Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Understanding Communication and Collaboration in Social Product Development Through Social Network Analysis

Social media have recently been introduced into the arena of collaborative design as a new means for seamlessly gathering, processing, and sharing product design-related information. As engineering design processes are becoming increasingly distributed and collaborative, it is crucial to understand the communication and collaboration mechanism of engineers participating in such dispersed engineering processes. In particular, mapping initially disconnected design individuals and teams into an explicit social network is challenging. The objective of this paper is to propose a generic framework for investigating communication and collaboration mechanisms in social media-supported engineering design environments. Specifically, we propose an approach for measuring tie strengths in the context of distributed and collaborative design. We transform an implicit design network into an explicit and formal social network based on specific indices of tie strengths. We visualize the process of transforming customer needs to functional requirements, to design parameters, and to process variables using social network analysis (SNA). Specifically, by utilizing a specific index for tie strengths, we can quantitatively measure tie strengths in a design network. Based on the tie strengths, we can map an implicit design network into an explicit social network. Further, using the typical measures (e.g., centrality and cluster coefficient) in SNA, we can analyze the social network at both actor and systems levels and detect design communities with common design interests. We demonstrate the applicability of the framework by means of two examples. The contribution in this paper is a systematic and formal approach that helps gain new insights into communication and collaboration mechanisms in distributed and collaborative design.
The CDK-Activating Kinase (CAK) Csk1 Is Required for Normal Levels of Homologous Recombination and Resistance to DNA Damage in Fission Yeast

Background Cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) perform essential roles in cell division and gene expression in all eukaryotes. The requirement for an upstream CDK-activating kinase (CAK) is also universally conserved, but the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe appears to be unique in having two CAKs with both overlapping and specialized functions that can be dissected genetically. The Mcs6 complex—orthologous to metazoan Cdk7/cyclin H/Mat1—activates the cell-cycle CDK, Cdk1, but its non-redundant essential function appears to be in regulation of gene expression, as part of transcription factor TFIIH. The other CAK is Csk1, an ortholog of budding yeast Cak1, which activates all three essential CDKs in S. pombe—Cdk1, Mcs6 and Cdk9, the catalytic subunit of positive transcription elongation factor b (P-TEFb)—but is not itself essential. Methodology/Principal Findings Cells lacking csk1+ are viable but hypersensitive to agents that damage DNA or block replication. Csk1 is required for normal levels of homologous recombination (HR), and interacts genetically with components of the HR pathway. Tests of damage sensitivity in csk1, mcs6 and cdk9 mutants indicate that Csk1 acts pleiotropically, through Cdk9 and at least one other target (but not through Mcs6) to preserve genomic integrity. Conclusions/Significance The two CAKs in fission yeast, which differ with respect to their substrate range and preferences for monomeric CDKs versus CDK/cyclin complexes as substrates, also support different functions of the CDK network in vivo. Csk1 plays a non-redundant role in safeguarding genomic integrity. We propose that specialized activation pathways dependent on different CAKs might insulate CDK functions important in DNA damage responses from those capable of triggering mitosis.
Processing implicit control: evidence from reading times

Sentences such as “The ship was sunk to collect the insurance” exhibit an unusual form of anaphora, implicit control, where neither anaphor nor antecedent is audible. The non-finite reason clause has an understood subject, PRO, that is anaphoric; here it may be understood as naming the agent of the event of the host clause. Yet since the host is a short passive, this agent is realized by no audible dependent. The putative antecedent to PRO is therefore implicit, which it normally cannot be. What sorts of representations subserve the comprehension of this dependency? Here we present four self-paced reading time studies directed at this question. Previous work showed no processing cost for implicit vs. explicit control, and took this to support the view that PRO is linked syntactically to a silent argument in the passive. We challenge this conclusion by reporting that we also find no processing cost for remote implicit control, as in: “The ship was sunk. The reason was to collect the insurance. ” Here the dependency crosses two independent sentences, and so cannot, we argue, be mediated by syntax. Our Experiments 1–4 examined the processing of both implicit (short passive) and explicit (active or long passive) control in both local and remote configurations. Experiments 3 and 4 added either “3 days ago” or “just in order” to the local conditions, to control for the distance between the passive and infinitival verbs, and for the predictability of the reason clause, respectively. We replicate the finding that implicit control does not impose an additional processing cost. But critically we show that remote control does not impose a processing cost either. Reading times at the reason clause were never slower when control was remote. In fact they were always faster. Thus, efficient processing of local implicit control cannot show that implicit control is mediated by syntax; nor, in turn, that there is a silent but grammatically active argument in passives.
Parallel commutation of sparse linear systems on many core processor

In this paper, the authors describe the parallel implementation of a conjugate gradient method in a many-core system specially for solving the sparse linear systems. The new version of algorithm implementation differs from the one applied earlier [1], because it uses a special method for storing sparse coefficient matrices: only non-zero elements are stored and taken into account during computations, so that the sparsity of the coefficient matrix is taken full advantage of. Finally, A speedup of the parallel algorithm has been examined for different coefficient sparse matrices resulting in solving different physical problems.
Diagnostic Accuracy of Antigen 5-Based ELISAs for Human Cystic Echinococcosis

Background Clinical diagnosis and follow up of cystic echinococcosis (CE) are based on imaging complemented by serology. Several immunodiagnostic tests are commercially available, but the development of new tools is still needed to overcome the lack of standardization of the target antigen, generally consisting of a crude extract of Echinococcus granulosus hydatid cyst fluid. In a previous work, we described a chromatographic method for the preparation of a highly enriched Antigen 5 fraction from hydatid cyst fluid. The high reactivity of patient sera against this preparation prompted us to evaluate further this antigen for the serodiagnosis of CE on a larger cohort of samples. Methodology/Principal Findings A total of 327 sera from CE patients with heterogeneous conditions for cyst stage, cyst number, organ localization, drug therapy, and surgical intervention, together with 253 sera from healthy controls, were first analyzed by an ELISA based on the Ag5 preparation in two different experimental setups and, in parallel, by a commercial ELISA routinely used in clinical laboratories for CE serodiagnosis. The Ag5 ELISAs revealed different sensitivity (88.3% vs 95.3%) without significant differences in specificity (94.1% vs 92.5%), for the two setups, respectively. Moreover, possible relationships between the Ag5 ELISA absorbance results and clinical variables were investigated. Chi squared test, bivariate logistic regression and multiple regression analyses highlighted differences in the serology reactivity according to pharmacological treatment, cyst activity, and cyst number. Conclusions/Significance The two Ag5 ELISAs revealed different performances depending on the setup. The good diagnostic sensitivity and the high reliability of the Ag5 preparation method make this antigen a promising candidate for the serodiagnosis of CE. Further studies will be needed to evaluate the ability of our test to provide useful information on specific CE clinical traits.
Making a more comprehensive Persian version of the Impact on Participation and Autonomy (IPA-p) scale; The Perspectives of Experts and MS patients

Article Info Background: After all efforts made to introduce a valid and reliable tool for measuring the health of patients, such as MS sufferers, the concept of “participation and autonomy”, which might be affected by the disease, has been introduced. An efficient health measurement should consider all different aspects of a patient’s life. This research was conducted aimed at introducing a new aspect of the individual’s life that seems necessary to be added to the health measurement scale of Persian-speaking MS patients. Materials and methods: In a comprehensive study, 10 specialists and 360 MS patients were recruited to help measure the validity and reliability of the Persian version of the impact on participation and autonomy (IPA) scale. More details are provided in the published paper. An important section of the findings derived from the data collected from experts and patients has been presented in this paper. Results: Further to the previous reports, the results showed that about 70% of the experts and 80% of the patients who responded to the relevant items stated that some questions should be added to the scale about the patients’ ability to do their religious affairs. Conclusion: Based on what the experts (specialists) and respondents (MS patients) stated, it seems that at least a religious domain must be added to the Persian version of the IPA (IPA-p) scale if a more comprehensive IPA scale is required to be developed for the use among Persian-speaking patients.
Identification of relations from IndoWordNet for Indian languages using Support Vector Machine

Identification and classification of relations between synsets in a low resource language is a challenging and difficult task, which requires intensive Natural Language Processing (NLP). This paper presents Support Vector Machine (SVM) based approach for learning, classifying and automatically predicting relationships between Hindi Synsets. The average accuracy obtained using SVM is 71.87%, which can be further improved through introduction of language based knowledge. The system performance has been validated using the performance measures namely Precision, Recall and F-score.
From CLEF to TrebleCLEF: the Evolution of the Cross-Language Evaluation Forum

The Cross-LanguageEvaluationForum(CLEF) has been running for nearly ten years now; the aim of this paper is to provide a critical assessment of the results achieved so far. In the ﬁrst part of the paper, we provide a brief overview of the entire activity and summarise the main achievements; in the second part, we focus our attention on the Ad Hoc track with the aim of showing how the results of evaluation can be exploited to increase understanding of the many issues involved in multilingual retrieval system development. In the ﬁ-nal part, we outline our main ideas for the future of CLEF.
The waiting experience and consumer perception of service quality in outpatient clinics

This is the first field study examining the link between waiting and various dimensions of service quality in outpatient clinics. We investigated pre-process waiting in 9 outpatient clinics in a single hospital to test the effect of selected waiting experience variables on the evaluation of service quality, with objective and subjective waiting times as covariates in the relationship between the variables of the waiting experience and participants’ perceptions of service quality, measured using the Servqual tool. Our results show that the waiting-related variables that we studied have more impact on tangibles (the physical attributes) and reliability than on the other service quality dimensions of Servqual. Providing information about the reasons for delay had a significant main effect on the perception of reliability and significant interaction effects with the outpatient clinic itself and with the extent to which consumers’ time was filled while waiting on the perception of the tangibles. The study contains several findings that should assist service managers to formulate more effective waiting perception strategies.
Whole-brain mapping of the direct inputs and axonal projections of POMC and AgRP neurons

Pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) neurons in the arcuate nucleus (ARC) of the hypothalamus and nucleus tractus solitarius (NTS) of the brainstem play important roles in suppressing food intake and maintaining energy homeostasis. Previous tract-tracing studies have revealed the axonal connection patterns of these two brain areas, but the intermingling of POMC neurons with other neuron types has made it challenging to precisely identify the inputs and outputs of POMC neurons. In this study, we used the modified rabies virus to map the brain areas that provide direct inputs to the POMC neurons in the ARC and NTS as well as the inputs to the ARC AgRP neurons for comparison. ARC POMC neurons receive inputs from dozens of discrete structures throughout the forebrain and brainstem. The brain areas containing the presynaptic partners of ARC POMC neurons largely overlap with those of ARC AgRP neurons, although POMC neurons receive relatively broader, denser inputs. Furthermore, POMC neurons in the NTS receive direct inputs predominantly from the brainstem and show very different innervation patterns for POMC neurons in the ARC. By selectively expressing fluorescent markers in the ARC and NTS POMC neurons, we found that almost all of their major presynaptic partners are innervated by POMC neurons in the two areas, suggesting that there are strong reciprocal projections among the major POMC neural pathways. By comprehensively chartering the whole-brain connections of the central melanocortin system in a cell-type-specific manner, this study lays the foundation for dissecting the roles and underlying circuit mechanisms of specific neural pathways in regulating energy homeostasis.
Flesh Quality Loss in Response to Dietary Isoleucine Deficiency and Excess in Fish: A Link to Impaired Nrf2-Dependent Antioxidant Defense in Muscle

The present study explored the impact of dietary isoleucine (Ile) on fish growth and flesh quality and revealed a possible role of muscle antioxidant defense in flesh quality in relation to dietary Ile. Grass carp (weighing 256.8±3.5 g) were fed diets containing six graded levels of Ile (3.8, 6.6, 9.3, 12.5, 15.2 and 18.5 g/kg) for eight weeks. The results indicated that compared with Ile deficiency (3.8 g/kg diets) and excess (18.5 g/kg diets) groups, 9.3–15.2 g Ile/kg diet supplementations promoted fish growth and muscle fat deposition, whereas 6.6–15.2 g Ile/kg diets supplementation enhanced muscle nutrients (protein and total EAAs) deposition. Furthermore, muscle shear force, pH value, and hydroxyproline concentration were improved by 9.3–12.5, 9.3 and 9.3 g Ile/kg diet supplementations, respectively. However, muscle cooking loss, lactate content, and activities of cathepsin B and L were decreased by 6.6–15.2, 9.3–12.5, 9.3–12.5 and 9.3–15.2 g Ile/kg diet supplementations, respectively. Additionally, 6.6–15.2 and 6.6–12.5 g Ile/kg diet supplementations attenuated malondialdehyde and protein carbonyl contents, respectively. The activities of copper/zinc superoxide dismutase (Cu/Zn-SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx), and glutathione content were enhanced by 6.6–9.3, 6.6–12.5 and 6.6–15.2 g Ile/kg diet supplementations, respectively. Moreover, the relative mRNA expressions of antioxidant enzymes, including Cu/Zn-SOD (6.6–12.5 g/kg diets) and GPx (12.5 g/kg diets), as well as antioxidant-related signaling molecules, including NF-E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) (6.6–12.5 g/kg diets), target of rapamycin (6.6–12.5 g/kg diets), ribosomal S6 protein kinase 1 (9.3–12.5 g/kg diets) and casein kinase 2 (6.6–12.5 g/kg diets), were up-regulated when Ile diet supplementations were administered at these levels, respectively, whereas the relative mRNA expression of Kelch-like ECH-associated protein 1 was down-regulated with 9.3 g Ile/kg diet supplementations. Collectively, the present study indicated that optimum isoleucine improved flesh quality, partly due to the activation of antioxidant defense through the Nrf2 signaling pathway.
On the regularization of the collision solutions of the one-center problem with weak forces

We study the possible regularization of collision solutions for one centre problems with a weak singularity. In the case of logarithmic singularities, we consider the method of regularization via smoothing of the potential. With this technique, we prove that the extended flow, where collision solutions are replaced with a transmission trajectory, is continuous, though not differentiable, with respect to the initial data.
Predicting the Polarity Strength of Adjectives Using WordNet

A key element of any sentiment analysis system is the ability to assign a polarity strength value to words appearing within the documents. In this paper we present a novel approach to polarity strength assignment. The approach is knowledge based in that it uses WordNet to build an adjective graph which is used to measure semantic distance between words of known polarity (reference or seed words) and the target word, which is then used to assign a polarity to the target word. We extend previous work in this area by using a small training data set to learn an optimal predictor of polarity strength and to dampen polarity assigned to non-polar adjectives. We also extend the coverage of previous approaches by exploring additional lexical relations not studied previously. The method has been evaluated on a validation set and shows excellent potential in reducing the assignment of spurious polarity and accurately predicting polarity values for polar adjectives.
A 3-10-GHz low-noise amplifier with wideband LC-ladder matching network

Reactive matching is extended to wide bandwidths using the impedance property of LC-ladder filters. In this paper, we present a systematic method to design wideband low-noise amplifiers. An SiGe amplifier with on-chip matching network spanning 3-10 GHz delivers 21-dB peak gain, 2.5-dB noise figure, and -1-dBm input IP3 at 5 GHz, with a 10-mA bias current.
Association between body mass index and breast cancer intrinsic subtypes in Japanese women

The purpose of this study was to examine the association between body mass index (BMI) and breast cancer intrinsic subtypes in Japanese women. A more complete understanding of the subtypes of breast cancer may elucidate the mechanisms affecting the etiology and mortality associated with each subtype. Tumor data on 531 invasive breast cancer cases subtyped by estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (Her2) status were obtained [luminal A, luminal B, triple-negative (TN) and Her2-type]. Demographics (age at diagnosis, menopausal status and BMI) were collected from medical records. Case-only odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated using logistic regression, adjusting for age at diagnosis. Of the 531 cases, 333 (62.7%) were luminal A, 85 (16.0%) were luminal B, 43 (8.1%) were Her2-type and 70 (13.2%) were TN. Compared with luminal A cases, premenopausal TN cases were more likely to be obese (OR, 4.11; 95% CI, 1.10–14.40), while postmenopausal TN cases were more likely to be underweight (OR, 3.14; 95% CI, 1.19–8.01). Premenopausal luminal B cases were likely to be underweight or obese, while luminal B and Her2-type cases were likely to be underweight. In the present study, significant heterogeneity of associations between BMI and tumor subtypes was observed. Breast cancer subtypes may have various etiologies associated with each subtype.
In Vivo Non Invasive Molecular Imaging for Immune Cell Tracking in Small Animals

Clinical and preclinical in vivo immune cell imaging approaches have been used to study immune cell proliferation, apoptosis and interaction at the microscopic (intra-vital imaging) and macroscopic (whole-body imaging) level by use of ex vivo or in vivo labeling method. A series of imaging techniques ranging from non-radiation based techniques such as optical imaging, MRI, and ultrasound to radiation based CT/nuclear imaging can be used for in vivo immune cell tracking. These imaging modalities highlight the intrinsic behavior of different immune cell populations in physiological context. Fluorescent, radioactive or paramagnetic probes can be used in direct labeling protocols to monitor the specific cell population. Reporter genes can also be used for genetic, indirect labeling protocols to track the fate of a given cell subpopulation in vivo. In this review, we summarized several methods dealing with dendritic cell, macrophage, and T lymphocyte specifically labeled for different macroscopic wholebody imaging techniques both for the study of their physiological function and in the context of immunotherapy to exploit imaging-derived information and immune-based treatments.
Multifunctional control strategy for asymmetrical cascaded H-Bridge Inverter in microgrid applications

A multitask Asymmetrical Cascaded H-Bridge Multilevel Inverter (ACHMI), suitable for microgrid systems with possible unbalanced and nonlinear loads, is presented. The primary advantage of ACHMI is to produce a staircase output voltage utilizing unequal DC voltages such as Solar cells, fuel cells, batteries on the individual H-bridge cells. The ACHMI provide a large number of output steps without increasing the number of DC voltage sources and components where the difference between output waveform and reference sinusoidal waveform would be reduced. For grid connected mode of operation, the control strategy is based on the Conservative Power Theory (CPT), providing simultaneous functionalities for the Distributed Generation (DG) system to inject its available energy, compensate the load current distortions and allow a smooth transition between grid-connected and islanded modes of operation. For the islanded mode of operation, regulation of load voltage in a wide range of load conditions is presented. The Conservative Power Theory decompositions provides decoupled power and current references for the inverter control in abc-frame, offering a very flexible, selective and powerful strategy for the DG control system. The principles supporting the developed control strategy are discussed and analyzed and the effectiveness of the control is demonstrated through digital simulations conducted by means of PSIM.