Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Site selection for real-time client request handling

In a conventional client-server database system (CS-DBS), a transaction and its requisite data have to be colocated at a single site for the operation to proceed. This has traditionally been achieved by moving either the data or the transaction. Today, the availability of powerful workstations and high-bandwidth networking options has led users to expect real-time guarantees about the completion times of their tasks. So as to offer such guarantees in a CS-DBS, a transaction should be processed by any means that allows it to meet its deadline. In this paper we explore the option of moving both transactions and data to the most promising sites for successful completion. We propose a load-sharing mechanism that oversees the shipment of data and transactions in order to increase the efficiency of a client-server cluster. Additionally, we make use of the concept of grouped locks to schedule the movement of data objects in the cluster in a more efficient manner. An experimental evaluation shows that the use of our load-sharing algorithm provides a considerable improvement in the real-time processing efficiency of a CS-DBS even in the presence of very high volumes of update transactions.
Adiponectin independently predicts metabolic syndrome in overweight Latino youth.

CONTEXT Adiponectin may be important in the pathogenesis of insulin resistance and the metabolic syndrome in youth. OBJECTIVE The objective of the study was to determine the unique effect of adiponectin on the metabolic syndrome in overweight Latino youth. PARTICIPANTS Participants included 175 overweight children (aged 11.1 +/- 1.7 yr, body mass index percentile 97.3 +/- 2.9) with a family history of type 2 diabetes. METHODS Metabolic syndrome was defined according to a pediatric adaptation of the Adult Treatment Panel III report and included dyslipidemia, abdominal obesity, elevated blood pressure, and prediabetes (impaired fasting glucose or impaired glucose tolerance from a 2-h oral glucose tolerance test). Body composition was estimated via dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry, insulin sensitivity was quantified by the frequently sampled iv glucose tolerance test, visceral fat was measured using magnetic resonance imaging, and adiponectin was determined in fasting serum. RESULTS In simple linear regression, adiponectin was significantly and inversely related to systolic blood pressure (P < 0.05), waist circumference (P < 0.001), triglycerides (P < 0.001), and 2-h glucose levels (P < 0.05) and positively related to high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (P < 0.001). In multiple linear regression, adiponectin was significantly related to triglycerides (P < 0.01) and high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (P < 0.01) independent of age, gender, Tanner stage, body composition, and insulin sensitivity. Analyses of covariance established that adiponectin levels were approximately 25% higher in healthy overweight youth, compared with those with the metabolic syndrome (12.5 +/- 3.5 vs. 9.4 +/- 2.8 microg/ml; P < 0.05). In multiple logistic regression, adiponectin was a significant independent predictor of the metabolic syndrome, even after adjustment for confounders including insulin sensitivity and visceral fat. CONCLUSIONS Hypoadiponectinemia is an independent biomarker of the metabolic syndrome, and thus, adiponectin may play a role in the pathophysiology of the disorder in overweight youth.
Psychometric Evaluation of the Dutch Version of the Assessment of Preschool Children's Participation (APCP): Construct Validity and Test–Retest Reliability

ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to examine construct validity, internal consistency, and test–retest reliability of the Dutch translation of the Assessment of Preschool Children's Participation (APCP) a participation measure for children aged 2 to 5 years and 11 months with and without physical disabilities. Parents of 126 preschool children participated. Sixty-seven of the children had no physical disabilities (mean age three years two months, SD 1.2) and 59 children had physical disabilities (mean age two years nine months, SD 1.8). Validity was tested using three hypotheses regarding having a physical disability, gender and age differences. Most, but not all hypotheses were confirmed. Children with a physical disability participated in fewer activities and with lower intensity than children without physical disabilities (p < .001). Boys and girls participated in an equally wide variety of activities and with similar intensity except for skill development. Four- to five-year-old children in general participated in more activities than two- to three-year-old children and had a higher intensity score (p < .001). For activity types, age differences were found for skill development (p < .001) and social activities (p < .001). Internal consistency was sufficient for four out of 10 activity types. Intra Class Correlations for test–retest reliability ranged from 63 to . 91. Our findings indicate that the Dutch APCP shows sufficient psychometric properties for some but not all aspects of the measure.
A Column Generation Approach to Radiation Therapy Treatment Planning Using Aperture Modulation

This paper considers the problem of radiation therapy treatment planning for cancer patients. During radiation therapy, beams of radiation pass through a patient. This radiation kills both cancerous and normal cells, so the radiation therapy must be carefully planned to deliver a clinically prescribed dose to certain targets while sparing nearby organs and tissues. Currently, a technique called intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) is considered to be the most effective radiation therapy for many forms of cancer. In IMRT, the patient is irradiated from several different directions. From each direction, one or more irregularly shaped radiation beams of uniform intensity are used to deliver the treatment. This paper deals with the problem of designing a treatment plan for IMRT that determines an optimal set of such shapes (called apertures) and their corresponding intensities. This is in contrast with established two-stage approaches where, in the first phase, each radiation beam is viewed as consisting of a set of individual beamlets, each with its own intensity. A second phase is then needed to approximate and decompose the optimal intensity profile into a set of apertures with corresponding intensities. The problem is formulated as a large-scale convex programming problem, and a column generation approach to deal with its dimensionality is developed. The associated pricing problem determines, in each iteration, one or more apertures to be added to our problem. Several variants of this pricing problem are discussed, each corresponding to a particular set of constraints that the apertures must satisfy in one or more of the currently available types of commercial IMRT equipment. Polynomial-time algorithms are presented for solving each of these variants of the pricing problem to optimality. Finally, the effectiveness of our approach is demonstrated on clinical data.
Joint unsupervised structure discovery and information extraction

In this paper we present JUDIE (Joint Unsupervised Structure Discovery and Information Extraction), a new method for automatically extracting semi-structured data records in the form of continuous text (e.g., bibliographic citations, postal addresses, classified ads, etc.) and having no explicit delimiters between them. While in state-of-the-art Information Extraction methods the structure of the data records is manually supplied the by user as a training step, JUDIE is capable of detecting the structure of each individual record being extracted without any user assistance. This is accomplished by a novel Structure Discovery algorithm that, given a sequence of labels representing attributes assigned to potential values, groups these labels into individual records by looking for frequent patterns of label repetitions among the given sequence. We also show how to integrate this algorithm in the information extraction process by means of successive refinement steps that alternate information extraction and structure discovery. Through an extensively experimental evaluation with different datasets in distinct domains, we compare JUDIE with state-of-the-art information extraction methods and conclude that, even without any user intervention, it is able to achieve high quality results on the tasks of discovering the structure of the records and extracting information from them.
Mental Load and Its Compensation by Physical Activity in Adolescents at Secondary Schools.

AIM Sedentary behaviour and increasing mental load in adolescents is one of the major health problems of the contemporary youth. The aim of the study is to analyze the associations between mental load and physical activity (PA) in adolescents in school-day segments. METHODS 381 adolescents (120 boys, 261 girls) took part in the research which was conducted in 19 secondary schools in the Czech Republic. Participants throughout the whole day (1-3 days) wore an ActiTrainer accelerometer that monitors PA and heart rate (HR). The reports covered 727 school days. The participants were divided into two groups with lower and higher mental load. RESULTS Boys and girls with higher mental load in lessons do not compensate this load in neither volume nor intensity of PA during recess in greater amount than those who had lower mental load. In the individual school-day segments (apart from the time before school) no significant differences between the groups were found. CONCLUSION When creating a habit of immediate compensation for mental load in lessons by PA, it is necessary to pay attention to boys and girls with higher mental load in lessons. The adoption of the habit should be supported by adequate physical literacy of both students and teachers and by changes in the school programme.
Ciprofloxacin Decreases Collagen in Mouse Tympanic Membrane Fibroblasts

Objectives To determine how collagen production by tympanic membrane fibroblasts is affected by ciprofloxacin at levels found in eardrops. Study Design Prospective, controlled, and blinded cell culture study. Setting Academic tertiary medical center. Subjects Cell culture of mouse fibroblasts. Methods A primary fibroblast culture was established from mouse tympanic membranes. Fibroblasts were cultured until they were 75% confluent, then treated with dilute hydrochloric acid (control) or ciprofloxacin (0.01% or 0.3%) for 24 or 72 hours for Western blotting and for 24 or 48 hours for cytotoxicity assay. Cells were observed with phase-contrast microscope. Western blotting was performed for collagen type 1 α1 (collagen 1A1) and α-tubulin. Results Fibroblasts treated with 0.01% and 0.3% ciprofloxacin for 24 hours had lower levels of collagen 1A1 (P = .0005 and P < .0001, respectively) and α-tubulin (both P < .0001) than control fibroblasts. Collagen 1A1 and α-tubulin levels were lower in fibroblasts treated with 0.3% than with 0.01% ciprofloxacin (P = .02 and P = .014). After 72 hours, 0.3% ciprofloxacin completely eliminated collagen 1A1 and α-tubulin (P < .001). Cells treated with 0.01% ciprofloxacin for 72 hours also had lower collagen 1A1 (P < .0001) and α-tubulin (P = .005) as compared with the control. Seventy-two-hour incubation in 0.01% or 0.3% ciprofloxacin resulted in lower levels of collagen 1A1 (P = .009 and P < .0001, respectively) and α-tubulin (P = .007 and P < .0001, respectively) than 24-hour incubation. Cytotoxicity assay and phase-contrast microscopy mirrored these findings. Conclusions Treatment of tympanic membrane fibroblasts with 0.3% ciprofloxacin, as found in eardrops, reduces fibroblast viability and collagen and α-tubulin protein levels. These findings could explain tympanic membrane healing problems associated with quinolone eardrops.
Performance Analysis of MQAM-OFDM Based WLAN in Presence of Zigbee Interference in AWGN and Rayleigh Fading Channel

In this paper we give the performance of MQAM OFDM based WLAN in presence of single and multiple channels Zigbee interference. An analytical model for getting symbol error rate (SER) in presence of single and multiple channel Zigbee interference in AWGN and Rayleigh fading channel for MQAM OFDM system is given. Simulation results are compared with analytical symbol error rate (SER) of the MQAM-OFDM system. For analysis we have modeled the Zigbee interference using the power spectral density (PSD) of OQPSK modulation and finding the average interference power for each sub-carrier of the OFDM system. Then we have averaged the SER over all WLAN sub-carriers. Simulations closely match with the analytical models. It is seen from simulation and analytical results that performance of WLAN is severely affected by Zigbee interference. Symbol error rate (SER) for 16QAM and 64QAM OFDM system is of order of 10-2 for SIR (signal to interference ratio) of 20dB and 30dB respectively in presence of single Zigbee interferer inside the WLAN frequency band for Rayleigh fading channel. For SIR values more than 30dB and 40dB the SER approaches the SER without interference for 16QAM and 64QAM OFDM system respectively.
CD 36 : a class B scavenger receptor involved in angiogenesis , atherosclerosis , inflammation , and lipid metabolism

CD36, identified more than a quarter of a century ago as a platelet integral membrane glycoprotein (glycoprotein IV), was until recently best known as a receptor for thrombospondin-1 (TSP-1). TSP-1 is found in ECMs and platelet a granules, and it participates in cell attachment, motility, and proliferation, as well as in modulation of protease activity, TGF-b activation, neurite outgrowth, and angiogenesis (1). Initially, this receptor-ligand pair was shown to mediate interactions between platelets and monocytes, tumor cells, and matrix. Since then, CD36 has been implicated in multiple biological processes that define it as a multiligand scavenger receptor (see ref. 2 for review). These ligands appear remarkably diverse: In addition to TSP-1, they include long-chain fatty acids, modified LDL, retinal photoreceptor outer segments, Plasmodium falciparum malariaparasitized erythrocytes, sickle erythrocytes, anionic phospholipids, apoptotic cells, and collagens I and IV. The biology of CD36 can be broadly divided in terms of functions that it mediates with or without TSP-1, but it is probable that it acts in concert with other proteins, such as fatty acid–binding proteins, caveola-associated proteins, integrins, cytoskeletal proteins, and signaling molecules, to effect its diverse functions. Molecular properties CD36 belongs to the class B scavenger receptor family, which includes the receptor for selective cholesteryl ester uptake, scavenger receptor class B type I (SR-BI), and lysosomal integral membrane protein II (LIMP-II). [. ] Perspective
Cache Friendly Burrows-Wheeler Inversion

The Burrows-Wheeler transform permutes the symbols of a string such that the permuted string can be compressed effectively with fast, simple techniques. Inversion of the transform is a bottleneck in practice. Inversion takes linear time, but, for each symbol decoded, folklore says that a random access into the transformed string (and so a CPU cache-miss) is necessary. In this paper we show how to mitigate cache misses and so speed inversion. Our main idea is to modify the standard inversion algorithm to detect and record repeated sub strings in the original string as it is recovered. Subsequent occurrences of these repetitions are then copied in a cache friendly way from the already recovered portion of the string, short cutting a series of random accesses by the standard inversion algorithm. We show experimentally that this approach leads to faster runtimes in general, and can drastically reduce inversion time for highly repetitive data.
Collection Efficiencies of High Flow Rate Personal Respirable Samplers When Measuring Arizona Road Dust and Analysis of Quartz by X-ray Diffraction

Prolonged exposure to respirable crystalline silica (RCS) causes silicosis and is also considered a cause of cancer. To meet emerging needs for precise measurements of RCS, from shorter sampling periods (<4h) and lower air concentrations, collaborative work was done to assess the differences between personal respirable samplers at higher flow rates. The performance of FSP10, GK2.69, and CIP 10 R samplers were compared with that of the Safety In Mines Personal Dust Sampler (SIMPEDS) sampler as a reference, which is commonly used in the UK for the measurement of RCS. In addition, the performance of the FSP10 and GK 2.69 samplers were compared; at the nominal flow rates recommended by the manufacturers of 10 and 4.2 l · min−1 and with flow rates proposed by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of 11.2 and 4.4 l · min−1. Samplers were exposed to aerosols of ultrafine and medium grades of Arizona road dust (ARD) generated in a calm air chamber. All analyses for RCS in this study were performed at the Health and Safety Laboratory. The difference in flow rates for the GK2.69 is small and does not result in a substantial difference in collection efficiency for the dusts tested, while the performance of the FSP10 at 11.2 l · min−1 was more comparable with samples from the SIMPEDS. Conversely, the GK2.69 collected proportionately more crystalline silica in the respirable dust than other samplers, which then produced RCS results most comparable with the SIMPEDS. The CIP 10 R collected less ultrafine ARD than other samplers, as might be expected based on earlier performance evaluations. The higher flow rate for the FSP10 should be an added advantage for task-specific sampling or when measuring air concentrations less than current occupational exposure limits.
Automated laser-induced cell fusion based on microwell array

Engineering induced cell fusion is becoming a promising tool in novel therapeutic studies for treating various diseases. The majority of current in vitro cell fusion methods are based on random cell pairing with loose contact, which also needs large amounts of cells. In this paper, we present a robotically controlled laser-induced cell fusion approach based on the microwell array, which exhibits advantages of high selectivity and controllability. Optical tweezers and optical scissors are employed to achieve cell pairing and fusion, respectively. The specific cells are characterized and preselected with an on-chip isolation method prior to pairing. The paired cells are then transported, deposited, fused, and released at a predefined location with high spatiotemporal resolution. Experiments of fusion on individual pairs of human embryonic stem cells are performed to evaluate the performance of the proposed cell fusion tool.
Understanding the Occupational Issues Faced by Custodial Grandparents Endeavoring to Improve Scholastic Outcomes for Their Grandchildren

The Model of Human Occupation (MOHO) is an evidenced-based model of practice that occupational therapists employ to discuss and reflect on the occupational needs of clients. Custodial grandparents are one cohort of potential clients who experience considerable difficulty in adapting to the occupational challenges of their grandchild-rearing role, particularly in relation to schooling. Hence, this study aims to broaden current understanding of the volition, habituation, and performance processes that custodial grandparents work through in their daily drive to meet their grandchildren’s educational needs. Thematic analysis was conducted on 49 custodial grandparent interviews. Critical intervention points exist during the custodial care-giving role, at which juncture grandcarers experience feelings of stress overload and self-doubt. It is at these junctures that custodial grandparents would benefit from occupational therapy (OT), but such OT intervention is difficult to initiate among the hard-to-reach grandcarer age-cohort. To reach grandcarers and meet their occupational needs it is recommended that OTs conduct a family unit strengths, resources, and needs assessment for each student referred to them for age-inappropriate behavioral issues. In conducting a detailed family background assessment, grandcarers by extension can be reached and their occupational needs can be met.
A New Approach in CAD System for Designing Shoes

The flattening of digitized surfaces is still very important in design of thin walled objects such as the airplane wings, parts of car bodies, textile products, and shoe uppers. Especially in shoe industry, the ability of quick respond to changing market needs is essential for successful competition. To give needed flexibility to a shoe designer, special CAD/CAM systems have been developed. Those systems are based on algorithms for surface reconstruction and surface flattening. In this article a fast algorithm for surface reconstruction and surface flattening is presented. Developable stripes are used to approximate a surface. In this way the surface can be flattened fast and without any distortions.
Thiogranum longum gen. nov., sp. nov., an obligately chemolithoautotrophic, sulfur-oxidizing bacterium of the family Ectothiorhodospiraceae isolated from a deep-sea hydrothermal field, and an emended description of the genus Thiohalomonas.

A novel, obligately chemolithoautotrophic, sulfur-oxidizing bacterial strain, designated strain gps52(T), was isolated from a rock sample collected near the hydrothermal vents of the Suiyo Seamount in the Pacific Ocean. The cells possessed a Gram-stain-negative-type cell wall and contained menaquinone-8(H4) and menaquinone-9(H4) as respiratory quinones, and C16 : 1ω7c, C16 : 0 and C18 : 1ω7c as major cellular fatty acids. Neither storage compounds nor extensive internal membranes were observed in the cells. Strain gps52(T) grew using carbon dioxide fixation and oxidation of inorganic sulfur compounds with oxygen as electron acceptor. Optimal growth was observed at 32 °C, pH 6.5 and with 3 % (w/v) NaCl. Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that strain gps52(T) belongs to the family Ectothiorhodospiraceae and is different from any other known bacteria, with sequence similarities of less than 93 %. Based on phenotypic and phylogenetic findings, the isolate is considered to represent a novel genus and species in the family Ectothiorhodospiraceae, and the name Thiogranum longum gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is gps52(T) ( = NBRC 101260(T) = DSM 19610(T)). An emended description of the genus Thiohalomonas is also proposed.
Forecasting military expenditure

To what extent do frequently cited determinants of military spending allow us to predict and forecast future levels of expenditure? The authors draw on the data and specifications of a recent model on military expenditure and assess the predictive power of its variables using in-sample predictions, out-of-sample forecasts and Bayesian model averaging. To this end, this paper provides guidelines for prediction exercises in general using these three techniques. More substantially, however, the findings emphasize that previous levels of military spending as well as a country’s institutional and economic characteristics particularly improve our ability to predict future levels of investment in the military. Variables pertaining to the international security environment also matter, but seem less important. In addition, the results highlight that the updated model, which drops weak predictors, is not only more parsimonious, but also slightly more accurate than the original specification.