Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Prototype-Based Gate-Level Cycle-Accurate Methodology for SoC Performance Exploration and Estimation

A prototype-based SoC performance estimation methodology was proposed for consumer electronics design. Traditionally, prototypes are usually used in system verification before SoC tapeout, which is without accurate SoC performance exploration and estimation.This paper attempted to carefully model the SoC prototype as a performance estimator and explore the environment of SoC performance. The prototype met the gate-level cycle-accurate requirement, which covered the effect of embedded processor, on-chip bus structure, IP design, embedded OS, GUI systems, and application programs. The prototype configuration, chip postlayout simulation result, and the measured parameters of SoC prototypes were merged to model a target SoC design. The system performance was examined according to the proposed estimation models, the profiling result of the application programs ported on prototypes, and the timing parameters from the post-layout simulation of the target SoC. The experimental result showed that the proposed method was accompanied with only an average of 2.08% of error for an MPEG-4 decoder SoC at simple profile level 2 specifications.
Pressure algometry: what does it really tell us?

In recent times, there has been increased interest on the identification of nociceptive processes that may underlie various musculoskeletal conditions including neck pain and whiplash-associated disorder (WAD). The latter condition is recalcitrant to conservative treatment approaches and it has been logically reasoned that improved understanding of the processes underlying this and similar conditions may pave the way for the development and testing of improved management strategies. Recent data indicate that augmented central pain processing mechanisms (central hyperexcitability) is a likely feature of various musculoskeletal conditions, including WAD, cervical radiculopathy, and arthritis. More importantly, sensory responses indicative of augmented pain processing have demonstrated predictive capacity to identify those likely to have poor functional recovery following whiplash injury, resulting in recommendations that such measures be included in the assessment of people with acute WAD. J Orthop Sports P.
Measles, mumps, rubella and VZV: importance of serological testing of vaccine-preventable diseases in young adults living with HIV in Germany

SUMMARY Measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) and varicella zoster virus (VZV) infection can cause serious diseases and complications in the HIV-positive population. Due to successful vaccination programmes measles, mumps and congenital rubella syndrome has become neglected in Germany. However, recent outbreaks of measles have occurred from import-associated cases. In this cross-sectional study the serostatus for MMR and VZV in 2013 HIV-positive adults from three different university outpatient clinics in Bonn (n = 544), Cologne (n = 995) and Munich (n = 474) was analysed. Sera were tested for MMR- and VZV-specific immunglobulin G antibodies using commercial immunoassays. Seronegativity was found in 3% for measles, 26% for mumps, 11% for rubella and 2% for VZV. Regarding MMR, 35% of patients lacked seropositivity against at least one infectious agent. In multivariable analysis younger age was strongly associated with seronegativity against all four viruses, measles, mumps, rubella (P < 0·001, P < 0·001 and P = 0·001, respectively) and VZV (P = 0·001). In conclusion, there is high need for MMR and VZV vaccination in people living with HIV in Germany born in 1970 or later. Thus, systematic MMR and VZV antibody screening and vaccination should be implemented in the HIV-positive population to prevent serious disease and complications of vaccine-preventable diseases.
A fast distributed mining algorithm for association rules with item constraints

Association rule mining is an important task of data mining. In practice, being often interested in a subset of association rules, users only want to get rules that contain a specific item. Integrating the item constraints into the mining process can acquire more efficient algorithms. This paper addresses the problem of distributed mining association rules with item constraints which are formalized Boolean expressions, and presents a fast algorithm called DMCA. Principles and implementation of the algorithm are discussed. Experiments prove efficiency of the algorithm.
A TSK-Type Recurrent Neuro-Fuzzy Systems for Fault Prognosis

As a result from the demanding of process safety, reliability and environmental constraints, a called of fault detection and diagnosis system become more and more important. In this article some basic aspects of TSK (Takigi Sugeno Kang) neuro-fuzzy techniques for the prognosis and diagnosis of manufacturing systems are presented. In particular, a neuro-fuzzy model that can be used for the identification and the simulation of faults prognosis models is described. The presented model is motivated by a cooperative neuro-fuzzy approach based on a vectorized recurrent neural network architecture. The neuro-fuzzy architecture maps the residuals into two classes: a one of fixed direction residuals and another one of faults belonging to rotary kiln.
Equivalent circuit model of frequency selective surfaces embedded in non-homogeneous dielectric slab

In this article equivalent circuit model of frequency selective surface (FSS) embedded within a multilayered slab is investigated. The slab and FSS are supposed to be lossless and therefore the equivalent circuit model of FSS is consisted of purely imaginary elements. First, a square patch FSS is considered in free space and values of inductance and capacitance elements are obtained by Genetic Algorithm (GA) from reflection response in a wide frequency band. Then this FSS embedded within a non-homogeneous multilayer dielectric slab is simulated. A mathematical formula is obtained to calculate the capacitance of FSS from the capacitance of FSS in free space and relative permittivity and thickness of each layer. It is shown that the circuit model based on this formula can obey the simulation results with good agreement.
Association of MEK1 with p21ras.GMPPNP is dependent on B-Raf

We have previously reported that immobilized p21ras forms a GMPPNP-dependent complex with a MEK activity. Furthermore, the association of the MEK activity was found to be independent of the presence of Raf-1. We have extended those observations to show that MEK1 is the MEK activity previously described to associate with immobilized p21ras.GMPPNP. The association between MEK1 and immobilized p21ras.GMPPNP increased its specific activity towards p42MAPK. We detected the specific association of B-Raf with immobilized p21ras.GMPPNP. In contrast to Raf-1-immunodepleted lysates, preclearance of the cytosolic B-Raf significantly reduced, by 96%, the amount of MEK1 activity associated with immobilized p21ras.GMPPNP. The decrease in MEK1 activity correlated with complete loss in the binding of both B-Raf and MEK1 proteins with immobilized p21ras.GMPPNP. These data suggest that the p21ras.GMPPNP-dependent activation of MEK1 in brain extracts is dependent on the presence of the B-Raf protein kinase.
Analysing different models of structured electronic consultation on legislation under formation

Electronic consultation through the Internet has become an important means of eparticipation in order to enable interaction and discussion among government agencies and citizens on public policies and decisions. Tools that enhance the quality of electronic consultations need therefore to be designed in a way that better opinions and arguments are produced. Well designed ICT tools can contribute to better, more informed and socially rooted public policies and decisions. This paper analyses two different models of structured electronic consultation in the area of formation of legislation, a highly complex and controversial category of government decisions. The first model is a highly structured e-consultation model based on the Issue-Based Information Systems (IBIS) framework, having as basic elements issues, alternatives, pro-arguments, contra-arguments and comments. The second model is simpler and less structured, having as basic elements questions, answers and comments. Our analysis was based on two pilot cases concerning legislation under formation in Greece and Austria. Evaluation took place using discussion tree analysis and quantitative and qualitative methods.
A qualitative study of experienced nurses' voluntary turnover: learning from their perspectives.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES The purpose of this research was to critically examine the factors that contribute to turnover of experienced nurses' including their decision to leave practice settings and seek alternate nursing employment. In this study, we explore experienced nurses' decision-making processes and examine the personal and environmental factors that influenced their decision to leave. BACKGROUND Nursing turnover remains a pressing problem for healthcare delivery. Turnover contributes to increased recruitment and orientation cost, reduced quality patient care and the loss of mentorship for new nurses. DESIGN A qualitative, interpretive descriptive approach was used to guide the study. METHODS Interviews were conducted with 12 registered nurses, averaging 16 years in practice. Participants were equally represented from an array of acute care inpatient settings. The sample drew on perspectives from point-of-care nurses and nurses in leadership roles, primarily charge nurses and clinical nurse educators. RESULTS Nurses' decisions to leave practice were influenced by several interrelated work environment and personal factors: higher patient acuity, increased workload demands, ineffective working relationships among nurses and with physicians, gaps in leadership support and negative impacts on nurses' health and well-being. Ineffective working relationships with other nurses and lack of leadership support led nurses to feel dissatisfied and ill equipped to perform their job. The impact of high stress was evident on the health and emotional well-being of nurses. CONCLUSIONS It is vital that healthcare organisations learn to minimise turnover and retain the wealth of experienced nurses in acute care settings to maintain quality patient care and contain costs. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE This study highlights the need for healthcare leaders to re-examine how they promote collaborative practice, enhance supportive leadership behaviours, and reduce nurses' workplace stressors to retain the skills and knowledge of experienced nurses at the point-of-care.
Clustering and Integrating of Heterogeneous Microbiome Data by Joint Symmetric Nonnegative Matrix Factorization with Laplacian Regularization

Many datasets that exists in the real world are often comprised of different representations or views which provide complementary information to each other. To integrate information from multiple views, data integration approaches such as nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) have been developed to combine multiple heterogeneous data simultaneously to obtain a comprehensive representation. In this paper, we proposed a novel variant of symmetric nonnegative matrix factorization (SNMF), called Laplacian regularization based joint symmetric nonnegative matrix factorization (LJ-SNMF) for clustering multi-view data. We conduct extensive experiments on several realistic datasets including Human Microbiome Project data. The experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms other variants of NMF, which suggests the potential application of LJ-SNMF in clustering multi-view datasets. Additionally, we also demonstrate the capability of LJ-SNMF in community finding.
A Tensor CP Decomposition Method for Clustering Heterogeneous Information Networks via Stochastic Gradient Descent Algorithms

Clustering analysis is a basic and essential method for mining heterogeneous information networks, which consist of multiple types of objects and rich semantic relations among different object types. Heterogeneous information networks are ubiquitous in the real-world applications, such as bibliographic networks and social media networks. Unfortunately, most existing approaches, such as spectral clustering, are designed to analyze homogeneous information networks, which are composed of only one type of objects and links. Some recent studies focused on heterogeneous information networks and yielded some research fruits, such as RankClus and NetClus. However, they often assumed that the heterogeneous information networks usually follow some simple schemas, such as bityped network schema or star network schema. To overcome the above limitations, we model the heterogeneous information network as a tensor without the restriction of network schema. Then, a tensor CP decomposition method is adapted to formulate the clustering problem in heterogeneous information networks. Further, we develop two stochastic gradient descent algorithms, namely, SGDClus and SOSClus, which lead to effective clustering multityped objects simultaneously. The experimental results on both synthetic datasets and real-world dataset have demonstrated that our proposed clustering framework can model heterogeneous information networks efficiently and outperform state-of-the-art clustering methods.
A Registration Framework for Evaluation of T1, T2 and DWI Signal Intensities in Multiple Myeloma

Objective In this study we point out the Diffusion-Weighted Imaging (DWI) role in the diagnosis of multiple myeloma (MM), comparing its signal values (SV) (Sommer et al., 2010) with the standard imaging modalities T1, T2. We further evaluate how SV change in relation with the percentage of plasma cells infiltration evaluated through bone marrow biopsy (BMB). Methods Since March 2008 23 patients with average age of 61 (± 11) years old, 11 females and 12 males, have been investigated before their own therapy with a whole body MRI protocol, concerning a whole body T1, a whole body T2 and a whole body DWI and a BMB. An experienced radiologist defined for each patient two volume of interests (VOIs): onto the main lesions and on healthy bones (Femur and Homerus). After that, we have subdivided the full population by a clinical threshold of 25% on cells infiltration percentage; then, we analysed statistical differences in the 2 groups (A, B). Results We found out that DWI voxels intensities in group A (infiltration ≤ 25%) were higher than group B, this gap had to be considered statistically different (P ≤ 0.05).
High Production Volume Chemical Amine Oxides [C8–C20] Category Environmental Risk Assessment

An environmental assessment of amine oxides has been conducted under the OECD SIDS High Production Volume (HPV) Program via the Global International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA) Amine Oxides Consortium. Amine oxides are primarily used in conjunction with surfactants in cleaning and personal care products. Given the lack of persistence or bioaccumulation, and the low likelihood of these chemicals partitioning to soil, the focus of the environmental assessment is on the aquatic environment. In the United States, the E‐FAST model is used to estimate effluent concentrations in the United States from manufacturing facilities and from municipal facilities resulting from consumer product uses. Reasonable worst‐case ratios of predicted environmental concentration (PEC) to predicted no effect concentration (PNEC) range from 0.04 to 0.003, demonstrating that these chemicals are a low risk to the environment.
Response to exercise rehabilitation in smoking and nonsmoking patients with intermittent claudication.

BACKGROUND The purpose was to compare the changes in claudication pain, ambulatory function, daily physical activity, peripheral circulation, and health-related quality of life following a program of exercise rehabilitation in smoking and nonsmoking patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD) limited by intermittent claudication. Methods and results Thirty-nine smokers (63 +/- 4 pack-year smoking history; mean +/- SE) and 46 nonsmokers (former smokers who had a 51 +/- 7 pack-year smoking history who quit 14 +/- 2 years prior to investigation) completed the study. The 6-month exercise rehabilitation program consisted of intermittent treadmill walking to near maximal claudication pain 3 days per week, with progressive increases in walking duration and intensity during the program. Measurements were obtained on each patient before and after rehabilitation. Following exercise rehabilitation the smokers and nonsmokers had similar improvements in these measures, as initial claudication distance increased by 119% in the smokers (P <.001) and by 97% in the nonsmokers (P <.001), and absolute claudication distance increased by 82% (P <.001) and 59% (P <.001) in the smokers and nonsmokers, respectively. Furthermore, exercise rehabilitation improved (P <.05) ambulatory function, daily physical activity, peripheral circulation, and health-related quality of life in the smokers and nonsmokers. CONCLUSION Exercise rehabilitation is an effective therapy to improve functional independence in both smoking and nonsmoking patients with PAD limited by intermittent claudication. Therefore, smokers with intermittent claudication are prime candidates for exercise rehabilitation because their relatively low baseline physical function does not impair their ability to regain lost functional independence to levels similar to nonsmoking patients with PAD.
Feature based indexing for media tracking

Satellite television, the Web and the increasing deployment of digital video and audio have changed the ways in which media content is used. Media content is increasingly being reused (rebroadcast and re-purposed). The Web also allows for content to be downloaded by users (a prime example is MP3). This digitization of media along with the changes in the distribution mechanisms gives rise to a new problem termed media tracking. Media tracking is the problem of keeping track of when and where a particular known piece of media has been used. Examples include, tracking when (at what time) and where (which channel) a particular TV commercial was aired. Analogously, on the Web, when (data and time) and where (URL) was a particular piece of content available. This paper presents a novel feature based indexing scheme, which can be used as the search or detection engine in the media tracking process. The technique presented performs the same function for temporal media streams as Internet search engines do in the text domain.
ANTAGONISM AGAINST SHIGELLA INFECIIONS of germfree mice

Germfree mice were associated with selected species of human intestinal bacteria and then challenged with a streptomycin-resistant Shigella flexneri strain. Antagonism against Shigella was most pronounced in mice associated with Escherichia coli and least pronounced in mice associated with Bacteroides fragilis. A moderate degree of antagonism could be demonstrated in mice associated with either Strepto-
An iterative solution method for linear systems of which the coefficient matrix is a symmetric -matrix

A particular class of regular splittings of not necessarily symmetric M-matrices is proposed. If the matrix is symmetric, this splitting is combined with the conjugate-gradient method to provide a fast iterative solution algorithm. Comparisons have been made with other well-known methods. In all test problems the new combination was faster than the other methods.
Race-Ethnicity and Health Trajectories

Racial-ethnic disparities in static levels of health are well documented. Less is known about racial-ethnic differences in age trajectories of health. The few studies on this topic have examined only single health outcomes and focused on black-white disparities. This study extends prior research by using a life course perspective, panel data from the Health and Retirement Study, and multilevel growth curve models to investigate racial-ethnic differences in the trajectories of serious conditions and functional limitations among blacks, Mexican Americans, and whites. We test three hypotheses on the nature of racial-ethnic disparities in health across the life course (aging-as-leveler, persistent inequality, and cumulative disadvantage). Results controlling for mortality selection reveal that support for the hypotheses varies by health outcome, racial-ethnic group, and life stage. Controlling for childhood socioeconomic status, adult social and economic resources, and health behaviors reduces but does not eliminate racial-ethnic disparities in health trajectories.
Inhibition of autophagosome-lysosome fusion by ginsenoside Ro via the ESR2-NCF1-ROS pathway sensitizes esophageal cancer cells to 5-fluorouracil-induced cell death via the CHEK1-mediated DNA damage checkpoint

ABSTRACT Modulation of autophagy has been increasingly regarded as a promising cancer therapeutic approach. In this study, we screened several ginsenosides extracted from Panax ginseng and identified ginsenoside Ro (Ro) as a novel autophagy inhibitor. Ro blocked the autophagosome-lysosome fusion process by raising lysosomal pH and attenuating lysosomal cathepsin activity, resulting in the accumulation of the autophagosome marker MAP1LC3B/LC3B and SQSTM1/p62 (sequestosome 1) in various esophageal cancer cell lines. More detailed studies demonstrated that Ro activated ESR2 (estrogen receptor 2), which led to the activation of NCF1/p47PHOX (neutrophil cytosolic factor 1), a subunit of NADPH oxidase, and subsequent reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. Treatment with siRNAs or inhibitors of the ESR2-NCF1-ROS axis, such as N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC), diphenyleneiodonium chloride (DPI), apocynin (ACN), Tiron, and Fulvestrant apparently decreased Ro-induced LC3B-II, GFP-LC3B puncta, and SQSTM1, indicating that ROS instigates autophagic flux inhibition triggered by Ro. More importantly, suppression of autophagy by Ro sensitized 5-fluorouracil (5-Fu)-induced cell death in chemoresistant esophageal cancer cells. 5-Fu induced prosurvival autophagy, and by inhibiting such autophagy, siRNAs against BECN1/beclin 1, ATG5, ATG7, and LC3B enhanced 5-Fu-induced autophagy-associated and apoptosis-independent cell death. We observed that Ro potentiates 5-Fu cytotoxicity via delaying CHEK1 (checkpoint kinase 1) degradation and downregulating DNA replication process, resulting in the delayed DNA repair and the accumulation of DNA damage. In summary, these data suggest that Ro is a novel autophagy inhibitor and could function as a potent anticancer agent in combination therapy to overcome chemoresistance.
Modulation of Cargo Release from Dense Core Granules by Size and Actin Network

During regulated fusion of secretory granules with the plasma membrane, a fusion pore first opens and then dilates. The dilating pore allows cargo proteins from the dense core to be released into the extracellular space. Using real‐time evanescent field fluorescence microscopy of live PC12 cells, it was determined how rapidly proteins of different sizes escape from single granules after fusion. Tissue plasminogen activator (tPA)‐Venus is released 40‐fold slower than the three times smaller neuropeptide Y [NPY‐monomeric GFP (mGFP)]. An NPY bearing two mGFPs in tandem [NPY‐(mGFP)2] as an intermediate‐sized fusion probe is released most slowly. Although, the time–course of release varies substantially for a given probe. Coexpression of β‐actin, actin‐related protein 3 or mAbp1 slowed the release of the two larger cargo molecules but did not affect release of NPY‐mGFP or of the granule‐membrane‐bound probe Vamp‐pHluorin. Additionally, high concentrations of cytochalasin D slowed release of the tPA‐Venus. Together these results suggest that fusion pore dilation is not the only determinate of release time–course and that actin rearrangements similar to those mediating actin‐mediated motility influences the time–course of release without directly interfering with the granule membrane to cell membrane connection.