid-on-chip communication structure for dynamic 3D-MPSoCs

Three dimension Multi processors System-on-Chip (3D-MPSoCs) hold promises to allow the development of compact and efficient devices. They support many applications on the same die, able of being mapped dynamically during the execution time. Each application may have different communication requirements. Quality-of-Service (QoS) can be implemented at the communication structure (CS) to support the communication requirements of the dynamic 3D-MPSoC. Our work proposes QoS 3D-HoC, a new 3D-CS that implements the QoS. We evaluate the performance of our architecture over several 3D-MPSoC synthetic and real traffic scenarios and estimate their impact overall CS performance. We compare our architecture against the previous 3D-CS with and without QoS and show that our approach meets the communication requirements while reducing the latency and power up to 87% and 39%, respectively when compared to single 3D-NoC.
Reliability of the identification of the systemic inflammatory response syndrome in critically ill infants and children*

Objective: To assess interobserver reliability of the identification of episodes of the systemic inflammatory response syndrome in critically ill hospitalized infants and children. Design: Retrospective, cross-sectional study of the application of the 2005 consensus definition of systemic inflammatory response syndrome in infants and children by two independent, trained reviewers using information in the electronic medical record. Setting: Eighteen-bed pediatric multidisciplinary medical/surgical pediatric intensive care unit. Patients: A randomly selected sample of children admitted consecutively to the pediatric intensive care unit between May 1 and September 30, 2009. Interventions: None. Measurements and Main Results: Sixty infants and children were selected from a total of 343 admitted patients. Their median age was 3.9 yrs (interquartile range, 1.5–12.7), 57% were female, and 68% were Caucasian. Nineteen (32%) children were identified by both reviewers as having an episode of systemic inflammatory response syndrome (88% agreement, 95% confidence interval 78–94; &kgr; = 0.75, 95% confidence interval 0.59–0.92). Among these 19 children, agreement between the reviewers for individual systemic inflammatory response syndrome criteria was: temperature (84%, 95% confidence interval 60–97); white blood cell count (89%, 95% confidence interval 67–99); respiratory rate (84%, 95% confidence interval 60–97); and heart rate (68%, 95% confidence interval 33–87). Conclusions: Episodes of systemic inflammatory response syndrome in critically ill infants and children can be identified reproducibly using the consensus definition.
Line current harmonics reduction in hybrid multilevel converters using phase-shifting transformers

This paper proposes a new arrangement to implement the dc voltage sources of hybrid multilevel inverters in active power transfer applications, using only uncontrolled rectifiers and phase-shifted secondary windings. As each cell of a hybrid multilevel inverter usually processes distinct power levels, this paper then proposes a new design methodology to determine the phase shifts among the secondaries of the input isolation transformer, even when the active power levels processed by the uncontrolled rectifiers are unequal. A set of phase angles is obtained to minimize, and even to eliminate, desired low-order harmonics of the input current, in particular the fifth harmonic, since this harmonic component presents an amplitude considerably higher than the amplitude of the other harmonics. In consequence, the proposed design methodology increases the input power factor and reduces the input current THD. Simulation and experimental results are presented to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed structure.
Transducin-Like Enhancer of Split-6 (TLE6) Is a Substrate of Protein Kinase A Activity During Mouse Oocyte Maturation1

ABSTRACT Fully grown oocytes in the ovary are arrested at prophase of meiosis I because of high levels of intraoocyte cAMP that maintain increased levels of cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA) activity. Following the luteinizing hormone surge at the time of ovulation, cAMP levels drop, resulting in a reduction in PKA activity that triggers meiotic resumption. Although much is known about the molecular mechanisms of how PKA activity fluctuations initiate the oocyte's reentry into meiosis, significantly less is known about the requirement for PKA activity in the oocyte after exit from the prophase I arrest. Here we show that although PKA activity decreases in the oocyte upon meiotic resumption, it increases throughout meiotic progression from the time of germinal vesicle breakdown (GVBD) until the metaphase II (MII) arrest. Blocking this meiotic maturation-associated increase in PKA activity using the pharmacological inhibitor H89 resulted in altered kinetics of GVBD, defects in chromatin and spindle dynamics, and decreased ability of oocytes to reach MII. These effects appear to be largely PKA specific because inhibitors targeting other kinases did not have the same outcomes. To determine potential proteins that may require PKA phosphorylation during meiosis, we separated oocyte protein extracts on an SDS-PAGE gel, extracted regions of the gel that had corresponding immune reactivity towards an anti-PKA substrate antibody, and performed mass spectrometry and microsequencing. Using this approach, we identified transducin-like enhancer of split-6 (TLE6)—a maternal effect gene that is part of the subcortical maternal complex—as a putative PKA substrate. TLE6 localized to the oocyte cortex throughout meiosis in a manner that is spatially and temporally consistent with the localization of critical PKA subunits. Moreover, we demonstrated that TLE6 becomes phosphorylated in a narrow window following meiotic resumption, and H89 treatment can completely block this phosphorylation when added prior to GVBD but not after. Taken together, these results highlight the importance of oocyte-intrinsic PKA in regulating meiotic progression after the prophase I arrest and offer new insights into downstream targets of its activity.
Improving point-based AIS trajectory classification with partition-wise gated recurrent units

We present Partition-wise Gated Recurrent Units (pGRUs) for point-based trajectory classification to detect real-world trawler fishing activities in the ocean. We propose partition-wise activation functions integrated with Gated Recurrent Units that partitions each feature and uses independent parameters to model distinct regions of the feature space. This approach enables us to leverage the benefits of deep learning on a low-dimensional and heterogeneous feature space by mapping the low-dimensional features into another space that can be better separated with piece-wise learnable parameters. We show that the proposed partition-wise activation functions can approximate a wide array of functions, including conventional activations such as sigmoid and hyperbolic tangent. Our experimental results demonstrate that pGRU learns the probability distribution from data and achieves substantial improvements over the state-of-the-art systems on the task of trawler fishing activity detection.
[Management of cerebellopontine angle meningiomas and the posterior part of the temporal bone. Report on 44 cases].

OBJECTIVES To review and study the management of CPA meningiomas through the experience of an otoneurosurgical team. MATERIAL AND METHODS Fourty-two patients (44 meningiomas) were considered. Seventy-seven per cent of tumors (34 cases) were operated on; 6 tumors (14.6%) were exclusively irradiated using fractionated radiation therapy (FRT) and four only surveyed (9,8%). RESULTS transpetrosal approaches were exclusively used. These were translabyrinthine (TLA) in 47%, widened retrolabyrinthine (WRLA) in 41% of cases, transcochlear approach (TCA) in three cases and a middle fossa in one. A transtentorial approach was combined in 35% of cases (8 TLA, 4 WRLA). Surgical removal was incomplete in 11,8% of cases; in 3 cases growing tumor was treated by FRT included one case of anaplasic tumor Postoperative complications were: 1 meningitis, 1 wound abscess, 2 hydrocephalus (6%) and 4 CSF fistulas (12%). No complications have been observed during the last 7 years (21 cases). House and Brackmann Grade 1 or 2 facial function was obtained in 59% of cases (but 10 patients had a preoperative facial nerve paresis). A normal or subnormal AAO-HNS Class A-B Hearing could be preserved in 57% of WRLA. Radiation therapy allowed tumor shrinkage in all cases. In 3 cases this regression was of more than 50%. CONCLUSION Surgery is the gold standard in treating CPA meningiomas. Transpetrosal approaches and particularly WRLA pure or combined to a transtentorial approach are for us the best way to remove these tumors in preserving hearing and facial nerve function. When hearing is poor or when tumor extension to the clivus or the premeatal area is consistent a TLA is either planned preoperatively or obtained from a WRLA.
CO₂ Emissions, Energy Consumption and GDP: Evidence from Iraq

The relationships between environmental quality, energy use and economic output have created growing attention over the past decades among researchers and policy makers. Focusing on the empirical aspects of the role of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and energy use in affecting the economic output, this paper is an effort to fulfil the gap in a comprehensive case study at a country level using modern econometric techniques. To achieve the goal, this countryspecific study examines the short- and long-run relationships among energy consumption (using disaggregated energy sources: petroleum products and the direct combustion of crude oil, and electricity), CO2 emissions and gross domestic product (GDP) for Iraq using time series analysis from the year 1980– 2010. To investigate the relationships between the variables, this paper employs the Augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF) and the Phillips–Perron (PP) unit root tests for stationarity, the Johansen and Juselius method for cointegration and a vector error correction model (VECM) for both short- and long-run causality among the research variables for the sample. All the independent variables in this study show very strong significant effects on GDP in the country for the long term. The long-run equilibrium in the VECM suggests negative long-run causalities from consumption of petroleum products and the direct combustion of crude oil and the natural gas use to GDP. Conversely, a positive impact of electricity consumption on GDP found to be significant in the long run in Iraq during the period. Overall, this study found that the associations could to be differed by the sources of energy in the case of Iraq over the period 1980–2010.