Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Origin of diversity in falling snow

This paper presents a systematic way to examine the origin of variety in falling snow. First, we define shape diversity as the logarithm of the number of possible distin- guishable crystal forms for a given resolution and set of con- ditions, and then we examine three sources of diversity. Two sources are the range of initial-crystal sizes and variations in the trajectory variables. For a given set of variables, diver- sity is estimated using a model of a crystal falling in an up- draft. The third source is temperature-updraft heterogeneities along each trajectory. To examine this source, centimeter- scale data on cloud temperature and updraft speed are used to estimate the spatial frequency (m 1 ) of crystal feature changes. For air-temperature heterogeneity, this frequency decays as p 0.66 , where p is a measure of the temperature- deviation size. For updraft-speed heterogeneity, the decay is p 0.50 . By using these frequencies, the fallpath needed per feature change is found to range from 0.8 m, for crystals near 15 C, to 8 m near 19 C - lengths much less than total fallpath lengths. As a result, the third source dominates the diversity, with updraft heterogeneity contributing more than temperature heterogeneity. Plotted against the crystal's initial temperature ( 11 to 19 C), the diversity curve is "mitten shaped", having a broad peak near 15.4 C and a sharp subpeak at 14.4 C, both peaks arising from peaks in growth-rate sensitivity. The diversity is much less than previ- ous estimates, yet large enough to explain observations. For example, of all snow crystals ever formed, those that began near 15 C are predicted to all appear unique to 1-µm reso- lution, but those that began near 11 C are not.
Difficulties In Enterprise System Implementation: The Case Of Millicent Homesbfdgfd

Abstract Many large manufacturing companies in the U.S. have implemented ERP systems. However, difficulties in ERP implementation continue to persist despite decades of practical experience and academic research. This case describes several issues that were encountered during the implementation of SAP at Millicent Homes, a residential construction company with several markets in the U.S. In particular, the case emphasizes the functional and technical issues that befell the implementation and their interaction with organizational implementation issues. The case is unique in that while Millicent Homes was implementing SAP, SAP was concurrently developing an industry solution for engineering and construction companies as well as the beta version of its portal. In addition, the home construction industry provides an interesting setting for examining the adoption of new systems.
Electronic Communications of the EASST Volume 73 ( 2016 ) Graph Computation Models Selected Revised Papers from GCM 2015 Cotransforming Grammars with Shared Packed Parse Forests

SPPF (shared packed parse forest) is the best known graph representation of a parse forest (family of related parse trees) used in parsing with ambiguous/conjunctive grammars. Systematic general purpose transformations of SPPFs have never been investigated and are considered to be an open problem in software language engineering. In this paper, we motivate the necessity of having a transformation operator suite for SPPFs and extend the state of the art grammar transformation operator suite to metamodel/model (grammar/graph) cotransformations.
Fractures in Spinal Ankylosing Disorders: A Narrative Review of Disease and Injury Types, Treatment Techniques, and Outcomes

Introduction: Spinal ankylosing disorders encompass ankylosing spondylitis (AS), disseminated hyperostosis of the spine, and end-stage spondylosis. All these result in a stiffened and frequently deformed spinal column. This makes the spinal column highly susceptible to severe injuries that are commonly associated with unfavorable outcomes. Improved understanding of the underlying disease processes and clinical comorbidities may alter the poor injury related morbidity and mortality outcomes. Methods: A systematic review of the MEDLINE and PubMed databases was performed using the following key words to identify articles published between 2001 and 2016: “ankylosing spondylitis,” “epidemiology,” “DISH,” “treatment,” “outcome,” and/or “fracture. ” Articles were read for data on methodology (retrospective vs. prospective), type of treatment, number of patients, mean patient age, and mean follow-up. Results: Twenty-one identified articles were analyzed. Average age was 63.4 years. Most patients were men. Ground level fall or low energy trauma caused most injuries. Diagnosis was delayed in 15%–41% cases. Hyperextension fracture patterns were most common. Cervical spine fractures were more common than thoracolumbar fractures, with the highest prevalence between C5 and C7. Neurologic deficits were encountered in 21%–100% of patients. Operative fixation and fusion were performed in 40%–100% of patients. Mortality was reported between 0% and 32% at 1 year postinjury. Complications were encountered in 84% of patients, mostly in the form of pneumonia, respiratory failure, and pseudoarthrosis. Neurologic deterioration has been reported in 16% of patients. Fusion was successful in 87%–100% of patients. Neurologic deficits improved in function in 6%–66% at the final follow-up. Conclusions: Because of the stiffening of the spinal column, patients with spinal ankylosing disorders are preferably evaluated for spinal fractures and ligamentous injuries after even trivial trauma. Spinal injuries in patients with AS are difficult to diagnose on plain radiographs; computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging are recommended instead. The entire spine should be scanned for multilevel involvement. Although osteoporosis makes fixation of spine implants a significant concern, the literature has reported that most patients with AS treated surgically had good outcomes. Numerous studies have reported risks associated with conservative management.
Motion planning of walking robots in environments with uncertainty

Presents a general approach for coordinating the legs of a multi-legged statically stable walking machine on an uneven terrain. The approach yields an optimized motion plan for several "body-lengths" that allows us to select footholds and sequence the legs of the walking machine. We assume that a terrain map is available but that this map may be characterized by uncertainty. We also assume the optimality of the motion plan can be measured by a suitable metric. The method of ordinal optimization is used to find a motion plan that is guaranteed to be in a desired percentile with a given confidence level. Depending on the available computational resources we can improve our confidence level and/or get closer to the optimal plan. Finally, our approach allows us to trade off speed with safety, and speed with optimality.
Tourism and biological exchange and invasions: a missing dimension in sustainable tourism?

A highly significant though often unrecognized dimension of globalization is the movement of plant and animal species around the world. The increase in the movement of alien species is directly related to the growth in international trade and tourism and human mobility. However, the ecological, economic and social implications of such species transfer is little recognized in the tourism literature and, surprisingly, in discussions of sustainable tourism and tourism's contribution to conservation. This is remarkable, given the scale of impacts that invasive species and diseases can have, along with the measures put in place to prevent them. If a quarantine is applied, then by definition mobility, and hence tourism, is prevented. Drawing on a range of sources, the paper provides an analysis of the relationship between tourism and biological exchange as well as the biosecurity methods that are put in place to prevent exchange and its impacts. The paper highlights the difficulties in applying some of these measures. The paper concludes by noting the possible implications of forecast growth in international tourism for biological exchange, including potential health and environmental concerns.
Export of protein in bacteria

One of the fundamental unanswered questions in biology is how do proteins made in one subcellular compartment reach their final destination in another. This process, which we shall call export, involves both insertion of proteins into membranes and passage of hydrophilic proteins through hydrophobic membrane barriers. In eucaryotes it is an essential step in secretion of protein and biogenesis of organelles. Although bacterial cells do not contain organelles, they do have distinct compartments and some secrete proteins. Gram-negative bacteria such as Escherichia coli have soluble proteins localized to a periplasmic space that is contained between the cytoplasmic and outer membranes. Thus, proteins synthesized in the cytoplasm are exported to final destinations in both the outer membrane and the periplasm. The translocation of proteins into the periplasmic space is analogous to the initial step of secretion in higher organisms, namely, the transfer of secretory proteins through the membrane into the lumen of the rough endoplasmic reticulum. Both systems involve synthesis of proteins in precursor forms that are matured by proteolytic removal of amino-terminal extensions. These extensions, usually between 15 and 30 amino acids in length (referred to as signal sequences or leader sequences), comprise a hydrophobic sequence of at least 11 amino acid residues preceded by a short stretch of residues at the amino terminus that normally includes several positive charges (for reviews, see references 14, 27, and 35, and V. A. Bankaitis, J. P. Ryan, B. A. Rasmussen, and P. J. Bassford, Jr., in P. Knauf and J. Cook, ed., Membrane Protein Biosynthesis and Turnover, in press). (This review is based on the Eli Lilly & Company Award Lecture given by L.L.R. at the 1984 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in St. Louis, Mo.)
Evidence of increased Id‐1 expression and its role in cell proliferation in nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells

Inhibitor of differentiation or DNA binding (Id‐1), a helix‐loop‐helix transcription factor, has recently been shown to inactivate the retinoblastoma (RB)/p16INK4a pathway through down‐regulation of p16INK4a and increasing phosphorylation of RB in certain cell types. Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a common cancer in Hong Kong, and inactivation of the tumor suppressor RB at transcription level is a rare event in NPC. The objective of this study was to investigate the role of Id‐1 in NPC cell proliferation and its expression in NPC samples. An NPC cell line, CNE1, was transfected with a retroviral vector containing a full‐length Id‐1 cDNA, and six stable transfectant clones were isolated with differential Id‐1 expression levels. The effect of ectopic Id‐1 expression on serum‐independent cell growth, cell‐cycle distribution, and expression of proteins associated with RB pathway was studied. The Id‐1 expression in five NPC samples was also investigated using immunohistochemistry. Ectopic Id‐1 expression in CNE1 cells resulted in an increase in serum‐independent cell growth, percentage of cells in S phase, and phosphorylation of RB and cyclin‐dependent kinase 2 proteins. In addition, immunohistochemical studies on NPC samples showed that expression of Id‐1 was present in NPC cells but absent in normal tissues. This study demonstrates that Id‐1 plays an important role in cell proliferation in NPC cells, and our results provide evidence for the first time of the significance of Id‐1 expression in NPC cells and suggest a possible role of Id‐1 expression in the inactivation of RB and development of NPC. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Extended passaging, but not aldehyde dehydrogenase activity, increases the chondrogenic potential of human adipose‐derived adult stem cells

Adipose‐derived adult stem (ADAS) cells represent an abundant population of multipotent mesodermal cells residing in various adipose tissue depots. ADAS cell preparations appear heterogeneous, yet at a clonal level, greater than 50% of these cells exhibit multilineage differentiation potential. To date, there have been few attempts to define prospectively a homogenous population of multipotent cells. In this study, we investigated whether aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) can be used to enrich ADAS cells with increased chondrogenic potential. ALDH has been previously used to isolate primitive hematopoietic progenitors and has been implicated in early neurogenesis. Human ADAS cells were purified based on ALDH activity, and the cells were expanded and induced for chondrogenic differentiation using BMP‐6 in a 3‐D alginate culture. No significant differences in chondrogenic potential were observed in the ALDH‐positive cells compared to unsorted controls. In contrast, significant differences were noted between cells assayed at passage 4 (P4) and cells assayed at passage 9 (P9). Following BMP‐6 induction, AGC1 gene expression in P9 cells increased 290‐fold over P4 cells. Similarly, COL2A1 expression in P9 cells increased fivefold compared to P4 cells, while COL10A1 levels remained unchanged. Immunohistochemical analysis over 28 days revealed consistent findings at the protein level for collagen II, collagen X, and aggrecan. No changes in telomerase activity were detected across passage, suggesting that ADAS cells retain some level of “stemness” in monolayer culture. These findings suggest that the chondrogenic potential of ADAS cells increases with passage number, although ALDH may not be a suitable marker for chondrogenesis. J. Cell. Physiol. 209: 987–995, 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A study on the analysis of customer loan for the credit finance company using classification model

The importance and necessity of the credit loan are increasing over time. Also, it is a natural consequence that the increase of the risk for borrower increases the risk of non-performing loan. Thus, we need to predict accurately in order to prevent the loss of a credit loan company. Our final goal is to build reliable and accurate prediction model, so we proceed the following steps: At first, we can get an appropriate sample by using several resampling methods. Second, we can consider variety models and tools to fit our resampling data. Finally, in order to find the best model for our real data, various models were compared and assessed.
Psoriasis and the Risk of Depression in the US Population: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2009-2012.

IMPORTANCE Psoriasis is a risk factor for depression. Depression may also trigger or exacerbate psoriasis. The relationship between psoriasis and depression, however, remains to be fully explored. OBJECTIVE To investigate the association between psoriasis and major depression in the US population. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Population-based study using participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2009 through 2012. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Diagnosis of major depression based on the Patient Health Questionnaire-9. RESULTS We identified 351 (2.8%) cases of psoriasis and 968 (7.8%) cases of major depression among 12,382 US citizens included in our study. Fifty-eight (16.5%) patients with psoriasis met criteria for a diagnosis of major depression. The mean (SD) Patient Health Questionnaire-9 score was significantly higher among patients with a history of psoriasis than those without psoriasis (4.54 [5.7] vs 3.22 [4.3], P < .001). Psoriasis was significantly associated with major depression, even after adjustment for sex, age, race, body mass index, physical activity, smoking history, alcohol use, history of myocardial infarction (MI), history of stroke, and history of diabetes mellitus (OR, 2.09 [95% CI, 1.41-3.11], P < .001). Interaction term analyses involving patients with a history of both psoriasis and a cardiovascular event, specifically MI or stroke, did not reveal a synergistically increased risk of major depression (psoriasis and MI: OR, 1.09 [95% CI, 0.28-3.60], P = .91; psoriasis and stroke: OR, 0.67 [95% CI, 0.12-3.66], P = .63). In adjusted multivariable models, the risk of major depression was not significantly different between patients with limited vs extensive psoriasis (OR, 0.66 [95% CI, 0.18-2.44], P = .53). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Self-reported history of psoriasis was independently associated with major depression as assessed by a validated screening tool, even when controlling for comorbidities. History of cardiovascular event did not modify the risk of major depression for patients with psoriasis. The severity of psoriasis was unrelated to the risk of major depression. Therefore, all patients with psoriasis, regardless of severity, may be at risk for major depression.
Comparative Static Analysis with the Complete PPA Package: A Strategic Market Planning Tool

The COMPETE Product Portfolio Analysis (PPA) Package (Version 2.00) is used by participant teams in the marketing simulation COMPETE (Faria, Nulsen, and Roussos 1994) to formulate and implement a coherent marketing strategy and to control their marketing program. This package establishes inter-period scale anchor and circle position and size comparability in the growth share matrix (GSM) and growth gain matrix (GGM) displays generated. The inter-period comparability facilitates comparative static analysis of brand trajectories on the GSM and GGM displays used by the competing participant teams in strategic market planning.
Introduction of Guest Editorial

I am pleased to share this guest editorial written by Billy Rosa with you. The focus on the relationship of creativity and healing is specifically relevant to holistic nursing and to writing for publication. In the health care culture of today, so much depends on making decisions based on objective, prescribed individual health data or large generalizable data sets. Oftentimes, that data have minimal relevance to a person’s human life experience. Thinking about how creativity informs practice and encourages healing provokes new ways of understanding holistic nursing. It also has relevance to the creativity inherent in writing of all kinds, including the type of writing that is supported by the Journal of Holistic Nursing. I welcome your ideas for further editorial topics. Please reach out to me at rcowling@chamberlain.edu.
Predictability of Shapes of Intraday Price Curves

We develop a statistical framework, based on functional data analysis, for testing the hypothesis of the predictability of shapes of intraday price curves. We derive test statistics based on signs of the scores of the functional principal components. We establish its asymptotic properties under the null and alternative hypotheses, and demonstrate via simulations that it has excellent finite sample properties. A small empirical study shows that the shapes of the intraday price curves of large US corporations are not predictable.
Applicability domain: towards a more formal definition$

Abstract In recent years the applicability domain (AD) of a prediction system has become an important concern in (Q)SAR modelling, especially in the context of human safety assessment. Today AD is an active research topic, and many methods have been designed to estimate the adequacy of a model and the confidence in its outcome for a given prediction task. Unfortunately, the wide spectrum of techniques developed for this purpose is based on various definitions of the concept of AD, often taking into account different types of information. This variety of methodologies confuses the end users and makes the comparison of the AD for different models almost impossible. In this article, we demonstrate that AD is not a monolithic concept and can be broken down into three well-defined sub-domains assessing confidence at the model, prediction and decision levels, respectively. By leveraging this separation of concerns we have an opportunity to clarify, formalize and extend the definition of AD. We propose a framework that captures this new vision with the aim to initiate a global effort to converge towards a common AD definition within the (Q)SAR community.
An Empirical Study on Revealing the Factors Influencing Online Shopping Intention among Malaysian Consumers'

The growth of online shopping is increasing at a rapid rate in Malaysia by replacing traditional store shopping habit of the substantial number of consumers. The purpose of the research is to investigate the factors that are influencing consumer’s online shopping intention in Malaysia. This research proposes a research framework on online shopping by refereeing various influential factors which are antecedents of online shopping in Malaysia. The framework of this study was based on the constructs generated from Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). In total 250 valid respondent’s response were gathered through self-administered survey. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and multiple regression analysis were employed to identify the factors that are influencing online shopping under Malaysian context. From the statistical results it was discovered that perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEOU) have positive influenced on online shopping in Malaysia. It is expected that result from this study can help online vendors to draw the further strategy to attract more consumers through online shopping under Malaysian context.
Service excellence in UK retail banking: customers’ perspectives of the important antecedents

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop and tests a service excellence model, thus providing a detailed understanding of the key antecedents of service excellence, from a customer ' s perspective. The model presented in this paper is rooted in cross-disciplinary literature and tested amongst customers of UK retail banking services. Design/methodology/approach – Following a systematic approach to scale development, the paper draws on survey data from 260 consumers of retail banking products, with the data collected on national basis in the UK. Findings – The theoretical framework was evaluated using a structural approach. Of the hypothesised antecedents, innovation has the greatest impact on service excellence while reputation the least, as far as customers are concerned. Research limitations/implications – The research was limited to one research domain, i.e. UK retail banking, and thus it is reasonable to hypothesise that other aspects of service excellence will be more or less relevant for oth.