Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Direct Intercept Guidance using Differential Geometry Concepts

This paper examines the application of differential geometry to the engagement of both nonmanoeuvring and manoeuvring targets. The kinematics of the engagement for both manoeuvring and nonmanoeuvring target are developed and expressed in differential geometric terms. Two-dimensional geometry is then used to determine the intercept conditions for a straight line target and a constant manoeuvre target. The intercept conditions for both targets are developed for the case when the interceptor missile guides onto a straight line interception. These two cases are shown to have a common set of core conditions such that it enables a unified guidance law to be developed. The guidance law is shown to be globally stable using Lyapunov theory, so that guidance capture is assured for any initial condition. The analysis and guidance law design does not rely on local linearisation and can be shown to produce guidance trajectories that mirror proportional navigation for the straight line interception of a nonmanoeuvring target for which proportional navigation was originally developed. The paper finishes with simulation in two dimensions, illustrating the convergence and solution properties of the approach.
Design of distributed Bragg reflector structures for transverse-mode discrimination in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

An angular spectrum of plane-wave representation is employed to calculate the discrimination between the fundamental and higher order transverse modes in step-index-guided vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers. The effect of material composition and number of layer pairs in the distributed Bragg reflectors, as well as mode size and structure, are examined with the goal of optimizing the mode discrimination for better mode stability and higher single-mode power. In particular, it is shown that decreasing the width of the distributed Bragg reflector stopband, by means of controlling the material composition, improves significantly the mode discrimination.
The Estimation of Total Nitrogen Using the Conway Micro-diffusion Cell

The use of the microdiffusion unit for the determination of blood urea has been described by Conway and O'Malley (1942). Recovery of urea added to blood when estin;ated by this method is precisely quantitative as compared with a 98 to 99% recovery given by the aeration method (Kay and Sheehan, 1934). The method has been found very useful for routine laboratory determinations, especially when dealing with large numbers of samples. Conway (1939a) has also described a method for determining total nitrogen, using the diffusion cell to estimate the ammonia after digestion by the usual Kjeldahl technique. A modification of the method so that the same reagents as those used for blood urea estimation can be employed is described. The method is of considerable value, especially when only small amounts of sample are available or large numbers of estimations have to be performed, since distillation is avoided and all titrations may be carried out together, if necessary on the day after setting up the units.
Efficient transformation of Beauveria bassiana by Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated insertional mutagenesis

An efficient transformation system employing Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated transformation was developed for the fungal biocontrol agent Beauveria bassiana. The system was successfully applied to integrate the hygromycin resistance gene and green fluorescent protein gene into B. bassiana with a transformation frequency of 13–22 transformants per 106 conidia. The majority of transformants harboured a randomly integrated single copy of T-DNA that was mitotically stable. The described protocol could provide a useful tool in genetic manipulation of B. bassiana, while the green fluorescent protein mutants generated with this technique will be useful for the detailed study of B. bassiana infection and colonisation of a host organism.
Personality disorder prevalence in psychiatric outpatients: a systematic literature review.

INTRODUCTION A systematic literature review of studies measuring the prevalence of personality disorder in community secondary care is needed to identify both the met and unmet needs and plan services accordingly. METHODS PsycINFO, MEDLINE and EMBASE databases were searched using NHS Evidence. Only studies assessing overall personality disorder prevalence within help-seeking, outpatient populations were included. Papers were excluded for focusing solely on the prevalence of specific personality disorders or comorbid prevalence within specific populations. RESULTS A total of 269 papers were identified. Nine papers met criteria and were critically appraised, showing a high level of heterogeneity with regards to methods, inclusion criteria, source of information, time of assessment, instruments used and overall quality of research. Prevalence estimates in Europe varied between 40% and 92%, were more consistently approximated between 45% and 51% in the USA and differed significantly in the two Asian studies: 1.07% (India) and 60% (Pakistan). CONCLUSIONS The prevalence of personality disorder in community mental health care appears to be substantial, but better estimates will only emerge from high quality studies with greater consistency of method. Implementing screening tools within outpatient or community services may result in high rates of personality disorder identification, with both clinical and service implications.
Crawling Waves from Radiation Force Excitation

Crawling waves are generated by an interference of two oscillating waves traveling in opposite directions, with a progressive movement resulting from a frequency difference or a phase difference between the sources. While the idea has been applied to numerous applications, all the previous reports used mechanical sources to vibrate the medium. It is shown, through experiments and simulation, that crawling waves can be generated from focused beams that produce radiation force excitation within the tissue. Some examples are also shown.
New insights into cardiovascular and lipid metabolomics

Metabolomics is the study of metabolite profiles in biological samples, particularly urine, saliva, blood plasma and fat biopsies. The metabolome is now considered by some to be the most predictive phenotype: consequently, the comprehensive and quantitative study of metabolites is a desirable tool for diagnosing disease, identifying new therapeutic targets and enabling appropriate treatments. A wealth of information about metabolites has been accumulated with global profiling tools and several candidate technologies for metabolomic studies are now available. Many high‐throughput metabolomics methodologies are currently under development and have yet to be applied in clinical practice on a routine basis. In the cardiovascular field, few recent metabolomic studies have been reported so far. This minireview provides an updated overview of alternative technical approaches for metabolomics studies and reviews initial applications of metabolomics that relate to both cardiovascular disease and lipid metabolism research. J. Cell. Biochem. 105: 648–654, 2008. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Resource Management in Real-time Multicore Embedded Systems: Performance and Energy Perspectives

Multi-core architectures are believed to be one of the major solutions for future embedded systems, due to their advantages in the high average performance and procurement cost. However, the use of the architecture of multi-core processors in real-time systems poses important challenges on timing analysis. In this thesis, we present novel reconfiguration techniques and scheduling algorithms for resource management in real-time multi-core embedded systems. We provide approaches by considering effects of computation and cache memory together to optimize overall performance and energy of real-time multi-core embedded systems.
Bias in meta-analysis detected by a simple, graphical test

Editor—Egger et al report that they “found bias in 38% of meta-analyses published in four leading journals. ” This is misleading, at least insofar as our meta-analysis of inpatient geriatric consultations is concerned. Firstly, the bias observed in our metaanalysis was not a retrospective detection of bias, as one might infer from Egger et al’s statements. We knew that there was evidence of heterogeneity for the pooled effect estimates of geriatric consultation programmes and reported this finding. Secondly, the asymmetry detected in the funnel plot of the meta-analysis of inpatient consultation programmes was probably due not to bias (distortion of true effect) but to true heterogeneity (true difference of effects between trials). We took the presence of heterogeneity as an opportunity to examine whether we could identify the programme elements that might have resulted in the observed effect differences between geriatric consultation programmes. Using a multivariate logistic regression approach, we found that both geriatric assessment programmes in which the consultant controlled the implementation of the recommendations and those that included long term follow up resulted in better outcomes than did programmes in which this was not the case. Thus, the meta-analytical methods of testing heterogeneity or drawing funnel plots should not be considered absolute criteria for separating good from bad metaanalyses. Meta-analyses reporting effect estimates that may contain bias should continue to be published in leading medical journals, as long as the possibility of heterogeneity is stated and potential underlying reasons for heterogeneity are addressed. This is especially true for meta-analyses of complex interventions. Although they are methodologically difficult to deal with, variations in effect estimates give us the opportunity to disentangle the black box of complex interventions, such as of geriatric assessment, and identify what the necessary ingredients of these programmes are. A third issue concerns the “mega-trial” to which our meta-analysis was being compared. This trial was different from any of the trials considered in our meta-analysis. Among other things, it was based in a health maintenance organisation system that had incorporated considerable geriatric expertise into its usual care for older people. Another important factor was that it involved four hospital sites, each with different characteristics, populations, and survival rates. If Egger et al had taken the same pains as we did in recovering unpublished data from primary trials, they would have found that the mega-trial they used in questioning our meta-analysis was a multicentre trial with unreported variability in intervention components and outcomes across study sites. Analysts must consider rigorously any methodological issues unique to each trial, particularly when considering complex interventions.
Fuzzy Self-Tuning PD Control Algorithm for RED

The performance of the RED algorithm depends on the variation of network traffic load. Furthermore, the queue length of the router is sensitive to the parameters configured in the RED algorithm. To address these weaknesses, this paper presents an algorithm called fuzzy self-tuning PD-RED by using the fuzzy control and proportional derivative control theory. The simulation results successfully show that the proposed algorithm has the advantages over other existing improved RED algorithm of rapid response and fairness, which can maintains target queue length.
MAN1, an Inner Nuclear Membrane Protein That Shares the LEM Domain with Lamina-associated Polypeptide 2 and Emerin*

The “MAN antigens” are polypeptides recognized by autoantibodies from a patient with a collagen vascular disease and localized to the nuclear envelope. We now show that one of the human MAN antigens termed MAN1 is a 82.3-kDa protein with an amino-terminal domain followed by two hydrophobic segments and a carboxyl-terminal tail. The MAN1 gene contains seven protein-coding exons and is assigned to human chromosome 12q14. Its mRNA is approximately 5.5 kilobases and is detected in several different cell types that were examined. Cell extraction experiments show that MAN1 is an integral membrane protein. When expressed in transfected cells, MAN1 is exclusively targeted to the nuclear envelope, consistent with an inner nuclear membrane localization. Protein sequence analysis reveals that MAN1 shares a conserved globular domain of approximately 40 amino acids, which we term the LEM module, with inner nuclear membrane proteins lamina-associated polypeptide 2 and emerin. The LEM module is also present in two proteins ofCaenorhabditis elegans. These results show that MAN1 is an integral protein of the inner nuclear membrane that shares the LEM module with other proteins of this subcellular localization.
Effects of various characteristics of social commerce on consumers ’ trust and trust performance

Considering the increasing rate of internet users in our country, the footing for the utilization of the phenomenon called Social commerce via online trades has emerged. Concerning this fact, it is necessary for active organizations in virtual space to attract more customers in the most appropriate way through online channels. Having this in mind that the most important quality of social commerce is making use of online social investments; the concept of customer’s trust is of grand importance. Nowadays the expanding access to internet has caused to more emphasis on this issue. This research aims at studying the Effects of various characteristics of social commerce on consumers’ trust and trust performance. The model which is used in this study has been adopted from that of Kim and Park’s in which every variable indicates a key characteristic of social commerce. Since social commerce in our country is a brand new topic, more inquiry must be done in this field.
GroEL-Mediated Protein Folding: Making the Impossible, Possible

ABSTRACT Protein folding is a spontaneous process that is essential for life, yet the concentrated and complex interior of a cell is an inherently hostile environment for the efficient folding of many proteins. Some proteins—constrained by sequence, topology, size, and function—simply cannot fold by themselves and are instead prone to misfolding and aggregation. This problem is so deeply entrenched that a specialized family of proteins, known as molecular chaperones, evolved to assist in protein folding. Here we examine one essential class of molecular chaperones, the large, oligomeric, and energy utilizing chaperonins or Hsp60s. The bacterial chaperonin GroEL, along with its co-chaperonin GroES, is probably the best-studied example of this family of protein-folding machine. In this review, we examine some of the general properties of proteins that do not fold well in the absence of GroEL and then consider how folding of these proteins is enhanced by GroEL and GroES. Recent experimental and theoretical studies suggest that chaperonins like GroEL and GroES employ a combination of protein isolation, unfolding, and conformational restriction to drive protein folding under conditions where it is otherwise not possible.
Muscle fatigue in early fibromyalgia.

OBJECTIVE To compare the processes connected with muscle fatigue during prolonged exercise in patients with fibromyalgia (FM) with studies of healthy individuals. METHODS Nine female patients with FM, all employed in full or part time, performed repetitive isometric contractions of the quadriceps muscles at 30% of maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) force in 6 s with 4 s rest between until exhaustion. RESULTS The MVC and electrically stimulated tetanic forces fell continually and almost in parallel, indicating no central fatigue. The relaxation rate of the muscle became gradually faster as previously seen in healthy subjects. Plasma catecholamine concentrations remained unchanged during the exercise period, whereas a modest rise in blood lactate and plasma K+ was seen. The electromyographic (EMG) amplitude recorded during contractions increased gradually, while no changes were seen in EMG recorded in resting periods between contractions. Heart rate and VO2 rose gradually and a small exercise induced pain was recorded. CONCLUSION Our study showed normal physiological muscle fatigue responses, except for the lack of increase in plasma catecholamine concentrations during exercise.
Optimized High-Utility Itemsets Mining for Effective Association Mining Paper

Association rule mining is intently used for determining the frequent itemsets of transactional database; however, it is needed to consider the utility of itemsets in market behavioral applications. Apriori or FP-growth methods generate the association rules without utility factor of items. High-utility itemset mining (HUIM) is a well-known method that effectively determines the itemsets based on high-utility value and the resulting itemsets are known as high-utility itemsets. Fastest high-utility mining method (FHM) is an enhanced version of HUIM. FHM reduces the number of join operations during itemsets generation, so it is faster than HUIM. For large datasets, both methods are very expenisve. Proposed method addressed this issue by building pruning based utility co-occurrence structure (PEUCS) for elimatination of low-profit itemsets, thus, obviously it process only optimal number of high-utility itemsets, so it is called as optimal FHM (OFHM). Experimental results show that OFHM takes less computational runtime, therefore it is more efficient when compared to other existing methods for benchmarked large datasets.
Perivascular fluid cuffs decrease lung compliance by increasing tissue resistance*

Objective:Lung inflammation causes perivascular fluid cuffs to form around extra-alveolar blood vessels; however, the physiologic consequences of such cuffs remain poorly understood. Herein, we tested the hypothesis that perivascular fluid cuffs, without concomitant alveolar edema, are sufficient to decrease lung compliance. Design:Prospective, randomized, controlled study. Setting:Research laboratory. Subjects:One hundred twenty male CD40 rats. Interventions:To test this hypothesis, the plant alkaloid thapsigargin was used to activate store-operated calcium entry and increase cytosolic calcium in endothelium. Thapsigargin was infused into a central venous catheter of intact, sedated, and mechanically ventilated rats. Measurements:Static and dynamic lung mechanics and hemodynamics were measured continuously. Main Results:Thapsigargin produced perivascular fluid cuffs along extra-alveolar vessels but did not cause alveolar flooding or blood gas abnormalities. Lung compliance dose-dependently decreased after thapsigargin infusion, attributable to an increase in tissue resistance that was attributed to increased tissue damping and tissue elastance. Airway resistance was not changed. Neither central venous pressure nor left ventricular end diastolic pressure was altered by thapsigargin. Heart rate did not change, although thapsigargin decreased left ventricular systolic function sufficient to reduce cardiac output by 50%. Infusion of the type 4 phosphodiesterase inhibitor, rolipram, prevented thapsigargin from inducing perivascular cuffs and decreasing lung compliance. Rolipram also normalized pressure over time and corrected the deficit in cardiac output. Conclusions:Our findings resolve for the first time that perivascular cuff formation negatively impacts mechanical coupling between the bronchovascular bundle and the lung parenchyma, decreasing lung compliance without impacting central venous pressure.
Astrocytes contribute to neuronal impairment in βA toxicity increasing apoptosis in rat hippocampal neurons

Astrocytosis is a common feature of amyloid plaques, the hallmark of Alzheimer's disease (AD), along with activated microglia, neurofibrillary tangles, and β‐amyloid (βA) deposition. However, the relationship between astrocytosis and neurodegeneration remains unclear. To assess whether βA‐stimulated astrocytes can damage neurons and contribute to βA neurotoxicity, we studied the effects of βA treatment in astrocytic/neuronal co‐cultures, obtained from rat embryonic brain tissue. We found that in neuronal cultures conditioned by βA‐treated astrocytes, but not directly in contact with βA, the number of apoptotic cells increased, doubling the values of controls. In astrocytes, βA did not cause astrocytic cell death, nor did produce changes in nitric oxide or prostaglandin E2 levels. In contrast, S‐100β expression was remarkably increased. Our data show for the first time that βA–astrocytic interaction produces a detrimental effect on neurons, which may contribute to neurodegeneration in AD. GLIA 34:68–72, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Molecular characterisation of Vibrio parahaemolyticus carrying tdh and trh genes using ERIC-, RAPD- and BOX-PCR on local Malaysia bloody clam and Lala.

Molecular typing methods have been widely applied for many purposes. In this study, such methods were adopted as DNA fingerprinting tools to determine the origin and divergence of virulent Vibrio parahaemolyticus strains found in local seafood. Although not all strain carry virulent tdh and trh gene, increasing prevalence demands an effective fingerprinting scheme which can constantly monitor and trace the sources of such emerging food pathogens. By using ERIC-, RAPD-, and BOX-PCR methods, 33 Vibrio parahaemolyticus isolates from local Malaysia bloody clam (Anadara granosa) and Lala (Orbicularia orbiculata) with confirmed presence of tdh and trh gene were characterised, followed by determination of clonal relatedness among virulent strains using cluster analysis and discriminatory index. This study also involved application of Immunomagnetic Separation (IMS) Method which significantly improved the specificity of strain isolation. Cluster analysis using Unweighted Pair Group Mathematical Averaging (UPGMA) and Dice Coefficient shown clustering according to isolation food source, IMS level and haemolysin gene possessed. Nevertheless, different DNA fingerprinting methods generated different clustering at different similarity cut-off percentage, regardless as individual or as composite dendrograms. ERIC- and RAPD-PCR composite fingerprinting relatively shown the highest discriminatory index at following similarity cut- off percentage: 0.68 at 50%; 0.83 at 65%; and 0.93 at 75%. Discriminatory power increased with similarity cut-off percentage. However, result also suggested that BOX-PCR might be an effective fingerprinting tool, as it generated three clusters with no single-colony isolate at 70% similarity cut-off. This study not only achieved its objective to determine clonal relatedness among virulent strains from local seafood via characterisation, but also speculated the best possible combination of molecular typing methods to effectively do so