Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Employing rough set theory to alleviate the sparsity issue in recommender system

Recommender systems represent personalized services that aim at predicting a userpsilas interest on information items available in the application domain, using userspsila ratings on items. Poor quality is one major challenge in collaborative filtering recommender systems. Sparsity of userspsila ratings is the major reason causing the poor quality. The popular same value and singular value decomposition techniques are able to alleviate this issue. But they also introduce new problems. A collaborative filtering based on rough set theory was proposed to solve this problem, which predicts values of the null ratings in the candidates, and gets the results using userpsilas neighbors. Experimental results show that this method can increase the accuracy of the predicted values, resulting in improving recommendation quality of the collaborative filtering recommender system.
Decision Making Models for Reengineering of Object Oriented Software Systems

Reengineering of object-oriented software is not much grown area. It is difficult for the software managers when to decide for Reengineering software system. Software is delivered, it is corrected, and maintenance starts from the very beginning. Maintenance cost increases with time as requirements, technology and environment changes. The accumulated effects of maintenance make the system complex and quality of software decreases. As a result, maintenance cost increases rapidly. A situation comes when maintenance cost is too much high and it is difficult to maintain the system at such a high cost. This is a good time for reengineering the software system. If we do not reengineer the software system at this optimal time and go for high maintenance cost then complexity increases and system quality is worsen. It will be difficult to reengineer the system or reengineering cost is not justified as compared to the cost of new system. Software managers have no options except for having costly new software. Little efforts are done in this piece of work to escape this situation. Models of Decisive Point (right time for reengineering) are presented and it will help the software managers to reengineer the software system at most favorable time. Keywords: Object, reengineering zone, maintenance zone, decisive point, fine object, faulty object
Openness to experience is related to better memory ability in older adults with questionable dementia

The personality traits Openness to experience and Neuroticism of the five-factor model have previously been associated with memory performance in nondemented older adults, but this relationship has not been investigated in samples with memory impairment. Our examination of 50 community-dwelling older adults (29 cognitively intact; 21 with questionable dementia as determined by the Clinical Dementia Rating Scale) showed that demographic variables (age, years of education, gender, and estimated premorbid IQ) and current depressive symptoms explained a significant amount of variance of Repeatable Battery of Neuropsychological Status Delayed Memory (adjusted R 2 = 0.23). After controlling for these variables, a measure of global cognitive status further explained a significant portion of variance in memory performance (ΔR2 = 0.13; adjusted R 2 = 0.36; p < .01). Finally, adding Openness to this hierarchical linear regression model explained a significant additional portion of variance (ΔR2 = 0.08; adjusted R 2 = 0.44; p < .01) but adding Neuroticism did not explain any additional variance. This significant relationship between Openness and better memory performance above and beyond one's cognitive status and demographic variables may suggest that a lifelong pattern of involvement in new cognitive activities could be preserved in old age or protect from memory decline. This study suggests that personality may be a powerful predictor of memory ability and clinically useful in this heterogeneous population.
Intracoronary Cardiac Progenitor Cells in Single Ventricle Physiology: The PERSEUS (Cardiac Progenitor Cell Infusion to Treat Univentricular Heart Disease) Randomized Phase 2 Trial.

RATIONALE Patients with single ventricle physiology are at high risk of mortality resulting from ventricular dysfunction. The preliminary results of the phase 1 trial showed that cardiosphere-derived cells (CDCs) may be effective against congenital heart failure. OBJECTIVE To determine whether intracoronary delivery of autologous CDCs improves cardiac function in patients with single ventricle physiology. METHODS AND RESULTS We conducted a phase 2 randomized controlled study to assign in a 1:1 ratio 41 patients who had single ventricle physiology undergoing stage 2 or 3 palliation to receive intracoronary infusion of CDCs 4 to 9 weeks after surgery or staged reconstruction alone (study A). The primary outcome measure was to assess improvement in cardiac function at 3-month follow-up. Four months after palliation, controls had an alternative option to receive late CDC infusion on request (study B). Secondary outcomes included ventricular function, heart failure status, somatic growth, and health-related quality of life after a 12-month observation. At 3 months, the absolute changes in ventricular function were significantly greater in the CDC-treated group than in the controls (+6.4% [SD, 5.5] versus +1.3% [SD, 3.7]; P=0.003). In study B, a late CDC infusion in 17 controls increased the ventricular function at 3 months compared with that at baseline (38.8% [SD, 7.7] versus 34.8% [SD, 7.4]; P<0.0001). At 1 year, overall CDC infusion was associated with improved ventricular function (41.4% [SD, 6.6] versus 35.0% [SD, 8.2]; P<0.0001) and volumes (P<0.001), somatic growth (P<0.0001) with increased trophic factors production, such as insulin-like growth factor-1 and hepatocyte growth factor, and quality of life, along with a reduced heart failure status (P<0.0001) and cardiac fibrosis (P=0.014) relative to baseline. CONCLUSIONS Intracoronary infusion of CDCs after staged palliation favorably affected cardiac function by reverse remodeling in patients with single ventricle physiology. This impact may improve heart failure status, somatic growth, and quality of life in patients and reduce parenting stress for their families. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION URL: http://www.clinicaltrials. gov. Unique identifier: NCT01829750.
Occlusion of the posterior ciliary artery. 3. Effects on the optic nerve head.

The two or three posterior ciliary arteries (medial and lateral posterior ciliary arteries), which are the source of blood supply to the posterior choroid, are also the major souice of blood supply to the optic nerve head (Hayreh, i969, I970) and have a segmental distribution (Hayreh, I970, I97ib). The ciliary circulation is the only source of blood supply to the lamina cribrosa and prelaminar regions, and it is an important if not the only source of supply to the retrolaminar part of the optic nerve.
Forest Fire Detection using Wireless Sensor Network

Forest fires generally occur in wild areas due to human carelessness and change in an environment. They cause the environment and may result in human and wild animal’s deaths. So that, forest fires must be detected early to prevent greater damages. There are many existing system like Satellite Systems, CCD CAMERAS, wired system and Bluetooth technology Perhaps these systems provides a complete image of the earth but after a long scan period . This is not much accurate method because it prevents fire detection just at a time, the fire starts. Compared with the traditional methods of forest fire detection, a wireless sensor network based on a ZigBee technique was proposed. WSN’s are used for various applications such as habitat monitoring, automation, agriculture, and security. This article presents the design of a system for detection of temperature and humidity and smoke to prevent a disaster (forest fire) that could lead to loss of a significant number of natural threads. In this project, several tests had been conducted in order to prove the viability of the system.
The Audio Degradation Toolbox and Its Application to Robustness Evaluation

We introduce the Audio Degradation Toolbox (ADT) for the controlled degradation of audio signals, and propose its usage as a means of evaluating and comparing the robustness of audio processing algorithms. Music recordings encountered in practical applications are subject to varied, sometimes unpredictable degradation. For example, audio is degraded by low-quality microphones, noisy recording environments, MP3 compression, dynamic compression in broadcasting or vinyl decay. In spite of this, no standard software for the degradation of audio exists, and music processing methods are usually evaluated against clean data. The ADT fills this gap by providing Matlab scripts that emulate a wide range of degradation types. We describe 14 degradation units, and how they can be chained to create more complex, ‘real-world’ degradations. The ADT also provides functionality to adjust existing ground-truth, correcting for temporal distortions introduced by degradation. Using four different music informatics tasks, we show that performance strongly depends on the combination of method and degradation applied. We demonstrate that specific degradations can reduce or even reverse the performance difference between two competing methods. ADT source code, sounds, impulse responses and definitions are freely available for download.
Serial Composition of Heterogeneous Control Planes

Standardized data-path provision as achieved by OpenFlow enables the integration of network elements from different vendors in the same forwarding plane, with these elements being managed by the same logically centralized control plane. However, there is no clear abstraction that enables the integration of control planes from different vendors into a single virtually centralized controller. Yet, today’s software-defined network (SDN) control planes are highly homogeneous and require networks (or slices thereof) to be controlled by the same controller platform [6, 2, 4, 1, 9]. Hence to deploy a new service in a network, an operator needs to acquire and integrate new implementation modules into the existing controller platform. Though some earlier work has considered increasing the flexibility of controllers by allowing dynamic addition and removal of services, all integrated services need to obey specific constraints of the integrating platform [3, 11]. There is a very stong incentive to integrate heterogeneous control planes. Modern networks are intelligent, and require implementation of sophisticated services such as advanced VPN services, deep packet inspection, firewalling, intrusion detection – to list just a few. Moreover, this list continues to grow, increasing the need for methods to implement new network policies. However, not all services may be available on the same controller platform. Furthermore, it is unlikely that a single controller vendor will have the best-in-class implementation for all services. As a consequence, network operators are brought to choose between not deploying a service at all or moving to a different controller platform, which is expensive, disruptive and often simply infeasible. Thus, network operators are in need of constructors for flexible implementation of policies (that consist of services from various controller vendors, ideally, transparently to the services of integrated controllers) which allow for flexible and sound assemblage. A standardization of datapath provision makes an integration of services from heterogeneous vendors possible. Previous research has tackled two types of service integration: parallel and serial. Parallel integration allows a network operator to slice the managed network and assign a controller to each slice; it is important to note that in this case each slice is an independent network, and services integrated from different controllers
On the Origin and Spread of an Adaptive Allele in Deer Mice

Adapting Coat Color Simple phenotypic changes can often be the target of selection—for example, variations in coat color that provide protection against detection by predators. Linnen et al. (p. 1095) explore the underlying molecular mechanisms behind the production of pale deer mice living on the light-colored Nebraska Sand Hills. The mice that live on the sand are significantly lighter in color than conspecifics living nearby on darker soils. This lighter color was found to be due to de novo changes at the Agouti coat color locus. Thus, rapid adaptive change does not always rely on preexisting genetic variation. The light coat-color variant in deer mice is a mutation selected for its adaptive value for living in sand hills. Adaptation is a central focus of biology, although it can be difficult to identify both the strength and agent of selection and the underlying molecular mechanisms causing change. We studied cryptically colored deer mice living on the Nebraska Sand Hills and show that their light coloration stems from a novel banding pattern on individual hairs produced by an increase in Agouti expression caused by a cis-acting mutation (or mutations), which either is or is closely linked to a single amino acid deletion in Agouti that appears to be under selection. Furthermore, our data suggest that this derived Agouti allele arose de novo after the formation of the Sand Hills. These findings reveal one means by which genetic, developmental, and evolutionary mechanisms can drive rapid adaptation under ecological pressure.
Factors involved in the pathogenesis of Helicobacter pylori infection.

Helicobacter pylori is a bacterium that chronically colonizes the gastric epithelium and infects approximately half of the human population worldwide. This pathogen is responsible for chronic gastritis and a high percentage of peptic ulcers, and its presence has been correlated to gastric cancer development (1-4). Several factors have been associated with this germ’s aggressiveness and hence implicated in epithelial damage, including vacuolizing cytotoxin (VacA), cytotoxinassociated gene A (cagA), surface lipopolysaccharide (LPS), bacterial urease, flagella, surface adhesins, oxidizing radicals, and citokines produced by leukocytes in response to infection. On the other hand, there is increasing evidence that H. pylori species are genetically diverse, that such diversity is associated with different aggresiveness degrees on the mucosa, and hence with gastric mucosal inflammation to different extents and a variety of clinical prognoses for infected patients (5). H. pylori genoma includes more than 1,000 preserved genes and strain-specific genes. This bacterium may acquire or lose exogenous DNA, and thus follows an ongoing microevolution model allowing high genetic variability, which may result in strains adapted to multiple adverse environments. Such variability also results from a high recombination rate during colonization of one host by non-related H. pylori species, in addition to a high frequency of mutation (6-11). The objective of this paper is to review the characteristics, and both the in vivo and in vitro effects, of major bacterial factors related to H. pylori virulence on human epithelial cells, as well as the effects deriving from H. pylori’s intrinsic genetic variability.
Association Between Alcohol Use and HIV Viral Load

The association between alcohol use and indicators of HIV progression through adherence has been documented (1–3); however, a direct association between alcohol use and HIV viral load and CD4 count has not been established. Immunologic studies have searched for a biological mechanism by which alcohol may directly affect the immune function of HIV positive patients. Alcohol significantly enhanced HIV R5 strain infection in monocyte-derived macrophages, treated ex vivo (4). Samet et al. conducted a seven-year longitudinal study which examined the independent association between HIV progression and alcohol use (5). Heavy alcohol consumption was not directly associated with higher HIV RNA levels among subjects receiving HAART (4). We examined the relationship between alcohol use and viral load - independent of adherence to HAART. Focus was placed on the HAART using group, since Samet et al. observed that alcohol’s effects on the liver could potentially affect the metabolism of ARV medications, which may account for the associations between alcohol and HIV disease progression (6).
Food supplementation with an olive (Olea europaea L.) leaf extract reduces blood pressure in borderline hypertensive monozygotic twins

Hypertension is a harmful disease factor that develops unnoticed over time. The treatment of hypertension is aimed at an early diagnosis followed by adequate lifestyle changes rather than pharmacological treatment. The olive leaf extract EFLA®943, having antihypertensive actions in rats, was tested as a food supplement in an open study including 40 borderline hypertensive monozygotic twins. Twins of each pair were assigned to different groups receiving 500 or 1000 mg/day EFLA®943 for 8 weeks, or advice on a favourable lifestyle. Body weight, heart rate, blood pressure, glucose and lipids were measured fortnightly. Blood pressure changed significantly within pairs, depending on the dose, with mean systolic differences of ≤6 mmHg (500 mg vs control) and ≤13 mmHg (1000 vs 500 mg), and diastolic differences of ≤5 mmHg. After 8 weeks, mean blood pressure remained unchanged from baseline in controls (systolic/diastolic: 133 ± 5/77 ± 6 vs 135 ± 11/80 ± 7 mmHg) and the low‐dose group (136 ± 7/77 ± 7 vs 133 ± 10/76 ± 7), but had significantly decreased for the high dose group (137 ± 10/80 ± 10 vs 126 ± 9/76 ± 6). Cholesterol levels decreased for all treatments with significant dose‐dependent within‐pair differences for LDL‐cholesterol. None of the other parameters showed significant changes or consistent trends. Concluding, the study confirmed the antihypertensive and cholesterol‐lowering action of EFLA®943 in humans. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Spatialdistribution of Eruptive Centers about the Idaho National Laboratory

Regional volcanic hazard investigations require an in-depth understanding of a region’s spatial and temporal distribution of volcanic vents and variations in eruption rates. Usually assessments are based solely upon the distribution of vents and eruptive centers exposed at the surface. These assessments commonly assume relatively simple tectono-magmatic settings and evolutions (e.g. Connor et al., 1992; Conway et al., 1998). Hazard studies within tectonically complicated regions, such as the Basin and Range of the western US (e.g. Yucca Mountain, Connor et al., 2000; Valentine and Perry, Chapter 19, this volume), have demonstrated the need for more accurate knowledge of the regional volcanic stratigraphy. In this chapter, we describe an analysis of volcanic hazards that includes this more comprehensive view of volcano stratigraphy. Such detailed investigations, accounting for differential subsidence and the burial of older volcanic features, can vastly improve the accuracy of any volcanic hazard assessment.
Generalized Dropout

Deep Neural Networks often require good regularizers to generalize well. Dropout is one such regularizer that is widely used among Deep Learning practitioners. Recent work has shown that Dropout can also be viewed as performing Approximate Bayesian Inference over the network parameters. In this work, we generalize this notion and introduce a rich family of regularizers which we call Generalized Dropout. One set of methods in this family, called Dropout++, is a version of Dropout with trainable parameters. Classical Dropout emerges as a special case of this method. Another member of this family selects the width of neural network layers. Experiments show that these methods help in improving generalization performance over Dropout.
Expression Analysis of Barrett's Esophagus–Associated High-Grade Dysplasia in Laser Capture Microdissected Archival Tissue

Purpose: Identifying genes differentially expressed in nondysplastic BE (NDBE) from those expressed in high-grade dysplasia (HGD) should be of value in improving our understanding of this transition and may yield new diagnostic and/or prognostic markers. The aim of this study was to determine the differential transcriptome of HGD compared with NDBE through gene microarray analysis of epithelial cells microdissected from archival tissue specimens. Experimental Design: Laser capture microdissection was used to isolate epithelial cells from adjacent inflammatory and stromal cells. Epithelial mRNA was extracted from areas of NDBE and HGD in matched biopsies from 11 patients. mRNA was reverse transcribed and applied on Affymetrix cDNA microarray chips customized for formalin-exposed tissue. For a subset of these genes, differential gene expression was confirmed by real-time PCR and immunohistochemistry. Results: There were 131 genes overexpressed by at least 2.5-fold in HGD versus NDBE and 16 genes that were underexpressed by at least 2.5-fold. Among the overexpressed genes are several previously shown to be increased in the neoplastic progression of BE, as well as novel genes such as lipocalin-2, S100A9, matrix metallopeptidase 12, secernin 1, and topoisomerase IIα. Genes decreased in dysplastic epithelium include MUC5AC, trefoil factor 1 (TFF1), meprin A, and CD13. Real-time PCR validated the changes in expression in 24 of 28 selected genes. Immunohistochemistry confirmed increased protein expression for topoisomerase IIα, S100A9, and lipocalin-2 and decreased expression of TFF1 across the spectrum of BE-associated dysplasia from NDBE through adenocarcinoma. Conclusions: This is the first study to identify epithelial genes differentially expressed in HGD versus NDBE in matched patient samples. The genes identified include several previously implicated in the pathogenesis of BE-associated dysplasia and new candidates for further investigation.
Functional polarity is introduced by Dicer processing of short substrate RNAs

Synthetic RNA duplexes that are substrates for Dicer are potent triggers of RNA interference (RNAi). Blunt 27mer duplexes can be up to 100-fold more potent than traditional 21mer duplexes (1). Not all 27mer duplexes show increased potency. Evaluation of the products of in vitro dicing reactions using electrospray ionization mass spectrometry reveals that a variety of products can be produced by Dicer cleavage. Use of asymmetric duplexes having a single 2-base 3′-overhang restricts the heterogeneity that results from dicing. Inclusion of DNA residues at the ends of blunt duplexes also limits heterogeneity. Combination of asymmetric 2-base 3′-overhang with 3′-DNA residues on the blunt end result in a duplex form which directs dicing to predictably yield a single primary cleavage product. It is therefore possible to design a 27mer duplex which is processed by Dicer to yield a specific, desired 21mer species. Using this strategy, two different 27mers can be designed that result in the same 21mer after dicing, one where the 3′-overhang resides on the antisense (AS) strand and dicing proceeds to the ‘right’ (‘R’) and one where the 3′-overhang resides on the sense (S) strand and dicing proceeds to the ‘left’ (‘L’). Interestingly, the ‘R’ version of the asymmetric 27mer is generally more potent in reducing target gene levels than the ‘L’ version 27mer. Strand targeting experiments show asymmetric strand utilization between the two different 27mer forms, with the ‘R’ form favoring S strand and the ‘L’ form favoring AS strand silencing. Thus, Dicer processing confers functional polarity within the RNAi pathway.