Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Structure determination of membrane proteins by NMR spectroscopy.

Current strategies for determining the structures of membrane proteins in lipid environments by NMR spec- troscopy rely on the anisotropy of nuclear spin interactions, which are experimentally accessible through experiments performed on weakly and completely aligned samples. Importantly, the anisotropy of nuclear spin interactions results in a mapping of structure to the resonance frequencies and splittings observed in NMR spectra. Distinctive wheel-like pat - terns are observed in two-dimensional 1 H- 15 N heteronuclear dipolar/ 15 N chemical shift PISEMA (polarization inversion spin-exchange at the magic angle) spectra of helical membrane proteins in highly aligned lipid bilayer samples. One- dimensional dipolar waves are an extension of two-dimensional PISA (polarity index slant angle) wheels that map pro- tein structures in NMR spectra of both weakly and completely aligned samples. Dipolar waves describe the periodic wave-like variations of the magnitudes of the heteronuclear dipolar couplings as a function of residue number in the absence of chemical shift effects. Since weakly aligned samples of proteins display these same effects, primarily as re - sidual dipolar couplings, in solution NMR spectra, this represents a convergence of solid-state and solution NMR ap- proaches to structure determination.
Educational interventions for asthma in children.

BACKGROUND Self-management education programs have been developed for children with asthma, but it is unclear whether such programs improve outcomes. OBJECTIVES To determine the efficacy of asthma self-management education on health outcomes in children. SEARCH STRATEGY Systematic search of the Cochrane Airways Group's and Cochrane Schizophrenia Group's Special Registers of Controlled Trials and hand searches of the reference lists of relevant review articles. SELECTION CRITERIA Randomized and controlled clinical trials of asthma self-management education programs in children and adolescents aged 2 -18 years. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS All studies were assessed independently by two reviewers. Disagreements were settled by consensus. Study authors were contacted for missing data or to verify methods. Subgroup analyses examined the impact of type and intensity of educational intervention, self-management strategy, trial type, asthma severity, adequacy of follow-up, and study quality. MAIN RESULTS Of 45 trials identified, 32 studies involving 3706 patients were eligible. Asthma education programs were associated with moderate improvement in measures of airflow (standardized mean difference [SMD] 0.50, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.25 to 0.75) and self-efficacy scales (SMD 0.36, 95% CI 0.15 to 0.57). Education programs were associated with modest reductions in days of school absence (SMD -0.14, 95% CI -0.23 to -0.04), days of restricted activity (SMD -0.29, 95% CI -0.49 to -0.08), and emergency room visits (SMD -0.21, 95% CI -0.33 to -0.09). There was a reduction in nights disturbed by asthma when pooled using a fixed-effects but not a random-effects model. Effects of education were greater for most outcomes in moderate-severe, compared with mild-moderate asthma, and among studies employing peak flow versus symptom-based strategies. Effects were evident within the first 6 months, but for measures of morbidity and health care utilization, were more evident by 12 months. REVIEWER'S CONCLUSIONS Asthma self-management education programs in children improve a wide range of measures of outcome. Self-management education directed to prevention and management of attacks should be be incorporated into routine asthma care. Conclusions about the relative effectiveness of the various components are limited by the lack of direct comparisons. Future trials of asthma education programs should focus on morbidity and functional status outcomes, including quality of life, and involve direct comparisons of the various components of interventions.
Susceptible and protective endothelial nitric oxide synthase gene polymorphism in alopecia areata in the Kuwaiti population

Alopecia areata (AA) is a chronic inflammatory disease with evidence of T-cell involvement that causes hair follicle “immune privilege collapse”. Nitric monoxide was shown to contribute in the pathogenesis of AA. We are investigating evidence for the association of eNOS gene polymorphism with AA. Genomic DNA was extracted from 176 subjects, 87 Kuwaiti AA patients and 89 matched (for ethnicity, gender and age) healthy controls. A variable number tandem repeat (VNTR) located in intron-4 of the eNOS gene consisting of either four or five (27-base pair) repeats was analyzed by polymerase chain reaction and electrophoresis fragment analysis using ABI 3100 genetic analyzer. Haploview and GenePOP software were used for data analysis. A significant association was found between the intron-4 27 bp-VNTR and AA, where 4b was identified as the risk allele had (χ2 = 4.42, p = 0.035, OR = 2.03). Genotype (4b/4b) showed a significant association with susceptibility to AA and have a frequency of 22% higher in AA patients than in healthy controls (71 vs 49%) and a χ2 = 6.39, (p = 0.011, OR = 2.63). We report a significant association of a polymorphism within the eNOS gene and susceptibility to AA.
A Model for Pipelined Query Execution

This paper develops an analytical model for pipelined execution of complex queries. The goal of this research is gaining insight in potential performance gain from the concurrent execution of pipelined relational operations. First, the model is developed in general terms, and after that it is elaborated for selection, unique, and join operations. Finally, it is shown how the model is used to understand the behavior of multi-operation queries. It is shown, how the individual characteristics of operations innuence their cooperation in a pipeline. The model increases the understanding of dataaow query execution and can form a basis to generate query optimization heuristics for a parallel DBMS.
Seatbelt Use in Qatar in Association with Severe Injuries and Death in the Prehospital Setting

Abstract Introduction: Road traffic crashes (RTCs) are common in Qatar, and are now considered the third leading cause of mortality. In this study, the safety devices used by the Qatari public at the time of RTCs were assessed and the association between seatbelt use by vehicle occupants involved in RTCs and severe injury/death in the prehospital setting was determined. Methods: This study was a retrospective case-control investigation. A Hamad Medical Corporation Emergency Medical Services (EMS) database of RTCs occurring from January 2006 to April 2007 was utilized for this study, providing a total of 5,267 patient records (83.5 % male, 16.5% female, median age = 28 years). Patient demographics, crash characteristics, prehospital assessments, and interventions were identified, and use of safety devices was determined. Univariate analysis including chi-square, Student's t-test, and analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed as appropriate. “Case” patients are defined as those who had specific, critical prehospital assessments, or who received advanced cardio-respiratory life support measures in the field. Logistic regression modeling was used to predict the probability of a case being unbelted, controlling for confounders. Results: Seatbelt use in Qatar was low: 33.9% of males and 32.6% of females wore seatbelts at the time of the RTC. Victims involved in a vehicle rollover crash were less likely to be belted than were those involved in a non-rollover incident (26.2% belted vs. 37.8%; OR = 0.59; 95%CI = 0.50–0.68). Case patients—those with defined critical assessment findings or resuscitation in the field—and control patients were similar in age (30 years vs. 28 years median). Case patients were disproportionately male (89.1% vs. 83.2%; OR = 1.65; 95%CI = 1.01–2.83) and were more likely to be victims of a vehicle rollover crash (44.7% vs. 23.8%; OR = 2.57; 95%CI = 1.84–3.59). Seatbelt use was significantly lower among cases than controls: 19.7% of cases were reported to have worn seatbelts compared to 34.2% of controls (OR = 0.47; 95%CI = 0.31–0.69). This relationship also persisted (OR = 0.51; 95%CI = 0.33–0.76) after controlling for confounders. Conclusions: Seatbelt use in Qatar is low. Seatbelts are protective: in the pre-hospital setting unbelted vehicle occupants involved in RTCs were nearly twice as likely to suffer severe injury or death compared to belted patients. Prehospital morbidity and mortality appears to be reduced significantly by the consistent use of seatbelts by the motoring population in Qatar.
A national case-control study of risk factors for listeriosis in Australia

SUMMARY Listeriosis is a foodborne disease associated with significant mortality. This study attempts to identify risk factors for sporadic listeriosis in Australia. Information on underlying illnesses was obtained from cases' treating doctors and other risk factors were elicited from the patient or a surrogate. We attempted to recruit two controls per case matched on age and primary underlying immune condition. Between November 2001 and December 2004 we recruited 136 cases and 97 controls. Of perinatal cases, living in a household where a language other than English was spoken was the main risk factor associated with listeriosis (OR 11·3, 95% CI 1·5–undefined). Of non-perinatal cases we identified the following risk factors for listeriosis: prior hospitalization (OR 4·3, 95% CI 1·0–18·3), use of gastric acid inhibitors (OR 9·4, 95% CI 2·4–37·4), and consumption of camembert (OR 4·7, 95% CI 1·1–20·6). Forty percent of cases with prior hospitalization were exposed to high-risk foods during hospitalization.
The Unfolded Protein Response Protects from Tau Neurotoxicity In Vivo

The unfolded protein response is a critical system by which the cell handles excess misfolded protein in the secretory pathway. The role of the system in modulating the effects of aggregation prone cytosolic proteins has received less attention. We use genetic reporters to demonstrate activation of the unfolded protein response in a transgenic Drosophila model of Alzheimer's disease and related tauopathies. We then use loss of function genetic reagents to support a role for the unfolded protein response in protecting from tau neurotoxicity. Our findings suggest that the unfolded protein response can ameliorate the toxicity of tau in vivo.
Retrieval and interpretation of textual geolocalized information based on semantic geolocalized relations

This paper describes a method for geolocalized information retrieval from natural language text and its interpretation by assigning them geographic coordinates. A proof-of-concept implementation is discussed, along with geolocalized dictionary stored in PostGIS / PostgreSQL spatial relational database. Discussed research focuses on strongly inflectional Polish language, hence additional complexity had to be taken into account. Presented method has been evaluated with the use of diverse metrics.
Exploiting Orthogonally Dual-Polarized Antennas in Cooperative Cognitive Radio Networking

This work is concerned with enhancement of spectrum utilization by using polarization enabled two-phase cooperation between primary users (PUs) and secondary users (SUs) in cooperative cognitive radio networking (CCRN). The use of orthogonally dual-polarized antennas (ODPAs) enables concurrent transmissions of multiple independent signals of PUs and SUs, and interference suppression via polarization zero-forcing and polarization filtering to obtain significant performance improvement. To maximize a weighted sum throughput of PUs and SUs under energy/power constraints, the problem is formulated and solved based on a multi-timescale Markov decision process, and two modified backward iteration algorithms are devised to attain the optimal policies. Numerical results validate the effectiveness of the proposed CCRN framework, showing that the obtained policy outperforms both greedy and random ones.
Consensus by Democracy. Using Meta-Analyses of Microarray and Genomic Data to Model the Cold Acclimation Signaling Pathway in Arabidopsis1[W]

The whole-genome response of Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) exposed to different types and durations of abiotic stress has now been described by a wealth of publicly available microarray data. When combined with studies of how gene expression is affected in mutant and transgenic Arabidopsis with altered ability to transduce the low temperature signal, these data can be used to test the interactions between various low temperature-associated transcription factors and their regulons. We quantized a collection of Affymetrix microarray data so that each gene in a particular regulon could vote on whether a cis-element found in its promoter conferred induction (+1), repression (−1), or no transcriptional change (0) during cold stress. By statistically comparing these election results with the voting behavior of all genes on the same gene chip, we verified the bioactivity of novel cis-elements and defined whether they were inductive or repressive. Using in silico mutagenesis we identified functional binding consensus variants for the transcription factors studied. Our results suggest that the previously identified ICEr1 (induction of CBF expression region 1) consensus does not correlate with cold gene induction, while the ICEr3/ICEr4 consensuses identified using our algorithms are present in regulons of genes that were induced coordinate with observed ICE1 transcript accumulation and temporally preceding genes containing the dehydration response element. Statistical analysis of overlap and cis-element enrichment in the ICE1, CBF2, ZAT12, HOS9, and PHYA regulons enabled us to construct a regulatory network supported by multiple lines of evidence that can be used for future hypothesis testing.
An argument for increasing TCP's initial congestion window

TCP flows start with an initial congestion window of at most four segments or approximately 4KB of data. Because most Web transactions are short-lived, the initial congestion window is a critical TCP parameter in determining how quickly flows can finish. While the global network access speeds increased dramatically on average in the past decade, the standard value of TCP's initial congestion window has remained unchanged. In this paper, we propose to increase TCP's initial congestion window to at least ten segments (about 15KB). Through large-scale Internet experiments, we quantify the latency benefits and costs of using a larger window, as functions of network bandwidth, round-trip time (RTT), bandwidth-delay product (BDP), and nature of applications. We show that the average latency of HTTP responses improved by approximately 10% with the largest benefits being demonstrated in high RTT and BDP networks. The latency of low bandwidth networks also improved by a significant amount in our experiments. The average retransmission rate increased by a modest 0.5%, with most of the increase coming from applications that effectively circumvent TCP's slow start algorithm by using multiple concurrent connections. Based on the results from our experiments, we believe the initial congestion window should be at least ten segments and the same be investigated for standardization by the IETF.
Effects of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes on lipoprotein subclass particle size and concentration determined by nuclear magnetic resonance.

The insulin resistance syndrome (IRS) is associated with dyslipidemia and increased cardiovascular disease risk. A novel method for detailed analyses of lipoprotein subclass sizes and particle concentrations that uses nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) of whole sera has become available. To define the effects of insulin resistance, we measured dyslipidemia using both NMR lipoprotein subclass analysis and conventional lipid panel, and insulin sensitivity as the maximal glucose disposal rate (GDR) during hyperinsulinemic clamps in 56 insulin sensitive (IS; mean +/- SD: GDR 15.8 +/- 2.0 mg. kg(-1). min(-1), fasting blood glucose [FBG] 4.7 +/- 0.3 mmol/l, BMI 26 +/- 5), 46 insulin resistant (IR; GDR 10.2 +/- 1.9, FBG 4.9 +/- 0.5, BMI 29 +/- 5), and 46 untreated subjects with type 2 diabetes (GDR 7.4 +/- 2.8, FBG 10.8 +/- 3.7, BMI 30 +/- 5). In the group as a whole, regression analyses with GDR showed that progressive insulin resistance was associated with an increase in VLDL size (r = -0.40) and an increase in large VLDL particle concentrations (r = -0.42), a decrease in LDL size (r = 0.42) as a result of a marked increase in small LDL particles (r = -0.34) and reduced large LDL (r = 0.34), an overall increase in the number of LDL particles (r = -0.44), and a decrease in HDL size (r = 0.41) as a result of depletion of large HDL particles (r = 0.38) and a modest increase in small HDL (r = -0.21; all P < 0.01). These correlations were also evident when only normoglycemic individuals were included in the analyses (i.e., IS + IR but no diabetes), and persisted in multiple regression analyses adjusting for age, BMI, sex, and race. Discontinuous analyses were also performed. When compared with IS, the IR and diabetes subgroups exhibited a two- to threefold increase in large VLDL particle concentrations (no change in medium or small VLDL), which produced an increase in serum triglycerides; a decrease in LDL size as a result of an increase in small and a reduction in large LDL subclasses, plus an increase in overall LDL particle concentration, which together led to no difference (IS versus IR) or a minimal difference (IS versus diabetes) in LDL cholesterol; and a decrease in large cardioprotective HDL combined with an increase in the small HDL subclass such that there was no net significant difference in HDL cholesterol. We conclude that 1) insulin resistance had profound effects on lipoprotein size and subclass particle concentrations for VLDL, LDL, and HDL when measured by NMR; 2) in type 2 diabetes, the lipoprotein subclass alterations are moderately exacerbated but can be attributed primarily to the underlying insulin resistance; and 3) these insulin resistance-induced changes in the NMR lipoprotein subclass profile predictably increase risk of cardiovascular disease but were not fully apparent in the conventional lipid panel. It will be important to study whether NMR lipoprotein subclass parameters can be used to manage risk more effectively and prevent cardiovascular disease in patients with the IRS.
Implementasi Model Pembelajaran Problem Solving Berbantuan Peer Tutoring Dilengkapi Hierarki Konsep Untuk Meningkatkan Kualitas Proses Dan Hasil Belajar Materi Stoikiometri Pada Siswa Kelas X Ipa 6 Sman 1 Sukoharjo Tahun Pelajaran 2013/ 2014

Bayu Ishartono. K3310017. IMPLEMENTASI MODEL PEMBELAJARAN PROBLEM SOLVING BERBANTUAN PEER TUTORING DILENGKAPI HIERARKI KONSEP UNTUK MENINGKATKAN KUALITAS PROSES DAN HASIL BELAJAR MATERI STOIKIOMETRI PADA SISWA KELAS X IPA 6 SMAN 1 SUKOHARJO TAHUN PELAJARAN 2013/ 2014. Skripsi. Surakarta: Fakultas Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan. Universitas Sebelas Maret. September 2014. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk meningkatkan: (1) kualitas proses belajar berupa aktivitas siswa pada materi stoikiometri dan (2) kualitas hasil belajar dalam kompetensi sikap dan pengetahuan siswa pada materi stoikiometri. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian tindakan kelas yang terdiri dari dua siklus. Setiap siklusnya terdapat empat tahapan yang terdiri dari perencanaan tindakan, pelaksanaan tindakan, observasi dan refleksi. Subjek penelitian ini adalah siswa kelas X IPA 6 SMAN 1 Sukoharjo tahun pelajaran 2013/ 2014 yang telah diberlakukan Kurikulum 2013. Data penelitian diperoleh melalui wawancara, observasi, tes dan angket. Teknik analisis data yang digunakan adalah analisis deskriptif kualitatif. Hasil penelitian tentang implementasi model pembelajaran Problem Solving berbantuan Peer Tutoring dilengkapi hierarki konsep di materi stoikiometri pada siswa kelas X IPA 6 SMAN 1 Sukoharjo tahun pelajaran 2013/ 2014 menunjukkan bahwa: (1) peningkatan kualitas proses belajar dapat dilihat dari aktivitas siswa dimana pada siklus I diperoleh persentase sebanyak 69,3% dan pada siklus II diperoleh hasil 78,5%, serta (2) peningkatan kualitas hasil belajar dapat dilihat dari hasil penilaian pada kompetensi sikap dan pengetahuan. Ketuntasan belajar siswa pada kompetensi pengetahuan memperoleh persentase dari 55,2% pada siklus I dan meningkat menjadi 84,2% pada siklus II serta ditunjang dengan penilaian pada aspek kompetensi sikap menunjukkan bahwa terdapat peningkatan persentase dari 78,7% pada siklus I menjadi 82,4% pada siklus II. Kata kunci: problem solving, peer tutoring, hierarki konsep, kualitas proses dan hasil belajar, stoikiometri
Development and Demonstration of Measurement-Time Efficient Methods for Impedance Spectroscopy of Electrode and Sensor Arrays

The development of impedance-based array devices is hindered by a lack of robust platforms and methods upon which to evaluate and interrogate sensors. One aspect to be addressed is the development of measurement-time efficient techniques for broadband impedance spectroscopy of large electrode arrays. The objective of this work was to substantially increase the low frequency impedance measurement throughput capability of a large channel count array analyzer by developing true parallel measurement methods. The goal was achieved by Fourier transform-based analysis of simultaneously-acquired multi-channel time-based current and voltage data. Efficacy and quantitative analysis of the parallel approach at frequencies less than ca. 10 Hz as well as a combined sequential + parallel approach for efficient broadband impedance spectroscopy over 5-orders of magnitude in frequency is demonstrated through complex impedance measurement of arrays consisting of up to 100 elements.
Unsupervised manifold learning by correlation graph and strongly connected components for image retrieval

This paper presents a novel manifold learning approach that takes into account the intrinsic dataset geometry. The dataset structure is modeled in terms of a Correlation Graph and analyzed using Strongly Connected Components (SCCs). The proposed manifold learning approach defines a more effective distance among images, used to improve the effectiveness of image retrieval systems. Several experiments were conducted for different image retrieval tasks involving shape, color, and texture descriptors. The proposed approach yields better results in terms of effectiveness than various methods recently proposed in the literature.
Dynamic Self-Healing for Service Flows with Semantic Web Services

With an increasing complexity of business processes, self-healing capability is becoming an important issue in order to support robust service flow execution. In this paper, a dynamic self-healing mechanism is proposed, which can dynamically identify suitable alternatives and replace faulty services such that a service flow can be performed successfully despite of unexpected exceptions. This mechanism explicitly utilizes semantic Web services for service matching and selection of a composite service in business service flow, and Semantic Web services are equipped with rich business rules in a domain-dependent manner. We explore the self-healing mechanism for supporting self-healable service flow execution which is modeled in BPEL4WS. A demo system of self-healing capable service flow execution is built to validate its effectiveness by a concrete scenario, PC manufacturing application.