Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Historiographical Examination of Information Systems

As the Information Systems (IS) field enters its fourth decade of evolution, the time is right to provide a historiographical examination of this discipline. Methodological and thematic trends are gauged through a quarterly analysis of 2098 IS articles published in eight leading journals and the ICIS Proceedings in the 12-year period between 1985-1996. The results of this study show that significant changes occurred in research strategies and themes employed by IS researchers. Even though a large proportion of IS studies are still non-empirical, we see significant upward trend in the proportion of empirical studies. The reliance on reference disciplines increased significantly over the years. Similarly, we see significantly increasing trends in organizational, environmental and educational themes. In contrast, technical issues show decreasing trends. The paper calls for collective efforts to unify knowledge necessary for progress of IS as a scientific field of inquiry.
Design of Virtual Personal Computing Environment for Ubiquitous Computing

This paper presents a ubiquitous computing technology called Virtual Personal Computing Environment (VPCE), which enables users to access their personalized computing environments anywhere using any available terminals. The key feature of the VPCE is that it can be constructed dynamically by reassembling application services and resources distributed over networks, which is different from the traditional desktop personal computing environment that is tied to an individual computer to execute. In VPCE, users work with a heterogeneous collection of application services, and data access by application as well as the application accessed by users are distributed over networks, while the applications and data distribution is transparent to the users.
Effect of Vitamin D Supplementation on Glycemic Control in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes (SUNNY Trial): A Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial

OBJECTIVE Low vitamin D status has been associated with impaired glycemic control in patients with type 2 diabetes. The purpose of our study was to evaluate the effect of vitamin D supplementation on glycemic control in patients with type 2 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was conducted in 275 adult patients with type 2 diabetes without insulin treatment. Patients were randomly assigned to receive either vitamin D3 (50,000 IU/month) or placebo for 6 months. To assess the primary outcome of the study, change in HbA1c, we performed a linear regression analysis. RESULTS Mean baseline serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] increased from 60.6 ± 23.3 to 101.4 ± 27.6 nmol/L and 59.1 ± 23.2 to 59.8 ± 23.2 nmol/L in the vitamin D and placebo group, respectively. Mean baseline HbA1c was 6.8 ± 0.5% (51 ± 6 mmol/mol) in both groups. After 6 months, no effect was seen on HbA1c (mean difference: β = 0.4 [95% CI −0.6 to 1.5]; P = 0.42) and other indicators of glycemic control (HOMA of insulin resistance, fasting insulin, and glucose) in the entire study population. Subgroup analysis in patients with a serum 25(OH)D <50 nmol/L or an HbA1c level >7% (53 mmol/mol) did not differ the results. CONCLUSIONS In a well-controlled group of patients with type 2 diabetes, intermittent high-dose vitamin D supplementation did not improve glycemic control.
UNBOUNDED B-FREDHOLM OPERATORS ON HILBERT SPACES

Abstract This paper is concerned with the study of a class of closed linear operators densely defined on a Hilbert space $H$ and called B-Fredholm operators. We characterize a B-Fredholm operator as the direct sum of a Fredholm closed operator and a bounded nilpotent operator. The notion of an index of a B-Fredholm operator is introduced and a characterization of B-Fredholm operators with index $0$ is given in terms of the sum of a Drazin closed operator and a finite-rank operator. We analyse the properties of the powers $T^m$ of a closed B-Fredholm operator and we establish a spectral mapping theorem.
Conceptual Modeling of IS-A Hierarchies for XML

In this paper we briefly describe a new conceptual model for XML called XSEM. It is a combination of several approaches in the area. It divides the conceptual modeling process to conceptual and structural level. At the conceptual level, we design an overall conceptual schema of a domain independently on the required hierarchical representations of the data in XML documents. At the structural level, we design required hierarchical representations of the modeled data in different types of XML documents. In this paper, we further extend XSEM for modeling IS-A hierarchies. We also show how conceptual XSEM schemes can be represented at the logical level in XML schemes specified in the XML Schema language.
A fast segmentation method of sparse point clouds

In this paper, we present a fast segmentation algorithm based on the geometric characteristics of the objects and the attribute of medium. This algorithm is not only suitable for sparse point clouds, but also for dense point clouds. It is built up of three stages: First, the range image is established from the Velodyne VLP-16 laser scanner data, which changes the sparse characteristic of data in the original space and determines the close relationship between the data points. Then, according to the geometric relation of the adjacent data points and point clouds edges distribution analysis, a region growing method is used to complete the fast segmentation of point clouds data, obtaining a series of mutually disjoint subsets. Finally, based on the laser intensity, refined segmentation of the under-segmentation subset is addressed using the K-means clustering method. The point clouds of an indoor corridor scene are used to verify the superiority of our method and compared with three typical algorithms. Experimental results prove that our method can fastly and accurately segment objects in the scene, and is not sensitive to noise and satisfactory in anti-noise performance.
Elucidation of the Role of Functional Amino Acid Residues of the Small Sialidase from Clostridium perfringens by Site-Directed Mutagenesis

Abstract Bacterial sialidases represent important colonization or virulence factors. The development of a rational basis for the design of antimicrobials targeted to sialidases requires the knowledge of the exact roles of their conserved amino acids. A recombinant enzyme of the small (43 kDa) sialidase of Clostridium perfringens was used as a model in our study. Several conserved amino acids, identified by alignment of known sialidase sequences, were altered by sitedirected mutagenesis. All recombinant enzymes were affinitypurified and the enzymatic characteristics were determined. Among the mutated enzymes with modifications in the environment of the 4-hydroxyl group of bound sialic acids, D54N and D54E exhibited minor changes in substrate binding. However, a reduced activity and changes in their pH curves indicate the importance of a charged group at this area. R56K, which is supposed to bind directly to sialic acids as in the homologous Salmonella typhimurium sialidase, showed a 2500-fold reduced activity. The amino acids Asp-62 and Asp-100 are probably involved in catalysis, indicated by reduced activities and altered temperature and pH curves of mutant enzymes. Exchanging Glu-230 with threonine or aspartic acid led to dramatic decreases in activity. This residue and Y 347 are supposed to be crucial for providing a suitable environment for catalysis. However, unaltered pH curves of mutant sialidases exclude their direct involvement in protonation or deprotonation events. These results indicate that the interactions with the substrates vary in different sialidases and that they might be more complex than suggested by mere static Xray structures.
Novel multiple path routing technology for multi-hop wireless networks

The novel routing method proposed enables simultaneous utilisation of multiple paths without them interfering with each other, and improves the system throughput of multi-hop wireless networks between base station (BS) and mobile users. The basic concept is that the BS searches and selects the secondary multi-hop path that is located out of the coverage of the primarily selected multi-hop path derived by the conventional AODV scheme. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme improves the system capacity of the conventional multi-hop wireless network.
GOAT AGOUTI GENE POLYMORPHISM AND ITS ASSOCIATION WITH COAT COLOR IN INDIGENOUS TURKISH GOAT BREEDS

Agouti gene has an important effect on pigment synthesis in mammals. It encodes Agouti signaling protein, which stimulates the phaeomelanin synthesis resulting red, yellow coat color. In this study 120 animals from three indigenous Turkish goat breeds were genotyped for 423 G>T polymorphism in exon 4 of Agouti gene using PCR- RFLP method. Two alleles T and G were observed. GG genotype was absent in all breeds. No clear association could be found between coat color and alleles of 423 G>T polymorphism. The genetic diversity for the site analyzed in the study was found to be very low in all breeds. As a conclusion we may say that caprine Agouti gene and its association with coat phenotype should be studied further using new polymorphisms and in a greater number of breeds.
Growth retardation as well as spleen and thymus involution in latent TGF‐β binding protein (Ltbp)‐3 null mice

The latent TGF‐β binding protein (LTBP)‐3 is an extracellular matrix (ECM) protein that binds the small latent complex (SLC) of TGF‐β. Disruption of the Ltbp‐3 gene by homologous recombination in mice yields mutant animals that display multiple skeletal abnormalities. In addition, these mice have retarded growth. On an inbred 129 SvEv background, half of the Ltbp‐3 mutant mice die between 3 and 4 weeks after birth. These mice show severe involution of the thymus and spleen and a sharp reduction in the numbers of CD4/CD8 double positive T‐cells in the thymus. The thymus and spleen defect is caused by elevated corticosterone levels in the serum and can be reversed by injection of aminoglutethimide (AMG), an inhibitor of steroid synthesis. This result indicates that the thymus and spleen defect is a secondary defect due to high corticosterone levels probably induced by stress of unknown etiology. J. Cell. Physiol. 196: 319–325, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A 12 GHz IF bandwidth low power 5–17 GHz V-band positive transformer-feedback down-conversion mixer

In this paper, a novel positive transformer feedback down-conversion mixer is proposed to boost conversion gain. An ultra-wideband RF input is achieved by feeding RF signal at the emitter of the switching pair. Switching devices are biased so as to minimize LO input power. Area is minimized by means of transformer coupling and shielded transmission line for RF routing. The proposed mixer is implemented in a 0.13 μm BiCMOS process and occupies an active area of only 190 μm × 140 μm. The mixer consumes only 2.2 mA from a 1.3 V supply. The mixer shows a 3 dB IF bandwidth of greater than 12 GHz with a peak conversion gain of -2.4 dB and IIP3 of 2.8 dBm at a LO power of just -13 dBm. The RF input return loss is better than -15 dB up to 67 GHz. The proposed mixer achieves best Figure-of-Merit with LO power (FOMPLO) and thus is most suited for wideband low power mm-wave receivers.
Disorders of skin barriers: clinical implications

Stratum corneum barrier is generally described according to the ‘brick and mortar’ model, which consists of corneocytes and intercellular lipids. Corneocytes are composed mainly of insoluble bundled keratins surrounded by a cell envelope stabilized by cross-linked proteins and covalently bound lipids. Polar structures, such as corneodesmosomes, interconnect corneocytes thus contributing to stratum corneum cohesion. Intercellular lipids are primarily generated from exocytosis of lamellar bodies during the terminal differentiation of keratinocytes, and less importantly are generated by sebaceous output. Intercellular lipids are required for a competent skin barrier and homeostatic control of transcutaneous penetration. 1
Learning Chinese History through Digital Game

Digital game-based learning is becoming a new trend for teaching and learning. While it has been developing in some countries for years, it is still a relatively new topic in others. With the rapid growth of needs in using information technology in the classrooms and the increasing popularity of digital games, this paper aims at looking into the current situation with the help of a case study.
Early and Short-term Triiodothyronine Supplementation Prevents Adverse Postischemic Cardiac Remodeling: Role of Transforming Growth Factor-β1 and Antifibrotic miRNA Signaling

Activation of transforming growth factor (TGF)-β1 signaling in the ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injured myocardium leads to dysregulation of miR-29-30-133, favoring the profibrotic process that leads to adverse cardiac remodeling (CR). We have previously shown that timely correction of the postischemic low-T3 syndrome (Low-T3S) exerts antifibrotic effects, but the underlying molecular players are still unknown. Here we hypothesize that a prompt, short-term infusion of T3 in a rat model of post I/R Low-T3S could hamper the early activation of the TGFβ1-dependent profibrotic cascade to confer long-lasting cardioprotection against adverse CR. Twenty-four hours after I/R, rats that developed the Low-T3S were randomly assigned to receive a 48-h infusion of 6 µg/kg/d T3 (I/R-L+T3) or saline (I/R-L) and sacrificed at 3 or 14 d post-I/R. Three days post-I/R, Low-T3S correction favored functional cardiac recovery. This effect was paralleled by a drop in TGFβ1 and increased miR-133a, miR-30c and miR-29c in the infarcted myocardium. Consistently, connective transforming growth factor (CTGF) and matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2), validated targets of the above miRNAs, were significantly reduced. Fourteen days post-I/R, the I/R-L+T3 rats presented a significant reduction of scar size with a better preservation of cardiac performance and LV chamber geometry. At this time, TGFβ1 and miR-29c levels were in the normal range in both groups, whereas miR-30c-133a, MMP-2 and CTGF remained significantly altered in the I/R group. In conclusion, the antifibrotic effect exerted by T3 in the early phase of postischemic wound healing triggers a persistent cardioprotective response that hampers the progression of heart dysfunction and adverse CR.
Estimation of Maximum Power Point of PV array using datasheet values for microgrid integration

The estimation of Maximum Power Point (MPP) of photovoltaic (PV) array is essential for integration of solar power to microgrid. This paper presents the estimation of Maximum Power Point of a solar photovoltaic array under different environmental conditions (i.e. different temperature and solar irradiation) using Levenberg Marquardt method. The estimation is done using the single diode based model parameters of photovoltaic (PV) module. The photovoltaic (PV) module parameters are estimated from the data sheet values given by manufacturer. The estimated Maximum Power Point (MPP) values of the PV array under different environmental condition are presented in the simulated current-voltage and power-voltage characteristics. It is demonstrated that the estimated MPP values of the PV array are nearly equal to simulated MPP values.
Efficient Approximation Algorithms for Optimal Large-scale Network Monitoring

The growing amount of applications that generate vast amount of data in short time scales render the problem of partial monitoring, coupled with prediction, a rather fundamental one. We study the aforementioned canonical problem under the context of large-scale monitoring of communication networks. We consider the problem of selecting the "best" subset of links so as to optimally predict the quantity of interest at the remaining ones. This is a well know NP-hard problem, and algorithms seeking the exact solution are prohibitively expensive. We present a number of approximation algorithms that: 1) their computational complexity gains a significant improvement over existing greedy algorithms; 2) exploit the geometry of principal component analysis, which also helps us establish theoretical bounds on the prediction error; 3) are amenable for randomized implementation and execution in parallel or distributed fashion, a process that often yields the exact solution. The new algorithms are demonstrated and evaluated using real-world network data.
Markov chain with fuzzy states: Application to queuing decision models

In this paper, we design a queuing system by calculating the best policy to be implemented regarding publicity decisions by using Markov chains with fuzzy states. To this end, first we calculate the steady-state probabilities when the states of the Markov Chain become fuzzy, and next we illustrate by an example the theoretical results previously obtained. In the example, we apply the linear programming solution to the Markovian decision process.
Wavelets for computer graphics: theory and applications

1 Introduction 2 HAAR: The Simplest Wavelet Basis 3 Image Compression 4 Image Editing 5 Image Querying 6 Subdivision Curves 7 The Theory of Multiresolution Analysis 8 Multiresolution Curves 9 Multiresolution Tiling 10 Surface Wavelets 11 Surface Applications 12 Variational Modeling 13 Global Illumination
Health Literacy Concepts in Nursing Education

AbstractThe impact of low health literacy on the health care system is astronomical. The ability to learn, retain, and apply health information is greatly affected by health literacy and thus greatly affects patient outcomes. The responsibility of patient education is mostly shouldered by nurses and yet nursing is the discipline that is most lacking in knowledge and awareness about health literacy. Providing nursing students with the necessary tools to assess patient health literacy and to assess their own patient teaching is a vital component of patient education. Nursing curricula is the place to start.
CHEMICAL CHARACTERIZATION AND INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY OF SOIL ORGANIC MATTER FROM TWO SOUTHERN BRAZILIAN SOILS ( 1 )

Soil organic matter from the surface horizon of two Brazilian soils (a Latosol and a Chernosol), in bulk samples (in situ SOM) and in HF-treated samples (SOM), was characterized by elemental analyses, diffuse reflectance (DRIFT) and transmission Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (T-FTIR). Humic acids (HA), fulvic acids (FA) and humin (HU) isolated from the SOM were characterized additionally by ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-VIS). After sample oxidation and alkaline treatment, the DRIFT technique proved to be more informative for the detection of “in situ SOM” and of residual organic matter than T-FTIR. The higher hydrophobicity index (HI) and H/C ratio obtained in the Chernosol samples indicate a stronger aliphatic character of the organic matter in this soil than the Latosol. In the latter, a pronounced HI decrease was observed after the removal of humic substances (HS). The weaker aliphatic character, the higher O/C ratio, and the T-FTIR spectrum obtained for the HU fraction in the Latosol suggest the occurrence of surface coordination of carboxylate ions. The Chernosol HU fraction was also oxygenated to a relatively high extent, but presented a stronger hydrophobic character in comparison with the Latosol HU. These differences in the chemical and functional group composition suggest a higher organic matter protection in the Latosol. After the HF treatment, decreases in the FA proportion and the A350/A550 ratio were observed. A possible loss of FA and condensation of organic molecules due to the highly acid medium should not be neglected.
Rapid shallow coastal coral reef mapping using the teardrop system

We present a rapid shallow coastal reef mapping system using a previously developed inexpensive diver less video capture system coupled with a fast-image mosaicking technique, using an affordable GPS logging device. The system replaces the traditional manta tow system of assessing and monitoring large areas of coastal coral reefs and at the same time provides historical visual record for future references. The system utilizes Teardrop, a hollow, teardrop-shaped that houses a commercial underwater point-and-shoot camera. The camera is set to video mode and captures video of the reef while the Teardrop is being towed by a wooden fishing boat. The resulting video is parsed into frames and mosaicked by using fast image labeling. The approximate location of the mosaicked images is recorded by using an inexpensive GPS logger. The coordinates are embedded on the mosaicked images and overlaid on mapping software such as Google Earth for visual record and spatial information integration. The same points are used to compute for the total distance covered by the capturing process. The whole process from coral reef video capture to mosaicking the images and finally embedding the mosaics in mapping software can be done in as short as 1 day, providing coastal managers and local government units with a tool to rapidly visualize and monitor shallow coral reefs.
TRAFFIC VIDEO-BASED MOVING VEHICLE DETECTION AND TRACKING IN THE COMPLEX ENVIRONMENT

Moving vehicle detection and tracking is the key technology in the intelligent traffic monitoring system. For the shortcomings and deficiencies of the frame-subtraction method, a novel Marr wavelet, kernel-based background modeling method and a background subtraction method based on binary discrete wavelet transforms (BDWT) are introduced. The background model keeps a sample of intensity values for each pixel in the image and uses this sample to estimate the probability density function of the pixel intensity. The density function is estimated using a new Marr wavelet kernel density estimation technique. The background and current frame are transformed by BDWT, and moving vehicles are detected in the binary discrete wavelet transforms domain. For the shortages of RGB (Red, Green, Blue) or HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value) color space-based vehicle shadow segmentation algorithms, shadow segmentation algorithm based on YCbCr color space and edge detection is proposed. The original data of the shadow according to the characteristics of the YCbCr space is chosen, and then, combined with edge detection, the shape and location of the vehicle region is determined. An automatic particle filtering algorithm is used to track the vehicle after detection and obtaining the center of the object. An actual road test shows that the algorithm can effectively remove the influence of pedestrians and cyclists in the complex environment, and can track the moving vehicle exactly. The algorithm with better robustness has a practical value in the field of intelligent traffic monitoring.