Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Improving Service Management in Supply Chains

Business associates work in groups forming networks in order to satisfy customer requirements with best possible price-quality ratio. In order to achieve effective coupling between provided services and specialization of services coordination between partners is needed. Partners in supply chains have mutual agreements of the service level (SLA), which satisfies requirements of customers and service providers in the network. Our goal is to develop methods and tools for service-oriented software development emphasizing business aspects and quality of software structure. We design a service map for service workflow definitions, utilize service level agreement (SLA) based on ITIL, and clarify protocol requirements using distributed coordination in the SOA environment. We propose a service management pattern for business process negotiations in supply chains. Different service workflow structures are analyzed and their usability in different kind of supply chains is evaluated. We shortly validate our method with experimental results achieved in the service-oriented software engineering (SOSE)-project in co-operation with ICT companies and their customers in electricity and telecommunication domains in Finland
Parsing with Context Embeddings

We introduce context embeddings, dense vectors derived from a language model that represent the left/right context of a word instance, and demonstrate that context embeddings significantly improve the accuracy of our transition based parser. Our model consists of a bidirectional LSTM (BiLSTM) based language model that is pre-trained to predict words in plain text, and a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) decision model that uses features from the language model to predict the correct actions for an ArcHybrid transition based parser. We participated in the CoNLL 2017 UD Shared Task as the “Koç University” team and our system was ranked 7th out of 33 systems that parsed 81 treebanks in 49 languages.
Effect of Cucurbita ficifolia and Probiotic Yogurt Consumption on Blood Glucose, Lipid Profile, and Inflammatory Marker in Type 2 Diabetes

Background: Control of blood sugar, hypertension, and dyslipidemia are key factors in diabetes management. Cucurbita ficifolia (pumpkin) is a vegetable which has been used traditionally as a remedy for diabetes in Iran. In addition, consumption of probiotics may have beneficial effects on people with Type 2 diabetes. The aim of this study was an investigation of the effects of C. ficifolia and probiotic yogurt consumption alone or at the same time on blood glucose and serum lipids in diabetic patients. Methods: Eighty eligible participants randomly were assigned to four groups: 1 - green C. ficifolia (100 g); 2 - probiotic yogurt (150 g); 3 - C. ficifolia plus probiotic yogurt (100 g C. ficifolia plus 150 g yogurt); and 4 -control (dietary advice) for 8 weeks. Blood pressure, glycemic response, lipid profile, and high-sensitive C-reactive protein (hsCRP) were measured before and after the intervention. Results: Total cholesterol (TC) decreased significantly in yogurt and yogurt plus C. ficifolia groups (within groups P = 0.010, and P < 0.001, respectively). C. ficifolia plus yogurt consumption resulted in a decrease in triglyceride (TG) and an increase in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) (within groups P < 0.001 and P = 0.001, respectively). All interventions led to a significant decrease in blood sugar, hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), hsCRP, and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) level within groups. Blood pressure decreased significantly in Cucurbita group and yogurt group (within groups P < 0.001, and P = 0.001 for systolic blood pressure [SBP] and P < 0.001, and P = 0.004 for diastolic blood pressure [DBP], respectively). All variables changed between groups significantly except LDL-C level. Conclusions: Variables including TG, HDL-C, TC, fasting blood sugar, HbA1c, SBP, DBP, and hsCRP changed beneficially between groups. It seems that consumption of C. ficifolia and probiotic yogurt may help treatment of diabetic patients.
Phosphoregulation of mixed-lineage kinase 1 activity by multiple phosphorylation in the activation loop.

Mixed-lineage kinase 1 (MLK1) is a mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase kinase capable of activating the c-Jun NH(2)-terminal kinase (JNK) pathway. Full-length MLK1 has 1104 amino acids and a domain structure identical to MLK2 and MLK3. Immunoblot and mass spectrometry show that MLK1 is threonine (and possibly serine) phosphorylated in or near the activation loop. A kinase-dead mutant is not, consistent with autophosphorylation. Mutation to alanine of any of the four serine or threonine residues in the activation loop reduces both the activity of the recombinant kinase domain and JNK pathway activation driven by full-length MLK1 expressed in mammalian cells. Furthermore, the gel mobility of the mutant MLK1s is closer to that of the kinase-dead than wild type, consistent with reduced phosphorylation. Thr312 is the key residue: MLK1[T312A] retains only basal activity (about 1-2% of wild type), and its gel mobility is indistinguishable from kinase-dead. Thr312 does not suffice, however; phosphorylation of multiple sites is necessary for full activation of MLK1. An activation mechanism consistent with these data involves phosphorylation of multiple sites in the activation loop, with phosphorylation of Thr312 required for full phosphorylation. This mechanism is broadly similar to that previously reported for MLK3 [Leung, I. W. , and Lassam, N. (2001) J. Biol. Chem. 276, 1961-1967], but the key residue differs.
Simulation study of susceptibility gradients leading to focal myocardial signal loss

To assess the cause of a “bite”‐shaped signal void artifact often seen in 1.5 Tesla (T) and 3T gradient echo MR images in myocardium along the infero‐apical border of the heart, MRI simulation was used to conduct experiments impossible in reality. Two previous studies attempting to explain the origin of this artifact came to different conclusions. One suggested deoxygenated blood in the posterior vein of the left ventricle (PVLV) leads to a susceptibility gradient that causes the artifact. The other suggested the difference in susceptibility between lung tissue and myocardium was responsible. This study assessed the relative effect of each possible cause.
Direct binding of TReP‐132 with TdT results in reduction of TdT activity

N regions at the junction of V, D and J DNA segments are synthesized with large protein complexes including terminal deoxynucleotidyltransferase (TdT) during V(D)J recombination in B‐ or T‐cells. TdT directly binds to TdIF1, TdIF2, PCNA and the Ku70/86 heterodimer. Using a yeast two‐hybrid system, we isolated a cDNA clone encoding the gene for TReP‐132, which is involved in P450scc gene expression in steroid‐hormone‐producing cells or lymphoid cells. Interaction between TReP‐132 and TdIF1 was confirmed by pull‐down assay and immunoprecipitation assay using specific antibodies against TReP‐132 both in vitro and in vivo. TdT also directly bound to TReP‐132 through its confined N‐terminal region. Furthermore, the co‐expression of TdIF1 and TReP‐132 or TdT and TReP‐132 in COS7 cells showed that these proteins are co‐localized within the nucleus. TReP‐132 reduces TdT activity to 2.5% of its maximum value in the in vitro assay system using double‐stranded DNA with a 3′ protrusion as a primer. These findings suggest that TdT synthesizes N region under a negative control of TReP‐132 during V(D)J recombination.
Japan's Decision for War in 1941

The last few years have witnessed in Japan the appearance of "Revisionists" who tend to reappraise the meaning of the Pacific War and to reinterpret Japan's responsibility for Pearl Harbor By the "Revrslonlsts " I mean the crrtrcs and hlstonans who in their view of the Pacific War have challenged the "Orthodox" school whose interpretations of the war are basically in line with the decisions of the Tokyo Trial or are based upon the Marxist theory of imperialism. The "Revisionists" have been characterized by their attempts to vindicate Japan's cause in World War II, and by their belief in the inevitability of an armed clash between Japan and the United States. Hayashi Fusao, a famous writer, is one of the best known "Revisionists," having publicized his views in a book entitled Arguments for Justifying the Pactfic War (DaitOa Sens~ Kotei Ron). His argument is that Japan went to war "for the defense of Asia," countering the U S policy of a "White Pacafic " In this connection I may add that the minority dissent of Indian Judge Pal at the Tokyo Trial has also been reassessed by several Japanese schoiars I assume that this recent spurt of "Revisionism" may be explained by the revelations of recently discovered documents as well as by the new tide of nationalism. While not accepting the interpretation of the "Orthodox" school, I would not entirely subscnbe to the "Revrsronrst" school either. I am not inclined toward vindicating Japan's cause in the last war; rather I have a feeling of our responsibility for it. Further, I am deeply convinced that we made a grave mistake in going to war with the U.S., and I feei sorry for its having caused unprecedented sacrifice on the part of many people in many places. Nevertheless, at the same time I am of the opinion that the conclusion arrived at by the Tokyo Military Tribunal, when assesseed by an objective historian twenty years after the Trial, was based on false information and on an incorrect theory. The Tokyo Trial, adopting the general theory of conspiracy, assumed that the Japanese leaders had worked together toward expansion into Southeast Asia, carrying out an expansion program formulated in 1936 and had been well prepared for an armed clash with the U.S. in due course. This interpretation represents a most rational view of the road to Pearl Harbor. Although the theory of conspiracy is not likely to attract much support from schoiars at the present time, there still seems to be a tendency on the part of Western scholars to interpret the process of Japan's decision for war rationally, perhaps projecting the Western model of the decision'making process and Western conceptions of rational behavior. For example, Prof. Louis Morton, asserts in his essay, "Japan's Decision for War", Colmnand
American Thyroid Association Management Guidelines for Adult Patients with Thyroid Nodules and Differentiated Thyroid Cancer : The American Thyroid Association Guidelines Task Force on Thyroid Nodules and Differentiated Thyroid Cancer

INTRODUCTION: Thyroid nodules (TNs) are a common pathology. Their prevalence increases with age. Some of them are suspected of malignancy and qualified for surgery. Sometimes their malignant nature is detected incidentally after a surgical procedure. The aim of the study is to analyze clinical and histopathological characteristics of patients with incidental and nonincidental thyroid carcinoma (ITC vs. NITC). MATERIAL AND METHODS: The case records of 3,241 patients with solitary and multiple TNs who were treated consecutively between 2008 and 2014 were analyzed retrospectively. After the final selection 235 (7.25%) patients were included in the study (202 females and 33 males, mean age: 52.9 +16.5 years). Seventy-five (31.91%) cases were incidentally diagnosed and 160 (68.09%) were diagnosed before surgery.
Effects of Diurnal Variation in Plasma Corticosterone Levels on Adrenocortical Response to Stress.∗

Summary Adult female rats were subjected to 3-minute ether or immobilization stress during the trough (08:30) or peak (16:30) of the circadian rhythm in adrenocortical function. Two samples of peripheral plasma were obtained from each rat for fluorometric determination of corticosterone concentrations; the first was collected in less than 3 minutes and the second at 15 minutes following initiation of stress. Adrenals were also collected 15 minutes after stress for determination of corticosterone levels. Corticosterone concentrations in the first or “non-stress” plasma samples collected in the afternoon were 2-3 times higher than those obtained in the morning. Nevertheless, stress-induced increments in steroid levels did not differ significantly at the two times of day. Although adrenal concentrations of corticosterone 15 minutes following onset of stress in the morning were similar to those following stress in the afternoon, the changes observed in plasma suggest that acute pituitary-adrenal responses to the types of stress used are not altered by marked diurnal variation in plasma corticosterone levels.
Mechanistic Peptidomics: Factors That Dictate Specificity in the Formation of Endogenous Peptides in Human Milk*

An extensive mass spectrometry analysis of the human milk peptidome has revealed almost 700 endogenous peptides from 30 different proteins. Two in-house computational tools were created and used to visualize and interpret the data through both alignment of the peptide quasi-molecular ion intensities and estimation of the differential enzyme participation. These results reveal that the endogenous proteolytic activity in the mammary gland is remarkably specific and well conserved. Certain proteins—not necessarily the most abundant ones—are digested by the proteases present in milk, yielding endogenous peptides from selected regions. Our results strongly suggest that factors such as the presence of specific proteases, the position and concentration of cleavage sites, and, more important, the intrinsic disorder of segments of the protein drive this proteolytic specificity in the mammary gland. As a consequence of this selective hydrolysis, proteins that typically need to be cleaved at specific positions in order to exert their activity are properly digested, and bioactive peptides encoded in certain protein sequences are released. Proteins that must remain intact in order to maintain their activity in the mammary gland or in the neonatal gastrointestinal tract are unaffected by the hydrolytic environment present in milk. These results provide insight into the intrinsic structural mechanisms that facilitate the selectivity of the endogenous milk protease activity and might be useful to those studying the peptidomes of other biofluids.
Biomechanical Efficacy of Collagen Crosslinking in Porcine Cornea Using a Femtosecond Laser Pocket

Purpose: The aim of this study was to assess the biomechanical efficacy of transepithelial collagen crosslinking using the femtosecond laser pocket technique compared with that using the standard crosslinking (CXL) technique. Methods: Forty ex vivo porcine eyes were divided into 4 groups with 10 samples each. Group 1 comprised the untreated controls. Group 2 was the standard CXL group with debridement, instillation of 0.1% riboflavin–dextran solution for 15 minutes before and every 5 minutes during the 30 minutes of irradiation with ultraviolet A (UVA) light of 370 nm and an irradiance of 3 mW/cm². Group 3 pertained to the femtolaser pocket control with an intrastromal pocket but without riboflavin/UVA. Group 4 was the femtolaser pocket CXL group with an intrastromal pocket of an 8-mm diameter at a 180-&mgr;m depth, riboflavin/dextran application for 15 minutes and subsequent exposure to UVA light for 30 minutes. Postoperatively, biomechanical stress–strain measurements were performed. Results: In the standard CXL group, the stress at 10% strain was 207.8 ± 64.1 × 103 Pa (+79.45% vs. controls; P = 0.021) compared with 115.8 ± 20.8 × 103 Pa in the untreated control group; in the crosslinked femtolaser pocket group, it was 159.5 ± 30.4 × 103 Pa (+37.74%; P = 0.049), in the non–cross-linked femtolaser pocket group, it was 103.5 ± 17.3 × 103 Pa (−10.62%; P = 0.103). The Young modulus was 5.4 MPa (+100% vs. controls) in the standard CXL group, 3.7 MPa (+37.04%) in the crosslinked femtolaser pocket group, and 2.4 MPa (−11.12%) in the non–cross-linked femtolaser pocket group compared with 2.7 MPa in the untreated control group. Conclusions: The biomechanical effect of CXL using the femtolaser pocket technique is about 50% less pronounced than that after standard CXL. Future studies will show whether the efficacy of the technique can still be improved and whether the clinical effect is sufficient for stabilizing ectatic corneas.
Bangla grammar pattern recognition using shift reduce parser

Parser plays a very important role in computational linguistics. In this paper, here we describe a parsing technique for Bangla grammar recognition. The parser is, by nature, a shift reduce parser and constructs a parse table based on LR strategy. It takes the Context Free Grammar (CFG) of the Bangla language as input and constructs parser table from the grammar. The parse table is visited on bottom-up approach. This parser is free from the problem of the left factoring and left recursion. To avoid the inflection (BIVOKTI) of Bangla we describe a new approach. Hence only the main form of the Bangla word is stored in the repository. Our experiment shows that the scheme can detect all forms of Bangla sentences even for nontraditional forms.
A Truthful Bilateral Multiunit Auction for Heterogeneous Cognitive Radio Networks

Dynamic spectrum access technology has attracted much attention for its capability of improving spectrum efficiency. For attracting primary users to participate in secondary spectrum market, an auction was proposed as an alternative for spectrum trade. Existing auction schemes are either to be unilateral trade which only supports heterogeneous cognitive radio networks without guarantee of bid truthfulness, or to be truthful single-unit auction which only supports homogeneous channels. Few of them could comprehensively take all aspects of actual spectrum trade into consideration, such as spectrum allocation and reusability, channel diversity, and economic property. A truthful bilateral multiunit auction scheme which has characteristics of supporting heterogeneous networks (TBMAH) and polynomial complexity is proposed in this paper. We do experiments with both simulation and real networks, and the results show that TBMAH trades more spectrum resources than TRUST by 13.01% on average.
Singularity Loci of a Special Class of Spherical Three-degree-of-freedom Parallel Mechanisms with Revolute Actuators

In this paper, we study the singularity loci of a special class of spherical three-degree-of-freedom parallel manipulators. The concise analytical expressions describing the singularity loci are obtained in the joint and in the Cartesian spaces by using the direct and inverse kinematic solutions of these manipulators, respectively. As mentioned elsewhere, there are three different types of singularities for parallel manipulators, each having a different physical interpretation. These types are considered and it is shown that, for the manipulators considered here, the three types of singularities coincide. Moreover, for the two types of manipulators studied here, there are only four singular configurations in the Cartesian space. In addition, the three-dimensional graphical representations of the singularity loci in the joint and in the Cartesian spaces are illustrated. The description of the singular configurations provided here has great significance for robot trajectory planning and control.
High breakdown voltage vertical GaN p-n junction diodes using guard ring structures

New guard ring structures were adopted to increase the breakdown voltages of the vertical GaN p-n diodes. With this structure, a voltage drop occurs in the guard ring portions by inserting resistance devices between the guard ring portions and the main p-n diode portions, and it is possible to attain higher breakdown voltages by the voltage drop at the most sensitive outer region of the diodes. By adopting this structure, the breakdown voltages of about 200 V has been improved compared with the normal circular p-n diodes.
On Soft Error Reliability of Virtualization Infrastructure

Hardware errors are no longer exceptions in modern cloud data centers. Although virtualization provides software failure isolation among different virtual machines (VM), the virtualization infrastructure including the hypervisor and privileged VMs remains vulnerable to hardware errors. What makes matters worse is that such errors are unlikely bounded by the virtualization boundary and may lead to loss of work in multiple guest VMs due to unexpected and/or mishandled failures. To understand reliability implication of hardware errors in virtualized systems, in this paper we develop a simulation-based framework that enables a comprehensive fault injection study on the hypervisor with a wide range of configurations. Our analysis shows that, in current systems, many hardware errors can propagate through various paths for an extended time before an observed failure (e.g., whole system crash). We further discuss the challenges of designing error tolerance techniques for the hypervisor.
Contrast adaptation in striate cortical neurons of the nocturnal primate bush baby (Galago crassicaudatus)

Abstract It has been argued that in order for the visual system to detect edges accurately under a range of conditions, the visual system needs to adapt to the local contrast level to preserve sensitivity (Blakemore & Campbell, 1969). Cells in the primary visual cortex of cats adapt to stimuli with low to moderate contrast. Curiously, macaque monkey neurons in primary visual cortex (V1) do not show evidence for similar adaptation. To address the question of whether this differential sensitivity in contrast adaptation might be due to phylogenetic variation between cats and primates or to specializations for visual niche (e.g. nocturnal vs. diurnal), contrast adaptation to temporally and spatially optimized gratings was examined in 30 V1 cells of three nocturnal primate bush babies (Galago crassicaudatus). A second objective was to examine the relationship between the degree of contrast adaptation and cell classification or cell location relative to cortical layers or compartments [i.e. cytochrome-oxidase (CO) blobs and interblobs]. All cells were classified (simple vs. complex) and anatomically localized relative to cortical layers and cytochrome-oxidase (CO) blob and interblob compartments. Two independent measures of contrast adaptation were used. In the first test, contrast was sequentially increased from 3–56% and then decreased. The contrast required to maintain a half-maximum response amplitude in the 30 cells tested increased an average of 0.24 (±0.12) log units during the sequential decrements in contrast. For the second test, four sets of five interleaved contrasts within ±1 octave of a central adapting contrast (10%, 14%, 20%, and 28%, respectively) were presented. The cells produced a mean adaptation index of 0.57 (±0.47) which is very similar to that exhibited by cat cortical neurons (0.54 ± 0.41). Interestingly, cells in interblobs showed a trend toward greater adaptation than did blob cells. Moreover, cells in the supragranular layers exhibited greater adaptation than cells in the infragranular layers. No significant differences in adaptation were found to correlate with other cell classification indices. Taken together, our results suggest that contrast adaptation may be more important for maintaining sensitivity in nocturnal species (primates or cats) than in diurnal species (macaque monkeys), and that in the nocturnal bush baby, cells in cortical layers and compartments may be differentially specialized for contrast adaptation.