Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Retention strengths of five luting cements on prefabricated dowels after root canal obturation with a zinc oxide/eugenol sealer: 1. Dowel space preparation/cementation at one week after obturation.

PURPOSE This investigation examined the effect of 5 different cements on the retention strength of prefabricated endodontic dowels placed into root canals previously obturated with gutta percha and a zinc oxide/eugenol (ZOE) sealer. MATERIALS AND METHODS Ninety-six single-rooted teeth were decoronated, filed, cleaned, sequentially shaped, and divided into 6 groups of 16 specimens each. Five of the groups were then obturated with gutta percha and a ZOE sealer. One group was not obturated and served as the control group. Dowel space preparation and dowel cementation for all groups were completed 1 week later. Ten-mm deep dowel spaces were prepared using size 6 Gates Glidden drills. Size 5 Paraposts were then cemented with 5 different cements: Panavia 21 for group 1 (unobturated controls) and group 2; Ketac-Cem glass ionomer for group 3; Fleck's zinc phosphate for group 4; Parapost (composite) Cement for group 5; and C&B Metabond 4-META for group 6. After 48 hours, the dowels were removed using a universal testing machine in tensile mode at 1 mm min(-1). RESULTS The following results were found (all values in kg): group 1 (controls; Panavia 21) mean = 61.81, 95% CI = +/-8.65; group 2 (Panavia 21), mean=43.15, 95% CI = +/-7.81; group 3 (Ketac-Cem), mean =34.45, 95% CI = +/-4.93; group 4 (zinc phosphate), mean = 25.07, 95% CI = +/-5.03; group 5 (Parapost Cement), mean = 24.99, 95% CI = +/-5.35. None of the group 6 (C&B Metabond) specimens developed measurable bond strengths, so this group was excluded from parametric statistical analyses. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed a significant effect of group; pairwise multiple comparison procedures (Tukey test) showed that group 1 (controls) had significantly greater retention than all other groups (p <0.001); group 2 (Panavia 21) had significantly greater retention than groups 4 (zinc phosphate) and 5 (Parapost cement) (p <0.001). None of the other pairwise comparisons were statistically different. CONCLUSION Paraposts cemented with Panavia 21 in unobturated root canals exhibited significantly higher retention than Paraposts luted with Panavia 21 and 4 different cements into dowel spaces prepared 1 week after obturation with gutta percha/ZOE sealer (p <0.001). Among the obturated groups, Panavia 21 cement (group 2) demonstrated significantly greater retention of Paraposts than zinc phosphate (group 4) and Parapost composite (group 5) cements (p <0.001). Ketac-Cem glass ionomer cement (group 3) had intermediate retention values that were not statistically different than those of groups 2, 4, and 5 (p >0.05). The 4-META cement, C&B Metabond, failed to polymerize.
Association between inflammatory mediators and angiographic morphologic features indicating thrombus formation in patients with acute myocardial infarction.

BACKGROUND Inflammatory mechanisms had played an important role in the occurrence and prognosis of acute myocardial infarction, inflammatory mediators was associated with adverse outcomes of acute myocardial infarction. This study tested the hypothesis that in the acute phase of myocardial infarction with ST-segment elevation, neutrophil count and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein are predictive of angiographic morphologic features that indicate thrombus formation in the infarct-related artery. METHODS This retrospective study included 182 consecutive patients with acute myocardial infarction and ST-segment elevation. Patients were assigned to a thrombus-formation group (n = 77) and a non-thrombus-formation group (n = 106). All patients had a Killip's classification <or= 3 and onset < 12 hours prior to presentation. All the cases were going to undergo coronary angiography, including primary percutaneous coronary intervention, simple coronary angiography, or thrombolysis in a coronary artery (or arteries) or coronary artery bypass graft(s). Blood samples for measurement of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein and for routine blood laboratory studies were collected prior to coronary angiography. RESULTS The levels of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, total leukocyte counts, neutrophil counts, and neutrophil/ lymphocyte ratios were substantially higher in the thrombus-formation group than in the non-thrombus-formation group patients (for each, P < 0.05). Stepwise Logistic regression analyses identified high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, neutrophil count, and neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio as independent predictors of thrombus formation in the infarct-related artery (for each, P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS In patients with acute myocardial infarction, higher neutrophil counts, neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio, and levels of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein are predictors to indicate thrombus formation.
Dragon Children: Identifying the Causal Effect of the First Child on Female Labor Supply with the Chinese Lunar Calendar

Instrumental variables (IV) estimates of the effect of fertility on female labor supply have only been able to identify the causal effect of second and higher-parity children. This study uses exogenous variation in fertility caused by the Chinese lunar calendar to identify the effect of the first child. Additionally, weighting formulas are presented to interpret IV estimates as weighted average treatment effects in the case of multiple endogenous variables, which are useful when children vary in intensity by both number and age. The effect of the first child is found to be much greater than that of other children.
Ciprofloxacin resistance in E. coli isolated from turkeys in Great Britain

Fluoroquinolones are a widely used group of antimicrobials in both human and animal medicine, with ciprofloxacin being a critically important fluoroquinolone for serious human infections. The present study reports on a 1-year survey for the presence of ciprofloxacin-resistant Escherichia coli in turkeys from Great Britain. Boot swabs were taken from 442 turkey flocks comprised of 125 breeding flocks and 317 meat flocks from 337 different farms over a 1-year period (2006 to 2007). CHROMagar ECC containing 1 mg/l ciprofloxacin was used to obtain ciprofloxacin-resistant isolates. Isolates were tested for sensitivity to 16 different antimicrobials. Isolates with ciprofloxacin minimum inhibitory concentrations ≥8 mg/l were tested for mutations in gyrA by polymerase chain reaction and DNA sequencing. Selected isolates were tested by multiplex polymerase chain reaction for qnrA, qnrB and qnrS, qepA and aac(6′)-Ib-cr genes. Conjugations were performed to assess the transferability of resistance to quinolones. Ciprofloxacin-resistant E. coli was found in 22.4% of turkey breeding flocks and 60.9% of meat flocks. Two main mutations in gyrA, as well as a range of silent mutations, were identified in resistant isolates. Flocks with transferable resistance genes qnrB, qnrS, and aac(6′)-Ib-cr were found at a low flock prevalence of 4.2%, 1.6% and 1.0%, respectively; however, under laboratory conditions only transfer of qnrS genes could be demonstrated. This work has confirmed the occurrence of ciprofloxacin-resistant E. coli strains throughout turkey breeding and meat flocks, with almost one-third of E. coli isolates being resistant to ciprofloxacin. Of those, more than 87% were also resistant to three or more antimicrobial classes.
Driving Forces of Hypermarket's Customer Loyalty: An Empirical Study in Malaysia

Background: Customer satisfaction and loyalty is the output of a successful retail marketing model in a competitive marketing environment, thus creating value for both customers and retailers. Malaysian hypermarkets have experienced marked growth and development in the recent years, with many of these hypermarkets laying special emphasis on the development of customer satisfaction and customer in order to afford the long term tapping of sales revenue. However, in their drive for customer satisfaction, many of these hypermarkets continue to be faced with a number of impediments. These include increasing competition, market analysis and rising customer expectations. Objectives: The aim of this study is to investigate the driving forces of customer loyalty among hypermarket’s customer in Malaysia. With data collected from a Giant, Tesco, Mydin, and Aeon Big customers via non-probability sampling. Results: the study empirically examines the nature of the effect of the customer perceived service quality, quality of product, pricing strategy, store attributes and customer loyalty through the mediating variable of customer satisfaction. However the outcomes revealed that the customer perceived service quality, pricing strategy, quality of product and finally store attributes have significant relationship on customer satisfaction and overall customer satisfaction has strong impact on hypermarket’s customer loyalty, especially, product quality is more significant on customer satisfaction with compare to service quality. Conclusion: This finding confirms the role of customer satisfaction as an important determinant of customer loyalty in the hypermarket customer’s loyalty setting. However this study offered an insight into hypermarket’s customer loyalty from Malaysian customer a perspective which has not previously been investigated.
The Dresden Database Systems Group

The Dresden Database Systems Group focuses on the advancement of data management techniques from a system level as well as information management perspective. With more than 15 PhD students the research group is involved in a variety of larger research projects ranging from activities to exploit modern hardware for scalable storage engines to advancing statistical methods for large-scale time series management. The group is visible at an international level as well as actively involved in cooperations with national and regional research partners
Study on efficiency calculation model of induction motors for electric vehicles

The efficiency of induction motors for electric vehicles must be researched deeply over the entire operating speed region. Up to now, the calculation models of the efficiency of the induction motor for electric vehicles are less accurate over some operating regions, such as owing to omitting the variations of the motor parameters with frequency. The paper puts forward a calculation model of the induction motor efficiency in the entire region of operation, including the constant-power region and the constant-torque region. And in this paper, the new methods of the iron loss calculating and stray loss calculating are deduced. With the model, the efficiency influenced by motor parameters can be considered at the stage of the motor design. So the optimal design could be done for the high efficiency of motors. The validity of the model has been verified by the experiment results of the 30 kW induction motor.
Nucleotide and Protein Sequences of a Cytoplasmic Ribosomal Protein S15a Gene from Arabidopsis thaliana

The eukaryotic ribosome is composed of 70 to 80 ribosomal proteins (r-proteins) together with three or four rRNAs. In yeast, the rate of ribosome formation reflects that of cellular growth, with a balance in the production of ribosomal con-stituents being maintained in part by the activity of the respective promoters (Mager and Planta, 1991). Only a small number of genes or cDNAs encoding r-proteins have been characterized in monocotyledonous or dicotyledonous plants (Bonham-Smith et al., 1992, and refs. therein; Taylor et al., 1992; Hwang and Goodman, 1993; Joanin et al., 1993; Lu et al., 1993). In a11 plants studied to date, r-protein transcripts have been found to be more abundant in actively dividing tissues (Bonham-Smith et al., 1992, and refs. therein); how-ever, the factors involved in this developmental regulation of r-protein gene expression have yet to be determined. Isolation and characterization of additional r-protein genes will help to identify the regulatory elements required for coordinate r-protein and rRNA synthesis and subsequent ribosome biogenesis. We report here the isolation and nucleic acid sequence of a genomic clone for Arabidopsis thaliana (var Columbia) r-protein S15a (Table I). A Brassica napus (cv Westar) r-protein S15a cDNA (pA813; Bonham-Smith et 1992) was used to screen a genomic library of A. thaliana in EMBL3A (Stratagene,
Role of bianisotropy in negative permeability and left-handed metamaterials

The recently proposed artificial media with negative magnetic permeability and left-handed metamaterials are revisited at the light of the theory of artificial bi(iso/aniso)tropic media. In particular, the existence of bianisotropic effects in those materials is investigated, making use of an approximate model. Some unexplained properties of the electromagnetic-wave propagation through these media, revealed by closer inspection of previous numerical simulations and experimental work, are highlighted. It is shown that these peculiarities are properly explained if the bianisotropy is explicitly accounted for. The bianisotropy is related to the existence of magnetoelectric coupling in the artificial constituents (artificial atoms) of the medium. A simple modification of the artificial atom that precludes the bianisotropy is also proposed.
Kevin Rudd and the Framing of Politics and Political Leadership in News Media Interviews

This article examines the framing of politics by Kevin Rudd in news media interviews and argues that political interviews are fundamentally contestable communicative encounters. Contrary to common criticisms of the obfuscation of politicians in news media interviews, it is argued here that it should be anticipated that political discourse will be tightly controlled given that high political stakes hinge on the contested meanings of statements and issues. The analysis is based on two interviews: firstly, an interview on the Sunday programme in June 2007 after the Howard Government's announcement of a planned intervention to deal with child sexual abuse in Indigenous Northern Territory communities; and secondly, an interview on the Lateline programme during the 2007 election campaign after the Reserve Bank interest rate increase and the controversy over John Howard's 'apology' for the rate rise. The discussion shows how Rudd seeks to present himself as a 'rational' political leader and identify with the interests of the Australian public. It also demonstrates how Rudd's leadership is constructed through his management of expressions of consensus and conflict and his management of the division between the public and private disclosure of opinion.
Nonopsonic phagocytosis of Pseudomonas aeruginosa by macrophages and polymorphonuclear leukocytes requires the presence of the bacterial flagellum

Whereas the mechanism of nonopsonic phagocytosis of Pseudomonas aeruginosa has been described, the bacterial ligands required are poorly understood. To identify the requisite bacterial ligands, studies with isogenic mutants of P. aeruginosa PAK lacking pili, flagella, and the RpoN sigma factor were undertaken. The RpoN mutant, lacking pili, flagella, and nonpilus adhesins, bound poorly and was resistant to ingestion by both macrophages and neutrophils. Pili were not absolutely required for binding or phagocytosis of P. aeruginosa. The presence of a flagellum was not required for binding of P. aeruginosa to macrophages but was critical for the subsequent internalization of the bacterium, suggesting that this factor or a surface ligand associated with its assembly was responsible for stimulation of nonopsonic phagocytosis.
Geometry characterization of electroadhesion samples for spacecraft docking application

Applications of electroadhesion include automation and inspection robots, consumer gripper devices, anchoring tools used in the military and biomedical industry, and more recently, mechanisms for spacecraft docking. The purpose of this study is to characterize geometries of electroadhesion samples for application in spacecraft docking and propose a metric to predict the interaction between geometry and captured object. Shear forces of electroadhesion samples composed of Kapton(R)Polyimide insulating material with embedded aluminum foil electrodes and three common space-rated substrate materials were measured. Responses of the electroadhesion samples configured in three geometries were identified using substrates attached to dynamic two-dimensional air bearing platforms. Geometries included a flat plate design as a prototype for cubesats, a concave, cylindrical design for potential application to circular, cylindrical spacecraft capture and torque mitigation, and a soft four-arm claw design as a prototype for docking to variable shaped objects with full coverage of object surface area. Quantitative and qualitative results were analyzed to characterize the optimal geometry for spacecraft docking. Surface area of each geometry, defined as the area of contact between electroadhesion samples implemented on the geometry and the substrate rigidly attached on air bearing platform, was compared to the stop time, defined as the time required for the geometry to mitigate both initial and residual motion of the air bearing platform. In summary, aluminized mylar substrate is identified as a superior type to achieve the highest attainable shear adhesion forces, and one electroadhesion geometry may be superior to others depending on specific docking scenarios in a space environment in agreement with the proposed metric.
Enhancing the financial sector linkages in the Bureau for Economic Research’s core macroeconometric model

The recent Great Financial Crisis (GFC) highlighted the importance of the development of financial sector linkages in macroeconomic models. The aim of this paper is to present the enhanced linkages from the financial sector to real economic activity in the Bureau for Economic Research’s (BER) core traditional semi-structural quarterly macroeconometric model. While many central banks have developed DSGE-type models, many national treasuries and other institutions use models similar to the BER’s core model. There is a large body of available literature on incorporating the financial sector into DSGE-type models, but this literature is rather limited for more traditional forecasting models. An additional objective was to add to this body of literature in documenting the changes to the BER’s model. Apart from incorporating the BER’s finance-neutral measure of potential output (see Kemp, 2015), credit markets and assets prices are now model determined. Also, banking sector variables such as the capital adequacy and liquidity ratios as well as the EY Financial Services (as surveyed by the BER) indicators on the credit standards of retail banks influence lending rate spreads faced by households and firms. The aim was to broaden the monetary transmission mechanism in the model so that the financial sector has an explicit impact on real variables in addition to the usual interest rate and exchange rate channels. This is illustrated by comparing the results of a similar sized interest rate shock before and after the model enhancements.
A Joint Codebook Design for Beamforming Systems with Transmit Antenna Selection

This paper proposes a codebook design that considers transmit antenna selection and beamforming simultaneously. Under the same amount of feedback bits, the proposed codebook can reduce the number of RF units more than half while its performance is still maintained closely (within 0.1 dB loss) to the codebook designs that use all transmit antennas. Since RF units are expensive, the proposed codebook can greatly reduce the hardware implementational cost with slight performance degradation. Moreover, we analyze the proposed codebook and derive a lower bound of symbol error rate (SER). The derived SER lower bound generally matches the simulation results. Simulation results show the proposed codebook with around half active transmit antennas performs comparable to the Lloyd codebook design with full active antennas.
In Silico Characterization of Ligand Binding Modes in the Human Histamine H4 Receptor and their Impact on Receptor Activation

The human histamine H4 receptor (hH4R) is the most recently discovered member of the histamine receptor family. Like the other three histamine receptor subtypes, it belongs to the big family of class A (rhodopsin-like) G protein-coupled receptors (GPCR). Its effects are mainly mediated by an inhibitory/olfactory G alpha subunit (Gai/o). Predominantly expressed peripherally on hematopoietic cells, the hH4R is functionally involved in physiological and pathophysiological processes in the immune system. The high constitutive activity hints at a modulating function in inflammatory signaling, which could enable a negative feedback mechanism. The hH4R is a topical target in the development of drug candidates that potentially find their application in the therapy of chronic inflammatory diseases and immune disorders. Because of the high constitutive activity, pronounced differences in species, and distinct expression pattern, it is important to extensively characterize receptor–ligand interactions before starting the in vivo evaluation of H4R ligands. Several compounds, including the first reported antagonist JNJ– 7777120, have shown distinct effects in various in silico, in vitro, and in vivo models. Aminopyrimidines, as the most advanced class of hH4R ligands, exhibit remarkable differences in structure–affinity/efficacy relationships. We recently reported a series of 2,4-diaminopyrimidines that showed differing functionalities, ranging from partial agonism to inverse agonism, depending on substitution pattern and degree of conformational constriction. Aiming to clarify the binding mode within this class of structurally highly related compounds and the resulting receptor activation mechanisms we performed molecular dynamics (MD) simulations with the partial agonist ST-989 (maximal efficacy, Emax = 24 % related to maximal response of histamine as full agonist) and the inverse agonist ST-1012 (Emax = 111 % related to maximal inhibition of constitutive activity by thioperamide as a reference inverse agonist; Scheme 1). Both ligands displayed potencies in the same concentration range (pEC50~7.5).
Transfer Learning for Bayesian Networks with Application on Hard Disk Drives Failure Prediction

Predicting failure in Hard Disk Drives (HDD) is of fundamental importance for data loss avoidance as well as to lower the downtime costs of a system. As a consequence, an increasing effort may be observed from both universities and industry to find suitable failure prediction methods. Despite the encouraging performances achieved by various methods one important aspect that shall be noticed is the lack of data available to build reliable models. Considering the HDD failure prediction task, this problem arises with the numerous HDD models. To overcome such problem, transfer learning strategies offer a valid alternative since it can be used to transfer learning from HDD model with enough data to build failure prediction methods for HDD models with lack of data. In this work we evaluate several transfer learning strategies in the task of HDD failure prediction. Additionally we propose a new strategy to build information sources based on the clustering of similar HDD models. This approach may be a valid alternative when no HDD model has enough data to generate a reliable model. Results showed that all transfer learning scenarios can improve the performance of HDDs failure prediction methods, mainly for HDDs with very limited data. Moreover, the clustering-based information source also results in performance gains in all transfer methods and HDD models tested.