Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Integrated Analyses of DNA Methylation and Gene Expression of Rainbow Trout Muscle under Variable Ploidy and Muscle Atrophy Conditions

Rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss, is an important cool, freshwater aquaculture species used as a model for biological research. However, its genome reference has not been annotated for epigenetic markers affecting various biological processes, including muscle growth/atrophy. Increased energetic demands during gonadogenesis/reproduction provoke muscle atrophy in rainbow trout. We described DNA methylation and its associated gene expression in atrophying muscle by comparing gravid, diploid females to sterile, triploid females. Methyl Mini-seq and RNA-Seq were simultaneously used to characterize genome-wide DNA methylation and its association with gene expression in rainbow trout muscle. Genome-wide enrichment in the number of CpGs, accompanied by depleted methylation levels, was noticed around the gene transcription start site (TSS). Hypermethylation of CpG sites within ±1 kb on both sides of TSS (promoter and gene body) was weakly/moderately associated with reduced gene expression. Conversely, hypermethylation of the CpG sites in downstream regions of the gene body +2 to +10 kb was weakly associated with increased gene expression. Unlike mammalian genomes, rainbow trout gene promotors are poor in CpG islands, at <1% compared to 60%. No signs of genome-wide, differentially methylated (DM) CpGs were observed due to the polyploidy effect; only 1206 CpGs (0.03%) were differentially methylated, and these were primarily associated with muscle atrophy. Twenty-eight genes exhibited differential gene expression consistent with methylation levels of 31 DM CpGs. These 31 DM CpGs represent potential epigenetic markers of muscle atrophy in rainbow trout. The DM CpG-harboring genes are involved in apoptosis, epigenetic regulation, autophagy, collagen metabolism, cell membrane functions, and Homeobox proteins. Our study also identified genes explaining higher water content and modulated glycolysis previously shown as characteristic biochemical signs of rainbow trout muscle atrophy associated with sexual maturation. This study characterized DNA methylation in the rainbow trout genome and its correlation with gene expression. This work also identified novel epigenetic markers associated with muscle atrophy in fish/lower vertebrates.
Investigation of Honeycomb Sandwich Panel Structure using Aluminum Alloy (AL6XN) Material under Blast Loading

In this study, we focused on the large inelastic behavior of a sandwich panel made of two solid plates as a stiffener and a honeycomb core shell subjected to blast load. The loading scheme was carried out using an explosive charge bullet mounted at a standoff distance of 100 mm with three mass variations of trinitrotoluene: 1, 2, and 3 kg TNT. The numerical simulations performed using ABAQUS/CAE were validated with the experimental results of a previous study. The geometrical effects of the sandwich panel on intact and damaged models were also numerically investigated. The panel was designed using a square and hexagonal honeycomb core. The effect of honeycomb core height was also observed by modeling the core using three height variations: 31, 51, and 71 mm. The results showed that the hexagonal core was more resistant to blast loads than the square design. The core height parameter determines the energy absorption based on these results. The structural strength is also affected by the damage. The findings of this study can be used to improve structural designs that utilize sandwich panels to withstand blast loads. Doi: 10.28991/CEJ-2022-08-05-014 Full Text: PDF
Factors Predicting Tongue Pressure Decline among Community-Dwelling Older Adults: The Takashimadaira Study

A limited number of longitudinal studies have explored factors contributing to decreases in tongue pressure (TP). This longitudinal study aimed to clarify the factors affecting TP decline among community-dwelling older adults. We followed the Takashimadaira Study participants with a baseline TP ≥ 30 kPa for 2 years. A TP of <30 kPa at follow-up was defined as TP decline. We used Poisson regression with robust standard errors to explore the factors related to TP decline. The studied baseline variables were dental status, sociodemographic characteristics, health behaviors, appetite, medical conditions, physical function, cognitive status, and anthropometric and body composition characteristics. Inverse probability weighting (IPW) was used to adjust for selection bias. Overall, 357 individuals (159 men and 198 women) with a mean (standard deviation) age of 75.9 (4.1) years were included in the analyses. Of these, 59 study participants (16.5%) exhibited TP decline. After adjusting for baseline TP and applying IPW, poor appetite (incident rate ratio [95% confidence interval] = 1.58 [1.01–2.48]), low skeletal muscle mass index (1.66 [1.02–2.70]), and cognitive impairment (1.93 [1.12–3.33]) were associated with TP decline. In conclusion, we demonstrated that baseline appetite, body composition, and cognitive status could predict future TP decline among community-dwelling older adults.
EVIDENCE FROM HEART No. 2012-027 DOES UNINSURANCE AFFECT THE HEALTH OUTCOMES OF THE INSU ATTACK PATIENTS IN CALIFORNIA By N. Meltem Daysal

In this paper, I examine the impact of uninsured patients on the health of the insured, focusing on one health outcome — the in-hospital mortality rate of insured heart attack patients. I employ panel data models using patient discharge and hospital financial data from California (1999–2006). My results indicate that uninsured patients have an economically significant effect that increases the mortality rate of insured heart attack patients. I show that these results are not driven by alternative explanations, including reverse causality, patient composition effects, sample selection or unobserved trends and that they are robust to a host of specification checks. My results also indicate that the primary channel for the observed spillover effects is increased hospital uncompensated care costs. Although data limitations constrain my capacity to check how hospitals change their provision of care to insured heart attack patients in response to reduced revenues, the evidence I have suggests a modest increase in the quantity of cardiac services without a corresponding increase in hospital staff.
Recovery, hope and agency: The meaning of hope amongst Chinese users of mental health services in the United Kingdom

Hope is considered crucial to mental health recovery. However, the manner in which social inequalities shape individuals’ meaning of hope has received little attention. Based on a close analysis of the recovery journeys of six Chinese service-users in the United Kingdom this paper explores the diverse meanings of hope among service-users from non-dominant cultures. Illustrative stories are selected from in-depth life history interviews conducted with 22 participants. Based on the capabilities approach and intersectionality analysis, the findings reveal a paradox of hope and show how hope can be embraced, cautiously pursued or held at bay by individuals. Whilst hope is one expression of human agency, service-users with reservations about hope maintain agency in other ways, despite their diminished life chances. This paper argues for an increased focus on individuals’ agency development to support recovery and advocates for the challenging of inequalities to achieve this.
Vascular TSP1-CD47 Signaling Promotes Sickle Cell-Associated Arterial Vasculopathy 1 and Pulmonary Hypertension in Mice 2 Promotes Pulmonary Hypertension in

33 Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a leading cause of death in sickle cell disease (SCD). Hemolysis and oxidative stress are contributing factors to SCD-associated PH. We have 35 reported that the protein thrombospondin-1 (TSP1) is elevated in the plasma of patients with 36 SCD and by interacting with its receptor CD47 limits vasodilation of distal pulmonary arteries ex 37 vivo . We hypothesized that the TSP1-CD47 interaction may promote PH in SCD. We found that 38 TSP1 and CD47 are upregulated in the lungs of BERK sickle mice and patients with SCD- 39 associated PH. We then generated chimeric animals by transplanting BERK bone marrow into 40 C57BL/6J (n=24) and CD47 knockout (CD47KO, n=27) mice. Fully engrafted Sickle-to-CD47KO 41 chimeras had lower right ventricular (RV) pressures than Sickle-to-C57BL/6J chimeras as 42 shown by the reduced maximum pressure of the RV (p=0.013) and mean pulmonary artery 43 pressure (p=0.020). The afterload of the Sickle-to-CD47KO chimeras was also lower as shown 44 by the diminished pulmonary vascular resistance (p=0.024) and RV effective arterial elastance 45 (p=0.052). On myography, aortic segments from Sickle-to-CD47KO chimeras had improved 46 relaxation to acetylcholine. We hypothesized that in SCD TSP1-CD47 signaling promotes PH, in 47 part, by increasing ROS generation. Treatment with TSP1 stimulated ROS in human pulmonary 48 artery endothelial cells, which was abrogated by CD47 blockade. Explanted lungs of CD47KO 49 chimeras had less vascular congestion and oxidative footprint. Our results show that genetic absence of CD47 ameliorates SCD-associated PH, which may be due to decreased ROS 51 levels. Modulating TSP1-CD47 may provide a new molecular approach to the treatment of SCD- 52 associated PH.
Comparison of the E-test with the NCCLS M38-P Method for Antifungal Susceptibility Testing of Common and Emerging Pathogenic Filamentous Fungi

The National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards (NCCLS) M38-P method describes standard parameters for testing the fungistatic antifungal activities (MICs) of established agents against ﬁlamentous fungi (molds). The present study evaluated the in vitro fungistatic activities of itraconazole and amphotericin B by the E-test and the NCCLS M38-P microdilution method against 186 common and emerging pathogenic molds (123 isolates of Aspergillus spp. [ﬁve species], 16 isolates of Fusarium spp. [two species], 4 Paecilomyces lilacinus isolates, 5 Rhizopus arrhizus isolates, 15 Scedosporium spp., 18 dematiaceous fungi, and 5 Trichoderma longibrachiatum isolates). The agreement between the methods for amphotericin B MICs ranged from 70% for Fusarium solani to > 90% for most of the other species after the ﬁrst reading; agreement was dependent on both the incubation time and the species being evaluated. Major discrepancies between the amphotericin B MICs determined by the E-test and the NCCLS M38-P method were demonstrated for three of the ﬁve species of Aspergillus tested and the two species of Fusarium tested. This discrepancy was more marked after 48 h of incubation; the geometric mean MICs determined by the E-test increased between 24 and 48 h from between 1.39 and 3.3 m g/ml to between 5.2 and >8 m g/ml for Aspergillus ﬂavus, Aspergillus fumigatus , and Aspergillus nidulans . The agreement between the itraconazole MICs determined by the E-test and the NCCLS M38-P method ranged from 83.3% for A. nidulans to > 90% for all the other species tested; the overall agreement was higher (92.7%) than that for amphotericin B (87.9%). The agreement was less dependent on the incubation time. Clinical trials need to be conducted to establish the role of the results of either the E-test or the NCCLS M38-P method in vitro for molds with the two agents as predictors of clinical outcome.
Reliability of Erasure Coded Systems under Rebuild Bandwidth Constraints

—Modern storage systems employ erasure coding redundancy and recovering schemes to ensure high data reliability at high storage efﬁciency. The widely used replication scheme belongs to this broad class of erasure coding schemes. The effectiveness of these schemes has been evaluated based on the Mean Time to Data Loss ( MTTDL ) and the Expected Annual Fraction of Data Loss ( EAFDL ) metrics. To improve the reliability of data storage systems, certain data placement and rebuild schemes reduce the rebuild times by recovering data in parallel from the storage devices. It is often assumed though that there is sufﬁcient network bandwidth to transfer the data required by the rebuild process at full speed. In large-scale data storage systems, however, the network bandwidth is constrained. This article obtains the MTTDL and EAFDL of erasure coded systems analytically for the symmetric, clustered, and declustered data placement schemes under network rebuild bandwidth constraints. The resulting reliability degradation is assessed and the results obtained establish that the declustered placement scheme offers superior reliability in terms of both metrics. Efﬁcient codeword conﬁgurations that achieve high reliability in the presence of network rebuild bandwidth constraints are identiﬁed.
An Assessmentof Cocktail Methodology for Travel Package Recommendation

— In this paper first study the properties of the old travel packages and develop a tourist-area-season topic (TAST) model. This TAST model signifiesdissimilar travel packages and different topic distributions of tourist, the topic extraction is stated on both the tourists and the natural characteristics of the landscapes. Agreeing to the topic model representation, a cocktail approach is generated so that to form lists for personalized travel package recommendation. The TAST model is protracted to the tourist-relation-area-season topic (TRAST) model for collecting the relationships among the tourists for all travel groups. Then study TAST model, TRAST model, and cocktail recommendation approach on the current travel package data. The TAST model can effectively grabs the individual characteristics of travel data and cocktail approach, so it is more efficient than old recommendation techniques for travel package recommendation by including tourist relationships, TRAST model is used as an effective evaluation for travel group formation.
”Drugs, Alcohol, Joblessness, and Lifestyle”: Engineering Students’ Perceptions of Homelessness and Implications for Social Justice Education

Dr. Joel Alejandro (Alex) Mejia is an assistant professor in the Department of Integrated Engineering at Diego. His research has contributed to the integration of critical theoretical frame-works and Chicano Cultural Studies to investigate and analyze existing deﬁcit models in engineering education. Dr. Mejia’s work also examines how asset-based models impact the validation and recognition of students and communities of color as holders and creators of knowledge. His current work seeks to analyze and describe the tensions, contradictions, and cultural collisions many Latino/a/x students experience in engineering through testimonios. He is particularly interested in approaches that contribute to a more expansive understanding of engineering in sociocultural contexts, the impact of critical consciousness in engineering practice, and development and implementation of culturally responsive pedagogies in engineering education. Abstract This paper describes how engineering students in a lower division user-centered design course framed issues of homelessness within an engineering context. We focused on the issue of homelessness as the context for the course’s design project because it is one of the largest social justice issues impacting the area where the University of the Borderland (pseudonym) is located. The goal was to determine how the project influenced students’ perceptions of homelessness and the role of engineers in this social justice issue. Results indicated that students tend to frame issues of homelessness in simplistic terms aligned with deficit perspectives (e.g., inadequacies of the home) and meritocratic ideologies. These results suggest that engineering educators that seek to address issues of social justice need to first deconstruct the complexity of social issues and the nuances involved in technical work. Decoding complex social issues is important in order for students to see themselves as agentic actors that can contribute to social justice through engineering design.
Computer Simulator of Failures in Super Large Data Storage

The present paper is concerned with simulation approach to compute data storage reliability. We propose new mathematical model accounting for explicit disk failures, latent sector errors and their detection as well as various policies of data distribution across the storage. The developed algorithm simulates the dynamics of failures and recoveries via Monte-Carlo statistical trials. The reliability is estimated by criterion of mean time to failure (MTTF), when data loss becomes irrecoverable. We present various parametrical dependencies of mean time to data loss (MTTDL) on disk failure rate and mean time to data recovery. The proposed model is compared to the simpliﬁed Markov counterpart. Statistical analysis of obtained empirical and analytical results is carried out.
Reproduction of paper results - Joint Geographical and Temporal Modeling Based on Matrix Factorization for Point-of-Interest Recommendation

The main goal of this paper is to reproduce the experimental setup, experiments, and results as explained in a paper by Rahmani et al. [1] from ECIR 2020 and to confirm the numbers and findings reported in the paper or, alternatively, uncover inconsistencies and therefore challenge the conclusions drawn. The paper chosen introduces a new algorithm for Point-of-Interest Recommendation. In the paper, several figures are included to show that the new algorithm is better in terms of precision, recall and nDCG(normalized Discounted Cumulative Gain). In the following paper, the goal is to reproduce these results. We also included all of our code, results and workflows on github.
An errors-in-variables model based on the Birnbaum-Saunders and its diagnostics with an application to earthquake data

1 Regression modelling where explanatory variables are measured with error is a common prob- 2 lem in applied sciences. However, if inappropriate analysis methods are applied, then unreliable 3 conclusions can be made. This work deals with estimation and diagnostic analytics in regression 4 modelling based on the Birnbaum-Saunders distribution using additive measurement errors. The 5 maximum pseudo-likelihood and regression calibration methods are used for parameter estima- 6 tion. We also carry out a residual analysis and apply global and local diagnostic techniques in 7 order to detect anomalous and potentially inﬂuential observations. Simulations are conducted to 8 validate the proposed approach and to evaluate performance. A real-world data set, related to 9 earthquakes, is used to illustrate the new approach.
A Survey on Adaptive Resource Allocation for Multi-tier Web application using Ad-hoc Clouds

: Ad-hoc Cloud Computing allows us to abstract distributed expandable IT resources behind an interface that promotes scalability and dynamic resource allocation. The prototype exploits adaptive allocation of cloud resources to scale gracefully in the presence of rapid increases in workload. The objective of this research is to investigate creating a framework incorporating web services and ad-hoc clouds harvesting unused computing resources in a non intrusive manner. The underused computing resources within a participating enterprise represent a major untapped computing resource and can be utilized to improve the quality of service. The harvested resources can be made available in the form of ad-hoc clouds which can be configured dynamically based on the resource availability and service demands. This research proposes extending the concept of the cloud to encompass not only server-farm resources but all resources accessible by the user. This brings the resources of the home PC and personal mobile devices in to the cloud and promotes the deployment of highly-distributed component based applications with fat user interfaces. For the end user, a web application deployed on a cloud is presented no differently to a web application deployed on a stand-alone web server. This model works well for web applications.
ESCUELA TÉCNICA SUPERIOR DE INGENIERÍA Y SISTEMAS DE TELECOMUNICACIÓN PROYECTO FIN DE GRADO

ALEJANDRO GONZÁLEZ GONZÁLEZ: WI-FI OPTIMIZATION AND MEASUREMENT CAMPAIGN FOR INDOOR LOCALIZATION Bachelor of Science Thesis, 30 pages Date 2018 Bachelor’s Degree Programme in Communication Technology Major: Telecommunication Systems Examiner(s): University Teacher D.Sc. (Tech) Markus Allén Assoc. Prof., Dr. Tech. Elena-Simona Lohan
for treating primary hypercholesterolaemia and mixed dyslipidaemia: an evidence review group perspective of a NICE single technology appraisal.

As part of its Single Technology Appraisal (STA) process, the National Institute for Health Excellence (NICE) invited the manufacturer of evolocumab (Amgen) to submit evidence on the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of evolocumab. The appraisal assessed evolocumab as monotherapy or in combination with a statin with or without ezetimibe, or in combination with ezetimibe (without statin therapy), in adult patients with primary hypercholesterolaemia (which includes mixed dyslipidaemia), for whom statins do not provide optimal control of their low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels and/or for whom statins are contraindicated or not tolerated. The School of Health and Related Research Technology Appraisal Group at the University of Sheffield was commissioned to act as the independent Evidence Review Group (ERG). The ERG produced a critical review of the evidence for the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the technology, based on the company’s submission to NICE. The evidence was derived mainly from four randomised controlled trials comparing evolocumab either with ezetimibe or placebo in adults with primary familial or non-familial hypercholesterolaemia, who were either able to take statins or who were statin-intolerant. The clinical effectiveness review found that evolocumab is efficacious at lowering LDL-C, but that there was uncertainty regarding its impact on cardiovascular disease (CVD) outcomes. In response to the ERG’s critique of the submitted health economic model, the company submitted an amended model, which also included a Patient Access Scheme (PAS). Based on this, the deterministic ICERs for evolocumab against ezetimibe were above £74,000 and £45,000 per QALY gained within the non-familial primary and secondary prevention population, respectively, whilst the ICERs within the Heterozygous Familial Hypercholesterolaemia (HeFH) population were approximately £23,000 per QALY gained. The final determination was that evolocumab would be a clinically and cost-effective use of NHS resource in certain patient subgroups. presented primary efficacy outcome of LDL-C: mean percentage change from baseline, and mean percentage treatment difference, for a range of follow-up durations. Both these were reported for follow-up at and 12 weeks; alone (LAPLACE-2, GAUSS-2, RUTHERFORD-2); and for and 52 weeks (DESCARTES). to four sets of issues: (a) the conceptual representation of the condition; (b) model process and logic; (c) model implementation and mis-specification of evidence inputs, and; (d) uncertainties regarding the relationship between LDL-C reduction and CVD events. The ERG also noted further concerns relating to the derivation of certain input parameters, the reporting of results, health state utilities and costs. Owing to the limitations in the company’s model, the ERG had doubts regarding the validity of the results presented within the CS and advised considerable caution in their interpretation and use in informing decision-making.