Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ARE TQM PRINCIPLES IMPLEMENTED BY LARGE COMPANIES AND SMES SIMILAR IN TURKEY

ISO 9001: 2000 Quality Management Systems (QMS): Requirement standards are based on Total Quality Management (TQM) approach. Moreover large companies can easily adopt to ISO 9001: 2000 certification due to their quality improvement efforts, Small and Middle Scale Enterprises (SMEs) can meet with some difficulties. Due to the fact that ISO 9001: 2000 QMS standard has been certificated since 2000, it is expected that the TQM principles which are customer focus, leadership, employee involvement, process approach, system approach, continuous improvement, decisions based on facts, relationships with supplier's mutual benefits, have been implemented both in large companies and SMEs. The purpose of this paper is to find out the differences of TQM implementation levels between large companies, SMEs and to determine the principles in which SMEs need improvement on TQM in Turkey. Each principles of TQM were investigated with several questions in this questionnaire with 5- Likert scale. The response rate is 11.5%. It is founded that four principles of TQM in Turkey are better managed by large companies than SMEs: leadership, employee involvement, continuous improvement, and decisions based on facts. Also, the results were compared with other countries. In additionally, same questionnaire is applied in 2010 both SMEs and large companies in Turkey and results are compared with 2005.
The impact of recent DRAM architectures on embedded systems performance

Embedded computing systems utilize less cache space and fewer memory hierarchy levels than ordinary PC or workstation systems due to cost, area and power dissipation restrictions. Consequently, they particularly depend on the performance of the underlying dynamic RAM (DRAM) main-memory system. Hence, two recent DRAM architectures, the widely-used synchronous DRAMs (SDRAMs) and the next-generation memory called the Direct Rambus DRAM (RDRAM), are investigated in this paper. Performance gains are revealed that can be achieved by exploiting features of recent memory interfaces with simple enhancements of current embedded memory controllers. Different approaches for memory access schemes are investigated by simulation of the DRAM architectures and the memory controller, together with an out-of-order-issue, superscalar-CPU model running various applications. The simulations lead to the following results: using RDRAMs instead of SDRAMs improves the performance of the system by up to one third, while exploiting the multibank structure of DRAMs improves the performance more than pipelining memory transfers does.
Generalized action invariants for drift waves-zonal flow systems

Generalized action invariants are identified for various models of drift wave turbulence in the presence of the mean shear flow. It is shown that the wave kinetic equation describing the interaction of the small scale turbulence and large scale shear flow can be naturally writen in terms of these invariants. Unlike the wave energy, which is conserved as a sum of small- and large-scale components, the generalized action invariant is shown to correspond to a quantity which is conserved for the small scale component alone. This invariant can be used to construct canonical variables leading to a different definition of the wave action (as compared to the case without shear flow). It is suggested that these new canonical action variables form a natural basis for the description of the drift wave turbulence with a mean shear flow.
Absorption Cross Section measurement of stacked PCBs in a reverberation chamber

The Absorption Cross Section (ACS) of Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) can be used to help determine how PCBs affect the internal electromagnetic (EM) field in a shielded enclosure and thus the enclosure shielding effectiveness. Stacked PCBs inside densely populated enclosures may not have the same ACS as the sum of the individual PCBs due to `shadowing' effects. In this paper ACS measurement results from stacked PCBs are presented. The results show that stacking the PCBs close together reduces the ACS and this effect is increased with a greater number of PCBs.
Evaluation of nanoalumina and nanosilica particle toughened high glass-transition temperature epoxy for liquid composite molding processes

In this study, nanoalumina (Al2O3) and nanosilica (SiO2) particles are evaluated as tougheners for a high glass-transition temperature (Tg) epoxy system in correlation with liquid composite molding (LCM) processability. The aim of this paper is to directly compare the effectiveness of nanoalumina and nanosilica of the same nominal particle size as epoxy tougheners on the same neat resin system. The epoxy resin system used in this study was Dow D.E. R. 330 amine cured epoxy with a Tg of 150℃. Both particle types are observed to be Tg neutral and increase fracture toughness of the base epoxy system. Between the two particle types, nanoalumina is found to be more effective than nanosilica in terms of achievable fracture toughness at a given particle loading. As resin viscosity increases with particle addition, the addition of fewer particles with the use of nanoalumina is also beneficial to LCM processing where a lower viscosity is preferable.
A generalized basic cycle calculation method for efficient array redistribution

In many scientific applications, dynamic array redistribution is usually required to enhance the performance of an algorithm. We present a generalized basic cycle calculation (GBCC) method to efficiently perform a BLOCK-CYCLIC(s) over P processors to BLOCK-CYCLIC(t) over Q processors array redistribution. In the GBCC method, a processor first computes the source/destination processor/data sets of array elements in the first generalized basic cycle of the local array it owns. A generalized basic cycle is defined as lcm(sP,tQ)/(gcd(s,t)/spl times/P) in the source distribution and lcm(sP,tQ)/(gcd(s,t)/spl times/Q) in the destination distribution. From the source/destination processor/data sets of array elements in the first generalized basic cycle, we can construct packing/unpacking pattern tables. Based on the packing/unpacking pattern tables, a processor can pack/unpack array elements efficiently. To evaluate the performance of the GBCC method, we have implemented this method on an IBM SP2 parallel machine, along with the PITFALLS method and the ScaLAPACK method. The cost models for these three methods are also presented. The experimental results show that the GBCC method outperforms the PITFALLS method and the ScaLAPACK method for all test samples. A brief description of the extension of the GBCC method to multi dimensional array redistributions is also presented.
PID Controller Synthesis with Specifed Stability Requirement for Some Classes of MIMO Systems

For certain classes of linear, timeinvariant, multi-input multi-output plants, a systematic synthesis method is developed for stabilization using Proportional+Integral+Derivative (PID) controllers, where the closed-loop poles can be assigned to the left of an axis shifted to the left of the origin. For some of these plant classes, the real-parts of the closed-loop poles can be smaller than any arbitrary pre-chosen negative value. Stable and some unstable multi-input multi-input plants with transmissionzeros in the left-half complex-plane are included in these classes that admit PID-controllers with this property of small negative real-part assignability of closed-loop poles.
Retinal abnormalities in early Alzheimer's disease.

PURPOSE There is evidence suggesting that visual disturbances in patients with Alzheimer's Disease (AD) are due to pathologic changes in the retina and optic nerve, as well as to higher cortical impairment. The purpose of this study was to evaluate retinal hemodynamic parameters and to characterize patterns of retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) loss in patients with early AD. METHODS Nine patients with mild to moderate probable AD (mean Mini Mental State Examination score 24 of a possible 30 (age 74.3 +/- 3.3 years; mean +/- SD) and eight age-matched control subjects (age, 74.3 +/- 5.8 years) were included in this prospective cross-sectional study. Blood column diameter, blood velocity, and blood flow rate were measured in the major superior temporal retinal vein in each subject by using a laser Doppler instrument. Peripapillary RNFL was measured by optical coherence tomography. RESULTS Patients with AD showed a significant narrowing of the venous blood column diameter (131.7 +/- 10.8 microm) compared with control subjects (148.3 +/- 12.7 microm, P = 0.01), and a significantly reduced venous blood flow rate (9.7 +/- 3.1 microL/min) compared with the control subjects (15.9 +/- 3.7 microL/min, P = 0.002). A significant thinning of the RNFL was found in the superior quadrant in patients with AD (92.2 +/- 21.6 microm) compared with control subjects (113.6 +/- 10.7 microm, P = 0.02). There were no significant differences in the inferior, temporal, or nasal RNFL thicknesses between the groups. CONCLUSIONS Retinal abnormalities in early AD include a specific pattern of RNFL loss, narrow veins, and decreased retinal blood flow in these veins. The results show that AD produces quantifiable abnormalities in the retina.
Supercapacitors using Pure Single-walled Carbon Nanotubes

The excellent and characteristic capacitor performance of pure single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs), which differ from conventional activated carbon electrodes, is reported. SWNTs with little bundling showed higher specific capacitance than activated carbons. High operating voltage can be expected for pure SWNTs without metal contamination and graphene edge structure.
Optimized determination of carbohydrate‐deficient transferrin isoforms in serum by capillary zone electrophoresis

Carbohydrate deficient transferrin (CDT) is one of the most reliable markers of chronic alcohol abuse. It consists of a group of minor isoforms of human transferrin (the main iron transport serum protein) deficient in sialic acid groups (asialo, monosialo and disialo) with a pI >5.7, while the main isotransferrin (tetrasialo) has a pI of 5.4. The aim of the present work was to develop a capillary electrophoretic method to determine CDT in serum, suitable for routine use as a confirmatory technique of the current screening methods based on immunoassays. Serum samples (0.5 mL) were saturated with iron by incubation with 10 mM FeCl3 (9 μL) and 500 mM NaHCO3 (12 μL) for 30 min, then diluted 1/10 in water and injected by positive pressure (0.5 psi for 10 s). Separation was performed with a capillary zone electrophoretic method using bare fused‐silica capillaries (20 μm ID, 37 cm in length) and a buffer composed of 100 mM sodium tetraborate adjusted with boric acid to pH 8.3. Applied voltage was 10 kV and temperature 25°C. Detection was by UV absorption at 200 nm wavelength. Under the described conditions, asialo‐, monosialo‐, disialo‐, trisialo‐ and tetrasialo‐transferrin were separated in human serum. The limit of detection (signal‐to‐noise ratio of 2) was about 0.3% for disialo‐transferrin, and 0.4% of trisialo‐transferrin, expressed as percentages of the terasialo‐transferrin peak area. Relative standard deviations (RSD) of absolute migration times were < 1%, while RSD of relative migration times (on the basis of tetrasialo‐transferrin) were < 0.1%. Intra‐day and day‐to‐day peak quantitation precision studies showed RDS ranging from 4 to 9% and from 13 to 24% for disialo‐ and trisialo‐transferrin, respectively. The results from 30 control subjects, including social drinkers, and 13 alcoholics showed disialo‐ and trisialo‐transferrin significantly increased in patients by a factor of about 4.5 (P < 0.0001).
Molecular simulation methods for predicting polymer properties

Preface (V. Galiatsatos). 1. Ab Initio Polymer Quantum Theory (B. Champagne). 2. Quantum-Chemistry-Based Force Fields For Polymers (G. Smith & O. Borodin). 3. Monte Carlo Simulations of Binary Polymer Liquids (M. Muller). 4. Mesoscopic Simulations of Polymer Mixtures (O. Evers). 5. Prediction of Mechanical Properties of Semicrystalline Polymers (A. Raphael & I. Alig). 6. Crosslinking Simulations in Polymer Design (R. Johnson). Index.
Why Is Carbonic Anhydrase Essential to Escherichia coli?

ABSTRACT The can (previously yadF) gene of Escherichia coli encodes a β-class carbonic anhydrase (CA), an enzyme which interconverts CO2 and bicarbonate.Various essential metabolic processes require either CO2 or bicarbonate and, although carbon dioxide and bicarbonate spontaneously equilibrate in solution, the low concentration of CO2 in air and its rapid diffusion from the cell mean that insufficient bicarbonate is spontaneously made in vivo to meet metabolic and biosynthetic needs. We calculate that demand for bicarbonate is 103- to 104-fold greater than would be provided by uncatalyzed intracellular hydration and that enzymatic conversion of CO2 to bicarbonate is therefore necessary for growth. We find that can expression is ordinarily required for growth in air. It is dispensable if the atmospheric partial pressure of CO2 is high or during anaerobic growth in a closed vessel at low pH, where copious CO2 is generated endogenously. CynT, the single E. coli Can paralog, can, when induced with azide, replace Can; also, the γ-CA from Methanosarcina thermophila can at least partially replace it. Expression studies showed that can transcription does not appear to respond to carbon dioxide concentration or to be autoregulated. However, can expression is influenced by growth rate and the growth cycle; it is expressed best in slow-growing cultures and at higher culture densities. Expression can vary over a 10-fold range during the growth cycle and is also elevated during starvation or heat stress.
Determinants of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Escape from the Primary CD8+ Cytotoxic T Lymphocyte Response

CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) play an important role in containment of virus replication in primary human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. HIV's ability to mutate to escape from CTL pressure is increasingly recognized; but comprehensive studies of escape from the CD8 T cell response in primary HIV infection are currently lacking. Here, we have fully characterized the primary CTL response to autologous virus Env, Gag, and Tat proteins in three patients, and investigated the extent, kinetics, and mechanisms of viral escape from epitope-specific components of the response. In all three individuals, we observed variation beginning within weeks of infection at epitope-containing sites in the viral quasispecies, which conferred escape by mechanisms including altered peptide presentation/recognition and altered antigen processing. The number of epitope-containing regions exhibiting evidence of early CTL escape ranged from 1 out of 21 in a subject who controlled viral replication effectively to 5 out of 7 in a subject who did not. Evaluation of the extent and kinetics of HIV-1 escape from >40 different epitope-specific CD8 T cell responses enabled analysis of factors determining escape and suggested that escape is restricted by costs to intrinsic viral fitness and by broad, codominant distribution of CTL-mediated pressure on viral replication.
Inhibition of bacterial adherence to hydrocarbons and epithelial cells by emulsan

Acinetobacter calcoaceticus RAG-1 and BD413, as well as Streptococcus pyogenes M-5, adhered to octane. Adherence was inhibited by emulsan (100 micrograms/ml), the polymeric emulsifying agent produced by A. calcoaceticus RAG-1. Emulsan also inhibited adherence of S. pyogenes and RAG-1 to buccal epithelial cells. The mean values of bound S. pyogenes per epithelial cell were 57.2 and 20.7 for the control and emulsan-containing suspensions, respectively; mean values of bound RAG-1 per epithelial cell were 221 for the control and 40 for the suspension containing 100 micrograms of emulsan per ml. Desorption of previously bound RAG-1 from epithelial cells by emulsan was concentration dependent: a maximum of 80% desorption was obtained with 200 micrograms of emulsan per ml. The data showing that emulsan desorbed 70% of the indigenous bacterial flora from buccal epithelial cells suggest that hydrophobic interactions mediate not only the in vitro adherence of laboratory strains to epithelial cells, but actually govern the adherence of the majority of the bacteria that colonize this surface. The advantages of using emulsan as an antiadherence agent include its chemical purity, stability, and polymeric nature.
Planning for Dexterous Manipulation with Sliding Contacts

Dexterous manipulation refers to the skillful execution of object reorienting and repositioning maneuvers, especially when performed within the grasp of an articulated mechani cal hand. In this paper we study the problem of gaining a secure and enveloping grasp of a two-dimensional object by exploiting sliding at the contacts between the object and the hand. This is done in two steps:first, choosing an initial grasp with which the object can be manipulated away from the support, and second, continuously altering the grasp so that envelopment is achieved. The plans generated by our technique could be executed with only position control. How ever, it would be prudent to incorporate contact force sensing to prevent damage during unexpected events. The main contributions of this paper are the derivation of liftability regions of a planar object for use in manipulation planning; the use of the lifting phase plane in manipulation planning; and the derivation of the quasi-static forward object motion problem, which provides a basis for general three- dimensional manipulation planning with rolling and/or sliding contacts.
The Pleiotropic Effect of Physical Exercise on Mitochondrial Dynamics in Aging Skeletal Muscle

Decline in human muscle mass and strength (sarcopenia) is one of the principal hallmarks of the aging process. Regular physical exercise and training programs are certain powerful stimuli to attenuate the physiological skeletal muscle alterations occurring during aging and contribute to promote health and well-being. Although the series of events that led to these muscle adaptations are poorly understood, the mechanisms that regulate these processes involve the “quality” of skeletal muscle mitochondria. Aerobic/endurance exercise helps to maintain and improve cardiovascular fitness and respiratory function, whereas strength/resistance-exercise programs increase muscle strength, power development, and function. Due to the different effect of both exercises in improving mitochondrial content and quality, in terms of biogenesis, dynamics, turnover, and genotype, combined physical activity programs should be individually prescribed to maximize the antiaging effects of exercise.
Therapeutic Intervention for Chronic Prostatitis/Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome (CP/CPPS): A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background Chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CP/CPPS) has been treated with several different interventions with limited success. This meta-analysis aims to review all trials reporting on therapeutic intervention for CP/CPPS using the National Institutes of Health-Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index (NIH-CPSI). Methods We searched Medline, PubMed, the Cochrane Pain, Palliative & Supportive Care Trials, the Cochrane Register of Controlled Trials, CINAHL, ClinicalTrials.gov, and the NIDDK website between 1947 and December 31, 2011 without language or study type restrictions. All RCTs for CP/CPPS lasting at least 6 weeks, with a minimum of 10 participants per arm, and using the NIH-CPSI score, the criterion standard for CP/CPPS, as an outcome measure were included. Data was extracted from each study by two independent reviewers. Gillbraith and I-squared plots were used for heterogeneity testing and Eggers and Peters methods for publication bias. Quality was assessed using a component approach and meta-regression was used to analyze sources of heterogeneity. Results Mepartricin, percutaneous tibial nerve stimulation (PTNS), and triple therapy comprised of doxazosin + ibuprofen + thiocolchicoside (DIT) resulted in clinically and statistically significant reduction in NIH-CPSI total score. The same agents and aerobic exercise resulted in clinically and statistically significant NIH-CPSI pain domain score reduction. Acupuncture, DIT, and PTNS were found to produce statistically and clinically significant reductions in the NIH-CPSI voiding domain. A statistically significant placebo effect was found for all outcomes and time analysis showed that efficacy of all treatments increased over time. Alpha-blockers, antibiotics, and combinations of the two failed to show statistically or clinically significant NIH-CPSI reductions. Conclusion Results from this meta-analysis reflect our current inability to effectively manage CP/CPPS. Clinicians and researchers must consider placebo effect and treatment efficacy over time and design studies creatively so we can more fully elucidate the etiology and role of therapeutic intervention in CP/CPPS.
A Comparative Study of Machine Learning Approaches for Text Classification

Perhaps the single largest data source in the world is the world wide web. Heterogeneous and unstructured nature of the data on web has challenged mining the web. Practical needs to extract textual information and unseen patterns continue to drive the research interest in text mining. Faultless categorization of texts can be better performed by machine learning techniques. In this paper we present a review of various text classification approaches under machine learning paradigm. Existing classification algorithms including Decision Tree, Naive Bayes, Support Vector Machine and k-Nearest Neighbors are compared based on speed, accuracy, interpretability and multi-class support.
Speech summarization using weighted finite-state transducers

This paper proposes an integrated framework to summarize spontaneous speech into written-style compact sentences. Most current speech recognition systems attempt to transcribe whole spoken words correctly. However, recognition results of spontaneous speech are usually difﬁcult to understand, even if the recognition is perfect, because spontaneous speech includes redundant information, and its style is different to that of written sentences. In particular, the style of spoken Japanese is very different to that of the written language. Therefore, techniques to summarize recognition results into readable and compact sentences are indispensable for generating captions or minutes from speech. Our speech summarization includes speech recognition, paraphrasing, and sentence compaction, which are integrated in a single Weighted Finite-State Transducer (WFST). This approach enables the decoder to employ all the knowledge sources in a one-pass search strategy and reduces the search errors, since all the constraints of the models are used from the beginning of the search. We conducted experiments on a 20k-word Japanese lecture speech recognition and summarization task. Our approach yielded improvements in both recognition accuracy and summarization accuracy compared with other ap-proaches that perform speech recognition and summarization separately.
Asymptomatic SARS Coronavirus Infection among Healthcare Workers, Singapore

We conducted a study among healthcare workers (HCWs) exposed to patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) before infection control measures were instituted. Of all exposed HCWs, 7.5% had asymptomatic SARS-positive cases. Asymptomatic SARS was associated with lower SARS antibody titers and higher use of masks when compared to pneumonic SARS.