Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SagS Contributes to the Motile-Sessile Switch and Acts in Concert with BfiSR To Enable Pseudomonas aeruginosa Biofilm Formation

ABSTRACT The interaction of Pseudomonas aeruginosa with surfaces has been described as a two-stage process requiring distinct signaling events and the reciprocal modulation of small RNAs (sRNAs). However, little is known regarding the relationship between sRNA-modulating pathways active under planktonic or surface-associated growth conditions. Here, we demonstrate that SagS (PA2824), the cognate sensor of HptB, links sRNA-modulating activities via the Gac/HptB/Rsm system postattachment to the signal transduction network BfiSR, previously demonstrated to be required for the development of P. aeruginosa. Consistent with the role of SagS in the GacA-dependent HtpB signaling pathway, inactivation of sagS resulted in hyperattachment, an HptB-dependent increase in rsmYZ, increased Psl polysaccharide production, and increased virulence. Moreover, sagS inactivation rescued attachment but abrogated biofilm formation by the ΔgacA and ΔhptB mutant strains. The ΔsagS strain was impaired in biofilm formation at a stage similar to that of the previously described two-component system BfiSR. Expression of bfiR but not bfiS restored ΔsagS biofilm formation independently of rsmYZ. We demonstrate that SagS interacts directly with BfiS and only indirectly with BfiR, with the direct and specific interaction between these two membrane-bound sensors resulting in the modulation of the phosphorylation state of BfiS in a growth-mode-dependent manner. SagS plays an important role in P. aeruginosa virulence in a manner opposite to that of BfiS. Our findings indicate that SagS acts as a switch by linking the GacA-dependent sensory system under planktonic conditions to the suppression of sRNAs postattachment and to BfiSR, required for the development of P. aeruginosa biofilms, in a sequential and stage-specific manner.
Multiobjective optimization design of Yagi-Uda antenna

An optimization method, such as the steepest gradient methods, could not easily obtain globally optimum solutions for devising antenna design parameters that allow the antenna to simultaneously improve multiple performances such as gain, sidelobe level, and input impedance. The genetic algorithm (GA) is suitable for empirically solving optimization problems and is effective in designing an antenna. In particular, this method can solve the multiobjective optimization problem using various Pareto-optimal solutions in an extremely efficient manner. In this paper, the Pareto GA, by which various Pareto-optimal solutions for each objective function (performance) can be obtained in a single trial of a numerical simulation and which enables the selection of parameters in accordance with the design requirement, is applied to the multiobjective optimization design of the Yagi-Uda antenna. The effectiveness of the Pareto GA was demonstrated by comparing the performances obtained by the Pareto GA with those of the previously reported values, which were obtained by the conventional GA, and with the values of the design benchmark reference.
RISK ASSURANCE FOR TRIPLE-BOTTOM LINE REPORTING USING SoDIS

Triple-bottom line reporting highlights the importance of social and community obligations in terms of indicators related to corporate governance and ethics, community and environment reporting, customer reporting, and shareholder value and extends the business goal of maximising profits and shareholder value to include the consideration of wider stakeholders’ interests. As an ethics-based analysis and inspection process that examines potential risks from the perspective of direct and extended sets of stakeholders, the Software Development Impact Statement (SoDIS) can be used as tool to achieve the objectives of triplebottom reporting and to highlight areas of potential modifications to business project definitions, requirements and implementation plans. The paper considers risk identification and assessment as two components of the broader process of risk management. A “risk assurance” approach towards the examination of risks is adopted, operating within the context of a business project activities serving as causal agents. Based on the assumption that business project success is enhanced by an appropriately high degree of risk assurance, the paper proposes a risk assessment framework aligned with the software auditing model of SoDIS and with the principles of triple-bottom line reporting.
Performance Analysis of Cooperative MAC in IEEE 802.11n for Multiclass Traffic

An analytical formulation of the saturated throughput of a Cooperative MAC in IEEE 802.11n for multiclass traffic is presented. A helper node is used to relay packets from the source node or access point (AP) to the destination node within a circular coverage. The analytical framework is formulated for N classes, K data rates and their corresponding K distances. The saturated throughput analysis for multiclass traffic is formulated using a two- dimensional discrete-time Markov chain rather than using an approximation. The critical probability that a helper node exists in a region to relay a packet is explicitly derived. Closed-form result for the saturated delay is also derived. Numerical results of the saturated throughput corresponding to typical parameter values are presented. The results show that the total saturated throughput using Cooperative MAC can be better than that of IEEE 802.11n using direct transmissions by up to 67% and the saturated delays using Cooperative MAC are also better than those of IEEE 802.11n.
Combining strategies efficiently: high-quality decisions from conflicting advice

Dagelijks baseren we talloze praktische beslissingen en handelingen op adviezen van experts. Helaas zijn de experts het lang niet altijd met elkaar eens. Wouter Koolen ontwierp nieuwe computerprogramma’s die automatisch leren welk advies het beste gevolgd kan worden. Deze computerprogramma’s weten ook precies hoe ze door de tijd moeten schakelen tussen de adviezen van de verschillende deskundigen. Dit onderzoek is onderdeel van online learning, een opkomende discipline op het grensvlak tussen informatica, informatietheorie en statistiek. Koolen beschrijft toepassingen varierend van investeren in aandelen, kansvoorspellen en datacompressie tot routeplanning. In elk van deze gevallen bewijst hij wiskundig dat zijn computerprogramma's net zo succesvol zijn als een hypothetische beslisser met complete voorkennis van de toekomst, minus lage leerkosten.
Behavioral Interventions for African Americans to Reduce Sexual Risk of HIV: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

Context:African Americans constitute 13% of the US population yet account for nearly 50% of new HIV infections. Implementation of efficacious behavioral interventions can help reduce infections in this vulnerable population. Objectives:To examine the efficacy of behavioral interventions to reduce HIV for African Americans among 78 randomized controlled trials that sampled at least 50% African Americans (N = 48,585, 81% African American), measured condom use or number of sexual partners, and provided sufficient information to calculate effect sizes. Methods:Independent raters coded participant characteristics, design and methodological features, and intervention content. Weighted mean effect sizes, using both fixed- and random-effects models, were calculated; positive effect sizes indicated more condom use and fewer sexual partners. Results:Compared with controls, participants who received an HIV risk reduction intervention improved condom use at short-term, intermediate, and long-term assessments; change was better among men who have sex with men and people already infected with HIV, and when interventions provided intensive content across multiple sessions. Intervention participants reduced their number of sexual partners in interventions with intensive interpersonal skills training and in younger samples, especially at delayed intervals. Conclusions:Sexual risk reduction interventions for African Americans increased condom use without increasing the number of sexual partners. Translating these interventions and further enhancing them continue as a high priority.
A synergistic approach to small business entrepreneurship

A process model of the determinants of small business organizational entrepreneurial activities is proposed. The key variables are identified and the cause and effect relationships are highlighted. Specific variables such as environment, business philosophy, and personal attributes and their influence on the small business firm, its strategy, organizational variables, and performance are discussed. In addition, performance is separated into operational measures for short term evaluation versus long term measures for evaluation. The model provides insight into conducting future research as well as managerial implications in the small business organizational entrepreneurship field.
Integrating Business Technology and Marketing Education: Enhancing the Diffusion Process through Technology Champions

Basic and discipline-specific technological competencies are needed by marketing and business school faculty, students, and their employers. Integration of basic technologies is common and easily accepted among younger students and readily supported, at least philosophically if not practically, by most business schools. Conversely, many marketing and business faculty face difficulties and problems with integration of new and discipline-specific technologies. The authors propose that these difficulties are most likely due to limited budgets and time, nonspecialized technical support, and lack of a formal process. This article presents the diffusion of innovations theory as a process for accomplishing a more formal integration of discipline-specific technologies into a marketing and business program. The use of “technology champions” is proposed as a means of enhancing the technology diffusion process.
Team-Oriented Care for Orofacial Clefts: A Review of the Literature

Objective To examine the process of team-oriented care for children with orofacial clefts. Design Systematic review of available studies reporting team-oriented management of children and adults with orofacial clefts. We identified studies from OVID, PsychINFO, REHABDATA, PubMed, and The Cleft Palate–Craniofacial Journal to complete this review. Main Outcome Measures Process of team-oriented treatment, which included use of team-oriented care, continuity of team-oriented care, and approaches to team-oriented care. Results We identified nine studies including 1398 participants. We found that studies examining team-oriented approaches to orofacial clefts were limited. Studies of orofacial teams suggest that use of team-oriented approaches to care are highly variable. It is unclear how these inconsistencies in approaches to care influence long-term outcomes. Conclusions Although the literature suggests that the process of team-oriented care results in better outcomes in individuals with orofacial clefts, process of care as a measurable outcome has yet to be adequately examined. Future studies are needed to investigate the impact on clinical outcomes and their relationship to cost effectiveness and efficiency of care.
Topology Analysis of the Access/Aggregation Network Structure in Future Optical Access Networks

Increasing demand for higher bitrates in access networks requires fiber deployment closer to the customer as bitrates in copper based access networks are strictly limited essentially by the length of the copper cables. Besides enabling higher access bitrates optical access network technologies will also enable a change in the structure of the access/aggregation network segment due to the superior transmission characteristics of optical fibers: Larger service areas and a decreased overall number of access sites are feasible. Concentration of active network equipment in a fewer number of access site is expected to help to reduce the total cost of ownership of the whole network due to concentration effects and OpEx savings. In this paper we present results of a topology related network study investigating feasible network structures in next generation optical access networks. Starting from the structure of copper based access networks in Germany, traditional service areas are clustered to larger entities. We distinguish between different levels of access network concentration leading to various scenarios relying on a different number of required metro access nodes. A exemplary set of reference service areas is identified representing the majority of all service areas within a certain category and typical characteristics of the reference service areas are given. From the results of the topological analysis some requirements with respect to next generation optical access systems are derived.
Ecosystem services: a means to diffuse political land use decisions in peri-urban regions.

Research undertaken to advance sustainable land-use in peri-urban Australia has identified the need for greater innovation in natural resource management (NRM). This requires moving from an overly regulation-dependent resource management system to an environmental market system. Under current arrangements, continued resource depletion and degradation; institutional barriers to innovative solutions, and high transaction costs in affecting change are all evident. An environmental markets policy approach would shift emphasis to a market economy and facilitate commercial innovation in the use and conservation of resources. This requires first that the environmental goods and services (or commodities) be clearly identified; and second a market structure to enable trade. Martin et al (Concepts for private sector funded conservation using tax effective instruments Land and Water Australia, Canberra 2007) have proposed a business model for natural resource markets using a multi-attribute, low transaction cost environmental market structure. However to develop such a model requires a consistent methodology and classification system to identify ecosystem services as viable commodities, for ‘marketizing’ these multiple values. A conceptual framework for identifying and valuing ecosystem services is presented using Western Sydney as a case study. The paper also argues that a science informed rather than a science led process may be a more realistic ambition for natural resource management in peri-urban Australia.
Evaluation of Terbinafine Activity on Pneumocystis carinii in the Rat Model

Objective: The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis thThis study was planned to investigate the antipneumocystis activity of terbinafine in a rat model. Material and Methods: Rats were obtained from the Hakan Cetinsaya Experimental and Clinical Research Institutions, Erciyes University, Kayseri, Turkey. Terbinafine administered orally in doses of 40, 80, 120 and 160 mg/kg/day after nine weeks of immunosuppression with dexamethasone to facilitate the development of acute Pneumocystis carinii penumoniae (PCP). Results: Untreated animals showed P. carinii infection levels with a mean (aplusmn;standard deviation) log number of cysts per gram of lung tissue of 4.6aplusmn;1.6 at the end of the experiment. Terbinafine administered at a dose of 160 mg/kg/day significantly reduced the log number of cysts per gram to 2.2aplusmn;1.5. The therapeutic efficacy of terbinafine administered at 160 mg/kg/day (log 2.2aplusmn;1.5 cysts/lung) was similar to that obtained with trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMX), 50/250 mg/kg/day (palt;0.001). A reduction in the number of cysts was also observed in infected animals treated with 80, and 120 mg of terbinafine/kg/day, although the results were not statistically significant (pagt;0.05). Conclusion: In our model, the efficacy of terbinafine in PCP has been found to be dose dependent. Turkish Baslik: Pneumocystis cariniia#39;ye Terbinafinin Etkisinin Rat Modelinde Degerlendirilmesi Anahtar Kelimeler: Pneumocystis carinii; rat modeli; terbinafin Amac: Bu calisma rat modelinde terbinafinin anti-Pneumocystis aktivitesini belirlemek icin planlanmistir. Gerec ve Yontemler: Ratlar Erciyes Universitesi Deneysel ve Klinik Arastirma Merkezina#39;den saglanmistir. Dokuz hafta boyunca akut Pneumocystis carinii pnomonisi (PCP) olusturmak uzere, deksamethazon ile immunsupresyon yapilan ratlara oral olarak 40, 80, 120 ve 160 mg/kg/gun terbinafin verildi. Bulgular: Calismanin sonunda tedavi almayan grupda PCP enfeksiyon duzeyi ortalama (aplusmn;standart sapma) akciger dokusu gramindaki kist sayisi log 4.6aplusmn;1.6 idi. Terbinafin 160mg/kg/gun uygulanan grupta gramdaki kist sayisinda onemli dusus gozlendi log 2.2aplusmn;1.5. Terbinafin 160mg/kg/gun uygulanan tedavi etkinligi, trimetoprim-sulfametoksazol (TMP-SMX), 50/250 mg/kg/gun uygulamasi ile benzer sonuc verdi (palt;0.001). Terbinafin 80 ve 120 mg/kg/gun uygulamalarinda da kist sayisinda dusus gorulmekle birlikte bu degerler istatistiksel olarak anlamli degildi (pagt;0.05). Sonuc: Bizim modelimizde terbinafinin PCP etkinligi doza bagli bulundu.
Linear Programming Approach for the Inverse Problem of Support Vector Machines

It is well recognized that support vector machines (SVMs) would produce better classification performance in terms of generalization power. A SVM constructs an optimal separating hyper-plane through maximizing the margin between two classes in high-dimensional feature space. The inverse problem is how to split a given dataset into two clusters such that the margin between the two clusters attains the maximum. It is difficult to give an exact solution to this problem, so a genetic algorithm is designed to solve this problem. But the proposed genetic algorithm has large time complexity for the process of solving quadratic programs. In this paper, we replace the quadratic programming with a linear programming. The new algorithm can greatly decrease time complexity. The fast algorithm for acquiring the maximum margin can upgrade the applicability of the proposed genetic algorithm
Assessment of the service quality of a cancer information service using a new P‐C‐P attributes model

Describes the development and use of a modified SERVQUAL research instrument for measuring the service quality of a leading Cancer Information Support Service from the perspective of their “customers”. The evaluation findings were also used to inform the organisation to help it to improve its services. In order to identify the appropriate dimensions of service quality, a series of focus group meetings were run with providers of the Information Support Services and also with the users of the service. The meetings enabled the identification of six different dimensions of service quality which neatly mapped onto the new P‐C‐P attributes model, which was developed after extensive research of existing models such as SERVQUAL. Based on these dimensions, a questionnaire was then developed to assess service quality of the service. The main outcome from the research was the development of a research instrument suitable for measuring the service quality of a Cancer Information Support Service. This instrument can be adapted to assess the quality of any other service.
Retest Variability of Human Infant Contrast Sensitivity: How Many Tests Are Sufficient?

Retest variability of a new infant contrast sensitivity (CS) card procedure was assessed by binocular measurement of a group of 20 6-month-olds twice within a 1-week period. Coefficient of reliability analyses showed that within-subject variability between tests was only slightly less than variation across subjects, which suggests that results from a single test are a poor predictor of an infant’s “true” visual functioning. To determine how many tests are needed to estimate when infant CS stabilizes to within an acceptable (0.15 log unit) criterion, a second experiment was conducted in which a small group of subjects was tested repeatedly over a 2-week period. The results showed that averaging performance on 2 to 3 tests was required before an accurate estimate of the subject’s performance could be obtained. Our results suggest that caution should be taken in the interpretation of a single measurement of infant visual functioning.
The generalised Sylvester matrix equations over the generalised bisymmetric and skew-symmetric matrices

A matrix P is called a symmetric orthogonal if P = P T = P −1. A matrix X is said to be a generalised bisymmetric with respect to P if X = X T = PXP. It is obvious that any symmetric matrix is also a generalised bisymmetric matrix with respect to I (identity matrix). By extending the idea of the Jacobi and the Gauss–Seidel iterations, this article proposes two new iterative methods, respectively, for computing the generalised bisymmetric (containing symmetric solution as a special case) and skew-symmetric solutions of the generalised Sylvester matrix equation (including Sylvester and Lyapunov matrix equations as special cases) which is encountered in many systems and control applications. When the generalised Sylvester matrix equation has a unique generalised bisymmetric (skew-symmetric) solution, the first (second) iterative method converges to the generalised bisymmetric (skew-symmetric) solution of this matrix equation for any initial generalised bisymmetric (skew-symmetric) matrix. Finally, some numerical results are given to illustrate the effect of the theoretical results.
Robust control of LTI systems over unreliable communication channels with unreliable acknowledgments

We consider the robust (H∞) control problem for linear time-invariant systems over unreliable communication channels that are subject to packet losses from sensors to the controller and from the controller to the actuators. Moreover, the acknowledgments of control packet transmissions are also sent over reverse unreliable communication channels, which is known as the quasi-TCP model. The robust control problem is formulated within a stochastic zero-sum dynamic game framework, from which we obtain an H∞ controller that minimizes the worst-case cost function in the presence of an adversary in the dynamical system. We characterize a set of existence conditions of the H∞ controller in terms of the disturbance attenuation parameter γ and packet loss rates. For the least disturbance attenuation scenario (as γ → 8), we show that the H∞ control system converges to the corresponding LQG system. We also show that the H∞ controller for the TCP- and UDP-cases can be arrived at as appropriate limits of the solution for the quasi-TCP problem. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the theoretical results.