Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cytodifferentiation of bergmann glia and its relationship with purkinje cells

The Bergmann glia is composed of unipolar protoplasmic astrocytes in the cerebellar cortex. Bergmann glial cells locate their cell bodies around Purkinje cells, and extend radial or Bergmann fibers enwrapping synapses on Purkinje cell dendrites. During development, Bergmann fibers display a tight association with migrating granule cells, from which the concept of glia-guided neuronal migration has been proposed. Thus, it is widely known that the Bergmann glia is associated with granule cells in the developing cerebellum and with Purkinje cells in the adult cerebellum. As the information on how Bergmann glial cells are related structurally and functionally with differentiating Purkinje cells is quite fragmental, this issue has been investigated using cytochemical techniques for Bergmann glial cells. This review classifies the cytodiffer-entiation of Bergmann glial cells into four stages, that is, radial glia, migration, transformation and protoplasmic astrocytes, and then summarizes their structural relationship with Purkinje cells at each stage. The results conclude that the cytodifferentiation of Bergmann glial cells proceeds in correlation with the migration, dendritogenesis, synaptogenesis and maturation of Purkinje cells. Furthermore, morphological and molecular plasticity of this neuroglia appears to be regulated depending on the cytodifferentiation of nearby Purkinje cells. The functional relevance of this intimate neuron-glial relationship is also discussed with reference to recent studies in cell biology, cell ablation and gene knockout.
Investigation of Bacteriological Quality of Meat from Abattoir and Butcher Shops in Bishoftu, Central Ethiopia

The study was conducted from November 2015 to November 2016 to determine bacterial load and identify pathogenic bacteria (S. aureus, E. coli, and Salmonellae species) in meat from abattoir and butcher shops as well as to assess associated hygienic and sanitation practices being experienced in the selected study site. A cross-sectional study was conducted where a simple random sampling method was used to select butcher shops, and the municipal abattoir was purposively selected. A structured questionnaire survey was also used to assess hygienic status of the municipal abattoir and butcher shops. A total of 124 samples (48 swab samples from abattoir carcass, 4 samples of carcass washing water about 20 ml of each, and 36 swab samples each from butcher shop cutting table and cutting knife, respectively) were collected during the study period. The collected samples were processed for aerobic plate count, and the total mean count was found to be 4.53 log10 cfu/cm2 from abattoir carcass swab samples, 2.4 log10 cfu/ml from water samples, 6.58 log10 cfu/cm2 from butcher shops cutting table, and 6.1 log10 cfu/cm2 from cutting knife swab samples. E. coli was the dominant bacterial species isolated (35.2%), followed by S. aureus (22.5%) and Salmonellae species (9.9%). According to the questionnaire survey, 48.4% (15/31) of the abattoir workers did not receive any training regarding food safety issues. Moreover, a majority (66.67%) of the respondents of the butcher house workers were grade 1–4 (elementary) in their educational level and do not use hairnet and handle money with bare hands during serving meat to consumers. The study showed that the hygienic status of the abattoir and butcher shops in the study area is poor, and the obtained results of bacterial load are higher than the acceptable limit of the standard. Therefore, the necessary strategies towards hygiene and sanitation of meat in the town should be implemented.
AgfD, the checkpoint of multicellular and aggregative behaviour in Salmonella typhimurium regulates at least two independent pathways

The regulatory programme of multicellular behaviour in Salmonella typhimurium is determined by mutations in the agfD promoter. AgfD has already been identified to regulate the extracellular matrix associated with the multicellular morphotype composed of thin aggregative fimbriae (agf). To detect additional components contributing to the multicellular morphotype in S. typhimurium, we constructed a mutant in agfD, the positive transcriptional regulator of the agfBA(C) operon encoding for fimbrial subunit proteins. The agfD mutant lacked any form of multicellular behaviour as shown by analysis at the macroscopic and microscopic level. In contrast, the agfBA mutant unable to form thin aggregative fimbriae still maintained long‐range intercellular adhesion. Promoter and expression analysis revealed that the genes downstream of agfD agfEFG most likely did not contribute to the remaining aggregative behaviour. Screening of transcriptional fusions for agfD dependency uncovered adrA, a homologue of yaiC in Escherichia coli. Environmental factors regulating adrA correspond to the regulation of thin aggregative fimbriae. AdrA is a putative transmembrane protein with a C‐terminal GGDEF domain of unknown function although it is present in over 50 bacterial proteins. AdrA mutant cells, which still formed thin aggregative fimbriae with all binding characteristics, exhibited community behaviour but, unlike the wild type, lacked long‐range intercellular adhesion. An agfBA adrA double mutant behaved like the agfD mutant. Therefore, it was concluded that agfD regulates at least two independent pathways contributing to the multicellular morphotype in S. typhimurium.
User behavior pattern detection in unstructured processes – a learning management system case study

ABSTRACT Process mining methodologies are designed to uncover underlying business processes, deviations from them, and in general, usage patterns. One of the key limitations of these methodologies is that they struggle in cases in which there is no structured process, or when a process can be performed in many ways. Learning Management Systems are a classic case of unstructured processes since each learner follows a different learning process. In this paper, we address this limitation by proposing and validating the user behavior pattern detection (UBPD) methodology which is based on detecting very short user activities and clustering them based on shared variance to construct a more meaningful behavior. We develop and validate this methodology by using two datasets of unstructured processes from different implementations of a learning management system. The first dataset uses a gamified course where users have the freedom to choose how to use the system, and the second dataset uses data from a massive online open course, where again, system usage is based on personal learning preferences. The key contribution of the methodology is its ability to discover user-specific usage patterns and cluster users based on them, even in noisy systems with no clear process. It provides great value to course designers and teachers trying to understand how learner interact with their system and sets the foundation for additional research in this class of systems.
Comparative advantage for the areas irrigated with underground blue water in North China Plain

North China Plain is one of the most important grain-producing areas in China. Because of unevenly distributed precipitation in this semi-arid area, crop production largely relies on underground blue water (UBW) to irrigate, overexploitation of which causes a lot of environmental problems. In this paper, we first defined the representative division of winter wheat irrigation water production efficiency with a support vector machine and genetic algorithm coupling algorithm, then established a model for evaluating the comparative advantage of UBW production efficiency by combining the effective precipitation with the UBW depth, calculated its value in each city, and further proposed the reasonable irrigation water requirement and its distribution under different grain reserves at the targeting year. The result showed that when the typical precipitation ( P ) is 25% in a targeting year, there is no need to irrigate with UBW; when P = 50%, supplying 5% of total winter wheat production (TWP) could save 15% of UBW; when P = 75%, supplying 5% of TWP could save 11% of UBW; and when P = 75%, supplying 10% of TWP could save up to 28% of UBW.
Validation of the Charlson Comorbidity Index in Patients With Head and Neck Cancer: A Multi‐institutional Study

Comorbid conditions are medical illnesses that accompany cancer. The impact of these conditions on the outcome of patients with head and neck cancer is well established. However, all of the comorbidity studies in patients with head and neck cancer reported in the literature have been performed using the Kaplan‐Feinstein index (KFI), which may be too complicated for routine use. This study was performed to introduce and validate the use of the Charlson comorbidity index (CI) in patients with head and neck cancer and to compare it with the Kaplan‐Feinstein comorbidity index for accuracy and ease of use. Study design was a retrospective cohort study. The study population was drawn for three academic tertiary care centers and included 88 patients 45 years of age and under who underwent curative treatment for head and neck cancer. All patients were staged by the KFI and the CI for comorbidity and divided into two groups based on the comorbidity severity staging. Group 1 included patients with advanced comorbidity (stages 2 or 3), and group 2 included those with low‐level comorbidity (stages 0 or 1). Outcomes were compared based on these divisions. The KFI was successfully applied to 80% of this study population, and the CI was successfully applied in all cases ( P < 0.0001). In addition, the KFI was found to be more difficult to use than the CI ( P < 0.0001). However, both indices independently predicted the tumor‐specific survival ( P = 0.007), even after adjusting for the confounding effects of TNM stage by multivariate analysis. Overall, the CI was found to be a valid prognostic indicator in patients with head and neck cancer. In addition, because comorbidity staging by the CI independently predicted survival, was easier to use, and more readily applied, it may be better suited for use for retrospective comorbidity studies.
Seasonal and geographical variation in heat tolerance and evaporative cooling capacity in a passerine bird

ABSTRACT Intraspecific variation in avian thermoregulatory responses to heat stress has received little attention, despite increasing evidence that endothermic animals show considerable physiological variation among populations. We investigated seasonal (summer versus winter) variation in heat tolerance and evaporative cooling in an Afrotropical ploceid passerine, the white-browed sparrow-weaver (Plocepasser mahali; ∼47 g) at three sites along a climatic gradient with more than 10°C variation in mid-summer maximum air temperature (Ta). We measured resting metabolic rate (RMR) and total evaporative water loss (TEWL) using open flow-through respirometry, and core body temperature (Tb) using passive integrated transponder tags. Sparrow-weavers were exposed to a ramped profile of progressively higher Ta between 30 and 52°C to elicit maximum evaporative cooling capacity (N=10 per site per season); the maximum Ta birds tolerated before the onset of severe hyperthermia (Tb≈44°C) was considered to be their hyperthermia threshold Ta (Ta,HT). Our data reveal significant seasonal acclimatisation of heat tolerance, with a desert population of sparrow-weavers reaching significantly higher Ta in summer (49.5±1.4°C, i.e. higher Ta,HT) than in winter (46.8±0.9°C), reflecting enhanced evaporative cooling during summer. Moreover, desert sparrow-weavers had significantly higher heat tolerance and evaporative cooling capacity during summer compared with populations from more mesic sites (Ta,HT=47.3±1.5 and 47.6±1.3°C). A better understanding of the contributions of local adaptation versus phenotypic plasticity to intraspecific variation in avian heat tolerance and evaporative cooling capacity is needed for modelling species' responses to changing climates. Summary: Heat tolerance and evaporative cooling capacity in a passerine bird varies among populations, with individuals at a hot arid site showing significant seasonal acclimatisation.
Aarhus School of Architecture / Design School Kolding / KADK Calibrated and Interactive Modelling of Form-Active Hybrid Structures

Form-active hybrid structures (FAHS) couple two or more different structural elements of low self weight and low or negligible bending flexural stiffness (such as slender beams, cables and membranes) into one structural assembly of high global stiffness. They offer high load-bearing capacity at a fraction of the weight of traditional building elements and do so with a clear aesthetic expression of force flow and equilibrium. The design of FAHS is limited by one significant restriction: the geometry definition, form-finding and structural analysis are typically performed in separate and bespoke software packages which introduce interruptions and data exchange issues in the modelling pipeline. The mechanical precision, stability and open software architecture of Kangaroo has facilitated the development of proof-of-concept modelling pipelines which tackle this challenge and enable powerful materially-informed sketching. Making use of a projection-based dynamic relaxation solver for structural analysis, explorative design has proven to be highly effective.
Immunohistochemical Analysis of the Ubiquitin-conjugating Enzyme UbcH10 in Lung Cancer

The ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme (UbcH10) plays important roles in the regulation of cell cycle progression. Recently, UbcH10 expression has been demonstrated in several human and experimental tumors, and proteasome inhibitors have been tested in trials for pulmonary neoplasms; however, the underlying mechanisms as well as the clinicopathological relevance of UbcH10 in the genesis and progression of lung cancer remain largely unknown. Therefore, the authors evaluated the expression of UbcH10 in human lung cancer and evaluated its possible diagnostic and prognostic use. They found that most cases of lung adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and large cell and small cell carcinoma were positive for UbcH10. The expression levels of UbcH10 progressively increased with decreasing degree of tumor differentiation. There was a statistically significant difference of UbcH10 positivity between grade I/III of lung adenocarcinoma (p=0.013) and squamous cell carcinoma (p=0.002). No significant differences were found between histological types (p=0.072). In the case of cell blocks prepared from pleural effusions, inflammatory and reactive mesothelial elements did not show appreciable UbcH10 expression, whereas neoplastic cells exhibited clear UbcH10 positivity. The results suggest that UbcH10 might represent a new and promising diagnostic and prognostic marker in both histologic and cytologic specimens of lung cancer.
An accelerated ordered subsets reconstruction algorithm using an accelerating power factor for emission tomography

We proposed a speed-enhanced tomographic reconstruction algorithm, ACOSEM (accelerated complete-data ordered-subset expectation-maximization), to accelerate a convergent OS-type algorithm (COSEM). The ACOSEM algorithm was based on modification of the COSEM update by applying an accelerating power factor or a bigger step size. Unlike the limited enhancement of the other speed-enhanced algorithm (E-COSEM), the proposed ACOSEM with an appropriate power factor can lead to a much faster reconstruction speed than COSEM and ECOSEM. Similar to COSEM, there is no free user-entered relaxation parameter needed for ACOSEM to ensure the convergent performance as required in the other type of fast convergent algorithms such as RAMLA. We derived the ACOSEM algorithm, and compared its performance to those of other fast convergent algorithms including COSEM, ECOSEM and RAMLA with optimized relaxation parameters. Though not convergent, OSEM is the current state-of-the-art reconstruction method used in the clinics, and thus included in the noise performance comparison. The results showed that ACOSEM reached the same image quality as in COSEM but two times faster when a power factor of 2.0 was used. An upper limit of 5 for the power factor with monotonically increasing log-likelihood in ACOSEM was observed under various conditions. Although the convergence proof is not available now, the results of log-likelihood values and noise studies showed that ACOSEM performed consistently with COSEM but with an accelerating reconstruction speed.
A Branch-and-Cut Algorithm for the Double Traveling Salesman Problem with Multiple Stacks

The double traveling salesman problem with multiple stacks is a variant of the pickup and delivery traveling salesman problem in which all pickups must be completed before any delivery. In addition, items can be loaded on multiple stacks in the vehicle, and each stack must obey the last-in-first-out policy. The problem consists of finding the shortest Hamiltonian cycles covering all pickup and delivery locations while ensuring the feasibility of the loading plan. We formulate the problem as two traveling salesman problems linked by infeasible path constraints. We also introduce several strengthenings of these constraints, which are used within a branch-and-cut algorithm. Computational results performed on instances from the literature show that the algorithm outperforms existing exact algorithms. Instances with up to 28 requests 58 nodes have been solved to optimality.
Hemodynamic and Morphologic Changes After Portal Vein Embolization: Differential Effects in Central and Peripheral Zones in the Liver on Multiphasic Computed Tomography

Objective: To evaluate hemodynamic and morphologic effects in the liver after portal vein embolization (PVE). Methods: Hepatic computed tomography scans of 7 patients who had undergone preoperative PVE were retrospectively reviewed. Pre- and post-PVE computed tomography densities were evaluated for the unenhanced, late arterial, and portal venous phases in peripheral and central hepatic regions and in the 3 main hepatic veins. Relative changes in areas in these regions were assessed in 5 evaluable patients with serial post-PVE scans. Results: During the late arterial phase, enhancement was significantly higher after PVE than it was before PVE in the peripheral hepatic regions, and it was higher in the peripheral regions than in the central regions. Enhancement was also significantly higher in the right main hepatic vein than in the middle and left hepatic veins during the late arterial phase. The ratio of areas of the peripheral/central regions decreased significantly after PVE. Conclusions: Zonal enhancement in the late arterial phase changed after PVE and seemed to be associated with differential parenchymal atrophy. We speculate that the hepatic arterial supply increases peripherally and that peribiliary/periportal plexuses maintain the portal supply centrally.
Psychology of Computer Use: XXV. Locus of Control, Information-System Dialogues, and End-Users' Satisfaction

This study examined the correlation of locus of control and end-users' satisfaction for three computer dialogue treatments—question/answer, menu, and command language. In the present study, 390 subjects were classified as internally or externally oriented according to an abbreviated form of Rotter's I-E Scale. Subjects then utilized an information system possessing one of three randomly selected dialogues to solve a problem in selecting employees. Their over-all satisfaction with the system was measured. Analysis of variance did not support the hypothesis that locus of control is associated with users' satisfaction.
A high-isolation low-insertion-loss filter-integrated PIN diode antenna switch

This paper presents a new technique for an antenna switch used in WiMAX applications. The switch is based on a PIN diode SPDT switch with a bandpass filter integrated in the receiving path. The filter is realised by using an inductor parallel to the PIN diode. When reverse biased, the diode behaves as a capacitor, which resonates with the inductor resulting in a bandpass response. In the experiment, the prototype has exhibited a good performance. At Tx ON state, it produces 38.5 dB of isolation and 1 dB of insertion loss. At Rx ON state, it produces 18.3 dB of isolation and 1.2 dB of insertion loss. The integrated bandpass filter has a 3-dB bandwidth of 650 MHz. It eliminates the need for a pre-selection filter prior to the LNA, hence improving the noise figure of the receiving system.
Executive Compensation Disclosure and Private Control Benefits: A Comparison of U.S. And Canadian Dual Class Firms

Prior research on the cross-country variation of reporting choices induced by managerial incentives to extract private benefits is limited in its use because the research often used accounting measures that had limited empirical correlations with direct estimates of private control benefits. This study attempts to resolve the void in the literature by using a measure of compensation disclosure that has been shown to be directly correlated with excess compensation. The evidence shows that while compensation disclosure choices in dual class share firms tend to be more opaque, they are lesser so in a relatively weaker investor protection environment. This is consistent with the explanation that a weaker investor protection environment magnifies the perception of agency costs associated with dual class equity, inducing such firms to be less opaque in their disclosures in an attempt to mitigate this perception. Based on prior literature, Canada and the U.S. are used to proxy for weak and strong investor protection environments respectively. The study also provides evidence that institutional blockholders encourage compensation disclosure transparency but lesser so in Canada.
Personality disorders and normal personality dimensions in obsessive-compulsive disorder

Background Little is known about personality disorders and normal personality dimensions in relatives of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Aims To determine whether specific personality characteristics are part of a familial spectrum of OCD. Method Clinicians evaluated personality disorders in 72 OCD case and 72 control probands and 198 case and 207 control first-degree relatives. The self-completed Revised NEO Personality Inventory was used for assessment of normal personality dimensions. The prevalence of personality disorders and scores on normal personality dimensions were compared between case and control probands and between case and control relatives. Results Case probands and case relatives had a high prevalence of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) and high neuroticism scores. Neuroticism was associated with OCPD in case but not control relatives. Conclusions Neuroticism and OCPD may share a common familial aetiology with OCD.
An effective technique for the synthesis of an equiripple low pass prototype filter with asymmetric frequency response and arbitrary transfer function zeros

A simple numerical technique (based on polynomial fitting) is presented which allows to determine the poles of a general low-pass, frequency asymmetric, prototype filter (both of even or odd order) with equiripple Cebycheff passband response. The zeros of the transfer function can be arbitrarily specified in the complex plane (however they must be symmetric with respect to the imaginary axis). Once the poles are known, the synthesis of the filter is carried out through the chain matrix polynomials, obtaining a general cross-coupled structure. As an example of application, the synthesis of a group delay equalized filters with a prescribed transmission zero in the lower stop band is presented.