Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Laparoscopic Colorectal Training Gap in Colorectal and Surgical Residents

Background and Objectives: Laparoscopic colorectal surgery is an established safe procedure with demonstrated benefits. Proficiency in this specialty correlates with the volume of cases. We examined training in this surgical field for both general surgery and colon and rectal surgery residents to determine whether the number of cases needed for proficiency is being realized. Methods: We examined the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and American Board of Colorectal Surgeons (ABCRS) operative statistics for graduating general surgery and colon and rectal surgery residents. Results: Although the number of advanced laparoscopy cases had increased for general surgery residents, there was still a significant gap in case volume between the average number of laparoscopic colorectal operations performed by graduating general surgery residents (21.6) and those performed by graduating colon and rectal surgery residents (81.9) in 2014. Conclusion: There is a gap between general surgery and colon and rectal surgery residency training for laparoscopic colorectal surgery. General surgery residents are not meeting the volume of cases necessary for proficiency in colorectal surgery. This deficit represents a structural difference in training.
Supporting Collaborative Development in an Open MDA Environment

The MDA approach aims to ease software maintenance faced with platform and business evolution. In this approach, main development artifacts, i.e. models, are defined with the meta object facility (MOF) standard. To support collaborative development in MDA, we propose a mechanism for merging concurrent changes to MOF models. Our approach has the following novel functionality. First, as MOF models can have ordered relations, our mechanism can identify the order changes in MOF models, detect the conflicts caused by concurrent order changes, and integrate those changes. Second, as MOF models must respect multiplicity constraints, our mechanism detects the concurrent modifications that result in multiplicity violations. Therefore, it ensures the consistency of the merge result. Third, we offer a framework for building conflict resolution programs dedicated to developers' particular requirements. This framework offers a flexible and automated way for resolving conflicts. This work is a part of ModelBus, an open environment for CASE tool interoperability. Its contribution is to enable models to be concurrently modified by several developers and with different tools. ModelBus implementation is available as the Eclipse open source project, model driven development integration (MDDi)
A Branch, Price and Cut Approach for Optimal Traffic Grooming in WDM Optical Networks

The standard approach of using multi-commodity network flow (MCNF) techniques for designing optimal WDM networks often lead to computationally difficult Mixed Integer Linear Programs (MILP) which work only on small networks. Modern Operations Research (OR) techniques may be helpful when developing efficient algorithms for large WDM networks. This paper explores the Branch, Price and Cut techniques for designing optimal WDM optical networks. We have studied a well-known problem in WDM networks - non-bifurcated traffic grooming over a specified logical topology. The standard way to solve this problem is to view it as a MCNF problem and solve the resulting MILP using a commercial MILP solver package, such as the ILOG CPLEX to give us an optimum traffic grooming strategy. The number of binary variables and the number of constraints of the MCNF problems increases with the network size and tools such as the CPLEX solver takes increasingly longer time. We have shown how we can take advantage of the structural properties of this problem and solve it efficiently using modern Operations Research techniques.
STRICHARTZ ESTIMATES FOR WATER WAVES by T. Alazard, N. Burq & C. Zuily

— In this paper we investigate the dispersive properties of the solutions of the two dimensional water-waves system. First we prove Strichartz type estimates with loss of derivatives at the same low level of regularity we were able to construct the solutions in [2]. On the other hand, for smoother initial data, we prove that the solutions enjoy the optimal Strichartz estimates (i.e, without loss of regularity compared to the system linearized at (η = 0, ψ = 0)).
Matching Secrets in the Absence of a Continuously Available Trusted Authority

The problem of authentication of mutually suspicious parties is one that is becoming more and more important with the proliferation of distributed systems. In this paper we describe a protocol, based on the difficulty of finding discrete logarithms over finite fields, by which users can verify whether they have matching credentials without revealing their credentials to each other unless there is a match. This protocol requires a trusted third party, but does not require it to be available to the users except when they sign up for the system. Thus it is useful in situations in which a trusted third party exists but is not available to all users at all times.
Featured Organism: Arabidopsis Thaliana

Arabidopsis is universally acknowledged as the model for dicotyledonous crop plants. Furthermore, some of the information gleaned from this small plant can be used to aid work on monocotyledonous crops. Here we provide an overview of the current state of knowledge and resources for the study of this important model plant, with comments on future prospects in the field from Professor Pamela Green and Dr Sean May.
Diversity and Expression of Bacterial Metacaspases in an Aquatic Ecosystem

Metacaspases are distant homologs of metazoan caspase proteases, implicated in stress response, and programmed cell death (PCD) in bacteria and phytoplankton. While the few previous studies on metacaspases have relied on cultured organisms and sequenced genomes, no studies have focused on metacaspases in a natural setting. We here present data from the first microbial community-wide metacaspase survey; performed by querying metagenomic and metatranscriptomic datasets from the brackish Baltic Sea, a water body characterized by pronounced environmental gradients and periods of massive cyanobacterial blooms. Metacaspase genes were restricted to ~4% of the bacteria, taxonomically affiliated mainly to Bacteroidetes, Alpha- and Betaproteobacteria and Cyanobacteria. The gene abundance was significantly higher in larger or particle-associated bacteria (>0.8 μm), and filamentous Cyanobacteria dominated metacaspase gene expression throughout the bloom season. Distinct seasonal expression patterns were detected for the three metacaspase genes in Nodularia spumigena, one of the main bloom-formers. Clustering of normalized gene expression in combination with analyses of genomic and assembly data suggest functional diversification of these genes, and possible roles of the metacaspase genes related to stress responses, i.e., sulfur metabolism in connection to oxidative stress, and nutrient stress induced cellular differentiation. Co-expression of genes encoding metacaspases and nodularin toxin synthesis enzymes was also observed in Nodularia spumigena. The study shows that metacaspases represent an adaptation of potentially high importance for several key organisms in the Baltic Sea, most prominently Cyanobacteria, and open up for further exploration of their physiological roles in microbes and assessment of their ecological impact in aquatic habitats.
Susceptibility of hepatoma-derived cells to histone deacetylase inhibitors is associated with ID2 expression

Downregulation of inhibitor of DNA binding 2 (ID2) is associated with poor prognosis in cases of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Therefore, to search for effective antitumor drugs for the treatment of HCC exhibiting poor prognostic indicators, we used two HCC-derived cell lines (HuH-7 and HLE) to alter ID2 levels. Specifically, ID2 expression was knocked down in HuH-7 cells via transfection with ID2-specific small interfering RNAs and separately ID2 was overexpressed in HLE cells via an ID2 expression plasmid vector. To assess the effect of antitumor drugs, MTS assay was performed. Annexin V staining was used to evaluate apoptosis and real-time RT-PCR was used to measure mRNA levels. ID2 knockdown cells were more susceptible to histone deacethylase (HDAC) inhibitors including sodium butyrate (NaB), sodium 4-phenyl-butyrate, tricostatin A, suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid, MS-275, apicidin and HC-toxin. Conversely, cells that overexpressed ID2 were less susceptible than control cells to HDAC inhibitors. NaB-induced apoptosis was inversely correlated with ID2 expression. Expression of the anti-apoptotic mRNA BCL2 was induced by NaB in control cells, but this induction of BCL2 was inhibited by ID2 knockdown and strengthened by ID2 overexpression. Expression of another anti-apoptotic mRNA, BCL2L1, was decreased by NaB administration and then partially recovered. However, in ID2 knockdown cells, BCL2L1 levels did not recover from NaB-induced suppression. ID2 affected the susceptibility of two HCC-derived cell lines to an HDAC inhibitor by regulating the expression of anti-apoptotic genes. Therefore, HDAC inhibitors may be effective for the treatment of HCC for which the prognosis is poor based on ID2 downregulation and ID2 could serve as a marker that is predictive of the clinical response to HDAC inhibitors.
Geologic map of MTM -30247, -35247, and -40247 quadrangles, Reull Vallis region of Mars

Geologic mapping and stratigraphic analyses of MTM -30247, -35247, and -40247 quadrangles are being used to characterize the Reull Vallis (RV) system and to determine the history of the eastern Hellas region of Mars. Studies of RV examine the roles and timing of volatile-driven erosional and depositional processes and provide constraints on potential associated climatic changes. This study complements earlier investigations of the eastern Hellas region, including regional analyses [1-6], mapping studies of circum-Hellas canyons [7-10], and volcanic studies of Hadriaca and Tyrrhena Paterae [11-13]. Key scientific objectives for these quadrangles include 1) characterization of RV in its "fluvial zone," 2) analysis of channels in the surrounding plains and potential connections to and interactions with RV, 3) examination of young (? ), presumably sedimentary plains along RV that embay the surrounding highlands, and 4) determination of the nature of the connection between segments 1 and 2 of RV.
A neural implementation of multi-adjoint logic programs via sf-homogenization

A generalization of the homogenization process needed for the neural implementation of multi-adjoint logic programming (a unifying theory to deal with uncertainty, imprecise data or incomplete information) is presented here. The idea is to allow to represent a more general family of adjoint pairs, but maintaining the advantage of the existing implementation recently introduced in [6]. The soundness of the transformation is proved and its complexity is analysed. In addition, the corresponding generalization of the neural-like implementation of the fixed point semantics of multi-adjoint is presented.
The Fallacy of New Business Creation as a Disciplining Device for Managers

This paper investigates a negative externality of new business creation. When being perceived as a good manager is a necessary condition to establish a firm in the future, we show that a priori talented managers may indulge in undertaking risky projects now. Indeed, such a choice renders more difficult the updating of believes process regarding their actual types. Unfortunately, this in turn leads them to perform less effort, which comes at the expense of economic efficiency. Hence, the career concerns we examine do not discipline good managers. However, we show that employers can reduce managerial slack by resorting to financial markets monitoring.
EIC straint atisfacti

In this paper, we define and empirically evaluate new heuristics for solving the job shop scheduling problem with non-relaxable time windows. The hypothesis underlying our approach is that by approaching the problem as one of establishing sequencing constraints between pairs of operations requiring the same resource (as opposed to a problem of assigning start times to each operation) and by exploiting previously developed analysis techniques for limiting search through the space of possible sequencing decisions, simple, localized look-ahead techniques can yield problem solving performance comparable to currently dominating techniques that rely on more sophisticated analysis of resource contention. We define a series of attention focusing heuristics based on simple analysis of the temporal flexibility associated with different sequencing decisions, and a similarly motivated heuristic for determining how to sequence a given operation pair. Performance results are reported on a suite of benchmark problems previously investigated by two advanced approaches, and our simplified look-ahead analysis techniques are shown to provide comparable problem solving leverage at reduced computational cost.
An Analysis of Geographical Push-Caching

Most caching schemes in wide-area, distributed systems are client-initiated. Decisions of when and where to cache information are made without the beneet of the server's global knowledge of the usage patterns. In this paper, we present a new caching strategy: geographical push-caching. Using the server's global knowledge and a derived network topology, we distribute data to cooperating servers. The World Wide Web is an example of a wide-area system that will beneet from distance-sensitive caching, and we present an architecture that allows a Web server to autonomously replicate HTML pages. We use a trace-driven simulation to evaluate several competing caching strategies. Our results show that geographical push-caching reduces bandwidth consumption and sever load by the same amount as web proxy caching, but with a savings in global cache space of almost two orders of magnitude. More importantly, servers that wish to reduce Internet bandwidth consumption and their load can do so without waiting for web proxies to be implemented worldwide. Furthermore, geographical push-caching helps distribute server load for all web servers, not just the most popular as is the case with proxy caching.
Workload Classification Model for Specializing Virtual Machine Operating System

There is growing demand on strategies to help cloud computing utilize its scale adaptiveness and cost effectiveness advantages. Previous operating systems(OS) are designed to suit all, leading to that virtual machines with different workloads use indiscriminate processing platform. However, there are conflicts between generality and performance, limited resource utilization and low processing efficiency of common OS penalize system performance. Therefore, we design four kinds of OS optimization strategies corresponding to four primary classes of workloads: CPU-Intensive, Memory-Intensive, I/O-Intensive and Network-Intensive. In this paper, we propose a Feedback-Based Workload Classification(FBWC) model which contains metrics collector, data preprocessor, Training Set Refresh Support Vector Machine(TSRSVM) classifier, decision maker and operating system tuner to classify workloads into appropriate class. TSRSVM combines support vectors of origin training set and correctly classified testing set together as new training set to get higher classification accuracy and efficiency. Comprehensive experiments compared with K Nearest Neighbors(KNN) and SVM demonstrate effectiveness of FBWC model and TSRSVM classification algorithm. Performance comparison between common virtual machine and the tuned one shows high degree performance improvement by OS specialization.
A Network Coding Unicast Strategy for Wireless Multi-Hop Networks

In wireless multi-hop networks such as ad-hoc and sensor networks, one node may receive signals from several other nodes simultaneously due to the broadcast nature of the wireless medium. That results in the reduction of bandwidth usage and system efficiency. To deal with this problem, several approaches have been developed to avoid signal collision by appropriate protocols. In this work and in contrast to previous works, we put forward a unicast strategy that can recover the desired signal from the collided signals in wireless multi-hop networks. The proposed strategy is featured as a physical layer network coding scheme that can greatly increase the throughput of unicast in wireless multi-hop networks without synchronization nor power control among the different transmitters, thus, making it ideally fit for distributed networks.
Emotional Speech Classification Based on Multi View Characterization

Emotional speech classification is a key problem in social interaction analysis. Traditional emotional speech classification methods are completely supervised and require large amounts of labeled data. In addition, various feature sets are usually used to characterize the emotional speech signals. Therefore, we propose a new co-training algorithm based on multi-view features. More specifically, we adopt different features for the characterization of speech signals to form different views for classification, so as to extract as much discriminative information as possible. We then use the co-training algorithm to classify emotional speech with only few annotations. In this article, a dynamic weighted co-training algorithm is developed to combine different features (views) to predict the common class variable. Experiments prove the validity and effectiveness of this method compared to self-training algorithm.
Interspecific adaptation by binary choice at de novo polyomavirus T antigen site through accelerated codon-constrained Val-Ala toggling within an intrinsically disordered region

It is common knowledge that conserved residues evolve slowly. We challenge generality of this central tenet of molecular biology by describing the fast evolution of a conserved nucleotide position that is located in the overlap of two open reading frames (ORFs) of polyomaviruses. The de novo ORF is expressed through either the ALTO protein or the Middle T antigen (MT/ALTO), while the ancestral ORF encodes the N-terminal domain of helicase-containing Large T (LT) antigen. In the latter domain the conserved Cys codon of the LXCXE pRB-binding motif constrains codon evolution in the overlapping MT/ALTO ORF to a binary choice between Val and Ala codons, termed here as codon-constrained Val-Ala (COCO-VA) toggling. We found the rate of COCO-VA toggling to approach the speciation rate and to be significantly accelerated compared to the baseline rate of chance substitution in a large monophyletic lineage including all viruses encoding MT/ALTO and three others. Importantly, the COCO-VA site is located in a short linear motif (SLiM) of an intrinsically disordered region, a typical characteristic of adaptive responders. These findings provide evidence that the COCO-VA toggling is under positive selection in many polyomaviruses, implying its critical role in interspecific adaptation, which is unprecedented for conserved residues.
Design and fabrication of multi-walled hollow nanofibers by triaxial electrospinning as reinforcing agents in nanocomposites

Multi-walled triaxial hollow fibers with two different outer wall materials are fabricated by core-sheath electrospinning process and integrated into epoxy matrix with or without primary glass fiber reinforcement to produce composites with enhanced mechanical properties. The morphologies of multi-walled hollow fibers are tailored by controlling the materials and processing parameters such as polymer and solvent types. The triaxial hollow fiber fabrication is achieved through using a nozzle containing concentric tubes, which allows for the transport of different fluids to the tip of the nozzle under the applied high voltage. In comparison to uniaxial electrospun fibers, the hollowness of electrospun fibers enables one to manufacture new reinforcing agents that can improve the specific strength of composites. It is shown that the mechanical properties of epoxy matrix composite incorporated with electrospun fibers as primary fiber reinforcement can be significantly tailored by properly selecting the wall materials, diameters, and the amount of electrospun fibers. We have also presented that triaxial electrospun hollow fibers as co-reinforcement in the glass fiber-laminated epoxy matrix composites enhance the flexural modulus by 6.5%, flexural strength by 14%, the onset of first layer of glass fabric failure strain by 12.5%, and final failure strain by 20%.
Simplifying Software Metric Models via Hierarchical LASSO with Incomplete Data Samples

Software metric models can be used in predicting the interested target software metric(s) for future software project based on certain related metric(s). However, during the construction of such a model, incomplete data often appear in data sample gained from analogous past projects. In addition, whether a particular continuous predictor metric or a particular category for a certain categorical predictor metric should be included in the model must be determined in practice. To solve these problems, this paper introduces a methodology integrating the k-nearest neighbors (k-NN) multiple imputation method, kernel smoothing, Monte Carlo simulation, and a latest variable selection method. Thus, a more flexible model is constructed. A case study is given to illustrate the proposed procedures.
Quality Jobs or Mass Employment

The general objective of the study is to explain the apparent failure of employment in the Ghanaian labour market under SAP/ERP by evaluating changes in the qualitative distribution of labour demand, based on trends in advertised job vacancies from 1981 to 1995. The results indicate a significant (25%) increase in the demand for high-skill labour relative to low-skill labour in the ERP/SAP period, compared with pre-ERP/SAP period. Using decomposition techniques it is found that 51.2% of the increase in demand for high-skill labour is explained by changes in skill composition and 48.8% by changes in sectoral composition of jobs. The policy implication is that improvement in employment performance in Ghana will require additional investments in skill training and a keener effort to enhance occupational mobility. The general objective of the study is to attempt to explain the apparent failure of employment in the Ghanaian labour market under SAP/ERP. Two possible causes are investigated: Changes in the structure of labour demand, in particular the qualitative distribution of labour demand, based on trends in advertised job vacancies. The macroeconomic environment, notably the policy regime under SAP/ERP, and the institutional environment, notably the extent of wage rigidity among the various segments of the Ghanaian labour market.
Production scheduling in a semiconductor wafer fabrication facility producing multiple product types with distinct due dates

Focuses on production scheduling in a semiconductor wafer fab producing multiple product types that have different due dates and different process flows. In the wafer fab, wafer lots are processed on serial and batch processing workstations, each of which consists of parallel identical machines. Machines in serial processing workstations process wafer lots one by one, while those in batch processing workstations process several wafer lots of the same recipe at the same time. What needs to be done for production scheduling are lot release control, lot scheduling, and batch scheduling. For these three decision problems, we develop several rules which use information such as order sizes (numbers of lots in orders) and processing status of the wafer lots. To evaluate these new rules, we use a simulation model in which the three decision problems are considered simultaneously. Simulation results show that the new rules work better than existing rules in terms of total tardiness of the orders.