Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Decrease in Cell Size Accompanies a Loss of Docosahexaenoate in the Rat Hippocampus

Rats raised on n-3 essential fatty acid deficient diets demonstrate spatial memory deficits. To investigate neuroanatomical correlates of these deficits, morphological analysis of the hippocampus were carried out. Adult, female rats were raised for three generations on n-3 deficient or n-3 supplemented diets. Two n-3 deficient diets contained adequate linoleic acid (LA), or high linoleic acid (high LA), and two supplemented diets contained LA supplemented with alpha-linolenic acid (+LNA), or linoleic supplementation with alpha- linolenic and docosahexaenoic acids (+LNA/DHA). The total fatty acid composition of the hippocampus revealed a profound loss (90%) in docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) in the hippocampi of LA and high LA animals compared to those on +LNA and +LNA/DHA diets with a reciprocal increase in docosapentaenoic acid (DPAn-6) in all phospholipid species. The volume, density; total number, and cell body size of neurons in CA1-3, granular and hilar layers of the hippocampus were measured at septal and temporal locations using unbiased stereology. No differences were detected in any of these measures except for in cell body size; CA1 pyramidal neurons in the LA group were significantly (p < 0.04) smaller than neurons in the +LNA/DHA group at the septal location.
Analysis of dynamic EMG and acceleration measurements in Parkinson's disease

In this paper, we bring out modern methods that are potential in analysing differences in the dynamic surface electromyographic (EMG) and acceleration measurements between patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and healthy persons. These methods are the correlation dimension of EMG, the recurrence rate of EMG, the power of acceleration and the sample entropy of acceleration. In this study, these methods were used to extract features from surface EMG and acceleration recordings measured during elbow flexion and extension movements. The extracted features were used to form high-dimensional feature vectors and the dimensionality of these vectors was then reduced by using the principal component approach. Finally, the feature vectors were discriminated between subjects by using the principal components. The discrimination power of the presented approach was tested with EMG and acceleration data measured from 46 patients with PD (on-medication) and 59 healthy controls. Discrimination results showed that the present method was able to discriminate dynamic EMG and acceleration recordings between patients with PD and healthy controls. Therefore, dynamic surface EMG and acceleration measurements may have potential in the objective and quantitative assessment and diagnosis of PD.
Abdominal Pressure Variations and Degree of Myorelaxation During ExtraAbdominal Surgery

Aim: The purpose of the study is to verify the hypothesis that there is a correlation between the degrees of myorelaxation obtained by neuromuscular blockage during general anesthesia with changes in IAP values. Material and methods: The present study was carried out in surgery department, during September 2016 - October 2016. The plot consisted of 9 patients who undergone surgeries in the extra-abdominal area: 2 total thyroidectomies, 3 subtotal thyroidectomies, 3 simple mastectomy and one axilo-femoral bypass. Results: By comparing the results obtained in the nine cases, it was observed a statistically insignificant increase of intraabdominal pressure at train of four ratio values of 0, 1 or 2, intraabdominal pressure instead showed statistically significant variations in train of four ratio values of 3 or 4, observed especially at the reversal of anesthesia and patient waking up. Conclusions: Train of four ratio is an accurate indicator of the degree of neuromuscular blockage. Train of four ratio values of 0-2 changed statistically insignificant the intra-abdominal pressure. Increase train of four ratio over 3 led to sudden increases in intra-abdominal pressure.
Managing multiple chronic conditions in Singapore – Exploring the perspectives and experiences of family caregivers of patients with diabetes and end stage renal disease on haemodialysis

Objective: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is the commonest cause of end stage renal disease (ESRD). Despite increasing DM-ESRD prevalence and high dependency on care, there is a lack of literature on DM-ESRD caregivers. We sought to explore the perspectives and experiences of caregivers of patients with DM undergoing haemodialysis in Singapore. Design: This study employed an exploratory, qualitative design comprising in-depth interviews with caregivers of DM-ESRD patients. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sample of 20 family caregivers (54.2 ± 12.6 years; 75% female) of DM-ESRD patients. Data were analysed using Thematic Analysis. Results: Key caregiving challenges identified were managing diet, care recipients’ emotions and mobility dependence. Patients’ emotional reactions caused interpersonal conflicts and hindered treatment management. Difficulties in dietary management were linked to patients’ erratic appetite, caregivers’ lack/poor understanding of the dietary guidelines and caregivers’ low perceived competence. Limited resources in terms of social support and finances were also noted. Physical and psychological well-being and employment were adversely affected by caregiving role. Conclusion: This study highlights distinctive aspects of the DM-ESRD caregiving experience, which impact on caregivers’ health and challenge care. Disease management programmes should be expanded to support caregivers in dealing with multimorbidity.
Stealing Brand Equity: Measuring Perceptual Confusion Between National Brands and 'Copycat' Own-label Products

Brand-name products have a particular attraction for consumers, being associated with quality and being instantly recognisable. It is therefore tempting for manufacturers of competing products to attempt to divert some of the power of the brand-name towards their own product, causing consumers to become confused about the different between the brand-name product and the own-label product. In many cases, very similar packaging is used, causing consumers to believe that the products come from the same manufacturer.
Experiential squatting: a disruptive new way to help mobile users choose networks

Contract-less wireless plans, in which customers are not locked into terms with providers, are becoming prevalent. The next step in this evolution is a contract-less competitive mobile wireless market in which a customer can, quite fluidly and seamlessly, choose to switch amongst wireless providers based on competitive terms at almost any time or place. This paper explores the concept and design of a system that would, in the above case, help the user experience and choose the available Radio Access Networks (RAN's) and services using software on the mobile device coordinating with various servers. While the approach we present is disruptive and forward-looking, the concept is important and, according to most industry projections, likely in our futures in at least a few wireless markets.
Service Quality Dimensions and Tourist Satisfaction towards Melaka Hotels

This study examines the relationship between service quality dimensions and customer satisfaction with regard to services offered by hotels in Melaka. Service Quality dimensions were derived from the RATER model. Through a sample of 250 respondents, result shows that reliability is the most important dimension of service quality that determines customer satisfaction towards hotel services in Melaka. The study finds assurance and empathy significantly low in contribution towards customer satisfaction. It is important to focus and emphasize the right dimensions of service quality in ensuring customer satisfaction towards Melaka hotels. Keywords-Hotel Service Quality; Reliability; Assurance; Tangibles; Empathy; Responsiveness
Resource Financed Infrastructure: A Discussion on a New Form of Infrastructure Financing

This report, consisting of a study prepared by global project finance specialists Hunton and Williams LLP and comments from six internationally reputed economists and policy makers, provides an analytical discussion of resource financed infrastructure (RFI) contracting from a project finance perspective. The report is meant as a forum for in-depth discussion and as a basis for further research into RFI's role, risks, and potential, without any intention to present a World Bank, supported view on RFI contracting. It is motivated by the conviction that if countries are to continue to either seeks RFI or receive unsolicited RFI proposals, there is an onus on public officials to discern bad deals from good, to judge unavoidable trade-offs, and to act accordingly. The report aims to provide a basis for developing insights on how RFI deals can be made subject to the same degree of public policy scrutiny as any other instrument through which a government of a low or lower-middle-income country might seek to mobilize development finance. The report also feeds into the global mainstreaming of 'open contracting,' providing citizens with the means to engage with governments and other stakeholders on how nonrenewable resources are best managed for the public benefit. In the case of RFI, there is a very direct link made between the value of resources in the ground and the development of (infrastructure) benefits. It should not be a surprise, therefore, that the revised Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Standard, adopted in May 2013, addresses extractive transactions with an infrastructure component, including RFI.
FLEXS: a method for fast flexible ligand superposition.

If no structural information about a particular target protein is available, methods of rational drug design try to superimpose putative ligands with a given reference, e.g., an endogenous ligand. The goal of such structural alignments is, on the one hand, to approximate the binding geometry and, on the other hand, to provide a relative ranking of the ligands with respect to their similarity. An accurate superposition is the prerequisite of subsequent exploitation of ligand data by either 3D QSAR analyses, pharmacophore hypotheses, or receptor modeling. We present the automatic method FLEXS for structurally superimposing pairs of ligands, approximating their putative binding site geometry. One of the ligands is treated as flexible, while the other one, used as a reference, is kept rigid. FLEXS is an incremental construction procedure. The molecules to be superimposed are partitioned into fragments. Starting with placements of a selected anchor fragment, computed by two alternative approaches, the remaining fragments are added iteratively. At each step, flexibility is considered by allowing the respective added fragment to adopt a discrete set of conformations. The mean computing time per test case is about 1:30 min on a common-day workstation. FLEXS is fast enough to be used as a tool for virtual ligand screening. A database of typical drug molecules has been screened for potential fibrinogen receptor antagonists. FLEXS is capable of retrieving all ligands assigned to platelet aggregation properties among the first 20 hits. Furthermore, the program suggests additional interesting candidates, likely to be active at the same receptor. FLEXS proves to be superior to commonly used retrieval techniques based on 2D fingerprint similarities. The accuracy of computed superpositions determines the relevance of subsequently performed ligand analyses. In order to validate the quality of FLEXS alignments, we attempted to reproduce a set of 284 mutual superpositions derived from experimental data on 76 protein-ligand complexes of 14 proteins. The ligands considered cover the whole range of drug-size molecules from 18 to 158 atoms (PDB codes: 3ptb, 2er7). The performance of the algorithm critically depends on the sizes of the molecules to be superimposed. The limitations are clearly demonstrated with large peptidic inhibitors in the HIV and the endothiapepsin data set. Problems also occur in the presence of multiple binding modes (e.g., elastase and human rhinovirus). The most convincing results are achieved with small- and medium-sized molecules (as, e.g., the ligands of trypsin, thrombin, and dihydrofolate reductase). In more than half of the entire test set, we achieve rms deviations between computed and observed alignment of below 1.5 A. This underlines the reliability of FLEXS-generated alignments.
ARMHEx: A hardware extension for DIFT on ARM-based SoCs

Security is a major issue nowadays for the embedded systems community. Untrustworthy authorities may use a wide range of attacks in order to retrieve critical information. This paper introduces ARMHEx, a practical solution targeting DIFT (Dynamic Information Flow Tracking) on ARM-based SoCs (e.g. Xilinx Zynq). Current DIFT implementations suffer from two major drawbacks. First, recovering required information for DIFT is generally based on software instrumentation leading to high time overheads. ARMHEx takes profit of ARM CoreSight debug components and static analysis to drastically reduce instrumentation time overhead (up to 90% compared to existing works). Then, security of the DIFT hardware extension itself is not considered in related works. In this work, we tackle this issue by proposing a solution based on ARM Trustzone.
Role of Entanglement in Quantum Neural Networks (QNN)

Starting with the theoretical basis of quantum computing, entanglement has been explored as one of the key resources required for quantum computation, the functional dependence of the entanglement measures on spin correlation functions has been established and the role of entanglement in implementation of QNN has been emphasized. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the general two-qubit state to be maximally entangled state (MES) have been obtained and a new set of MES constituting a very powerful and reliable eigen basis (different from magic bases) of two-qubit systems has been constructed. In terms of the MES constituting this basis, Bell’s States have been generated and all the qubits of two-qubit system have been obtained. Carrying out the correct computation of XOR function in neural network, it has been shown that QNN requires the proper correlation between the input and output qubits and the presence of appropriate entanglement in the system guarantees this correlation.
Linkages between India and Three ASEAN Stock Markets: A Co-Integration Approach

Today, an investor has an array of investment choices including the opportunities to approach overseas market which were unavailable a few decades ago. In literature, the integration of stock markets has been widely discussed and analyzed. This paper examines the relationship between Indian stock market and the three stock markets of the ASEAN countries viz. Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. Using the daily closing prices of the indices over a period of ten years i.e. 2004 to 2014, the study examined the inter-linkages of Indian stock market with the three markets. The Granger-causality and co-integration test were used to check the causal relationship. The study found that there is a significant short-term unidirectional influenced from the Indian stock market to the three ASEAN countries stock markets while no long-term relation (no co-integration) are found between the Indian equity market with that of three ASEAN countries viz. Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore equity markets.
Access of peripherally administered DuP 753 to rat brain angiotensin II receptors

The in vivo access of the nonpeptide angiotensin II (Ang II) antagonist, DuP 753 (10 mg kg−1, i.v.), to Ang II receptors of rat brain was investigated by in vitro autoradiography with [125I]‐[Sar1, Ile8] Ang II as a ligand. DuP 753 markedly inhibited the binding to sites which contain exclusively AT1 receptors both outside and within the blood brain barrier, such as the circumventricular organs, paraventricular hypothalamic nucleus, median preoptic nucleus and nucleus of the solitary tract. However, binding to other nuclei containing AT2 receptors was not significantly inhibited. These results demonstrate that DuP 753 and/or its active metabolite readily cross the blood brain barrier in vivo and selectively inhibit binding to AT1 receptors in specific brain nuclei.
Introducing aceMote: An energy efficient 32 bit mote

Wireless sensors networks is an active research topic. The sensor nodes (i.e. motes) are the main building blocks of these networks. There is a permanent concern for building more and more efficient motes in order to satisfy the demanding specifications of a sensor network. This paper introduces a new mote device: aceMOTE which is based on a 32 bit microcontroller. The hardware structure of the mote is presented and a comparison is made with similar popular devices. An experimental analysis is made regarding the energy consumption and the results prove that a 32 bit microcontroller is a viable choice for usage in mote design compared with the more frequently used 8 bit and 16 bit microcontrollers.
A multi-resolution based approach for handwriting segmentation in gray-scale images

We present a new method to segment visual handwritten data in gray-scale images. In handwriting recognition, visual shapes are very important in improving the system's performance. We introduce a robust method for extracting visual shapes of handwritten data from a noisy background. We adopted a multi-resolution Marr-Hildreth (1980) based approach to correctly segment visual data in variable contrasted images. Encouraging results have been obtained on real data, from the CEDAR database. <<ETX>>
Welfare Analysis of Debt Policy During Recessions

This paper develops an overlapping-generations model with nominal wage rigidities and examines the welfare effects of debt policy when unemployment exists. Issues of public debt stimulate aggregate consumption demand and create employment. Future generations then face both increased wage incomes and higher taxes. If the amount of outstanding bonds is already large, debt policy deteriorates the welfare of future generations by levying heavy taxes. By contrast, if the outstanding bond issue is relatively small, debt policy can be Pareto improving by creating more employment. Therefore, the welfare implications of debt policy during recessions can be discriminated from those during booms.
Role of fine-needle aspirates of focal lung lesions in patients with hematologic malignancies.

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the yield and safety of transthoracic fine-needle aspiration (FNA) in the diagnosis of pulmonary disease in patients with hematologic malignancy. DESIGN Retrospective chart review. SETTING Tertiary-care medical center. PATIENTS Sixty-seven patients with a hematologic malignancy or after bone marrow transplantation (BMT) for a hematologic malignancy who underwent a total of 71 FNAs for diagnosis of an unexplained parenchymal lung lesion from January 1, 1991, to June 30, 1999. RESULTS The underlying malignancy was lymphoma in 42 patients (63%), leukemia in 8 patients (12%), after allogeneic BMT in 12 patients (18%), after autologous BMT in 3 patients (4%), and other diseases in 2 patients. Radiographs showed focal abnormalities in all cases, and were nodules in 37%, masses in 37%, focal infiltrates in 21%, and cavitary lesions in 5%. The yield of FNA for a finding specific infection or cancer was 56% (40 of 71 FNAs). The FNA with inflammatory changes was clinically sufficient in another 11 patients for a total yield of 72% (51 of 71 FNAs). The yield for lung cancer was 90% (9 of 10 FNAs), for pulmonary lymphoma was 68% (21 of 31 FNAs), and for infection was 67% (10 of 15 FNAs). Complications occurred in 18 of 71 FNAs (25%), with pneumothorax in 14 patients (20%) and chest tube placement required in 4 patients (6%). Bleeding occurred in six patients (8%), including one death in a patient with abnormal hematologic parameters. CONCLUSION Transthoracic FNA in patients with hematologic malignancy and focal lung lesions has an excellent yield for detecting cancer and a yield comparable to bronchoscopy for the diagnosis of infections. It should be considered a useful diagnostic tool in this setting.
[Work-to-family influence and social supports: job satisfaction in a north-Italy public health organization --differences between medical and administrative staff].

INTRODUCTION In recent years, the interest in the well-being at work has grown considerably, also considering the latest law directives. Several scholars have devoted particular attention to the topic of the work-to-family influence and of social supports, as elements able to affect the perceived well-being. The well-being in health care has to consider the particular nature of work and the relevant relational dimensions that require special attention for the emotional side. METHODS The research was promoted by the Committee for Equal Opportunities of a public health organization in the North-West Italy. Referring to the job demands-resources theoretical model, this study investigated the role of organizational and family supports, work-to-family spillover (positive and negative) and family workload as possible determinants of job satisfaction, intended as an indicator of psychological well-being at work. Respondents to the questionnaire are 541 (55% of the total employees), their average age is 43 and they are mostly women (80%). RESULTS Data analysis showed the central role of supervisors supports, of the co-workers supports and, to a lesser extent, the role of the work-to-family spillover in influencing job satisfaction. Moreover, significant differences between medical and administrative staff were detected. CONCLUSIONS The centrality of supports, especially those of supervisors in determining job satisfaction, is in line with studies indicating that a supportive leadership and a family-friendly culture can facilitate the arise of positive outcomes for both workers and organizations.
The effects of technology and TQM on the performance of logistics companies

Purpose – Total quality management (TQM) and technology are fast becoming essential features of business strategy for the success of many leading organizations in the world. More and more companies are using technology and adapting TQM for sustaining competitiveness in the marketplace. TQM works well for internal integration of logistics companies and they can benefit from the use of technology, including information technology (IT), to gain further internal and external integration. Seeks to examine this issue.Design/methodology/approach – This research examines the relationship between quality management practices, technology and performances of the logistics companies. The study seeks to gain insights from organizational variables and their effect on operational, quality, technology and overall business performance.Findings – TQM and technology play important and complementing roles in improving the performance. The analysis shows that both high technology firms and high technology TQM firms perform si.
Public Finances in Portugal: A Brief Long-Run View

This paper provides a succinct overview of long-run developments regarding public finances in Portugal with an emphasis on the spending side. Issues addressed are the excessive deficit experiences of Portugal, the past experience with fiscal consolidations, and labour cost competitiveness. It is fair to stay that public spending control has been a problem in Portugal, and fiscal consolidations in the 1980s and 1990s have been shorttermed and mostly not successful. Additionally, the compensation of general government employees diverged vis-a-vis the EU15 after EU entry.