Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bacterial Diversity and Community Structure of Supragingival Plaques in Adults with Dental Health or Caries Revealed by 16S Pyrosequencing

Dental caries has a polymicrobial etiology within the complex oral microbial ecosystem. However, the overall diversity and structure of supragingival plaque microbiota in adult dental health and caries are not well understood. Here, 160 supragingival plaque samples from patients with dental health and different severities of dental caries were collected for bacterial genomic DNA extraction, pyrosequencing by amplification of the 16S rDNA V1–V3 hypervariable regions, and bioinformatic analysis. High-quality sequences (2,261,700) clustered into 10,365 operational taxonomic units (OTUs; 97% identity), representing 453 independent species belonging to 122 genera, 66 families, 34 orders, 21 classes, and 12 phyla. All groups shared 7522 OTUs, indicating the presence of a core plaque microbiome. α diversity analysis showed that the microbial diversity in healthy plaques exceeded that of dental caries, with the diversity decreasing gradually with the severity of caries. The dominant phyla of plaque microbiota included Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Fusobacteria, and TM7. The dominant genera included Capnocytophaga, Prevotella, Actinomyces, Corynebacterium, Neisseria, Streptococcus, Rothia, and Leptotrichia. β diversity analysis showed that the plaque microbial community structure was similar in all groups. Using LEfSe analysis, 25 differentially abundant taxa were identified as potential biomarkers. Key genera (27) that potentially contributed to the differential distributions of plaque microbiota between groups were identified by PLS-DA analysis. Finally, co-occurrence network analysis and function predictions were performed. Treatment strategies directed toward modulating microbial interactions and their functional output should be further developed.
Degradation of ornithine decarboxylase: exposure of the C-terminal target by a polyamine-inducible inhibitory protein

Polyamine-mediated degradation of vertebrate ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) is associated with the production of antizyme, a reversible tightly binding protein inhibitor of ODC activity. The interaction of antizyme with a binding element near the N terminus of ODC is essential but not sufficient for regulation of the enzyme by polyamines (X. Li and P. Coffino, Mol. Cell. Biol. 12:3556-2562, 1992). We now show that a second element present at the C terminus is required for the degradation process. Antizyme caused a conformational change in ODC, which made the C terminus of ODC more accessible. Blocking the C terminus with antibody prevented degradation. Tethering the C terminus by creating a circularly permuted, enzymatically active form of ODC prevented antizyme-mediated degradation. These data elucidate a form of feedback regulation whereby excess polyamines induce destruction of ODC, the enzyme that initiates their biosynthesis.
Processes vs. User-Level Threads in Scsh

The new version of scsh enables concurrent system programming with portable user-level threads. In scsh, threads behave like processes in many ways. Each thread receives its own set of process resources. Like Unix processes, forked threads can inherit resources from the parent thread. To store these resources scsh uses preserved thread fluids, a special kind of fluid variables. The paper gives a detailed description of an efficient implementation for thread-local process resources. Scsh also provides an interface to the fork system calls which avoids common pitfalls which arise with a userlevel thread system. Scsh contains a binding for fork that forks “only the current thread. ”
Microstructure and Fatigue Resistance of Carburized Steels

A summary is presented of recent research on the microstructure and bending fatigue performance of several carburizing steels. Two fatigue optimization approaches were explored: alloy chemistry and processing. Compositions were varied with respect to sulfur, phosphorous, manganese, and silicon. In each case, maximum composition limits of the elements were identified that resulted in decreases in the presence of fatigue crack initiators. The suppression of manganese sulfides, intergranular cementite, and intergranular oxides substantially increased bending fatigue endurance limits. A carburizing process study showed that reductions in case carbon content, through low carburizing potentials and reheat treatments, resulted in less retained austenite, larger surface residual stresses, and consequently, higher endurance limits. Shot peening created the most dramatic increases in fatigue performance, due to the generation of very large residual stresses. The entire set of data summarized in this report was statistically analyzed to reveal broad trends in bending fatigue research. Prior austenite grain size in the case and surface residual stresses had the largest effects on bending fatigue endurance limit. Case grain refinement was most effectively achieved through reheat treatments, while shot peening was the primary means to significantly increase compressive residual stresses in the specimen surface. carbon steel case and a low-carbon steel core. When this steel composite is quenched to martensite and tempered, the high hardness and strength of the case microstructure, combined with the favorable case compressive residual stresses developed during quenching, produce a high resistance to fatigue. This work identifies the important chemistry, processing, and microstructural variables that govern the bending fatigue performance of carburized steels. The discussion concentrates on recent bending fatigue research and is divided into two sections: effects of alloy chemistry and effects of processing techniques. All fatigue research was performed with a constant specimen geometry, offering the unique opportunity to perform a statistical analysis to extract broad trends in bending fatigue behavior.
Cross-domain speech recognition using nonparallel corpora with cycle-consistent adversarial networks

Automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems often does not perform well when it is used in a different acoustic domain from the training time, such as utterances spoken in noisy environments or in different speaking styles. We propose a novel approach to cross-domain speech recognition based on acoustic feature mappings provided by a deep neural network, which is trained using nonparallel speech corpora from two different domains and using no phone labels. For training a target domain acoustic model, we generate “fake” target speech features from the labeleld source domain features using a mapping Gf. We can also generate “fake” source features for testing from the target features using the backward mapping Gb which has been learned simultaneously with G f. The mappings G f and Gb are trained as adversarial networks using a conventional adversarial loss and a cycle-consistency loss criterion that encourages the backward mapping to bring the translated feature back to the original as much as possible such that Gb(Gf (x)) ≈ x. In a highly challenging task of model adaptation only using domain speech features, our method achieved up to 16 % relative improvements in WER in the evaluation using the CHiME3 real test data. The backward mapping was also confirmed to be effective with a speaking style adaptation task.
Gauging risk with higher moments: Handrails in measuring and optimising conditional value at risk

The aim of the paper is to study empirically the influence of higher moments of the return distribution on conditional value at risk (CVaR). To be more exact, we attempt to reveal the extent to which the risk given by CVaR can be estimated when relying on the mean, standard deviation, skewness and kurtosis. Furthermore, it is intended to study how this relationship can be utilised in portfolio optimisation. First, based on a database of 600 individual equity returns from 22 emerging world markets, factor models incorporating the first four moments of the return distribution have been constructed at different confidence levels for CVaR, and the contribution of the identified factors in explaining CVaR was determined. Following this the influence of higher moments was examined in portfolio context, i.e. asset allocation decisions were simulated by creating emerging market portfolios from the viewpoint of US investors. This can be regarded as a normal decisionmaking process of a hedge fund focusing on investments into emerging markets. In our analysis we compared and contrasted two approaches with which one can overcome the shortcomings of the variance as a risk measure. First of all, we solved in the presence of conflicting higher moment preferences a multi-objective portfolio optimisation problem for different sets of preferences. In addition, portfolio optimisation was performed in the meanCVaR framework characterised by using CVaR as a measure of risk. As a part of the analysis, the pair-wise comparison of the different higher moment metrics of the meanvariance and the mean-CVaR efficient portfolios were also made. Throughout the work special attention was given to implied preferences to the different higher moments in optimising CVaR. We also examined the extent to which model risk, namely the risk of wrongly assuming normally-distributed returns can deteriorate our optimal portfolio choice. JEL Classification: G11, G15, C61
A threshold-LSB based information hiding scheme using digital images

Providing protection to secret information has been given high importance and has received increasing attention from the information technology community. In this paper, we propose a new approach for information hiding based on gray-scale digital images which considers the threshold of the pixel of an image while hiding the bits of a secret message in its least-significant-bits (LSBs). The proposed method works on the secret message by converting it into a stream of bits. Then we generate pseudo random numbers to provide a random distribution of the secret bits across the image. We use m-least significant bits of an 8-bit pixel to hold the secret bits. The value of m varies depending on the threshold of the pixels. The number of bits (m) to be embedded in a pixel having small threshold is more than that of a pixel having high or medium threshold. When we consider low and high thresholds we simply replace the m-least significant bits of a pixel with the m-secret bits. For medium threshold category pixels we use exclusive-or (XOR) of m-least significant bits of the pixel with the m-secret bits. The experimental results show that the proposed scheme achieves high embedding capacity and good visual quality of stego images for m=3 and m=2 for low and non-low thresholds respectively.
Performance Evaluation of a Chord-Based JXTA Implementation

In this paper, we propose a new implementation of the JXTA framework, based on the integration of the original JXTA version with the Chord DHT management protocol. The resulting new JXTA implementation is experimentally compared with the original one, by referring to the JXTA performance model proposed by Halepovic et al. in 2004: the results give strong evidence to the fact that the JXTA rendezvous protocol performances can be improved up to one order of magnitude by replacing the original loosely-consistent DHT with the real Chord DHT.
Parallel Multi-Projection type methods on hybrid CPU/MIC cluster

Many problems occurring in various scientific fields require the efficient solution of large sparse linear systems derived from the discretization of partial differential equations. Preconditioned Krylov subspace iterative methods based on domain decomposition techniques are suitable for solving large sparse linear systems on parallel systems. A parallel preconditioned iterative method in conjunction with semi-aggregation based algebraic domain decomposition method for symmetric sparse linear systems is presented. The proposed method is designed for distributed memory systems with multicore nodes, equipped with many integrated core architecture co-processors (Intel© Xeon Phi™). Utilizing the MIC architecture co-processors, concurrently with existing CPUs, for solving the local linear systems results in accelerating the solution process. Moreover, for large number for subdomains the proposed parallel scheme has improved convergence behavior. The convergence behavior and the scalability of the proposed scheme are examined and numerical results are given.
Characterization of Invasive Pneumococci of Serogroup 6 from Adults in Barcelona, Spain, in 1994 to 2008

ABSTRACT A total of 91 of 1,480 invasive isolates (6.1%) collected from adults in Barcelona, Spain, in the period of 1994 to 2008 were of serogroup 6 (6B, 47 isolates; 6A, 28; and 6C, 16). Throughout this period, serotype 6B (Spain6B-ST90) decreased, and serotype 6A remained stable. An increase in serotype 6C (ST224) in the 2004-2008 period was observed.
A 5.2-to-13GHz class-AB CMOS power amplifier with a 25.2dBm peak output power at 21.6% PAE

increasing demand for higher data rates in communication links has created a need for power amplifiers with large instantaneous bandwidth. Moreover, software-defined radio and smart antenna systems require power stages capable of transmitting at programmable carrier frequencies within a large bandwidth to achieve frequency multiplicity. Also, advanced radar imaging systems, such as through-the-wall imaging, require amplification of broadband signals whose reflection/transmission spectral information can be used for target detection. However, conventional multi-GHz broadband power amplifiers are commonly implemented as distributed amplifiers, which typically have poor power efficiency due to non-optimum load impedance at each stage. Balanced amplifier techniques yield better efficiency but require wide-band on-chip couplers which limit their use within millimeter-wave frequencies due to excessive area consumption for GHz range implementations. To address these issues, we present a power amplifier design technique which enables the output network to track the optimum load impedance across a broad operation bandwidth. This provides high efficiency with small area consumption for broadband power amplification. As an implementation example, a 90nm CMOS PA is presented that achieves a −3dB bandwidth of 7.8GHz (5.2 to 13 GHz) with a peak Psat of +25.2dBm at a PAE of 21.6%.
Business Regulation in International Comparison - Aggregating World Bank "Doing Business" Data

Sound business regulations are essential for a dynamic development of the private sector. This applies to developed as well as to developing countries where a lack of regulation or enforcement and high administrative or transaction costs often contribute to weak growth performance (Matthes 2004, 78). The World Bank (2003; 2004) has filled a gap with regard to data on various aspects of business regulation in international comparison. The “Doing Business” online database comprises 145 countries and covers 23 indicators belonging to seven indicator groups (Table 1).
Investing in Arms to Secure Water

Where nations depend on resources originating outside their borders, such as river water, some believe that the resulting international tensions may lead to conflict. Homer-Dixon (1999) and Toset et al. (2000) argue such conflict is most likely between riparian neighbours, with a militarily superior downstream 'leader' nation. In a two stage stochastic game, solutions involving conflict are more common absent a leader, where a pure strategy equilibria may not exist. When upstream defensive expenditures substitute for water using investments, a downstream leader may induced an arms race to increase downstream water supplies. Water scarcity may not be a cause for war, but may cause a buildup in arms that can make any conflict between riparian neighbours more serious.
Comparison between Cloud Sim and Green Cloud in Measuring Energy Consumption in a Cloud Environment

Cloud computing is a model that relies on sharing computing resources rather than having local servers or personal devices to handle applications. Numerous studies have shown that by replacing traditional computing with cloud infrastructure, the total power consumption can be decreased because cloud computing power consumption is influenced by four key cloud factors: dynamic provisioning, multi-tenancy, server utilization, and data center efficiency. Considering the huge amount of energy consumed by computing equipment in the last several years, energy consumption and sustainability have become one of the main areas of research. Thus, obtaining high performance at a reduced cost in cloud environments has reached a turning point where computing power is no longer the most important concern. Calculate the amount of energy consumption in a real cloud computing infrastructure is difficult. Thus, simulation tools have been developed in recent years to enable cloud computing researchers to analyze a cloud computing environment. This paper will introduce and compare the two popular cloud simulators: Cloud Sim and Green Cloud. Both simulators provide scenarios for cloud computing based on utilization, virtualization, and load and energy consumption of the server. The comparison showed that the Green Cloud simulator is more advantageous than the Cloud Sim simulator based on an accurate measurement of energy consumption in a cloud computing environment.
Person Independent Head Pose Estimation by Non-Linear Regression and Manifold Embedding

This paper describes an approach to head pose estimation in passport type images with an emphasis on high accuracy for near-frontal poses as well as person independence. Two different algorithms are proposed and compared. A Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG) descriptor is used for non-linear regression and a Biased Manifold Embedding (BME) approach is extended to cope with multiple poseangles. In addition, we present an approach for the creation of an artificial training database. The effectiveness of the algorithms is shown on the artificial database as well as on a publicly available dataset where the HOG based approach performs best.
There Is No Relationship between Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome: A Population Study

Background: Both chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) are common diseases. Some recent studies suggest an increased prevalence of COPD among subjects with OSAS. Objectives: The study objective was to evaluate whether there is an epidemiological relationship between COPD and OSAS in a random population sample. Materials and Methods: The study population, 356 males (53%) and 320 females, mean age 56.6 ± 8.2 years (range 41–72), was selected from a voting list for parliamentary election in Warsaw. The investigation included lung diseases and smoking history with polysomnography and spirometry. Results: OSAS was diagnosed in 76 subjects (11.3%), 59 males (8.8%) and 17 females (2.5%), mean apnea/hypopnea index (AHI) was 25.3 ± 16.1, mean overnight SaO2 92.1 ± 3.3%, minimum SaO2 76.9 ± 9.4%, and SaO2 <90% = 18.9 ± 23.9% of total sleep time. COPD was diagnosed in 72 subjects (10.7%), 39 males and 33 females. Severity of airflow limitation was assessed according to European Respiratory Society (ERS) guidelines: mild in 70%, moderate in 22%, and severe in 8%. In 7 subjects (9.2% of OSAS population, 1% of total population) OSAS and COPD overlapped. Polysomnographic variables were compared between overlap (overlap syndrome, OS) and OSAS subjects. In the OS mean AHI was 19.0 versus 25.3 in OSAS (nonsignificant), mean SaO2 89.6 versus 92.3% in OSAS (p < 0.005), and time spent in SaO2 <90% was 25.4 versus 18.2% in OSAS (p = 0.04). Conclusions: COPD in subjects with OSAS was as frequent as in the general population. In the OS group mean arterial blood saturation was lower and time spent in desaturation was longer than in OSAS. The presented data suggest a more severe course of sleep-disordered breathing in subjects with coexisting COPD.
Design Options for Optical Ring Interconnect in Future Client Devices

Nanophotonic is a promising solution for on-chip interconnection due to its intrinsic low-latency and low-power features. Future tiled chip multiprocessors (CMPs) for rich client devices can receive energy benefits from this technology but we show that great care has to be put in the integration of the various involved facets to avoid queuing and serialization issues and obtain the rated potential advantages. We evaluate different management strategies for accessing a simple, shared photonic path (ring), working in conjunctions with a standard electronic mesh or alone, in a tiled CMP. Our results highlight that a careful selection of the most latency-critical messages to be routed in photonics and the use of a conflict-free access scheme is crucial for obtaining performance/power advantages when the available bandwidth is limited. We identify the design point where all the traffic can be routed on the photonic path and thus the electronic network can be suppressed. At this point, the ring achieves 20--25% speedup and 84% energy consumption improvement over the electronic baseline. Then we investigate the same trade-offs when the number of rings is increased up to eight, allowing to raise performance benefits up to 40% or reaching up to 80% energy reduction. We finally explore the effects of deploying a given optical parallelism split between a higher number of waveguides for further improving energy savings.
Order‐restricted dose‐related trend tests

Methods of isotonic regression are proposed to increase the power of common trend tests in situations where a monotonicity constraint is imposed upon the dose‐response function. Isotonic versions of Cochran–Armitage type trend tests for binary response data are developed, and the bootstrap method is used in finding the empirical distributions of the test statistics and their critical values. The isotonic likelihood ratio test with a survival adjustment is also proposed. This survival adjustment can be applied to the likelihood ratio test for either the order‐restricted or unrestricted parameter cases. To achieve the isotonic modifications, an amalgamation algorithm is applied when the observed dose‐response is non‐monotonic. A Monte Carlo simulation study comparing these trend tests shows the advantages of the isotonic modifications and survival adjustment. By applying the proposed methods to data from a toxicology and carcinogenesis study conducted as part of the National Toxicology Program, the effect of CI Pigment Red 23 is investigated. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.