Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Xaa-Arg-Gly Triplets in the Collagen Triple Helix Are Dominant Binding Sites for the Molecular Chaperone HSP47*

HSP47 is an essential procollagen-specific molecular chaperone that resides in the endoplasmic reticulum of procollagen-producing cells. Recent advances have revealed that HSP47 recognizes the (Pro-Pro-Gly) n sequence but not (Pro-Hyp-Gly) n and that HSP47 recognizes the triple-helical conformation. In this study, to better understand the substrate recognition by HSP47, we synthesized various collagen model peptides and examined their interaction with HSP47 in vitro. We found that the Pro-Arg-Gly triplet forms an HSP47-binding site. The HSP47 binding was observed only when Arg residues were incorporated in the Yaa positions of the Xaa-Yaa-Gly triplets. Amino acids in the Xaa position did not largely affect the interaction. The recognition of the Arg residue by HSP47 was specific to its side-chain structure because replacement of the Arg residue by other basic amino acids decreased the affinity to HSP47. The significance of Arg residues in HSP47 binding was further confirmed by using residue-specific chemical modification of types I and III collagen. Our results demonstrate that Xaa-Arg-Gly sequences in the triple-helical procollagen molecule are dominant binding sites for HSP47 and enable us to predict HSP47-binding sites in homotrimeric procollagen molecules.
SEED: A Statically Greedy and Dynamically Adaptive Approach for Speculative Loop Execution

Research on compiler techniques for thread-level loop speculation has so far remained on studying its performance limits: loop candidates that are worthy of parallelization are manually selected by the researchers or based on extensive profiling and preexecution. It is therefore difficult to include them in a production compiler for speculative multithreaded multicore processors. In a way, existing techniques are statically adaptive ("realized"; by the researchers for different inputs) yet dynamically greedy (since all iterations of all selected loop candidates are always parallelized at run time). This paper introduces a Statically GrEEdy and Dynamically Adaptive (SEED) approach for thread-level speculation on loops that is quite different from most other existing techniques. SEED relies on the compiler to select and optimize loop candidates greedily (possibly in an input-independent way) and provides a runtime scheduler to schedule loop iterations adaptively. To select loops for parallelization at runtime (subject to program inputs), loop iterations are prioritized in terms of their potential benefits rather than their degree of speculation as in many prior studies. In our current implementation, the benefits of speculative threads are estimated by a simple yet effective cost model. It comprises a mechanism for efficiently tracing the loop nesting structures of the program and a mechanism for predicting the outcome of speculative threads. We have evaluated SEED using a set of SPECint2000 and Olden benchmarks. Compared to existing techniques with a program's loop candidates being ideally selected a priori, SEED can achieve comparable or better performance while aututomating the entire loop candidate selection process.
Scan cell reordering algorithm for low power consumption during scan-based testing

Power consumption during scan-based testing can be higher than that of normal mode operations, which can cause yield loss and degradation of reliability. This paper proposes a scan cell reordering algorithm to reduce the test power consumption during scan-based testing. The proposed algorithm considers both shift-out operations and shift-in operations. A cumulative weighted transition (CWT) is proposed and compared to minimize the test power consumption. Experimental results show that the proposed method greatly reduces the average power during scan testing.
Optimization Strategy of Parallel Query Processing Based on Multi-core Architecture

Chip Multi-Processor (CMP) could support more than two threads to execute simultaneously, and some executing units are owned by each core. Because threads share various resources of CMP, such as L2-Cache, among many threads, CMP system is inherently different from multiprocessors system and, CMP is also different from simultaneously multithreading (SMT). In this paper a novel and complete approach on how to parallelism for relational database multithreaded query execution that strives for maximum resource utilization for both CPU and disk activities. The focus of this approach is on how to use the multithreaded parallel technique to optimize and process queries based on multi-core architecture. A set of algorithms for implementing and optimizing the best query plan, such as the algorithms for scheduling and parallel executing the query plan, the algorithms for allocating thread to sub-query and memory to the buffers between operations in pipelining execution, are proposed in this method. Additionally this paper analysis and optimize the implementation of parallel buffers and multithread. In the experiments, this paper evaluates performance of the parallel buffers and tests the coordination of the multithread.
Dopaminergic control of cognitive flexibility in humans and animals

Striatal dopamine (DA) is thought to code for learned associations between cues and reinforcers and to mediate approach behavior toward a reward. Less is known about the contribution of DA to cognitive flexibility—the ability to adapt behavior in response to changes in the environment. Altered reward processing and impairments in cognitive flexibility are observed in psychiatric disorders such as obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Patients with this disorder show a disruption of functioning in the frontostriatal circuit and alterations in DA signaling. In this review we summarize findings from animal and human studies that have investigated the involvement of striatal DA in cognitive flexibility. These findings may provide a better understanding of the role of dopaminergic dysfunction in cognitive inflexibility in psychiatric disorders, such as OCD.
High frequency CMOS switched capacitor filters for communication applications

Bandpass filters for communications applications using an 80MHz differential single-stage CMOS opamp and a fully differential idential-resonator elliptic bandpass ladder filter configuration will be reported. Experimental results from a CMOS sixth order 260kHz elliptic bandpass filter with Q of 40, clock frequency of 4MHz and power dissipation of 120mW, will be presented.
Enhancement of CMOS THz imaging sensing by packaging technology

Terahertz imaging sensing provides numerous attractive applications in different areas, for example, biology and medicine. CMOS technology benefits an imaging system in low cost and a small form factor. The technology advance is technically viable for circuit design in such high frequencies. Lossy silicon substrate, however, still degrades system performance. We will discuss the techniques of performance enhancement.
A Survey on Segmentation Techniques for Detection of Diabetic Retinopathy

Diabetic has become a common disease for people above 40. The probability of becoming a diabetic patient is more now a days. Two major areas that are affected due to the increase in sugar level in blood is foot and eye. There are three types of diabetic eye disease namely diabetic retinopathy, cataract and glaucoma. In which Diabetic retinopathy is a common eye disease in most of the developed countries. It has about 80% occurs in almost all diabetic cases and is the main cause of blindness. It is caused by changes in blood vessels of the retina. Blood vessels may also swell and leak fluid. Diabetic patient have three Diabetic macular edema (DME) is an advanced symptom of diabetic retinopathy and can lead to irreversible vision loss. In this paper we have done a survey on the different techniques used for detection of different stages of diabetic retinopathy. KeywordsDiabetic Retinopathy, Image Segmentation, Optic disc, Macula, Blood Vessels, Digital Fundus Images
Biological characteristics of osteoporosis drugs: the effect of osteoblast–osteoclast coupling

Osteoporosis is a common disease where bone mass is reduced, leading to an increased risk of bone fracture. Half of Caucasian women and a fifth of men experience osteoporosisrelated bone fracture in the course of lifetime [1]. Treatment of osteoporosis-related fracture causes enormous socioeconomic burden, costing nearly $17 billion in 2005 in the U.S.; it is expected to double or triple in the next four decades due to rapidly aging population [2]. Osteoporosis is caused by an imbalance of osteoblastic bone formation and osteoclastic bone resorption. Thus, antiosteoporosis medications aim to reduce the risk of bone fracture either by increasing bone formation or suppressing bone resorption. Currently, four classes of anti-resorptive agents and one class of anabolic agent are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of osteoporosis (Table 1). However, these medications have failed to increase bone formation or decrease bone resorption in isolation due to the closed coupling of osteoblasts and osteoclasts whereby changes in differentiation or activity of one cell type directly affect the other [3]. This phenomenon not only limits the efficacy of anti-osteoporosis drugs, but also is associated with significant side effects [4]. In this article, we review the biological aspects of anti-osteoporosis drugs, focusing on the mechanisms of action and osteoblast–osteoclast coupling.
Mapping global cropland and field size

A new 1 km global IIASA‐IFPRI cropland percentage map for the baseline year 2005 has been developed which integrates a number of individual cropland maps at global to regional to national scales. The individual map products include existing global land cover maps such as GlobCover 2005 and MODIS v.5, regional maps such as AFRICOVER and national maps from mapping agencies and other organizations. The different products are ranked at the national level using crowdsourced data from Geo‐Wiki to create a map that reflects the likelihood of cropland. Calibration with national and subnational crop statistics was then undertaken to distribute the cropland within each country and subnational unit. The new IIASA‐IFPRI cropland product has been validated using very high‐resolution satellite imagery via Geo‐Wiki and has an overall accuracy of 82.4%. It has also been compared with the EarthStat cropland product and shows a lower root mean square error on an independent data set collected from Geo‐Wiki. The first ever global field size map was produced at the same resolution as the IIASA‐IFPRI cropland map based on interpolation of field size data collected via a Geo‐Wiki crowdsourcing campaign. A validation exercise of the global field size map revealed satisfactory agreement with control data, particularly given the relatively modest size of the field size data set used to create the map. Both are critical inputs to global agricultural monitoring in the frame of GEOGLAM and will serve the global land modelling and integrated assessment community, in particular for improving land use models that require baseline cropland information. These products are freely available for downloading from the http://cropland.geo-wiki.org website.
Enhanced Turbine Performance Monitoring

comPonEnTs of wind TurbinEs are affected by asymmetric loads, variable wind speeds, and severe weather conditions which cause wind turbines to change their states. A typical wind turbine undergoes various states during its daily operations. The wind turbine states follow a certain pattern, such as: 1) turbine OK to run-up idling; 2) turbine online to maintenance/repair mode; 3) turbine weather conditions to external stop, and; 4) turbine OK to fault mode, and so on. A state change from normal turbine operations to a fault mode adversely impacts the performance of wind turbines and its components. Monitoring these states can greatly augment the maintenance operations. Wind turbine monitoring can be done in two ways: condition-based, and performance-based. Condition monitoring requires installation of additional equipment/sensors to continuously monitor relevant parameters in real time. Performance monitoring utilizes historical data for prediction of turbine performance. Since performance monitoring relies on the existing data, there is no additional cost to the wind farm operators. Analyzing the historical data through data-mining techniques is a promising approach to The authors of this article clearly demonstrate the benefits of applying data-mining techniques to the prediction of fault modes in wind turbines.
Viabilidade técnica e econômica do uso de diferentes níveis de grãos secos de destilaria com solúveis (Zea mays l. ) em borregas terminadas em confinamento

It was evaluated the feasibility of using animal feed containing different levels of distiller´s dried grains with solubles - DDGS (0, 8, 16 and 24%) in confined ewe lambs . The feed contained 65% of roughage (corn silage) and 35% of concentrate (milled corn grain, soybean meal, distiller´s dried grains with solubles and urea). Sixteen lambs were used , from no specific breed, with initial body weight (BW) of 23.8 ± 1.5 kg, confined for 75 days. A completely randomized design with four treatments were usedThe average DM intake and daily gain (ADG) data of lambs fed the different treatments were submitted to analysis of variance and the differences obtained were analyzed by a regression equation at 5% of significance. The different DDGS levels did not change the ADG of the lambs in confinement. Based on the economic technical simulation, the difference obtained in the value of the total income per carcass of ewe lambs was US$ 6.93 more for feed with 16% of DDGS in relation to the feed with 0% of DDGS. In addition, the 24% DDGS feed ration presented a value of US$ 1.46 in relation than the feed with 0% DDGS. It was verified that lambs fed the different levels of DDGS presented a revenue of US$ 4.63/kg of carcass, which resulted in a difference of US$ 692.82 in total revenue between the feed containing 16% and 0% of DDGS for a 100 animal module. This difference in the value of total income was a consequence of the higher carcass weight of 11.4% for the 16% DDGS feed in comparison to 0% DDGS. The feed with 16% of DDGS presented a cost of US$ 0.38/kg lower than the feed with 0% of DDGS. In addition, the 16% DDGS in feed had a total net revenue of 98.7% higher than the 0% DDGS feed. The distiller´s dried grains with solubles can be inserted into the finishing lamb diet in up to 24% of the total feed without altering the animal performance, and when considering the economic simulation the use of 16% inclusion of DDGS presents greater profitability.
Trends in Kaposi's sarcoma-associated Herpesvirus antibodies prior to the development of HIV-associated Kaposi's sarcoma: A nested case-control study

HIV‐associated Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) is a public health challenge in sub‐Saharan Africa since both the causative agent, Kaposi's sarcoma associated‐herpesvirus (KSHV), and the major risk factor, HIV, are prevalent. In a nested case‐control study within a long‐standing clinical cohort in rural Uganda, we used stored sera to examine the evolution of antibody titres against the KSHV antigens K8.1 and latency‐associated nuclear antigen (LANA) among 30 HIV‐infected subjects who subsequently developed HIV‐related KS (cases) and among 108 matched HIV/KSHV coinfected controls who did not develop KS. Throughout the 6 years prior to diagnosis, antibody titres to K8.1 and LANA were significantly higher among cases than controls (p < 0.0001), and titres increased prior to diagnosis in the cases. K8.1 titres differed more between KS cases and controls, compared to LANA titres. These differences in titre between cases and controls suggest a role for lytic viral replication in the pathogenesis of HIV‐related KS in this setting.
Calculation and Use of the Hardy‐Weinberg Model in Association Studies

Hardy‐Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) is an important tool for understanding population structure. If certain assumptions are met, genotype and allele frequencies can be estimated from one generation to the next. In genetic association studies, HWE principles have been applied to detect genotyping error and disease susceptibility loci. The focus of this unit is to review the key principles and assumptions of HWE. There is a brief discussion on how the significance of HWE is tested, and a review of current applications of HWE in association studies. The applications discussed include estimating penetrance, evaluating genotyping errors, testing for population stratification, and testing for association. Curr. Protoc. Hum. Genet. 57:1.18. 1‐1.18. 11. © 2008 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Predicting the Precision of Elevation Localization Based on Head Related Transfer Functions

While the human hearing capability for horizontally localized sound sources is mostly based on binaural cues, the localization of elevation along the "cones of confusion" can only rely on spectral cues provided by the directionality of head related transfer functions (HRTF). This paper explores how the magnitude of spectral differences between HRTF affects the availability of spectral cues to perceive and detect different elevations and hence limits localization accuracy. A method to predict localization accuracy is presented, based on analysis of the gradient of HRTF log-spectral differences for elevation positional changes. To this end, the localization accuracy is estimated from an HRTF database with 45 subjects. Validation of the results shows good agreement with results from subjective localization experiments reported in literature.
ANUBIS: Artificial Neuromodulation Using a Bayesian Inference System

Gain tuning is a crucial part of controller design and depends not only on an accurate understanding of the system in question, but also on the designer's ability to predict what disturbances and other perturbations the system will encounter throughout its operation. This letter presents ANUBIS (artificial neuromodulation using a Bayesian inference system), a novel biologically inspired technique for automatically tuning controller parameters in real time. ANUBIS is based on the Bayesian brain concept and modifies it by incorporating a model of the neuromodulatory system comprising four artificial neuromodulators. It has been applied to the controller of EchinoBot, a prototype walking rover for Martian exploration. ANUBIS has been implemented at three levels of the controller; gait generation, foot trajectory planning using Bézier curves, and foot trajectory tracking using a terminal sliding mode controller. We compare the results to a similar system that has been tuned using a multilayer perceptron. The use of Bayesian inference means that the system retains mathematical interpretability, unlike other intelligent tuning techniques, which use neural networks, fuzzy logic, or evolutionary algorithms. The simulation results show that ANUBIS provides significant improvements in efficiency and adaptability of the three controller components; it allows the robot to react to obstacles and uncertainties faster than the system tuned with the MLP, while maintaining stability and accuracy. As well as advancing rover autonomy, ANUBIS could also be applied to other situations where operating conditions are likely to change or cannot be accurately modeled in advance, such as process control. In addition, it demonstrates one way in which neuromodulation could fit into the Bayesian brain framework.
Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems ( PACIS ) July 2008 THE ADVANCEMENT OF IS EVALUATION : A LITERATURE REVIEW

A significant amount of attention has been placed on IS Evaluation within the literature over the years and much has been written. In this paper we review the advancement of research in this area. We found however, that only a limited understanding of the phenomenon exists and only modest progression has been made: while the literature states the importance and objectives of IS evaluation, and its complexity and problematic nature,, not all concepts related are clearly defined. In addition, several taxonomies for classifying evaluation approaches exist, but there is no agreement as to which of these is acceptable for the entire research community, let alone for practice. Our review also shows that the literature is replete with reports of what industry uses in terms of evaluation approaches and methods, but that there is a lack of thorough accounts of actual evaluation practice, what works well and what the concrete problems associated with it are. Finally, we also found that the role and interplay of formality and intuition in IS evaluation is controversially discussed. On this basis the paper identifies a research gap and argues for more detailed empirical studies of actual evaluation practice to advance the field of IS, both in theory and practice.
Complications and cardiovascular risk factors in South Asians and Europeans with early-onset type 2 diabetes.

BACKGROUND Type 2 diabetes is a major cardiovascular risk factor, and early-onset (<40 years) type 2 diabetes is becoming more common. AIM To determine the prevalence of complications, and cardiovascular risk factors at diagnosis, in early-onset type 2 diabetes, and to compare these between South Asians and Europeans. DESIGN Prospective study of newly-diagnosed type 2 diabetes patients aged <40 years, attending hospital and primary care clinics 1999-2001. METHODS Patients were assessed for signs of macrovascular disease, retinopathy, neuropathy and nephropathy. Cardiovascular risk factors were also determined. RESULTS Overall, 292 patients were enrolled (165 South Asians). Macrovascular disease was more prevalent in South Asians (15.7% vs. 9.4%, p<0.001), as was microvascular disease (27.3% vs. 16.5%, p<0.001), including retinopathy (17.5% vs. 7.9%, p<0.001), and nephropathy (18.1% vs. 7.8%, p<0.001). South Asians had trends towards greater waist:hip ratio (0.95 vs. 0.90), and higher blood pressure (127/80 vs. 123/76 mmHg). HDL cholesterol was lower (1.0 vs. 1.3 mmol/l, p<0.001) and fasting triglycerides higher (1.9 vs. 1.5 mmol/l, p<0.001) in South Asians. Absolute CHD risk was significantly higher in South Asians (16.9% vs. 13.7%, p<0.001). DISCUSSION Complications were common at diagnosis, with a quarter of all patients having evidence of at least one diabetic complication. South Asians had a higher prevalence of established macrovascular and microvascular disease, compared to Europeans, and a higher risk of CHD, predominantly because of lower HDL cholesterol and higher blood pressure.
Modeling communication delays in distributed systems using time series

The design of dependable distributed applications is a hard task, mainly because of the indefinable statistic behavior of the communication delays. Despite this feature, in practice, most system monitors make use of timeouts (a maximum waiting time) to ensure some termination properties in their protocols. To have better results, some monitors dynamically predict new timeout values based on observed communication delays to improve the performance and accuracy of the protocols. In the last years, time series theory emerged in the computer science area as a good tool to increase the prediction accuracy. The time series mathematical model is used to describe a sequence of observations of a stochastic process taken periodically in time. This paper shows how to model the round trip communication delay observed by a pull monitor (a periodic requester source), despite its non-periodic answers. As a result, this paper shows that the round trip communication delay pattern can be properly represented as a time series. This time series is an alternative model to explore new timeout predictors in a distributed system.