Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reproduktionsmedizin und Endokrinologie

This review article summarizes the current state of the art concerning mammalian cloning and embryo biotechnology with its far-reaching consequences for multiple applications in reproductive and therapeutic medicine. It presents updated information on basic research to further the understanding of nuclear and cytoplasmic interactions required for genomic alterations from adult to embryo gene expression during cloning. Risk factors for reproductive cloning have been included for serious considerations. This article contains most recent developments in the field of interspecies cloning for embryonic stem (ES) cell research, human embryo cloning for reproductive purposes and for establishing patient-specific ES cells for future autologous transplantation. It also describes novel attempts for embryo splitting with its various implications for assisted reproduction, embryo cryopreservation, ES cell production, embryo sexing and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). Predictive progress and prognostic views for mammalian cloning and patient benefits have been outlined for the near future. Furthermore, social and ethical issues concerning mammalian cloning have been discussed in reference to public opinion poll (APART) or ethics committee guidelines (ASRM).
Cross-Border Banking and the International Transmission of Financial Distress during the Crisis of 2007-2008

We study the e ect of nancial distress in foreign parent banks on local SME nancing in 14 central and eastern European countries during the early stages of the 2007-2008 nancial crisis. We use survey data on 9; 360 applicant and non-applicant rms that enable us to disentangle e ects driven by shocks to the banking system from recession-driven demand shocks that may vary across lenders. We nd strong evidence that new bank lending tightened in the relatively early stages of the crises caused by the following types of bank nancial distress: 1) low equity ratio; 2) low Tier 1 capital ratio; and 3) losses on nancial assets. We also nd that the size of the transmission of such shocks to Main Street increases with the degree of foreign bank presence. The observed decline in credit is greater among riskier rms and rms with fewer tangible assets. JEL classi cation: E44, E51, F34, G21
The economic importance of scal rules

The present paper provides an assessment of the e¤ect of the recent revision of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) on the European economies. A set of structural VARs, one for each eurozone country, is estimated. The estimated models are then used to assess the possible e¤ect of alternative sets of scal rules, with particular attention to the Stability and Growth Pact in its old and reformed versions. The investigation suggests that scal policy has had in the past a limited smoothing e¤ect on the cycle, and therefore the cost of the old rules in the corrective arm of the Pact was also limited. As for the reform of the Pact, the analysis is overall supportive of the new country-speci c Medium Term Objectives. The modi ed rules of the Excessive de cit procedure are likely to give the governments only a limited extra leeway to reduce the variability of the cycle. Keywords: European Monetary Union, Stability and growth Pact, scal-monetary interactions. JEL codes: E61, E62, E63.
International Journal of Science and Business

Quality of Service (QoS) is a significant concept in distributed systems. Therefore, several studies within QoS for distributed systems have been researched over the past years. It is very difficult to deliver an appropriate QoS level for frameworks running in different open resource environments, including the Internet. A distributed system's QoS characteristics are affected by the QoS of the specific hosts involved, and the QoS of the networking subsystem linking these hosts. This paper reviews the state-ofthe-art of distributed systems evolution in QoS architecture. In the context of distributed systems, the method adopted is to address QoS terms and a generalized QoS system for identifying and explaining QoS. IJSB Literature Review Accepted 20 January 2021 Published 25 January 2021 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4462245
Hf isotope analysis and U-Pb geochronology of rutile : technique development and application to a lower crustal section (Ivrea-Verbano Zone, Italy)

This thesis presents technical developments and geological applications for in situ uranium–lead (U–Pb) and hafnium (Hf) isotope analysis of rutile. A new protocol for in situ Hf isotope analysis of rutile is presented, and its accuracy and reproducibility demonstrated. Precision of±1–4 εHf units (95% confidence) is achieved for populations of 10–15 rutiles with ≥40 ppm Hf. A new rutile standard for in situ U–Pb dating, Wodgina, has been characterised by SHRIMP, TIMS and limited LA-ICPMS analysis. Wodgina allows SHRIMP Pb–U calibration with a precision of 3.5–5.5% (2σ). A case study in the Permian lower crustal section of the Ivrea-Verbano Zone (IVZ) incorporated U–Pb dating, Zr thermometry and Hf isotope analysis of rutile. The results demonstrate the robustness of the Hf isotope system in rutile even under conditions of high temperature (>1000 C) metamorphism and crustal melting. The Zr-in-rutile thermometer is shown to be similarly robust, and in the IVZ records peak temperatures more faithfully than the Ti-in-zircon thermometer. Rutile is found to control bulk rock zirconium (Zr) and Hf in metapelites at high temperatures, due to the breakdown of zircon. Zircon dissolution controls the Hf isotope composition of subsequently-formed phases, which has implications for the interpretation of Hf isotope signatures in both metamorphic and magmatic settings. U–Pb ages of zircon from the IVZ record Permian growth and resetting events related to high temperature metamorphism and fluid influx, while U–Pb ages of rutile record cooling in the Jurassic and constrain the thermal evolution of the lower crustal section during rifting and exhumation. The IVZ case study demonstrates that trace element and isotopic analysis of rutile is a powerful tool for investigations in metamorphic petrology. vii
POLITECNICO DI TORINO Repository ISTITUZIONALE Event-Driven User-Centric Middleware for Energy Efficient Buildings and Public Spaces /

In this work, the design of an event-driven usercentric middleware for monitoring and managing energy consumption in public buildings and spaces is presented. The main purpose is to increase the energy efficiency, reducing consumption, in buildings and public spaces. To achieve this, the proposed service-oriented middleware has been designed to be event based, also exploiting the user behaviours patterns of the people who live and work into the building. Furthermore, it allows an easy integration of heterogeneous technologies in order to enable a hardware independent interoperability between them. Moreover, a Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) control strategy has been developed and the whole infrastructure has been deployed in a realworld case study consisting of a historical building. Finally the results will be presented and discussed.
POLITECNICO DI TORINO Repository ISTITUZIONALE Semantic Enrichment for Recommendation of Primary Studies in a Systematic Literature

A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) identifies, evaluates and synthesizes the literature available for a given topic. This generally requires a significant human workload and has subjectivity bias that could a↵ect the results of such a review. Automated document classification can be a valuable tool for recommending the selection of studies. In this paper, we propose an automated pre-selection approach based on text mining and semantic enrichment techniques. Each document is firstly processed by a named entity extractor. The DBpedia URIs coming from the entity linking process are used as external sources of information. Our system collects the bag of words of those sources and it adds them to the initial document. A Multinomial Naive Bayes classifier discriminates whether the enriched document belongs to the positive example set or not. We used an existing manually performed SLR as benchmark dataset. We trained our system with di↵erent configurations of relevant documents and we tested the goodness of our approach with an empirical assessment. Results show a reduction of the manual workload of 18% that a human researcher has to spend, while holding a remarkable 95% of recall, important condition for the nature itself of SLRs. We measure the e↵ect of the enrichment process to the precision of the classifier and we observed a gain up to 5%.
POLITECNICO DI TORINO Repository ISTITUZIONALE Canal shaping with WaveOne Primary reciprocating files and ProTaper system : a comparative study /

Introduction: This study compared the canal curvature and axis modification after instrumentation with WaveOne Primary reciprocating files (Dentsply Maillefer, Ballaigues, Switzerland) and nickel-titanium (NiTi) rotary ProTaper (Dentsply Maillefer). Methods: Thirty ISO 15, 0.02 taper, Endo Training Blocks (Dentsply Maillefer) were used. In all specimens, the glide path was achieved with PathFile 1, 2, and 3 (Dentsply Maillefer) at the working length (WL). Specimens were then assigned to 1 of 2 groups for shaping: specimens in group 1 were shaped with ProTaper S1-S2-F1-F2 at the WL and specimens in group 2 were shaped with WaveOne Primary reciprocating files at the WL. Preand postinstrumentation digital images were superimposed and processed with Matlab r2010b (The MathWorks Inc, Natick, MA) software to analyze the curvature-radius ratio (CRr) and the relative axis error (rAe), representing canal curvature modification. Data were analyzed with oneway balanced analyses of variance at 2 levels (P < .05). Results: The instrument factor was extremely significant for both the CRr parameter (F1 = 9.59, P = .004) and the rAe parameter (F1 = 13.55, P = .001). Conclusions: Canal modifications are reduced when the new WaveOne NiTi single-file system is used. (J Endod 2012;38:505–509)
POLITECNICO DI TORINO Repository ISTITUZIONALE

—Traditionally, distributed machine learning takes the guise of (i) different nodes training the same model (as in federated learning), or (ii) one model being split among multiple nodes (as in distributed stochastic gradient descent). In this work, we highlight how fog-and IoT-based scenarios often require combining both approaches, and we present a framework for ﬂ exible parallel learning (FPL) , achieving both data and model parallelism. Further, we investigate how different ways of distributing and parallelizing learning tasks across the participating nodes result in different computation, communication, and energy costs. Our experiments, carried out using state-of-the-art deep-network architectures and large-scale datasets, con ﬁ rm that FPL allows for an excellent trade-off among computational (hence energy) cost, communication overhead, and learning performance.
POLITECNICO DI TORINO Repository ISTITUZIONALE On the Design of Microring Resonator Devices for Switching Applications in Flexible-grid Networks /

The physical characteristics of microring resonator switching devices are thoroughly analyzed using a model based on the field coupling matrix theory. The spectral response and insertion loss properties of these switching elements are simulated using the developed model. Results show that by cascading three microring resonators it is possible to achieve flat-top passband widths ranging from 6.25 GHz to 3 THz, while having insertion losses compatible with the use in flexible-grid optical communication networks. In light of a potential use of these devices in the design of a scalable flexible wavelength selective switch, the architecture of simple optical switches with limited functionalities is discussed.
Complexity of Integrating Computer Technologies into Education in Turkey

Integrating Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) into a centralized education system such as Turkey’s depends on its successful design and application, which is an expensive and complex process. The aim of this study was to identify the issues related to integrating computer technologies into a centralized education system. Data were collected from seventeen school principals, fifteen computer coordinators, and one hundred and fifty one elementary education supervisors. The sources of data included semi-structured interviews and a survey. By using content analysis, the following ICT implementation issues were identified: infrastructure, personnel, curriculum, administration, and supervision. By improving these areas, IT classrooms will be more effective.
Soil Remediation Via Environmentally Processed Asphalt (EPA)

SYNOPSIS: Several methodologies are available for the remediation of contaminated soils including bioremediation, vapor extraction, chemical fixation, incineration and direct disposal. A proven innovative and cost effective alternative for the fixation of contaminated soils is via cold-mix Environmentally Processed Asphalt (EPA). EPA methodology utilizes contaminated soil as an ingredient in an industrial process to produce a commercially viable product. Petroleum hydrocarbon and metal affected soil is incorporated with an asphalt emulsion and aggregate to produce a range of cold-mix asphalt product that fulfills the requirements of a variety of end uses. This viable and creative use which is within the intent and spirit of current regulations is producing, in lieu of a landfill waste, an end product for use as a berm, road base, liner, or other site specific application. Consideration of certain factors including durability, chemical resistance and ageing, biological resistance, permeability, and leachability suggests that cold-mix asphalt incorporation of affected soil will perform more than adequately under normal conditions for a long period of time.
Fodder Production and Livestock Rearing in Relation to Climate Change and Possible Adaptation Measures in Manaslu Conservation Area, Nepal

A study was conducted to find out the production potential, nutrient composition, and the variability of the most commonly available fodder trees along with the varying altitude to help optimize the dry matter requirement during winter lean period. The study was carried out in Lho and Prok Village Development Committee of Manaslu Conservation Area (MCA), located in Gorkha district of Nepal.The study was conducted in two parts: social and biological. Accordingly, a households (HHs) survey was conducted to collect primary data from 70 HHs, focusing to the perception of respondents on impacts of climatic variability to the feeding management. The next part consisted of understanding yield potential and nutrient composition of the four most commonly available fodder trees (M. azedirach, M. alba, F. roxburghii, F. nemoralis), within two altitudes range: (1500-2000 masl and 2000-2500 masl) by using a RCB design in 2*4 factorial combination of treatments, each replicated four times. Fresh yield and dry matter yield of the each fodder trees was significant (P<0.01) between the altitude and within species. Fodder trees yield analysis revealed that the highest dry matter (DM) yield (28 kg/tree) was obtained for F. roxburghii but that remained statistically similar (P>0.05) to the other treatment. On the other hand, most of the parameters: ether extract (EE), acid detergent lignin (ADL), acid detergent fibre (ADF), cell wall digestibility (CWD), relative digestibility (RD), digestible nutrient (TDN), and Calcium (Ca) among the treatments were highly significant (P<0.01). Int. J. Appl. Sci. Biotechnol. Vol 7(2): 227-235
A Three-Gene Classifier Associated With MicroRNA-Mediated Regulation Predicts Prostate Cancer Recurrence After Radical Prostatectomy

Background and Objective After radical prostatectomy (RP), prostate cancer (PCa) patients may experience biochemical recurrence (BCR) and clinical recurrence, which remains a dominant issue in PCa treatment. The purpose of this study was to identify a protein-coding gene classifier associated with microRNA (miRNA)-mediated regulation to provide a comprehensive prognostic index to predict PCa recurrence after RP. Methods Candidate classifiers were constructed using two machine-learning algorithms (a least absolute shrinkage and selector operation [LASSO]-based classifier and a decision tree-based classifier) based on a discovery cohort (n = 156) from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. After selecting the LASSO-based classifier based on the prediction accuracy, both an internal validation cohort (n = 333) and an external validation cohort (n = 100) were used to examined the classifier using survival analysis, time-dependent receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, and univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression analyses. Functional enrichment analysis of co-expressed genes was carried out to explore the underlying moleculer mechanisms of the genes included in the classifier. Results We constructed a three-gene classifier that included FAM72B, GNE, and TRIM46, and we identified four upstream prognostic miRNAs (hsa-miR-133a-3p, hsa-miR-222-3p, hsa-miR-1301-3p, and hsa-miR-30c-2-3p). The classifier exhibited a remarkable ability (area under the curve [AUC] = 0.927) to distinguish PCa patients with high and low Gleason scores in the discovery cohort. Furthermore, it was significantly associated with clinical recurrence (p < 0.0001, log rank statistic = 20.7, AUC = 0.733) and could serve as an independent prognostic factor of recurrence-free survival (hazard ratio: 1.708, 95% CI: 1.180–2.472, p < 0.001). Additionally, it was a predictor of BCR according to BCR-free survival analysis (p = 0.0338, log rank statistic = 4.51). Conclusions The three-gene classifier associated with miRNA-mediated regulation may serve as a novel prognostic biomarker for PCa patients after RP.
Early experience with out-of-core applications on the cray XMT

This paper describes our early experiences with a pre- production Cray XMT system that implements a scalable shared memory architecture with hardware support for multithreading. Unlike its predecessor, the Cray MTA-2 that had very limited I/O capability, the Cray XMT offers Lustre, a scalable high-performance parallel filesystem. Therefore it enables development of out-of-core applications that can deal with very large data sets that otherwise would not fit in the system main memory. Our application performs statistically-based anomaly detection for categorical data that can be used for analysis of Internet traffic data. Experimental results indicate that the preproduction version of the machine is able to achieve good performance and scalability for the in- and out-of-core versions of the application.
CONFRONTING THE BIOFUEL-CARBON EMISSIONS-BIODIVERSITY TRILEMMA IN A PANEL OF BIOFUEL CONSUMING COUNTRIES

Since our growth, the human-made activities for better living damage the global environment. Biodiversity is no exception that damages due to massive humanization process. This study focused on the relationship between biofuels consumption, carbon dioxide emissions and biodiversity in a panel of 12 selected biofuels consuming countries for a period of 2000-2013. The study employed panel fixed effect and panel random effect model to obtain the parameter estimates. The results found that biofuels consumption and carbon dioxide emissions both damage the biodiversity in a panel of countries. The results confirm the cointegration relationship between the variables. The quest for the renewable energy fuels for human development remains the keen agenda for the policy makers, however, the war for better health and wealth always exhausts the natural environment of the world’s precious natural resources that should be taken into account in the next call for alerts.Keywords: Biofuels consumption; Biodiversity; Carbon dioxide emissions; Panel Fixed Effect; Panel Random Effect; Panel cointegration.
Journal of Reproduction and Development

In the male germline, the machinery to repress retrotransposons that threaten genomic integrity via the piRNA pathway is established in gonocytes. It has been reported that disruption of the piRNA pathway leads to activation of retrotransposons and arrests spermatogenesis before it enters the second meiosis; however, its effects on gonocytes have not been fully elucidated. In this study, we analyzed the effects of Asz1 deletion, which is a crucial component of the piRNA pathway, on the gonocyte transcriptome. In Asz1-null gonocytes, MIWI2, which is responsible for introducing DNA methylation to retrotransposons in a piRNA-dependent manner, disappeared from the nuclei of fetal gonocytes. Transcriptome analysis revealed that retrotransposons targeted by the piRNA pathway and non-annotated transcript variants were upregulated in gonocytes from neonatal Asz1-/mice. These non-annotated transcript variants were chimeras generated by joining exons transcribed from retrotransposons and canonical genes. DNA methylation analysis showed that retrotransposons that induce the expression of aberrant chimeric transcripts are not fully methylated. This was consistent with the impaired nuclear localization of MIWI2 in Asz1-null gonocytes. Furthermore, heterogeneity of DNA methylation status in retrotransposons was observed in both gonocytes and their descendants. This suggests that the piRNA system in gonocytes can potentially prevent spermatogenic cell populations bearing aberrant chimeric transcripts from propagating later in spermatogenesis. In conclusion, Asz1 is required to repress retrotransposons and retrotransposon-driven aberrant chimeric transcripts in gonocytes through the piRNA pathway.
Journal of Reproduction and Development

About 10% of male infertile patients show abnormalities in spermatogenesis. The microdeletion of azoospermia factor a (AZFa) region of the Y chromosome is thought to be a cause of spermatogenic failure. However, candidate gene responsible for the spermatogenic failure in AZFa deleted patients has not been elucidated yet. Using mice, we explored the function of Ddx3y, a strong candidate gene in the Azfa region, and Ddx3x, a Ddx3y paralog on the X chromosome, in spermatogenesis. We first generated Ddx3y KO male mice using CRISPR/Cas9 and found that the Ddx3y KO male mice show normal spermatogenesis, produce morphologically normal spermatozoa, and sire healthy offspring. Because Ddx3x KO males were embryonic lethal, we next generated chimeric mice, which contain Ddx3x and Ddx3y double KO (dKO) germ cells, and found that the dKO germ cells can differentiate into spermatozoa and transmit their mutant alleles to offspring by normal mating. We conclude that Ddx3x and Ddx3y are dispensable for spermatogenesis at least in mice. Unlike human, mice have an additional Ddx3y paralog D1pas1, that has been reported to be essential for spermatogenesis. These findings suggest that human and mouse DDX3 related proteins have distinct differences in their functions.