Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Integration of Sequential Process Adjustment and Process Monitoring Techniques

Detecting abnormal disturbances and correcting them through adjustment are essential functions of quality control. This paper discusses a general sequential adjustment procedure based on stochastic approximation techniques and combines it with a control chart for detection. It is assumed that step‐like shifts of unknown size occur in the process mean at unknown points of time. The performance of the proposed methods depends on the sensitivity of the control chart to detect shifts in the process mean, on the accuracy of the initial estimate of the shift size, and on the number of sequential adjustments that are made. It is shown that sequential adjustments are superior to single adjustment strategies for almost all types of process shifts and magnitudes considered. A CUSUM (cumulative sum) chart used in conjunction with our sequential adjustment approach can improve the average squared deviations, the performance index considered herein, more than any other combined scheme unless the shift size is very large. The proposed integrated approach is compared with always applying a standard integral or exponentially weighted moving average controller with no monitoring component. Combining control charts and sequential adjustments is recommended for monitoring and adjusting a process when random shocks occur infrequently in time. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Evaluation of a Rapid Fluorescent Staining Method for Detection of Mycobacteria in Clinical Specimens

ABSTRACT Rapid detection of mycobacterial disease is essential. Using multiple specimen types and concentrations of mycobacteria, we compared two commercial auramine O stains. The more rapid stain permitted consistent acid-fast bacillus quantitation and exhibited less debris staining, and the staining procedure required less time (∼2 min) to perform. These results suggest that the rapid stain may be more cost-effective and efficient for use in clinical laboratories.
Using remotely sensed data to identify areas at risk for hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.

The 1993 U.S. hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) outbreak was attributed to environmental conditions and increased rodent populations caused by unusual weather in 1991- 92. In a case-control study to test this hypothesis, we estimated precipitation at 28 HPS and 170 control sites during the springs of 1992 and 1993 and compared it with precipitation during the previous 6 years by using rainfall patterns at 196 weather stations. We also used elevation data and Landsat Thematic Mapper satellite imagery collected the year before the outbreak to estimate HPS risk by logistic regression analysis. Rainfall at case sites was not higher during 1992-93 than in previous years. However, elevation, as well as satellite data, showed association between environmental conditions and HPS risk the following year. Repeated analysis using satellite imagery from 1995 showed substantial decrease in medium- to high-risk areas. Only one case of HPS was identified in 1996.
Relative Contribution of Triglyceride‐Rich Lipoprotein Particle Size and Number to Plasma Triglyceride Concentration

These studies were undertaken to determine whether differences in plasma triglyceride concentrations reflected differences in the number or in the size of the triglyceride-rich lipoprotein particles in the circulation. A population of 122 men and women, composed of normotriglyceridemic individuals and individuals with endogenous hypertriglyceridemia (plasma triglyceride concentration from 60 mg/dl to 1400 mg/dl), was studied by one of four independent experimental procedures. Rates of triglyceride production and particle (as reflected by apolipoprotein B) production were simultaneously determined. The data suggest that 71% of any increase in triglyceride production was due to an increase in the production of particles, and only 29% was due to an increase in the amount of triglyceride carried per particle. Direct measurement of the triglyceride-rich lipoprotein particle size by electron microscopy demonstrated that for a fivefold difference in triglyceride borne by the Sf 12-400 lipoproteins (from 100 mg to 500 mg triglyceride/dl plasma), the mean particle size rose by only 29%. Hence, 71% of this difference was due to an increase in particle number. The same results were obtained when triglyceride levels were related to the number of triglyceride-rich lipoproteins in the plasma. The number of particles for these studies was either estimated from apo B concentration or by calculations based on the chemical composition of ultracentrifugal subtractions. These studies have used four different approaches to show that changes of plasma triglyceride concentration primarily reflected a change in the number, not the size, of triglyceride-rich lipoprotein particles. Our studies also demonstrated that 75% to 80% of the triglyceride-rich lipoproteins in both normotriglyceridemic and hypertriglyceridemic subjects were in the Sf 12-60 or intermediate density lipoprotein subfraction.
Hypothalamic leptin gene therapy prevents weight gain without long‐term detrimental effects on bone in growing and skeletally mature female rats

Hypothalamic leptin gene therapy normalizes the mosaic skeletal phenotype of leptin‐deficient ob/ob mice. However, it is not clear whether increased hypothalamic leptin alters bone metabolism in animals already producing the hormone. The objective of this study was to evaluate the long duration effects of recombinant adeno‐associated virus‐rat leptin (rAAV‐Lep) hypothalamic gene therapy on weight gain and bone metabolism in growing and skeletally mature leptin‐replete female Sprague‐Dawley rats. Rats were either unoperated or implanted with cannulas in the third ventricle of the hypothalamus and injected with either rAAV‐Lep or rAAV‐GFP (control vector encoding green fluorescent protein) and maintained on standard rat chow fed ad libitum for either 5 or 10 weeks (starting at 3 months of age) or 18 weeks (starting at 9 months of age). Tibias, femurs, or lumbar vertebrae were analyzed by micro–computed tomography and/or histomorphometry. In comparison with age‐matched rAAV‐GFP rats, rAAV‐Lep rats maintained a lower body weight for the duration of studies. At 5 weeks after vector administration, rAAV‐Lep rats had lower cancellous bone volume and bone marrow adiposity but higher osteoblast perimeter compared with nonoperated controls. However, these values did not differ between the two groups at 10 weeks after vector administration. Differences in cancellous bone volume and architecture were not detected between the rAAV‐Lep and rAAV‐GFP groups at either time point. Also, rAAV‐Lep had no negative effects on bone in the 9‐month‐old skeletally mature rats at 18 weeks after vector administration. We hypothesize that the transient reductions in bone mass and bone marrow adiposity at 5 weeks after vector administration were due to hypothalamic surgery. We conclude that increased hypothalamic leptin, sufficient to prevent weight gain, has minimal specific effects (rAAV‐Lep versus rAAV‐GFP) on bone metabolism in normal female rats. © 2011 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.
Security Mechanism for Group Communication in Cloud

Cloud computing provides an economical and efficient solution for sharing group resource among the cloud users. Sharing data in a multi-owner manner while preserving data and identity privacy from an un-trusted cloud is still a challenging issue, due to the frequent change of the members. Mona is a secure Multi-Owner data sharing scheme which leverages the group signature and dynamic broadcast encryption technique. Even though Mona is considered to be secure, if a new user joins the group, he can access any data present before he joined the group. If any user leaves the group, the user may share or sell the data. In this paper a new technique is proposed in which the whole file will be encrypted by the admin and passed to the specified authorized users along with key to decrypt the file and the key will be based on one time password technique which provides more security for group communication.
Mice deficient in brain‐derived neurotrophic factor have altered development of gastric vagal sensory innervation

Vagal sensory neurons are dependent on neurotrophins for survival during development. Here, the contribution of brain‐derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) to survival and other aspects of gastric vagal afferent development was investigated. Post‐mortem anterograde tracing with 1,1′‐dioctadecyl‐3,3,3′,3′‐tetramethylindocarbo‐cyanine perchlorate (DiI) was used to label selectively vagal projections to the stomach on postnatal days (P) 0, 3, 4, and 6 in wild types and heterozygous or homozygous BDNF mutants. Sampling sites distributed throughout the ventral stomach wall were scanned with a confocal microscope, and vagal axon bundles, single axons, putative mechanoreceptor precursors (intraganglionic laminar endings, IGLEs; intramuscular arrays, IMAs), and efferent terminals were quantified. Also, myenteric neurons, which are innervated by IGLEs, were stained with cuprolinic blue and counted. Quantitative comparisons across wild‐type stomach compartments demonstrated that the adult distribution of IMAs was not present at P0 but began to form by P3–6. Among all the quantified elements, at P0, only IGLE density was significantly different in homozygous mutants compared with wild types, exhibiting a 50% reduction. Also, antrum innervation appeared disorganized, and some putative IMA precursors had truncated telodendria. At P3–6, the effect on IGLEs had recovered, the disorganization of antrum innervation had partially recovered, and some IMA telodendria were still truncated. The present results suggest that gastric IGLEs are among the vagal sensory neurons dependent on BDNF for survival or axon guidance. Alternatively, BDNF deficiency may delay gastric IGLE development. Also, BDNF may contribute to IMA differentiation and patterning of antral vagal innervation. J. Comp. Neurol. 518:2934–2951, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Limited Feedback Precoding for Wireless MIMO Broadcast Channels

Recently, a number of techniques have been introduced to exploit multiuser diversity of a wireless multiple input multiple output (MIMO) broadcast channel (BC) that consists of a base station (BS) with t transmit antennas and K mobile stations (MS) with multiple antennas. However, prior works have ignored the rate overhead associated with feedback of MIMO BC channel state information (CSI), which is roughly K times larger than single-user MIMO CSI (i.e., it is O(tr) where r = Kk=1 rk and rk is the number of antennas at the kth MS). Considering the amount of feedback signaling, quantization is a necessity for effective feedback transmission as a form of partial CSI. In this paper, we propose the greedy multi-channel selection diversity (greedy MCSD) scheme based on blockMMSE QR decomposition with dirty paper coding (block MMSE-DP), where partial CSI is almost sufficient. The sum-rate performance of our novel scheme approaches extremely close to the sum capacity of MIMO BC as the number of users increases, whereas the feedback overhead is reduced by a factor of 2t3/L(t2−t), in which L is the number of active channel vectors. Simulation results validate the expectation from the analysis.
Effect of nurse staffing and education on the outcomes of surgical patients with comorbid serious mental illness.

OBJECTIVE This study of surgical patients compared outcomes of those with and those without serious mental illness and examined effects of patient-to-nurse ratios and nurses' education levels on outcomes, including death within 30 days of admission, failure to rescue (death resulting from surgery complication), and length of stay. METHODS Cross-sectional data from a nurse survey and from patient and administrative records were linked. Data for 9,989 nurses and 228,433 surgical patients discharged from 157 Pennsylvania hospitals were analyzed by using generalized estimating equations. RESULTS Records indicated that 4.7% (N=10,666) of the sample had a diagnosis of serious mental illness. A higher level of nurse staffing had a stronger effect on prevention of death among patients with serious mental illness than among those without it. Length of stay for patients with serious mental illness was shorter in hospitals with higher proportions of baccalaureate-prepared nurses. CONCLUSIONS Better nurse staffing and higher education level mitigated poor patient outcomes among highly vulnerable patients with serious mental illness.
Diabetes care related process modelling using Process Mining techniques. Lessons learned in the application of Interactive Pattern Recognition: coping with the Spaghetti Effect

Diabetes is one of the metabolic disorders with more growth expectations in next decades. The literature points to a correct self-management, to an appropriate treatment and to an adequate healthy lifestyle as a way to dramatically improve the quality of life of patients with diabetes. The implementation of a holistic diabetes care system, using rising information technologies for deploying cares based on the thesis of the Evidence-Based Medicine can be a effective solution to provide an adequate and continuous care to patients. However, the design and deployment of computer readable careflows is not a easy task. In this paper, we propose the use of Interactive Pattern Recognition techniques for the iterative design of those protocols and we analyze the problems of using Process Mining to infer careflows and how to how to cope with the resulting Spaghetti Effect.
An soft error propagation analysis considering logical masking effect on re-convergent path

This paper presents an accurate soft error propagation analysis technique. Especially, we focus on Single Event Upset (SEU) in flip-flop. The proposed technique can calculate the accurate error propagation probability considering logical masking on re-convergent paths with SAT solver efficiently. Experimental result shows that the proposed technique improves the computation time by 94.6% compared with the method with only SAT solver and the accuracy by 93.3% compared with the conventional method respectively.
Phonetic transcription standards for european names (ONOMASTICA)

exchanging national names amongst the partners to create a matrix of 'nativised' pronunciations for each (thereby) foreign name in each other language. This paper details the standards identified for phonetic transcription of names as part of the ONOMASTICA project, a European-wide research initiative for the construction of a multi-language pronunciation lexicon of proper names. The main design criteria adopted by the consortium for the development of this multi-language pronunciation dictionary are discussed, including aspects such as phonetic transcription standards, definitions of quality, quality control mechanisms and language specific details concerning phonetic transcription and the annotation of the language of origin. 1.1 OBJECTIVES AND EXPECTED IMPACT The non-availability of large pronunciation dictionaries of names continues to impede the development of many applications in speech technology. In particular, the acceptability of applications where speech output systems provide spoken feedback depends heavily on the capability of producing correct, or at least acceptable, pronunciations for names of various categories.
Synthesis of Carbon Nanofibers from Carbon Foam Composites via Oxyacetylene Torch Ablation

Carbon nanofibers were in-situ synthesized on porous carbon composites via a simple and economic technique of oxyacetylene torch ablation without catalyst assistance. The resultant nanofibers with good crystallinity in the (002) plane were polycrystalline graphite, which grew in the ablation center region. They were generally tens of nanometers in diameter, several microns in length, and grew at different orientations, exhibiting flower-like nanofiber clusters covered with amorphous carbon film. The formation mechanism may be governed by exfoliation of graphite layers, or attachment of graphitic carbon atoms to silicon monoxide for growth during the cooling process.
Diversity of apostome ciliates, Chromidina spp. (Oligohymenophorea, Opalinopsidae), parasites of cephalopods of the Mediterranean Sea

Chromidina spp. are enigmatic apostome ciliates (Oligohymenophorea, Opalinopsidae) that parasitise the renal and pancreatic appendages of cephalopods. Only four species have been described, among which only three have been formally named. No DNA sequence has been reported so far. To investigate Chromidina spp. diversity, we sampled cephalopods in the Mediterranean Sea off Tunis, Tunisia, and identified two distinct Chromidina spp. in two different host species: Loligo vulgaris and Sepia officinalis. From haematoxylin-stained slides, we described morphological traits for these parasitic species and compared them to previous descriptions. We also re-described the morphology of Chromidina elegans (Foettinger, 1881) from Chatton and Lwoff’s original materials and designated a neohapantotype and paraneohapantotypes for this species. We describe a new species, Chromidina chattoni Souidenne, Florent and Grellier n. sp. , found in L. vulgaris off Tunisia, and evidence for a probable novel species, found in S. officinalis off Tunisia, although this latter species presents similarities to some morphological stages previously described for Chromidina cortezi Hochberg, 1971. We amplified, for the first time, an 18S rDNA marker for these two Chromidina species. Phylogenetic analysis supports the association of Chromidina within apostome ciliates. Genetic distance analysis between 18S rDNA sequences of representative apostomes indicates Pseudocollinia as the most closely related genus to Chromidina.
Towards Timbre-Invariant Audio Features for Harmony-Based Music

Chroma-based audio features are a well-established tool for analyzing and comparing harmony-based Western music that is based on the equal-tempered scale. By identifying spectral components that differ by a musical octave, chroma features possess a considerable amount of robustness to changes in timbre and instrumentation. In this paper, we describe a novel procedure that further enhances chroma features by significantly boosting the degree of timbre invariance without degrading the features' discriminative power. Our idea is based on the generally accepted observation that the lower mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs) are closely related to timbre. Now, instead of keeping the lower coefficients, we discard them and only keep the upper coefficients. Furthermore, using a pitch scale instead of a mel scale allows us to project the remaining coefficients onto the 12 chroma bins. We present a series of experiments to demonstrate that the resulting chroma features outperform various state-of-the art features in the context of music matching and retrieval applications. As a final contribution, we give a detailed analysis of our enhancement procedure revealing the musical meaning of certain pitch-frequency cepstral coefficients.
Bloodmeal-Induced Differential Gene Expression in the Disease Vector Culex nigripalpus (Diptera: Culicidae)

Abstract We have characterized gene expression changes in the midgut tissue of Culex nigripalpus Theobold (Diptera: Culicidae) females, after they ingest a bloodmeal, by differential display of RNA isolated from pre- and postfeeding females. Seventy-two cDNA fragments exhibiting reproducible differences were observed. Of these, 22 showed an increase in gene expression and 50 showed a decrease in gene expression as a result of blood feeding. Eleven cDNA fragments exhibiting increased expression after a bloodmeal were cloned and sequenced. Seven of these were novel transcripts, and they did not match any sequences in GenBank. Three clones were similar to conserved proteins of unknown function from Aedes aegypti (L.) and Anopheles gambiae Giles. Here, we present the expression data on the first cDNA clones isolated from Cx. nigripalpus midgut tissue, including their molecular characterization, and we discuss their possible involvement in blood-feeding–associated processes and disease transmission.
An Accelerated Backprojection Algorithm for Monostatic and Bistatic SAR Processing

The backprojection (BP) algorithm has been applied to every SAR mode due to its great focusing quality and adaptability. However, the BP algorithm suffers from immense computational complexity. To improve the efficiency of the conventional BP algorithm, several fast BP (FBP) algorithms, such as the fast factorization BP (FFBP) and Block_FFBP, have been developed in recent studies. In the derivation of Block_FFBP, range data are divided into blocks, and the upsampling process is performed using an interpolation kernel instead of a fast Fourier transform (FFT), which reduces the processing efficiency. To circumvent these limitations, an accelerated BP algorithm based on Block_FFBP is proposed. In this algorithm, a fixed number of pivots rather than the beam centers is applied to construct the relationship of the propagation time delay between the “new” and “old” subapertures. Partition in the range dimension is avoided, and the range data are processed as a bulk. This accelerated BP algorithm benefits from the integrated range processing scheme and is extended to bistatic SAR processing. In this sense, the proposed algorithm can be referred to simply as MoBulk_FFBP for the monostatic SAR case and BiBulk_FFBP for the bistatic SAR case. Furthermore, for monostatic and azimuth-invariant bistatic SAR cases where the platform runs along a straight trajectory, the slant range mapping can be expressed in a continuous and analytical form. Real data from the spaceborne/stationary bistatic SAR experiment with TerraSAR-X operating in the staring spotlight mode and from the airborne spotlight SAR experiment acquired in 2016 are used to validate the performances of BiBulk_FFBP and MoBulk_FFBP, respectively.
Signalling storms in 3G mobile networks

We review the characteristics of signalling storms that have been caused by certain common apps and recently observed in cellular networks, leading to system outages. We then develop a mathematical model of a mobile user's signalling behaviour which focuses on the potential of causing such storms, and represent it by a large Markov chain. The analysis of this model allows us to determine the key parameters of mobile user device behaviour that can lead to signalling storms. We then identify the parameter values that will lead to worst case load for the network itself in the presence of such storms. This leads to explicit results regarding the manner in which individual mobile behaviour can cause overload conditions on the network and its signalling servers, and provides insight into how this may be avoided.
Diet, sex, and death in field crickets

Senescence is shaped by age-dependent trade-offs between fitness components. Because males and females invest different resources in reproduction, the trade-offs behind age-dependent reproductive effort should be resolved differently in the sexes. In this study, we assess the effects of diet (high carbohydrate and low protein vs. equal carbohydrate and protein) and mating (once mated vs. virgin) on lifespan and age-dependent mortality in male and female field crickets (Teleogryllus commodus), and on male calling effort. Females always had higher actuarial ageing rates than males, and we found a clear lifespan cost of mating in females. Mated males, however, lived longer than virgin males, possibly because virgins call more than mated males. The fastest age-dependent increases in mortality were among mated males on the high-carbohydrate diet. Males on a high-carbohydrate diet showed a faster increase in calling effort earlier in life, and a more pronounced pattern of senescence once they reached this peak than did males on a diet with equal amounts of protein and carbohydrates. Our results provide evidence that the cost of mating in this cricket species is both diet and sex-dependent, and that the underlying causes of sex differences in life-history traits such as lifespan and senescence can be complex.