Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Enhanced Autonomic Multiclass Multithreaded Web Server: A Performance Model Approach

Computer systems are becoming more complex continuously and managing them is quite challenging even to the most skilled IT professionals. A promising way to address obstacles to efficient management and re-organization of computer systems relies on the automation of these tasks. An approach has been introduced that in which analytic performance models are combined with combinatorial search techniques to design a QoS controller that runs periodically to determine the best possible configuration for the system given its workload. The results of applying this approach have been shown to QoS control of many systems. In this paper we considered a multithreaded web server with multiple classes of request and proposed that the QoS controller re-configure it in each controller interval distinguishing different workload classes. We illustrate that this mechanism enhances the self-optimizing and self-managing capability of the system, and improves global QoS value of it using simulated multithreaded web server. In addition, we show that applying this mechanism make QoS controller to become fairer and more flexible.
Improved survival of rat ischemic cutaneous and musculocutaneous flaps after VEGF gene transfer

When harvesting microsurgical flaps, the main goals are to obtain as much tissue as possible based on a single vascular pedicle and a reliable vascularization of the entire flap. These aims being in contrast to each other, microsurgeons have been looking for an effective way to enhance skin and muscle perfusion in order to avoid partial flap loss in reconstructive surgery. In this study we demonstrate the efficacy of VEGF 165 delivered by an Adeno‐Associated Virus (AAV) vector in two widely recognized rat flap models. In the rectus abdominis miocutaneous flap, intramuscular injection of AAV‐VEGF reduced flap necrosis by 50%, while cutaneous delivery of the same amount of vector put down the epigastric flap's ischemia by >40%. Histological evidence of neoangiogenesis (enhanced presence of CD31‐positive capillaries and α‐Smooth Muscle Actin‐positive arteriolae) confirmed the therapeutic effect of AAV‐VEGF on flap perfusion. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc. Microsurgery, 2007.
Selected Aspects of the Socioeconomic Impact of Nosocomial Infections: Morbidity, Mortality, Cost, and Prevention

Abstract Approximately 2 million nosocomial infections occur annually in the United States. These infections result in substantial morbidity, mortality, and cost. The excess duration of hospitalization secondary to nosocomial infections has been estimated to be 1 to 4 days for urinary tract infections, 7 to 8.2 days for surgical site infections, 7 to 21 days for bloodstream infections, and 6.8 to 30 days for pneumonia. The estimated mortalities associated with nosocomial bloodstream infections and pneumonia are 23.8% to 50% and 14.8% to 71% (overall), or 16.3% to 35% and 6.8% to 30% (attributable), respectively. The estimated average costs of these infections are $558 to $593 for each urinary tract infection, $2,734 for each surgical site infection, $3,061 to $40,000 for each bloodstream infection, and $4,947 for each pneumonia. Even minimally effective infection control programs are cost-effective. In countries with prospective payment systems based on diagnosis-related groups, hospitals lose from $583 to $4,886 for each nosocomial infection. As administrators focus on cost containment, increased support should be given to infection control programs so that preventable nosocomial infections and their associated expenditures can be averted.
International Aid Agencies, Learner-centred Pedagogy and Political Democratisation: A critique

Recent pronouncements by international aid agencies on their interest in and preference for a learner-centred pedagogy so far appear not to have attracted much scholarly attention. This paper attempts to explain this interest. It argues that although the efficacy of the pedagogy is often couched in cognitive/educational terms, in essence, its efficacy lies in its political and ideological nature. The fact that the aid agencies' interest in the pedagogy became explicit soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall is in itself significant. The paper argues that aid agencies' apparent lack of interest in pedagogical issues before 1989 lay partially in the very central hypothesis of the modernisation theory of development which became enshrined in policies of aid agencies soon after the latter were created. The hypothesis, coupled with human capital theory, viewed education in technicist terms. However, the ascendancy of neo-liberalism as a development paradigm in the 1980s and 1990s elevated political democratisation as a prerequisite for economic development. Education, then, assumed a central role in the democratisation project. Given its democratic tendencies, learner-centred pedagogy was a natural choice for the development of democratic social relations in the schools of aid-receiving countries. Aid agencies, therefore, had to be explicit about their preference for the pedagogy. Thus, the pedagogy is an ideological outlook, a worldview intended to develop a preferred kind of society and people. It is in this sense that it should be seen as representing a process of Westernisation disguised as quality and effective teaching.
Role conflict and health behaviors: Moderating effects on psychological distress and somatic complaints

Prior research has shown that role conflict is an important source of strain at the workplace and thus it is important to explore factors that can buffer its deleterious effects. Health behaviors could moderate such stressor–strain relationships by altering both the physiological and psychological responses to stress. The present study examined the direct and moderating roles of health promoting behaviors (HPBs) in a sample of 226 university hospital medical doctors. Results showed that both role conflict and HPBs were directly associated with emotional exhaustion, depressive symptoms, and somatic complaints. Moderation effects were also found, such that doctors who engaged in more HPBs were less affected by high role conflict in relation to emotional exhaustion and depressive symptoms. These findings suggest that HPBs can be beneficial coping strategies.
Cytoplasmic Dynein Regulation by Subunit Heterogeneity and Its Role in Apical Transport

Despite the existence of multiple subunit isoforms for the microtubule motor cytoplasmic dynein, it has not yet been directly shown that dynein complexes with different compositions exhibit different properties. The 14-kD dynein light chain Tctex-1, but not its homologue RP3, binds directly to rhodopsin's cytoplasmic COOH-terminal tail, which encodes an apical targeting determinant in polarized epithelial Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cells. We demonstrate that Tctex-1 and RP3 compete for binding to dynein intermediate chain and that overexpressed RP3 displaces endogenous Tctex-1 from dynein complexes in MDCK cells. Furthermore, replacement of Tctex-1 by RP3 selectively disrupts the translocation of rhodopsin to the MDCK apical surface. These results directly show that cytoplasmic dynein function can be regulated by its subunit composition and that cytoplasmic dynein is essential for at least one mode of apical transport in polarized epithelia.
Acute stress regulates nociception and inflammatory response induced by bee venom in rats: possible mechanisms

Abstract Restraint stress modulates pain and inflammation. The present study was designed to evaluate the effect of acute restraint stress on inflammatory pain induced by subcutaneous injection of bee venom (BV). First, we investigated the effect of 1 h restraint on the spontaneous paw-flinching reflex (SPFR), decrease in paw withdrawal mechanical threshold (PWMT) and increase in paw volume (PV) of the injected paw induced by BV. SPFR was measured immediately after BV injection, and PWMT and PV were measured 2 h before BV and 2–8 h after BV. The results showed that acute restraint inhibited significantly the SPFR but failed to affect mechanical hyperalgesia. In contrast, stress enhanced significantly inflammatory swelling of the injected paw. In a second series of experiments, the effects of pretreatment with capsaicin locally applied to the sciatic nerve, systemic 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA), and systemic naloxone were examined on the antinociception and proinflammation produced by acute restraint stress. Local capsaicin pretreatment inhibited BV-induced nociception and inflammatory edema, and had additive effects with stress on nociception but reduced stress enhancement of edema. Systemic 6-OHDA treatment attenuated the proinflammatory effect of stress, but did not affect the antinociceptive effect. Systemic naloxone pretreatment eliminated the antinociceptive effect of stress, but did not affect proinflammation. Taken together, our data indicate that acute restraint stress contributes to antinociception via activating an endogenous opioid system, while sympathetic postganglionic fibers may contribute to enhanced inflammation in the BV pain model.
Behavioral and Socioemotional Adjustment in International Adoptees: A Comparison Between Italian and Spanish Adoptive Parents’ Reports

ABSTRACT Dominated by intracultural comparisons between adopted and nonadopted children, adoption research has until now paid little attention to cross-cultural differences in the adoptees’ behavioral and socioemotional adjustment. The present study is aimed at comparing children adopted in two different countries—Italy and Spain—and at verifying, through their parents’ perceptions, the extent to which cultural context may contribute to shaping children's emotional and behavioral problems. A sample of 207 international adoptees (127 Italian and 80 Spanish) aged between 6 and 14 years was studied. The children's adjustment was assessed using the Child Behavior Checklist, which was filled out by the adoptive parents. Results indicated the presence of more similarities than differences between Italian and Spanish subjects: children adopted both in Italy and Spain between 3 and 5 years old were more likely to exhibit behavior problems than were children who entered the adoptive family at any other age. Some differences related to the birth country also emerged.
Feminist History of Colonial Science

This essay offers a short overview of feminist history of science and introduces a new project into that history, namely feminist history of colonial science. My case study focuses on eighteenth-century voyages of scientific discovery and reveals how gender relations in Europe and the colonies honed selective collecting practices. Cultural, economic, and political trends discouraged the transfer from the New World to the Old of abortifacients (widely used by Amerindian and African women in the West Indies). 1
Attitudes toward cross-functional quality project groups: Net utility and procedural justice

Members (N = 132) from five different groups in organizations (chief executive officers, quality managers, management team, department heads, rank and file) filled out questionnaires. As predicted, positive attitudes toward cross-functional quality project groups covary with the perception of positive outcomes. There were only minor between-group differences in the perception of outcomes. The pattern of results may be explained in part by procedural justice theory.
Effects of Degree and Timing of Social Housing on Reversal Learning and Response to Novel Objects in Dairy Calves

Rodents and primates deprived of early social contact exhibit deficits in learning and behavioural flexibility. They often also exhibit apparent signs of elevated anxiety, although the relationship between these effects has not been studied. To investigate whether dairy calves are similarly affected, we first compared calves housed in standard individual pens (n = 7) to those housed in a dynamic group with access to their mothers (n = 8). All calves learned to approach the correct stimulus in a visual discrimination task. Only one individually housed calf was able to re-learn the task when the stimuli were reversed, compared to all but one calf from the group. A second experiment investigated whether this effect might be explained by anxiety in individually housed animals interfering with their learning, and tested varying degrees of social contact in addition to the complex group: pair housing beginning early (approximately 6 days old) and late (6 weeks old). Again, fewer individually reared calves learned the reversal task (2 of 10 or 20%) compared to early paired and grouped calves (16 of 21 or 76% of calves). Late paired calves had intermediate success. Individually housed calves were slower to touch novel objects, but the magnitude of the fear response did not correlate with reversal performance. We conclude that individually housed calves have learning deficits, but these deficits were not likely associated with increased anxiety.
Represantion of Approximate Reasoning Process with Type-2 Fuzzy Sets and Distance-based Operators Márta Takács

In the paper after a short review of basic type-2 terms and some related possibilities in T2 approximate reasoning process are given. The introduced Mamdani type of fuzzy approximate reasoning uses the fuzziness of fuzzy sets for the weighting of observed rule. To the describing reasoning process based on type-2 fuzzy sets the 3D representation of those sets is given.
What Do We Know About 40 Hz Activity and the Function It Serves

Abstract This section is intended to be clinically focused. Therefore, contributions are often more informal and do not always include references. Our clinical work is guided by science whenever possible, but limitations in knowledge require practitioners to be guided often by clinical experience, no matter what their specialty. In other words, clinical work involves art as well as science. Thus, contributions to this section will refer both to science and to “clinical wisdom. ” Readers may send questions to: D. Corydon Hammond, PhD, University Medical Center, PM&R, Salt Lake City, UT 84132 (E-mail address: D.C.Hammond@m.cc.utah.edu).
Oral bacterial therapy reduces the duration of symptoms and of viral excretion in children with mild diarrhea.

BACKGROUND Oral administration of live Lactobacillus casei strain GG is associated with the reduction of duration of diarrhea in children admitted to the hospital because of diarrhea. The purposes of this work were to investigate the clinical efficacy of oral administration of Lactobacillus in children with mild diarrhea who were observed as outpatients, and to see whether Lactobacillus GG can reduce the duration of rotavirus excretion. METHODS Duration of diarrhea was recorded in 100 children seen by family pediatricians and randomly assigned to receive oral rehydration or oral rehydration followed by the administration of lyophilized Lactobacillus casei, strain GG. Rotavirus was looked for in the stools of all children and in those in whom results were positive, stools were examined again 6 days after the onset of diarrhea. RESULTS In 61 children results were positive for rotavirus and in 39 results were negative. Duration of diarrhea was reduced from 6 to 3 days in children receiving Lactobacillus GG, with a similar pattern in rotavirus-positive and -negative children. Six days after the onset of diarrhea, stools in only 4 out of 31 children that received Lactobacillus GG were positive for rotavirus compared with positive findings in 25 out of 30 control subjects. CONCLUSIONS Oral administration of Lactobacillus GG is effective in rotavirus-positive and rotavirus-negative ambulatory children with diarrhea. Furthermore, it reduces the duration of rotavirus excretion.
Taste Masking Technologies in Oral Pharmaceuticals: Recent Developments and Approaches

Taste is one of the most important parameters governing patient compliance. Undesirable taste is one of several important formulation problems that are encountered with certain drugs. Oral administration of bitter drugs with an acceptable degree of palatability is a key issue for health care providers, especially for pediatric patients. Several oral pharmaceuticals, numerous food and beverage products, and bulking agents have unpleasant, bitter‐tasting components. So, any pharmaceutical formulation with a pleasing taste would definitely be preferred over a competitor's product and would translate into better compliance and therapeutic value for the patient and more business and profits for the company. The desire of improved palatability in these products has prompted the development of numerous formulations with improved performance and acceptability. This article reviews the earlier applications and methodologies of taste masking and discusses the most recent developments and approaches of bitterness reduction and inhibition for oral pharmaceuticals.
Behaviour-based architecture for abstract learning and control

This paper presents a modular behaviour-based architecture for the control and learning of behaviours in mobile robots. The main contribution of this paper is the integration of techniques for generating grounded symbols from raw sensory-motor data and traditional behaviour-based architectures. The resulting architecture reduces the intrinsic dimensionality problems of robotics and allows for abstract control. The architecture is experimentally validated on a simulated robot environment.
A Defect of Neuronal Nitric Oxide Synthase Increases Xanthine Oxidase–Derived Superoxide Anion and Attenuates the Control of Myocardial Oxygen Consumption by Nitric Oxide Derived From Endothelial Nitric Oxide Synthase

Endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) plays an important role in the control of myocardial oxygen consumption (MVO2) by nitric oxide (NO). A NOS isoform is present in cardiac mitochondria and it is derived from neuronal NOS (nNOS). However, the role of nNOS in the control of MVO2 remains unknown. MVO2 in left ventricular tissues from nNOS−/− mice was measured in vitro. Stimulation of NO production by bradykinin or carbachol induced a significant reduction in MVO2 in wild-type (WT) mice. In contrast to WT, bradykinin- or carbachol-induced reduction in MVO2 was attenuated in nNOS−/−. S-methyl-l-thiocitrulline, a potent isoform selective inhibitor of nNOS, had no effect on bradykinin-induced reduction in MVO2 in WT. Bradykinin-induced reduction in MVO2 in eNOS−/− mice, in which nNOS still exists, was also attenuated. The attenuated bradykinin-induced reduction in MVO2 in nNOS−/− was restored by preincubation with Tiron, ascorbic acid, Tempol, oxypurinol, or SB203850, an inhibitor of p38 kinase, but not apocynin. There was an increase in lucigenin-detectable superoxide anion (O2−) in cardiac tissues from nNOS−/− compared with WT. Tempol, oxypurinol, or SB203850 decreased O2− in all groups to levels that were not different from each other. There was an increase in phosphorylated p38 kinase normalized by total p38 kinase protein level in nNOS−/− compared with WT mice. These results indicate that a defect of nNOS increases O2− through the activation of xanthine oxidase, which is mediated by the activation of p38 kinase, and attenuates the control of MVO2 by NO derived from eNOS.
Living with and learning about radioactivity: A comparative conceptual study

This article documents a quasi-scientific comparative study of two groups of 'recent school leavers' in the UK (n = 30). The participants are all non-science university undergraduates, male and female aged 18-24. Participants from one group have all lived and been educated in a geographic area with higher than average atmospheric radon gas concentrations. In contrast, the participants from the other group all have lived and been educated in areas not associated with elevated radon concentrations. Using a methodology of interviews-about-scenarios, the study seeks to explore if people living with the immediacy and relevance of higher than average levels radioactivity are more knowledgeable and emotionally detached compared with a similar group removed from this health concern. When the two groups were compared, few conceptual and emotional differences were observed. However, the participants faced with higher than average radiation levels were found to be more knowledgeable about the everyday practicalities of living with increased risk due to elevated radon concentrations. In an educational era where local relevance, scientific literacy and the public understanding of science are common curriculum justifications, the discussion concludes by raising questions about meeting everyday needs and curriculum reform.
Sleep and Wakeup Strategies in Solar-Powered Wireless Sensor/Mesh Networks: Performance Analysis and Optimization

A queuing analytical model is presented to investigate the performances of different sleep and wakeup strategies in a solar-powered wireless sensor/mesh network where a solar cell is used to charge the battery in a sensor/mesh node. While the solar radiation process (and, hence, the energy generation process in a solar cell) is modeled by a stochastic process (i.e., a Markov chain), a linear battery model with relaxation effect is used to model the battery capacity recovery process. Developed based on a multidimensional discrete-time Markov chain, the presented model is used to analyze the performances of different sleep and wakeup strategies in a sensor/mesh node. The packet dropping and packet blocking probabilities at a node are the major performance metrics. The numerical results obtained from the analytical model are validated by extensive simulations. In addition, using the queuing model, based on a game-theoretic formulation, we demonstrate how to obtain the optimal parameters for a particular sleep and wakeup strategy. In this case, we formulate a bargaining game by exploiting the trade-off between packet blocking and packet dropping probabilities due to the sleep and wakeup dynamics in a sensor/mesh node. The Nash solution is obtained for the equilibrium point of sleep and wakeup probabilities. The presented queuing model, along with the game-theoretic formulation, would be useful for the design and optimization of energy-efficient protocols for solar-powered wireless sensor/mesh networks under quality-of-service (QoS) constraints
Quantitative evaluation of spermatogenesis in mice following chronic exposure to cannabinoids

Summary. In mice, chronic administration of crude marihuana extract (CME), delta‐9‐tetrahy‐drocannabinol (THC), cannabidiol (CBD) and cannabinol (CBN) (50 mg kg−1 body weight for 15 and 35 days) impaired spermatogenesis at both mitotic and meiotic stages. Although the total number of step 7 spermatids was unaltered, mature spermatozoa recovered from the cauda epididymidis showed severe abnormalities in morphology. Body weight and sex organ weights were not affected markedly but the adrenal gland was hypertrophied. Leydig cell nuclear area was increased by CME and CBD and reduced by CBN. Cannabis deranges several stages of the spermatogenic cycle, most of the activity of the crude extract being attributable to CBN and CBD.