Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Assessment of self-efficacy and coping with cancer: development and validation of the cancer behavior inventory.

This article reports the development of a measure of self-efficacy for coping with cancer. Items culled from a variety of sources were chosen for inclusion in the Cancer Behavior Inventory (CBI) based on the psychometric properties of the items and the fit of the items in a factor structure. Factor analysis on a group of 502 persons with cancer yielded 6 factors: (a) Maintenance of Activity and Independence (alpha = .89), (b) Coping With Treatment-Related Side Effects (alpha = .88), (c) Accepting Cancer/Maintaining Positive Attitude (alpha = .87), (d) Seeking and Understanding Medical Information (alpha = .88), (e) Affective Regulation (alpha = .75), and (f) Seeking Support (alpha = .77). Cronbach's alpha for the entire measure was . 96, and correlations with other measures supported its validity. The CBI may be useful for research and clinical practice.
Cloning and sequencing of a Bacteroides ruminicola B(1)4 endoglucanase gene

Bacteroides ruminicola B(1)4, a noncellulolytic rumen bacterium, produces an endoglucanase (carboxymethylcellulase [CMCase]) that is excreted into the culture supernatant. Cultures grown on glucose, fructose, maltose, mannose, and cellobiose had high specific activities of CMCase (greater than 3 mmol of reducing sugar per mg of protein per min), but its synthesis was repressed by sucrose. B. rumincola did not grow on either ball-milled or acid-swollen cellulose even though the CMCase could hydrolyze swollen cellulose. The CMCase gene was cloned into Escherichia coli, and its nucleotide sequence contained a single open reading frame coding for a protein of 40,481 daltons. The enzyme was overproduced in E. coli under the control of the tac promoter and purified to homogeneity. The N-terminal sequence, amino acid composition, and molecular weight of the purified enzyme were similar to the values predicted from the open reading frame of the DNA sequence. However, the CMCase present in B. ruminicola was found to have a monomer molecular weight of 88,000 by Western immunoblotting. This discrepancy appeared to have resulted from our having cloned only part of the CMCase gene into E. coli. The amino acid sequence of the CMCase showed homology to sequences of beta-glucanases from Ruminococcus albus and Clostridium thermocellum.
Gestão balanceada e práticas de gestão: um estudo sobre suas influências no desempenho financeiro

O conceito de gestao balanceada (aquela simultaneamente alinhada, coerente e consistente) e apresentado neste ensaio como uma capacidade organizacional que antecede as praticas de gestao no alcance do desempenho financeiro. Pela abordagem da Resource-Based View (RBV) as empresas se diferenciam pelos recursos e capacidades possuidos, mas as restricoes dos mesmos impedem-nas de terem o desempenho esperado. Esta pesquisa propoe que as praticas de gestao gerarao efeito positivo sobre o desempenho financeiro se forem antecedidas por uma gestao que balanceie estrategias, estrutura e competencias organizacionais. Do ponto de vista teorico, o ensaio insere o conceito de gestao balanceada na linha da estrategia como sendo uma capacidade organizacional.
ABCA7 expression is regulated by cellular cholesterol through the SREBP2 pathway and associated with phagocytosis Published, JLR Papers in Press, June 20, 2006.

ABCA7 is highly homologous to ABCA1 and mediates cellular cholesterol and phospholipid release by apolipoproteins when transfected in vitro. However, expression of ABCA7 was downregulated by increased cellular cholesterol while ABCA1 was upregulated, and the results were consistent by forced expression or downregulation of sterol-responsive/regulatory element (SRE) binding proteins (SREBPs). We analyzed the promoter of the ABCA7 gene and identified the new exon encoding 96 bp (mouse) and 95 bp (human) of the 5′ untranslated region and the transcription start site at 1,122 bp (mouse) and 1,260 bp (human) upstream of the initiation methionine codon. At 5′ upstream of this exon is the ABCA7 proximal promoter containing multiple binding sites of transcription factors for hematopoiesis and SRE of 9 bp at 212 bp (mouse) and 179 bp (human) upstream of the new exon. The apolipoprotein A-I-mediated lipid release was not influenced by suppression of the endogenous ABCA7 with small interfering RNA in mouse fibroblasts or by its increase in ABCA1-deficient mouse cells. In contrast, phagocytic activity was altered in parallel to the ABCA7 expression in these cells. When phagocytosis was induced, the messages increased for SREBP2, ABCA7, and other SREBP2-regulated proteins. The ABCA1 message decreased in this condition. We conclude that the ABCA7 gene is regulated by sterol in the opposite direction to ABCA1 through SRE/SREBP2 and that expression of ABCA7 by this regulation is associated with phagocytic activity.
A Study of the Moderate Growth of Online Retailing (Ecommerce) In the UAE

E-commerce is now one of the most significant activities carried out over the Internet . The research question and problem centred around as to what are the determinants of moderate growth of online retailing in UAE. The key determinants as variables addressed are transaction cost, lack of trust, lack of awareness, culture and local regulation. The last variable – local regulation – was identified by the respondents and experts during the pre-testing of the questionnaire. Both primary and secondary data were collected. Primary Initially a pilot survey was conducted with 35 respondents and subsequently 10 respondents were interviewed face to face to obtain feedback on the questionnaire and their suggestions for improvement data was collected from industrial exerts and customers of supermarkets, and on lines stores in UAE. Smartpls3.0 is used to analyse the data collected by building a partial least squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM). The SmartPLS3.0 tool was used to build and test the research framework and hypothesis. The relationships between the variables were obtained by performing partial least squares (PLS). To develop the trust among customers, the e commerce companies must improve the quality of their website and ensure they have genuine ratings to back them. Transaction costs include the policing costs and search costs which can be addressed by creating more awareness and by holding a wide variety of products. Regulations in favor of ecommerce retailers will motivate them to enter the market. It was also observed that the prevalence of mall culture is also one reason why there is no rapid growth in online retailing. The observations of this study will be of benefit to all stakeholders in e-commerce firms in UAE particularly consumers who intend to use online stores which would increase the growth rate of online retailing in the region. Companies providing payment solutions can leverage the finding of this research. The primary implications of this study would boost the moderate growth to speedier growth rate of online industry in the region.
Toward Computation and Memory Efficient Neural Network Acoustic Models with Binary Weights and Activations

Neural network acoustic models have significantly advanced state of the art speech recognition over the past few years. However, they are usually computationally expensive due to the large number of matrix-vector multiplications and nonlinearity operations. Neural network models also require significant amounts of memory for inference because of the large model size. For these two reasons, it is challenging to deploy neural network based speech recognizers on resource-constrained platforms such as embedded devices. This paper investigates the use of binary weights and activations for computation and memory efficient neural network acoustic models. Compared to real-valued weight matrices, binary weights require much fewer bits for storage, thereby cutting down the memory footprint. Furthermore, with binary weights or activations, the matrix-vector multiplications are turned into addition and subtraction operations, which are computationally much faster and more energy efficient for hardware platforms. In this paper, we study the applications of binary weights and activations for neural network acoustic modeling, reporting encouraging results on the WSJ and AMI corpora.
MTRAC - discovering M2M devices in cellular networks from coarse-grained measurements

Machine-to-Machine (M2M) network traffic is becoming highly relevant in nowadays cellular networks. The ever-increasing number of M2M devices is heavily modifying the traffic patterns observed in cellular networks, and the interest in discovering and tracking these devices is rapidly growing among operators. In this paper we introduce MTRAC, a complete approach for M2M TRAffic Classification, capable of discovering M2M devices from coarse-grained measurements. MTRAC uses different Machine Learning (ML) algorithms to unveil M2M devices in cellular networks. It relies on very simple traffic descriptors to characterize the communication patterns of each device. These descriptors are robust to traffic encryption techniques, and improve the portability of the MTRAC approach to other network scenarios. MTRAC is implemented on top of DBStream, a novel Data Stream Warehouse which allows to classify M2M devices in an on-line basis, using different temporal and logical traffic aggregations. We study the performance of MTRAC in the on-line classification of more than two months of traffic observed in a operational, nationwide cellular network, comparing different ML algorithms and different traffic aggregation techniques. To the best of our knowledge, MTRAC is the first ML-based approach for automatic M2M device classification in operational cellular networks.
Involvement of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Rhodanese in Protection from Cyanide Toxicity

ABSTRACT Cyanide is a serious environmental pollutant and a biocontrol metabolite in plant growth-promoting Pseudomonas species. Here we report on the presence of multiple sulfurtransferases in the cyanogenic bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 and investigate in detail RhdA, a thiosulfate:cyanide sulfurtransferase (rhodanese) which converts cyanide to less toxic thiocyanate. RhdA is a cytoplasmic enzyme acting as the principal rhodanese in P. aeruginosa. The rhdA gene forms a transcriptional unit with the PA4955 and psd genes and is controlled by two promoters located upstream of PA4955 and rhdA. Both promoters direct constitutive RhdA expression and show similar patterns of activity, involving moderate down-regulation at the stationary phase or in the presence of exogenous cyanide. We previously observed that RhdA overproduction protects Escherichia coli against cyanide toxicity, and here we show that physiological RhdA levels contribute to P. aeruginosa survival under cyanogenic conditions. The growth of a ΔrhdA mutant is impaired under cyanogenic conditions and fully restored upon complementation with rhdA. Wild-type P. aeruginosa outcompetes the ΔrhdA mutant in cyanogenic coculture assays. Hence, RhdA could be regarded as an effector of P. aeruginosa intrinsic resistance to cyanide, insofar as it provides the bacterium with a defense mechanism against endogenous cyanide toxicity, in addition to cyanide-resistant respiration.
Occupational Requirements Survey: Results from a Job Observation Pilot Test

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) conducts the Occupational Requirements Survey (ORS), an establishment survey, for the Social Security Administration. The survey collects information on the vocational preparation for and the cognitive and physical requirements of occupations in the U.S. economy, as well as the environmental conditions in which those jobs are performed. BLS field economists, who conduct interviews with establishment representatives, collect these data. On the basis of stakeholders asking whether the data collected through this mode would result in similar measurements as data collected through direct job observation, BLS conducted a job observation pilot test during the summer of 2015. As part of this test, field economists recontacted establishments who had responded to the ORS preproduction test, and while observing workers performing their jobs, the field economists obtained data on the physical job requirements. The results showed relatively high rates of agreement between observed and collected data for most physical requirements.
Exploring Summarization Differences for Two Types of Expository Discourse in Adolescents With Traumatic Brain Injury.

Purpose Annually, nearly 700,000 U.S. children and adolescents experience a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Many of them struggle academically, despite failing to qualify for special education services because their cognitive communication impairments are subtle. Method In this exploratory study, five adolescents with TBI provided verbal summaries of two expository lectures (compare-contrast, cause-effect) and participated in cognitive and expressive syntax testing. Their performance on these tasks was compared descriptively to that of 50 adolescents with typical development. Results For adolescents with TBI, mean summary quality scores for both exposition types were at least 1 SD lower than those of adolescents with typical development and notably 2 SDs below for the cause-effect passage. The adolescents with TBI who had below-average cognitive scores showed better performance on compare-contrast summaries compared to cause-effect, whereas the majority of adolescents with typical development showed the opposite tendency. Conclusions These results provide preliminary evidence that students with TBI, particularly those with cognitive deficits, may struggle with expository discourse despite acceptable performance on a measure of expressive syntax. This study also indicates that researchers should explore how students with TBI perform on academically relevant discourse tasks in order to inform future assessment and intervention efforts. Supplemental Materials https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.5572786.
The effects of a walking program on older Chinese American immigrants with hypertension: a pretest and posttest quasi-experimental design.

OBJECTIVE Hypertension is known to have high rates among Chinese Americans. Identifying culturally specific interventions to reduce sedentary behavior may be effective in reducing hypertension. This study examines the effects of an 8-week walking program with and without cultural modification. DESIGN The study used a 2-group, pretest and posttest, quasi-experimental design. SAMPLE A total sample of 128 Chinese American immigrants with hypertension were assigned to walking groups. RESULTS The results showed that the walking program had no significant effects upon participant blood pressure or walking endurance. The results also revealed that individuals in the maintenance stage walked longer than those in the preparation stage. A comparison of demographic data showed that subjects with a lower level of education walked more minutes per week, which contributed to lower systolic blood pressures among this group as compared with those with a higher level of education. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that this walking protocol, when translated into Chinese and when accompanied by a weekly telephone reminder and other interactions with a Chinese-speaking nurse, is appropriate to use without additional cultural modification. Future research should examine other components of Chinese culture or should apply this protocol for a longer period of time.
The Emerging Facets of Non-Cancerous Warburg Effect

The Warburg effect (WE), or aerobic glycolysis, is commonly recognized as a hallmark of cancer and has been extensively studied for potential anti-cancer therapeutics development. Beyond cancer, the WE plays an important role in many other cell types involved in immunity, angiogenesis, pluripotency, and infection by pathogens (e.g., malaria). Here, we review the WE in non-cancerous context as a “hallmark of rapid proliferation. ” We observe that the WE operates in rapidly dividing cells in normal and pathological states that are triggered by internal and external cues. Aerobic glycolysis is also the preferred metabolic program in the cases when robust transient responses are needed. We aim to draw attention to the potential of computational modeling approaches in systematic characterization of common metabolic features beyond the WE across physiological and pathological conditions. Identification of metabolic commonalities across various diseases may lead to successful repurposing of drugs and biomarkers.
What drives shadow banking? A dynamic panel evidence

This paper examines what drives shadow banking by employing dynamic panel estimation. Utilising annual data from mainly G20 countries for 2002~2013 periods, we provide empirical evidence which suggests that long-term institutional investors including pension funds, insurance companies play a pivotal role in the growth of shadow banking. Our findings also indicate that the size of banks’ assets has a statistically significant effect on the growth of shadow banking as the Originate-toDistribute Model implies. This result reveals that the growth of shadow banking is accompanied with the growth in traditional banking. In the long-run, one percentage point increase in pension funds to GDP ratio can lead to the increase in the broad shadow banking by 4.5~7.0%p which is measured by OFI as a % of GDP. One percentage point increase in the size of traditional banking to GDP attributes to the growth of shadow banking by 0.51~0.66%p in the long run.
Compact spin transfer torque non-volatile flip flop design for power-gating architecture

This paper proposes a compact spin transfer torque non-volatile flip-flop (STT-NVFF) design. The proposed NVFF adds four transistors and two complementary magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) over a standard volatile flip-flop with only 18% area overhead. The NVFF utilizes a low power/ fast switching MTJ that permits the elimination of the write circuitry existing in conventional STT-NVFFs. The proposed NVFF is at least 80% smaller area than conventional STT-NVFFs that uses write circuitry with, at least, the same energy efficiency. It achieves a low backup energy of 111 fJ and restore energy of 6.9 fJ within 3 ns and 0.16 ns respectively. Moreover, it realizes a 72% reduction in break-even point (BEP) and a 10% area reduction compared to an STT-NVFF employing the latch as a writer.
The novel delay-constraint topology control algorithm in WSNs

We investigate the problem of finding an efficient topology for delay-constrained data in WSNs. Since topology control may increase the end-to-end delay, one of the criterion's that should be considered in topology control algorithms is restricting delay. Existing works utilized hop count measure for delay; yet hop count is not a suitable criterion for delay measurement because the delay is dependent on many factors such as propagation and contention delay. We introduced an appropriate measure for the end-to-end delay computation and present a novel delay-constraint topology control algorithm (NDTC). Results show NDTC satisfy the delay constraint with acceptable energy consumption.
Effects of Climate Warming, North Atlantic Oscillation, and El Niño-Southern Oscillation on Thermal Conditions and Plankton Dynamics in Northern Hemispheric Lakes

Impacts of climate warming on freshwater ecosystems have been documented recently for a variety of sites around the globe. Here we provide a review of studies that report long-term (multidecadal) effects of warming trends on thermal properties and plankton dynamics in northern hemispheric lakes. We show that higher lake temperatures, shorter periods with ice cover, and shorter stagnation periods were common trends for lakes across the hemisphere in response to the warmer conditions. Only for shallow dimictic lakes was it observed that deep-water temperatures decreased. Moreover, it became evident that phytoplankton dynamics and primary productivity altered in conjunction with changes in lake physics. Algal spring blooms developed early and were more pronounced in several European lakes after mild winters with short ice cover periods, and primary productivity increased in North American lakes. Effects of elevated temperatures on zooplankton communities were seen in an early development of various species and groups, as is documented for cladocerans, copepods, and rotifers in European lakes. Furthermore, thermophile species reached higher abundance in warmer years. Obviously, the nature of responses is species specific, and depends on the detailed seasonal patterning of warming. Complex responses such as effects propagating across trophic levels are likely, indicating that observed climate—ecosystem relationships are not generally applicable. Nonetheless, the picture emerges that climate-driven changes in freshwater ecosystems may be synchronised to a certain extent among lakes even over great distances if climatic influences are not masked by anthropogenic impacts or differences in lake morphology. Macro-scale climatic fluctuations — such as the North Atlantic Oscillation or the El Niño-Southern Oscillation — were identified as the most important candidates responsible for such coherence, with the former predominating in Europe and the latter in North America. We emphasise, however, that the driving mechanisms and the future behaviour of these oscillations are rather uncertain, which complicates extrapolation of observed effects into the future. Thus, it is necessary to quantify the most important climate—ecosystem relationships in models of appropriate complexity. Such models will help elucidate the multiple pathways climate affects freshwater ecosystems, and will indicate possible adverse effects of a warmer future climate.
Evidence that the entire length of a kinetoplast DNA minicircle is transcribed in Trypanosoma cruzi

A 1.3kb cDNA (cDNA52) was derived from Trypanosoma cruzi trypomastigote mRNA. Using single stranded probes in Northern blots, we identified the putative coding strand of cDNA52. In addition, a minor band was detected in RNA from epimastigotes that was absent in RNA from trypomastigotes. Nucleotide sequence analysis revealed that cDNA52 was highly homologous to T. cruzi kinetoplast DNA minicircle sequences. All four conserved regions of T. cruzi minicircles were identified in cDNA52. Using several criteria, we demonstrated that the hybridization signals were not caused by contaminating minicircle DNA in the RNA preparations. The data provide direct evidence for the unprecedented finding that the entire length of a kDNA minicircle is transcribed in T. cruzi.