Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A new approach to speed up combinatorial search strategies using stack and hash table

Owing to the significance of combinatorial search strategies both for academia and industry, the introduction of new techniques is a fast growing research field these days. These strategies have really taken different forms ranging from simple to complex strategies in order to solve all forms of combinatorial problems. Nonetheless, despite the kind of problem these approaches solve, they are prone to heavy computation with the number of combinations and growing search space dimensions. This paper presents a new approach to speed up the generation and search processes using a combination of stack and hash table data structures. This approach could be put to practice for the combinatorial approaches to speed up the generation of combinations and search process in the search space. Furthermore, this new approach proved its performance in diverse stages better than other known strategies.
Sildenafil prevents rebound pulmonary hypertension after withdrawal of nitric oxide in children.

RATIONALE Rebound pulmonary hypertension (PHT) can complicate the weaning of nitric oxide (NO), and is in part related to transient depletion of intrinsic cyclic guanosine monophosphate. Rebound is characterized by increased pulmonary arterial (PA) pressure, cardiopulmonary instability, and in some cases, the need to continue NO beyond the intended period of use. There is anecdotal evidence that sildenafil, a phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitor, may prevent recurrence of rebound. OBJECTIVES We investigated the role of sildenafil in preventing rebound (an increase in PA pressure of 20% or greater, or failure to discontinue NO) in patients in whom previous attempts had not been made to wean from NO. METHODS Thirty ventilated infants and children, receiving 10 ppm or greater inhaled NO, were randomized to receive 0.4 mg/kg of sildenafil, or placebo, 1 h before discontinuing NO. Twenty-nine patients completed the study. MEASUREMENTS PA pressures and blood gases were measured before the study drug, and 1 and 4 h after stopping NO. MAIN RESULTS Rebound occurred in 10 of 14 placebo patients, and 0 of 15 sildenafil patients (p < 0.001). PA pressure increased by 25% (14-67) in placebo patients, and by 1%(-9-5) in sildenafil patients (p < 0.001). Four placebo patients could not be weaned from NO due to severe cardiovascular instability, whereas all sildenafil patients were weaned (p = 0.042). Duration of ventilation after study was 98.0 (47.0-223.5) h for placebo patients and 28.2 (15.7-54.6) h for sildenafil patients (p = 0.024). CONCLUSION A single dose of sildenafil prevented rebound after withdrawal of NO, and reduced the duration of mechanical ventilation. Prophylaxis with sildenafil should be considered when weaning patients from inhaled NO.
Régulation de la sphère viticole dans la périphérie européenne : le cas du Portugal

La situation du Portugal dans la peripherie europeenne lui confere des caracteristiques specifiques. Au niveau interne, on releve le role preponderant de l'Etat, de forts mecanismes de solidarite sociale et un tissu social complexe avec des mecanismes compensatoires informels. Au niveau externe, le positionnement geostrategique du pays et les consequences qui en decoulent predominent. Dans une approche en termes de regulation sectorielle, des periodes avec differentes formes de regulation de la viticulture portugaise sont identifiees et les principales similitudes et differences relatives au pays vinicole central par excellence, la France, sont mises en evidence. Cote similitudes, le processus d'institutionnalisation des deux spheres viticoles, les relations entre les crises viticoles et la creation de dispositifs institutionnels specifiques sont analyses. Cote differences, on peut citer le role preponderant de l'Etat, la fragilite des organisations professionnelles, l'adoption tardive des nouveaux modeles de consommation et d'une veritable politique de qualite, le retard des relations de production et la dependance du pays vis-a-vis du regime international.
Del Nido cardioplegia in low risk adults undergoing first time coronary artery bypass surgery

Objectives: Single-dose del Nido cardioplegia has been used in the pediatric population for many years. Only a small amount of data exists about its use in adult cardiac surgery. We sought to compare the outcomes of all patients undergoing coronary artery bypass, using our 4:1 blood cardioplegia versus single-dose 1:4 del Nido cardioplegia, at our institution. Methods: Data were retrospectively reviewed from all patients during 2 consecutive years (2013-2014). We switched our cardioplegia protocol from 4:1 blood cardioplegia to exclusively 1:4 single-dose del Nido cardioplegia in early 2014. A total of 408 patients were evaluated. Two hundred and forty-nine consecutive patients underwent coronary artery bypass using blood cardioplegia and 159 using del Nido Cardioplegia. Results: Cardiopulmonary bypass time, cross-clamp time, in-hospital mortality and length of stay were similar (p>0.05): 63 ± 23 vs. 65 ± 21 min, 50 ± 20 vs. 52 ± 20 min, 0.8% vs. 0.6% and 6.4 ± 3 vs. 5.8 ± 3 days, respectively. For secondary outcomes: patients requiring defibrillation was 105/249 (42%) vs. 13/159 (8%) (p<0.0001), blood transfusion was required in 96/249 (38%) vs. 48/159 (30%) (p<0.085), total volume administered was 1139mL vs. 813 mL per case (p<0.0001), hematocrit change was 11.6% vs. 10.9% (p<0.04) and the mean cost per dose was $157.54 vs $5.74. Conclusions: Single-dose del Nido cardioplegia is an effective and economic cardioplegia and can be used with good outcomes in coronary surgery. Most patients have spontaneous return of sinus rhythm and there is a trend towards decreased transfusion rate.
Immunomodulation by filarial nematodes

In order to chronically infect their hosts, filarial nematodes have generated a range of strategies to evade and down‐modulate the host's immune system. The recent concept of suppression of immune responses by regulatory T cells has in part benefited from examinations in human and murine filariasis. Its further development in basic immunology animal models has in turn helped to better understand down‐regulatory immune mechanisms in filariasis. Thus, filarial nematodes orchestrate down‐regulation by inducing regulatory T cells and alternatively activated macrophages, which are able to suppress both Th1 and Th2 responses. Regulatory T cells can also induce the secretion of IgG4 from B cells as another arm of modulation. Dendritic cells are down‐regulated upon first encounter with infective L3 larvae. Failure to respond to down‐regulatory induction is based on genetic traits in hosts and leads to reduced parasite loads, albeit at the expense of pathology and disease. Since down‐regulation in chronically and heavily infected hosts extends to third‐party antigens, it is essential to analyse the impact of filarial infection for vaccination, allergy and important coinfections such as malaria, in order to foresee and avert potentially disastrous consequences of filariasis control programmes.
The Dam1/DASH complex is required for the retrieval of unclustered kinetochores in fission yeast

In fission yeast centromeres cluster at the nuclear envelope in a region underlying the spindle pole body during interphase, an arrangement known as a Rabl configuration. We have identified a strain in which one pair of sister kinetochores is unclustered from the others and binds the nuclear envelope at a point distal to the spindle pole body. We show that during mitosis unclustered kinetochores are captured by intranuclear spindle microtubules which then pull the kinetochores back to one of the two spindle poles before they are bi-oriented on the mitotic spindle. We find that kinetochore retrieval occurs at the depolymerising microtubule plus end and is dependent on the non-essential Dam1/DASH complex. In the absence of Dam1 unclustered kinetochores are captured on the lateral surface of spindle microtubule bundles but poleward kinetochore movement does not occur. These data provide the first direct evidence that the Dam1/DASH complex can couple the force generated by microtubule depolymerisation to direct chromosome movement in vivo.
Effects of DNMT1 and HDAC Inhibitors on Gene-Specific Methylation Reprogramming during Porcine Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer

Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) in mammalian cloning currently remains inefficient. Incomplete or erroneous epigenetic reprogramming of specialized donor somatic nuclear and resulting aberrant gene expression during development of cloned embryos is commonly believed as the main reason that causes the low efficiency of SCNT. Use of small molecular reprogramming modifiers to assist the somatic nucleus to mimic naturally occurring DNA methylation and chromatin remodeling in nucleus of fertilization-derived zygotes, has been widely attempted to improve cloning efficiency. However, impacts of these small modifiers on gene-specific methylation dynamics and their potential effects on methylation of imprinted gene have rarely been traced. Here, we attempted two relatively novel DNMT1 inhibitor (DNMTi) and histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDACi), scriptaid and RG108, and demonstrated their effects on dynamics of gene-specific DNA methylation and transcription of porcine SCNT embryos. We found that scriptaid and RG108 had synergetic effects on rescuing the disrupted methylation imprint of H19 during SCNT at least partially by repression over-expressed MBD3 in eight-cell cloned embryos. Furthermore, we firstly identified a differential methylation regions (DMRs) at 5′ flanking regions of XIST gene and found that scriptaid alone and its combination with RG108 modify the dynamics of both transcription and DNA methylation levels in cloned embryos, by different manners. Additionally, we found that scriptaid alone and its combination with RG108 can significantly promote the transcription of NANOG in cloned embryos and enhance their pre-implantation developmental capacity. Our results would contribute to uncovering the epigenetic reprogramming mechanisms underlying the effects of assisted small molecules on improvement of mammalian cloning efficiency.
Cross-Mode Interference Characterization in Cellular Networks With Voronoi Guard Regions

Advances in cellular networks such as device-to-device communications and full-duplex radios, as well as the inherent elimination of intra-cell interference achieved by network-controlled multiple access schemes, motivate the investigation of the cross-mode interference properties under a guard region corresponding to the Voronoi cell of an access point (AP). By modeling the positions of interfering APs and user equipments (UEs) as Poisson distributed, analytical expressions for the statistics of the cross-mode interference generated by either APs or UEs are obtained based on appropriately defined density functions. The considered system model and analysis are general enough to capture many operational scenarios of practical interest, including conventional downlink/uplink transmissions with nearest AP association, as well as direct communication between UEs that do not necessarily lie in the same cell. Analysis provides insights on the level of protection offered by a Voronoi guard region and its dependence on type of interference and receiver position. Numerical examples demonstrate the validity/accuracy of the analysis in obtaining the system coverage probability for operational scenarios of practical interest.
On the numbers of variables to represent sparse logic functions

In an incompletely specified function f, donpsilat care values can be chosen to minimize the number of variables to represent f. It is shown that, in incompletely specified functions with k 0psilas and k 1psilas, the probability that f can be represented with only p = 2[log2(k + 1)] variables is greater than e-1 = 0.36788. In the case of multiple-output functions, where only the outputs for k input combinations are specified, most functions can be represented with at most p = 2[log2(k+1)] -1 variables. Experimental data is shown to support this. Because of this property, an IP address table can be realized with a small amount of memory.
Prenatal testing for late-onset diseases such as mutations in the breast cancer gene 1 (BRCA1). Just a choice or a step in the wrong direction?

Conventional prenatal diagnosis primarily addresses diseases associated with either a lethal manifestation within a few years of birth, a pronounced, life-impairing disability, or the acute lack of a specific treatment that would allow a favourable prognosis. Recent advances in molecular genetic research and diagnostic methods have significantly extended the variety of diseases detectable by prenatal diagnosis. Hereditary diseases setting in as late as 30–50 years after birth, if at all, associated with a steadily improving chance of successful treatment and which pose no immediate threat to the life of the patient, have become amenable to prenatal testing. Hereditary breast and ovarian cancer due to BRCA1mutations, a typical example of such a late onset disease, confers a 80% lifetime risk of breast cancer and 40% of ovarian cancer. Nevertheless not all mutation carriers will develop cancer and succumb to it. On a technical level, the screening for BRCA1mutations in fetal cells from parents carryingBRCA1 mutations during prenatal diagnosis has already become feasible. Conceivably genetic testing might therefore become a crucial factor in the decision leading to the termination of a pregnancy. The central argument in favour of the prenatal molecular genetic diagnosis of BRCA1mutations stems from the suffering and exceptional psycho–social burden experienced by parents with a family background marked by a high incidence of breast and ovarian cancers and the deaths that result from these diseases. Male mutation carriers are three times as likely to develop cancer of the prostate. Irrespective of gender, mutation carriers face a 4-fold risk of developing colon cancer. It is, therefore, hardly surprising that the parents concerned are apprehensive of giving birth to a child carrying their genetic traits and destined for a similar fate. Beyond that, it is conceivable that the uncertainty about the child’s potential carrier status may prove detrimental to the parent-child relationship. Prenatal diagnosis can show related fears to be unfounded at the earliest possible stage. Conversely, even when the test establishes a positive carrier status, quality
Fuzzy Methodologies for Multi-Sensor Information Fusion with Applications to Precision PNT

Providing processing for intelligence operations requires collecting, sorting, and fusing data from a variety of sources to produce coherent and correlated intelligence “information” (Multi-Sensor Data Fusion). Multi-sensor data fusion is an evolving technology, concerning the problem of how to fuse data from multiple sensors in order to make a more accurate assessment of a given situation or environment. Applications of data fusion cross a wide spectrum, including automatic target detection and tracking, battlefield surveillance, remote sensing, etc. They are usually time-critical, cover a large geographical area, and require reliable delivery of accurate information for their completion. One of the big problems with multi-sensor fusion is the Level 0 processing: A new approach to fusion is the joint Mutual Information between the features and the class labels. It can be shown that Mutual Information minimizes the lower bound of the classification error. However, according to Shannon’s definition this is computationally expensive. Evaluation of the joint Mutual Information of a number of variables is plausible through histograms, but only for a few variables. If we look toward a different definition of Mutual Information we find a different result. Using Renyi’s entropy instead of Shannon’s, combined with Parzen density estimation, leads to expression of Mutual Information with significant computational savings. Here, we will extended Renyi’s method for Mutual Information to multiple continuous variables and discrete class labels to learn linear dimensionreducing linear feature transforms for data fusion and parameter estimation utilizing competing parameter measures. Keywords—Fuzzy Logic, Mutual Information, Information Fusion
Software architecture recovery based on pattern matching

This paper is a summary of the author's thesis that presents a model and an environment for recovering the high level design of legacy software systems based on user defined architectural patterns and graph matching techniques. In the proposed model, a high-level view of a software system in terms of the system components and their interactions is represented as a query, using a description language. A query is mapped onto a pattern-graph, where a component and its interactions with other components are represented as a group of graph-nodes and a group of graph-edges, respectively. Interaction constraints can be modeled by the description language as a part of the query. Such a pattern-graph is applied against an entity-relation graph that represents the information extracted from the source code of the software system. An approximate graph matching process performs a series of graph transformation operations (i.e., node/edge insertion/deletion) on the pattern-graph and uses a ranking mechanism based on data mining association to obtain a sub-optimal solution. The obtained solution corresponds to an extracted architecture that complies with the given query.
D1–D2 dopamine receptor interaction within the nucleus accumbens mediates long‐loop negative feedback to the ventral tegmental area (VTA)

The objective of the present study was to examine the effects of perfusion of dopamine (DA) D1‐ and D2‐like receptor agonists in the nucleus accumbens (ACB) on the long‐loop negative feedback regulation of mesolimbic somatodendritic DA release in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of Wistar rats employing ipsilateral dual probe in vivo microdialysis. Perfusion of the ACB for 60 min with the D1‐like receptor agonist SKF 38393 (SKF, 1–100 µm) dose‐dependently reduced the extracellular levels of DA in the ACB, whereas the extracellular levels of DA in the VTA were not changed. Similarly, application of the D2‐like receptor agonist quinpirole (Quin, 1–100 µm) through the microdialysis probe in the ACB reduced the extracellular levels of DA in the ACB in a concentration‐dependent manner, whereas extracellular levels of DA in the VTA were not altered. Co‐application of SKF (100 µm) and Quin (100 µm) produced concomitant reductions in the extracellular levels of DA in the ACB and VTA. The reduction in extracellular levels of DA in the ACB and VTA produced by co‐infusion of SKF and Quin was reversed in the presence of either 100 µm SCH 23390 (D1‐like antagonist) or 100 µm sulpiride (D2‐like antagonist). Overall, the results suggest that (a) activation of dopamine D1‐ or D2‐like receptors can independently regulate local terminal DA release in the ACB, whereas stimulation of both subtypes is required for activation of the negative feedback pathway to the VTA.
Distributed ONS and its Impact on Privacy

The EPC Network is an industry proposal to build a global information architecture for objects carrying RFID tags with electronic product codes (EPC). A so-called object naming service (ONS) is used to locate information sources for these objects in the EPC Network. But ONS is based on DNS, which suffers from well-studied weaknesses in robustness, configuration complexity and security. There are promising approaches to enhance the performance and robustness of DNS by using structured P2P systems based on distributed hash tables (DHT) that have a high potential as a replacement for ONS as well. We investigate if and how a decentralized alternative to ONS based on DHT could additionally offer data access control and enhance the privacy of its clients. As it turns out, the strength of privacy protection will slightly increase by using DHT compared to DNS, but strong protection will depend on the feasibility of secure out- of-band key distribution mechanisms.
Fuzzy logic rotor position estimation based switched reluctance motor DSP drive with accuracy enhancement

This paper describes a novel angle estimation scheme for a real time digital signal processor (DSP) based switched reluctance motor drive using fuzzy logic where several unique techniques are implemented to improve the estimation accuracy. First, an optimized fuzzy model of the motor was created using an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) based on accurately measured flux linkage data. Secondly, an improved fuzzy optimal sensing phase selector was developed based on the analysis of both modeling error and measurement error. Lastly, a delayless polynomial predictive filter and an online phase winding resistance estimator are also implemented to further improve the position estimation accuracy. Both simulation and experiment results on a DSP based real time drive are presented to show the effectiveness of this scheme.
Dualities and intertheoretic relations

The idea of duality is at the core of the most relevant developments in recent fundamental physics. During the last forty years theoretical physics has used the notion of duality in different ways and frameworks: in the so-called dual resonance model of the late sixties, which gave birth to early string theory; in the context of quantum field theory, where a groundbreaking generalization of electromagnetic duality was conjectured by Claus Montonen and David Olive in 1977; in supersymmetric string theory, where various sorts of dualities are playing a key role in the theoretical elaboration. This paper is concerned with the significance of physical dualities from the viewpoint of philosophy of science. The idea is that, for its peculiarity, this ‘new’ ingredient in theory construction can open unexpected perspectives for the current philosophical reflection on contemporary physics. In particular, dualities represent an unusual type of intertheory relation, the meaning of which deserves to be investigated. It is the aim of the paper to show how discussing this point brings into play, at the same time, what is intended by a ‘theory’ and in which sense dualities are to be considered ‘symmetries’ (if they are).
The Atlas of Apartheid

This work presents an analysis of spatial segregation in South Africa since the National Party came to power in 1948. Written at the end of the apartheid era, it provides an overview of the effects of apartheid on South African society. The atlas describes the legislation and impact of apartheid and the resistance, both local and international, to its racial policies. The integration of detailed maps and text reinforces the specifically spatial nature of apartheid, and demonstrates the way in which the map of South Africa was redrawn and continues to be redrawn.