Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Methylenetetrahydrofolate Reductase C677T Polymorphism and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in Chinese Population: A Meta-Analysis of 29 Case-Control Studies

Background Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR), a key enzyme in folate metabolism, had significant effects on the homocysteine levels. The common functional MTHFR C677T polymorphism had been extensively researched. Several studies had evaluated the relationship between MTHFR C677T polymorphism and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), but the results were still controversial in the Chinese Han population. This meta-analysis was conducted to evaluate the relationship between MTHFR C677T polymorphism and T2DM in the Chinese Han population. Methods We searched the relevant studies in multiple electronic databases, which published up to December 2013. We reviewed and extracted data from all the included studies on the relationship between MTHFR C677T polymorphism and T2DM in the Chinese Han population. The odds ratios (ORs) and their 95% confidence intervals (95%CIs) were used to evaluate the relationship. Fixed-effects and random-effects meta-analysis were used to pool ORs by the heterogeneity. Publication bias and sensitivity analysis were also examined. Results 29 studies were finally included in our meta-analysis, which contained 4656 individuals with T2DM and 2127 healthy controls. There was a significant relationship between MTHFR C677T polymorphism and T2DM under dominant (OR: 1.70, 95% CI: 1.42–2.02), recessive (OR: 1.48, 95% CI: 1.21–1.80), homozygous (OR: 1.89, 95% CI: 1.47–2.42), heterozygous (OR: 1.58, 95% CI: 1.33–1.87), and additive (OR: 1.46, 95% CI: 1.28–1.68) genetic model in a random-effects model. Subgroup analysis also reached similar results. Sensitivity analysis indicated that the overall result were dependable. Conclusions There was a significant relationship between MTHFR C677T polymorphism and T2DM in the Chinese Han population. The results of our meta-analysis suggested that MTHFR 677T allele might be a risk genetic factor of T2DM in the Chinese Han population.
A New Constant Factor Approximation to Construct Highly Fault-Tolerant Connected Dominating Set in Unit Disk Graph

This paper proposes a new polynomial time constant factor approximation algorithm for a more-a-decade-long open NP-hard problem, the minimum four-connected <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$m$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-dominating set problem in unit disk graph (UDG) with any positive integer <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$m \geq 1$ </tex-math></inline-formula> for the first time in the literature. We observe that it is difficult to modify the existing constant factor approximation algorithm for the minimum three-connected <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$m$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-dominating set problem to solve the minimum four-connected <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$m$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-dominating set problem in UDG due to the structural limitation of Tutte decomposition, which is the main graph theory tool used by Wang <italic>et al.</italic> to design their algorithm. To resolve this issue, we first reinvent a new constant factor approximation algorithm for the minimum three-connected <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$m$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-dominating set problem in UDG and later use this algorithm to design a new constant factor approximation algorithm for the minimum four-connected <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$m$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-dominating set problem in UDG.
Shades of grey : reflections on researching indigenous Australian issues

This paper contains our reflections and responses to a recent research project which sought to understand the meaning of anger in Indigenous Australian prisoners. Throughout this project the authors became increasingly aware of the essential ambiguities inherent in Indigenous research practice: the potential for our research to reproduce inequities and contribute to the colonisation of knowledge, the demands for academic accountability, the juxtaposition of world views and the central importance of difference. Our aim throughout this project has been to examine our responses to the process of indigenous research practice. This paper contains reflections that may assist others who might embark on indigenous qualitative research and those interested in theorizing the production of knowledge.
Collaborative querying using the Query Graph Visualizer

Purpose – Information overload has led to a situation where users are swamped with too much information, resulting in difficulty sifting through material in search of relevant content. Aims to address this issue from the perspective of collaborative querying, an approach that helps users formulate queries by harnessing the collective knowledge of other searchers.Design/methodology/approach – The design and implementation of the Query Graph Visualizer (QGV), a collaborative querying system which harvests and clusters previously issued queries to form query networks that represent related information needs are described. A preliminary evaluation of the QGV is also described in which a group of participants evaluated the usability and usefulness of the system by completing a set of tasks and a questionnaire based on Nielsen's heuristic evaluation technique.Findings – In the QGV, a submitted query is matched to its closest cluster and a recursive algorithm is applied to find other related clusters, forming a .
Organizational Structure and Absorptive Capacity in Offshore Outsourcing

The offshore outsourcing (offshoring) posits a high level of risk because of time zone difference, cultural difference and client’s need for more controls over quality and schedule, etc. Knowledge gap between clients and vendors is one of the key challenges for outsourcing success. Offshoring vendors need to continuously acquire external knowledge from clients, assimilate and internalize the new knowledge to apply to outsourcing tasks. Offshoring vendors often have to re-structure project teams to adapt to clients’ needs. This paper aims to investigate how organizational structure attributes impact vendor absorptive capacity. A case study approach is used to develop a preliminary set of propositions. Vendors are expected to consider the propositions, skillfully design and implement organizational structure to develop absorptive capacity. Future stage of this research study is discussed. Limitations and future research is addressed at the end.
Endoscopic submucosal dissection of gastric fundus subepithelial tumors originating from the muscularis propria

Endoscopic resection of gastric subepithelial tumors (SETs) carries a high risk of perforation, particularly for tumors located at the gastric fundus and originating from the muscularis propria. Based on our experience with endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) and a novel endoscopic device, namely the ‘Resolution clip’ for the endoscopic closure of iatrogenic upper gastrointestinal (upper GI) perforations, we evaluated the clinical feasibility and safety of ESD for gastric fundus subepithelial tumors originating from the muscularis propria. In this prospective study, 11 consecutive patients who presented with gastric SETs ≤3 cm in diameter were enrolled. Regardless of whether perforation occurred, the gastric wall defect was closed with clips. The patients were followed up after the surgery. Endoscopic resection was successfully performed in 10 patients; however, in one patient a pure endoscopic approach was impossible as the lesion was severely adhered to surrounding tissue, and a switch to laparoscopic wedge resection was necessary. The mean resected tumor size was 18.8×17.2 mm and the mean surgery time of the 10 patients with ESD was 81 min (range 45–130 min). Histological diagnosis was gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) in eight lesions [very low risk according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) risk classification] and leiomyoma in three lesions. Perforation occurred in 3/10 patients. Gastric closure with the Resolution clips was performed successfully in all cases. Early post-ESD bleeding (EPEB) occurred in one patient. Basic ferric sulfate solution was sprayed during the upper GI endoscopy examination and the bleeding stopped. No complications occurred and the follow-up was unremarkable. In this early study, ESD using the Resolution clip was demonstrated to be a feasible and minimally invasive treatment for gastric fundus subepithelial tumors originating from the muscularis propria.
Deciding Fuzzy Description Logics by Type Elimination

We present a novel procedure FixIt(ALC) for deciding knowledge base satisfiability in the Fuzzy Description Logic (FDL) ALC. FixIt(ALC) does not search for tree-structured models as in tableau-based proof procedures, but embodies a fixpoint-computation of canonical models that are not necessarily tree-structured. Conceptually, the procedure is based on a type-elimination process. Soundness, completeness and termination are proven. To the best of our knowledge it is the first fixpoint-based decision procedure for FDLs, hence introducing a new class of inference procedures into FDL reasoning.
Performance Evaluation of IPv6/IPv4 Deployment over Dedicated Data Links

The future IP networks are expected to use IPv6 rather than IPv4, because IPv6 has been designed to satisfy the future network quality of service (QoS) requirements and IPv6 network offers significant advantages over the current IPv4 network. It will take certain time to change from IPv4 to IPv6. Therefore, IPv4 and IPv6 will coexist during the transition period. In this research, we adopt the dual stack transition mechanism (dstm) to study network performance with four types of traffic sources: VoIP IPv4, Internet IPv4, FTP IPv6 and MPEG-4 IPv6 for both video and audio. The performance evaluation criteria are Bandwidth, Throughput, the percentage of Dropped Packet, and mean end-to-end delay of each traffic flow for both IPv4 and IPv6. All the simulations are performed by using the network simulator 2 (ns-2). The simulation results show that, when the traffic density of IPv6 session increases, the bandwidth of IPv6 session increases at the expense of the decrement of the bandwidth of IPv4 session. On the other hand, the increment of the traffic density of IPv4 session does not increase its bandwidth due to its lower priority. In addition, the increment of packet size of IPv6 traffic results in the increment a little bit of the Mean End-to-End Delay. However, this is not the case for IPv4 traffic
Adaptive Information Security in Body Sensor-Actuator Networks

A Body Sensor Actuator Network (BSAN) consists of a set of sensing and actuating devices deployed on a person (user) typically for health management purposes. Securing the information exchanged within a BSAN from unauthorized tampering is essential to ensure that such systems are safe, and thus do no harm, to the people using them. Current solutions for enabling information security in BSANs impose considerable overhead on the nodes. In order to make security viable in BSANs, one needs to move away from this one-size-fits-all solution and take a more adaptive approach where the level of security provided matches the level of threat present. In this regard, we present an adaptive information security scheme for BSANs that uses honeypots to measure the current threat context, by interacting with the adversaries trying to undermine user safety. The measurements made by the honeypot can then be used to determine the appropriate balance for the tradeoff between the level of security and associated overhead at any given time. This paper provides an overview of our approach and the associated research challenges in successfully implementing it.
Consensus of double-integrator discrete-time multi-agent system based on second-order neighbors' information

The consensus of double-integrator discrete-time multi-agent system is studied based on the second-order neighbors' information in this paper. The comparison between the convergence rate of second-order neighbor protocol and the one of general protocol is analyzed. Considering there exists delay in communication, the consensus condition of double-integrator discrete-time multi-agent system with delay is derived by using LMI. Numerical examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.
CD99 Drives Terminal Differentiation of Osteosarcoma Cells by Acting as a Spatial Regulator of ERK 1/2

Differentiation therapy is an attractive treatment for osteosarcoma (OS). CD99 is a cell surface molecule expressed in mesenchymal stem cells and osteoblasts that is maintained during osteoblast differentiation while lost in OS. Herein, we show that whenever OS cells regain CD99, they become prone to reactivate the terminal differentiation program. In differentiating conditions, CD99‐transfected OS cells express osteocyte markers, halt proliferation, and largely die by apoptosis, resembling the fate of mature osteoblasts. CD99 induces ERK activation, increasing its membrane‐bound/cytoplasmic form rather than affecting its nuclear localization. Through cytoplasmic ERK, CD99 promotes activity of the main osteogenic transcriptional factors AP1 and RUNX2, which in turn enhance osteocalcin and p21WAF1/CIP1, leading to G0/G1 arrest. These data underscore the alternative positions of active ERK into distinct subcellular compartments as key events for determining OS fate. © 2014 The Authors. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.
Financial Reporting and Conflicting Managerial Incentives: The Case of Management Buyouts

We analyze the effect of external financing concerns on managers' financial reporting behavior prior to management buyouts (MBOs). Prior studies hypothesize that managers intending to undertake an MBO have an incentive to manage earnings downward to reduce the purchase price. We hypothesize that managers also face a conflicting reporting incentive associated with their efforts to obtain external financing for the MBO and to lower their financing cost. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find that managers who rely the most on external funds to finance their MBOs tend to report less negative abnormal accrual prior to the MBOs. In addition, the relation between external financing and abnormal accruals is tempered when there are more fixed assets that can serve as collateral for debt financing.
Maximum Throughput Gain of Compute-and-Forward for Multiple Unicast

Compute-and-Forward (CF), also known as reliable physical layer network coding, is a technique that provides the possibility of exploiting the features of broadcast and superposition in wireless networks. It has been shown that the throughput for multiple unicast traffic can be significantly boosted by CF. In this letter, the limit of such improvement is investigated by comparing the performance of CF with the traditional routing-based transmission schemes. For networks characterized by local interference and half-duplex constraints, it is proven that the throughput gain of CF over traditional routing, expressed by an improvement factor, is upper bounded by 3K, where K is the number of unicast sessions. Furthermore, a class of networks is presented for which an improvement by a factor of K/2 is feasible by applying CF. Hence, the throughput gain of CF is at most on the order of K for any network, and a gain in that order is indeed achievable for some networks.
Semiotics and Sport Communication Research: Theoretical and Methodological Considerations

This article offers a discussion on the application of semiotics to sport and communication studies. It considers the theoretical orientations of semiotics and the key analytical foci to which semiotic research pays attention. Initially, this article reviews a linguistic theory of structuralism and poststructuralism. It also contemplates three paired concepts within the semiotic discipline that are particularly relevant to sport communication research. These include (1) the notion of denotation and connotation, (2) metaphoric and metonymic signs, and (3) syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations. This article also considers Derrida’s notions of différance and deconstruction. In addition, this article presents a case study of analysing the content of the Procter and Gamble Company’s marketing communication campaign associated with the Olympics in order to show how the conceptual tools of semiotics can be used for sport and communication studies. This case study indicates that the Olympic sponsor’s commercial messages naturalise the gender order underpinned by the notion of hegemonic masculinity. This work concludes that while semiotics is, by no means, a research tool without limitations, it can be a useful interpretative method for analysing meaning-making processes in sport communication and for identifying underlying ideological assumptions embedded in sport as a cultural text.
Exploiting universal redundancy

Fault tolerance is essential for building reliable services; however, it comes at the price of redundancy, mainly the “replication factor” and “diversity”. With the increasing reliance on Internet-based services, more machines (mainly servers) are needed to scale out, multiplied with the extra expense of replication. This paper revisits the very fundamentals of fault tolerance and presents “artificial redundancy”: a formal generalization of “exact copy” redundancy in which new sources of redundancy are exploited to build fault tolerant systems. On this concept, we show how to build “artificial replication” and design “artificial fault tolerance” (AFT). We discuss the properties of these new techniques showing that AFT extends current fault tolerant approaches to use other forms of redundancy aiming at reduced cost and high diversity.
Time-Dependent Failure of GaN-on-Si Power HEMTs With p-GaN Gate

This paper reports an experimental demonstration of the time-dependent failure of GaN-on-Si power high-electron-mobility transistors with p-GaN gate, submitted to a forward gate stress. By means of combined dc, optical analysis, and 2-D simulations, we demonstrate the following original results: 1) when submitted to a positive voltage stress (in the range of 7-9 V), the transistors show a time-dependent failure, which leads to a sudden increase in the gate current; 2) the time-to-failure (TTF) is exponentially dependent on the stress voltage and Weibull-distributed; 3) the TTF depends on the initial gate leakage current, i.e., on the initial defectiveness of the devices; 4) during/after stress, the devices show a localized luminescence signal (hot spots); the spectral investigation mainly reveals a peak corresponding to yellow luminescence and a broadband related to bremsstrahlung radiation; and 5) 2-D simulations were carried out to clarify the origin of the degradation process. The results support the hypothesis that the electric field in the AlGaN has a negligible impact on the device failure; on the contrary, the electric field in the SiN and in the p-GaN gate can play an important role in favoring the failure, which is possibly due to a defect generation/percolation process.
Phylogenetics of the Antillean Goetzeoideae (Solanaceae) and Their Relationships within the Solanaceae based on Chloroplast and ITS DNA Sequence Data

Abstract Coeloneurum, Espadaea, Henoonia, and Goetzea are shrubs and trees that are endemic to the islands of Cuba, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico in the Greater Antilles. A phylogenetic analysis was conducted to elucidate the evolutionary relationships among them and with other major lineages of the Solanaceae. DNA sequences of the chloroplast genes ndhF, rbcL, and trnL-trnF intron and intergenic spacer were obtained for twenty two taxa and sequences of the nuclear rDNA ITS region were obtained for eight taxa comprising a data set of over 5,000 bp. The inferred phylogeny groups the Antillean genera together with the South American Metternichia and Duckeodendron in a clade within the Solanaceae, pointing to a broader circumscription of the Goetzeoideae. Both chloroplast and nuclear datasets find the following relationships among the Antillean taxa: (Coeloneurum (Henoonia (Espadaea, Goetzea))). The South American genera Metternichia and Duckeodendron are the first and second sister groups, respectively, to the Antillean genera. The close relationship of Metternichia to the Antillean genera also is supported by pollen morphology. Phylogenetic inference suggests that the Antillean taxa first occuppied xeric environments and evolved into more mesic habitats. Floral characteristics indicate evolution of pollination systems from nocturnal, insect-pollination in Duckeodendron and Metternichia to diurnal, bird-pollination in the Antillean genera. Duckeodendron and the Antillean genera produce drupes, but their contrasting morphology and anatomy suggest that these fruit types originated from separate evolutionary events.
The agency of dead musicians

A long-standing theme in the sociology of the arts is the sacralisation of art in modern society, but an underexplored aspect of this process is how death shapes artistic creation and appreciation. This paper approaches this issue through an examination of the cult of the dead composer in classical music. After considering the cultural logic and effect of musical sainthood, I discuss how composers are venerated; commemorative rites, such as anniversary programming, provide a phenomenological connection between the living and the dead, while physical remains and relic-like objects carry messages from beyond the grave that can be usurped or amplified by political projects. By comparing the fetishisation of the dead diva with the composer cult, I explain why performers who continue to be admired posthumously still do not achieve the same exalted status as composers.
Characterising the 'Txt2Stop' Smoking Cessation Text Messaging Intervention in Terms of Behaviour Change Techniques

The ‘Txt2Stop’ SMS messaging programme has been found to double smokers’ chances of stopping. It is important to characterise the content of this information in terms of specific behaviour change techniques (BCTs) for the purpose of future development. This study aimed to (i) extend a proven system for coding BCTs to text messaging and (ii) characterise Txt2Stop using this system. A taxonomy previously used to specify BCTs in face-to-face behavioural support for smoking cessation was adapted for the Txt2Stop messages and inter-rater reliability for the adapted system assessed. The system was then applied to all the messages in the Txt2Stop programme to determine its profile in terms of BCTs used. The text message taxonomy comprised 34 BCTs. Inter-rater reliability was moderate, reaching a ceiling of 61% for the core program messages with all discrepancies readily resolved. Of 899 texts delivering BCTs, 218 aimed to maintain motivation to remain abstinent, 870 to enhance self-regulatory capacity or skills, 39 to promote use of adjuvant behaviours such as using stop-smoking medication, 552 to maintain engagement with the intervention and 24 were general communication techniques. The content of Txt2Stop focuses on helping smokers with self-regulation and maintaining engagement with the intervention. The intervention focuses to a lesser extent on boosting motivation to remain abstinent; little attention is given to promoting effective use of adjuvant behaviours such as use of nicotine replacement therapy. As new interventions of this kind are developed it will be possible to compare their effectiveness and relate this to standardised descriptions of their content using this system.