Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ultrasonographic Assessment of Enthesitis in HLA-B27 Positive Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis, a Matched Case-Only Study

Introduction HLA-B27 has a modifier effect on the phenotype of multiple diseases, both associated and non-associated with it. Among these effects, an increased frequency of clinical enthesitis in patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) has been reported but never explored again. We aimed to replicate this study with a sensitive and quantitative assessment of enthesitis by using standardized ultrasonography (US). Methods The Madrid Sonography Enthesitis Index (MASEI) was applied to the US assessment of 41 HLA-B27 positive and 41 matched HLA-B27 negative patients with longstanding RA. Clinical characteristics including explorations aimed to evaluate spondyloarthrtitis and laboratory tests were also done. Results A significant degree of abnormalities in the entheses of the patients with RA were found, but the MASEI values, and each of its components including the Doppler signal, were similar in HLA-B27 positive and negative patients. An increase of the MASEI scores with age was identified. Differences in two clinical features were found: a lower prevalence of rheumatoid factor and a more common story of low back pain in the HLA-B27 positive patients than in the negative. The latter was accompanied by radiographic sacroiliitis in two HLA-B27 positive patients. No other differences were detected. Conclusion We have found that HLA-B27 positive patients with RA do not have more enthesitis as assessed with US than the patients lacking this HLA allele. However, HLA-B27 could be shaping the RA phenotype towards RF seronegativity and axial involvement.
Investigating the Usage of Enterprise Architecture Artifacts

Enterprise architecture (EA) is a description of an enterprise from an integrated business and IT perspective intended to improve business and IT alignment. EA literature describes many detailed EA methodologies, artifacts and frameworks to organize them. However, establishing EA practice still remains a challenging endeavor with a low success rate. On the other hand, this is not surprising since most organizations successfully practicing EA do not follow EA methodologies and frameworks strictly but adapt them to their own needs or even use them only as idea contributors. Therefore, in order to improve the success rate of EA initiatives, it is necessary to understand better how exactly successful companies adapt EA methodologies in practice. In particular, we argue that the most significant problems in EA practice arise because the usage of individual EA artifacts in practice is poorly understood. In this paper we describe how we are going to investigate the usage of EA artifacts to close this gap.
Staphylococcus epidermidis saeR Is an Effector of Anaerobic Growth and a Mediator of Acute Inflammation

ABSTRACT The saeRS two-component regulatory system regulates transcription of multiple virulence factors in Staphylococcus aureus. In the present study, we demonstrated that the saePQRS region in Staphylococcus epidermidis is transcriptionally regulated in a temporal manner and is arranged in a manner similar to that previously described for S. aureus. Studies using a mouse foreign body infection model demonstrated that the virulence of strain 1457 and the virulence of a mutant, strain 1457 saeR, were statistically equivalent. However, histological analyses suggested that the polymorphonuclear neutrophil response at 2 days postinfection was significantly greater in 1457-infected mice than in 1457 saeR-infected mice, demonstrating that SaeR influences the early, acute phases of infection. Microarray analysis demonstrated that a saeR mutation affected the transcription of 65 genes (37 genes were upregulated and 28 genes were downregulated); in particular, 8 genes that facilitate growth under anaerobic conditions were downregulated in 1457 saeR. Analysis of growth under anaerobic conditions demonstrated that 1457 saeR had a decreased growth rate compared to 1457. Further metabolic experiments demonstrated that 1457 saeR had a reduced capacity to utilize nitrate as a terminal electron acceptor and exhibited increased production of lactic acid in comparison to 1457. These data suggest that in S. epidermidis SaeR functions to regulate the transition between aerobic growth and anaerobic growth. In addition, when grown anaerobically, 1457 saeR appeared to compensate for the redox imbalance created by the lack of electron transport-mediated oxidation of NADH to NAD+ by increasing lactate dehydrogenase activity and the subsequent oxidation of NADH.
Developmental Coordination Disorder: Is Clumsy Motor Behavior Caused by a Lesion of the Brain at Early Age?

Children presenting with Developmental Coordination Disorder or clumsiness often exhibit signs of minor neurological dysfunction (MND). The data of the Groningen Perinatal Project, a long-term follow-up project . on the relations between prenatal and perinatal adversities and neurological, behavioral, and cognitive development revealed that two basic forms of MND can be distinguished: simple and complex MND. During school age children with simple MND are characterized by the presence of one or two dysfunctional clusters of MND, in adolescence by the presence of choreiform dyskinesia or hypotonia. Probably the major sources of origin of simple MND are genetic constitution and stress during early life. Simple MND might reflect the lower tail of the normal distribution of the quality of non-pathological brain function. In line with this hypothesis is the finding that simple MND is associated with only a moderately increased risk for learning and behavioral problems. Children with complex MND present at school age with at least three dysfunctional clusters of MND, in adolescence with problems in fine manipulation or coordination. Perinatal adversities play an evident etiological role in the development of complex MND, suggesting that it might be attributed to a lesion of the brain at early age. In line with this idea is the finding that complex MND shows . a strong correlation with attention and learning problems.
Distributed Control of Multirobot Systems With Global Connectivity Maintenance

This study introduces a control algorithm that, exploiting a completely decentralized estimation strategy for the algebraic connectivity of the graph, ensures the connectivity maintenance property for multi robot systems, in the presence of a generic (bounded) additional control term. This result is obtained by driving the robots along the negative gradient of an appropriately defined function of the algebraic connectivity. The proposed strategy is then enhanced with the introduction of the concept of critical robots, that is robots for which the loss of a single communication link might cause the disconnection of the communication graph. Limiting the control action to critical robots will be shown to reduce the control effort that is introduced by the proposed connectivity maintenance control law and to mitigate its effect on the additional (desired) control term.
Ship Detection with Wireless Sensor Networks

Surveillance is a critical problem for harbor protection, border control or the security of commercial facilities. The effective protection of vast near-coast sea surfaces and busy harbor areas from intrusions of unauthorized marine vessels, such as pirates smugglers or, illegal fishermen is particularly challenging. In this paper, we present an innovative solution for ship intrusion detection. Equipped with three-axis accelerometer sensors, we deploy an experimental Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) on the sea's surface to detect ships. Using signal processing techniques and cooperative signal processing, we can detect any passing ships by distinguishing the ship-generated waves from the ocean waves. We design a three-tier intrusion detection system with which we propose to exploit spatial and temporal correlations of an intrusion to increase detection reliability. We conduct evaluations with real data collected in our initial experiments, and provide quantitative analysis of the detection system, such as the successful detection ratio, detection latency, and an estimation of an intruding vessel's velocity.
Relationship Between Short-Term Blood Pressure Variability and Large-Artery Stiffness in Human Hypertension: Findings From 2 Large Databases

Short-term blood pressure (BP) variability predicts cardiovascular complications in hypertension, but its association with large-artery stiffness is poorly understood and confounded by methodologic issues related to the assessment of BP variations over 24 hours. Carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cfPWV) and 24-hour ambulatory BP were measured in 911 untreated, nondiabetic patients with uncomplicated hypertension (learning population) and in 2089 mostly treated hypertensive patients (83% treated, 25% diabetics; test population). Short-term systolic BP (SBP) variability was calculated as the following: (1) SD of 24-hour, daytime, or nighttime SBP; (2) weighted SD of 24-hour SBP; and (3) average real variability (ARV), that is, the average of the absolute differences between consecutive SBP measurements over 24 hours. In the learning population, all of the measures of SBP variability showed a direct correlation with cfPWV (SD of 24-hour, daytime, and nighttime SBP, r=0.17/0.19/0.13; weighted SD of 24-hour SBP, r=0.21; ARV, r=0.26; all P<0.001). The relationship between cfPWV and ARV was stronger than that with 24-hour, daytime, or nighttime SBP (all P<0.05) and similar to that with weighted SD of 24-hour SBP. In the test population, ARV and weighted SD of 24-hour SBP had stronger relationships with cfPWV than SD of 24-hour, daytime, or nighttime SBP. In both populations, SBP variability indices independently predicted cfPWV along with age, 24-hour SBP, and other factors. We conclude that short-term variability of 24-hour SBP shows an independent, although moderate, relation to aortic stiffness in hypertension. This relationship is stronger with measures of BP variability focusing on short-term changes, such as ARV and weighted 24-hour SD.
An Enhanced Multi-Layered Security Framework for Context-Aware Mobile Web Services

People seeking medical attention go in search of medical centers and specialists. For them time is vital as they search for resources, the information should be available with minimum latency. With the advent of wearable computing and ubiquitous computing Context -Aware Web services can be available with much ease, it enables users to retrieve information with relation to their context. While providing several benefits, although web services technology has been facing serious threats like prefix hijacking and interception in the Internet due to a man in-the-middle attack which compromises privacy of the user. The objective of this research work is to provide a secure framework for Context aware web services using access control mechanisms. It was found web services are prone to data theft and malicious attacks, Access Control Mechanism is introduced in the framework to provide a secured architecture where the privacy of the person accessing the web service will be preserved. The proposed architecture provides an end-to-end security by accomplishing the security properties such as user authentication, authorization of web services, message confidentiality, data integrity and non repudiation. Hence, there is a need that arises to design a security system for context-aware web services with the support of end-to-end security in business services between the service providers and service requesters thus providing a secure user experience
Open-End Multilevel Six-Phase Machine Drive System With Five Three-Leg Converters

This paper proposes and investigates a multilevel ac six-phase motor drive. The system is composed of five isolated three-leg voltage source inverters feeding the open-end windings of an asymmetrical six-phase induction motor (SPIM), which is adequate to generate multilevel voltages for high-power systems with voltage rating restrictions. A simple space vector pulse-width modulation (PWM) based on three similar individual planes and its implementation by means of equivalent level-shifted PWM are presented. A space vector pattern with a high number of voltage vectors redundancies is obtained. These redundancies and the application sequence of the voltage vectors are selected to minimize the amount of changes in the switching states and to decrease the harmonic distortion of the generated voltages. The vector pattern of this optimal modulation is obtained by analyzing only one plane and applied in the same way to the three planes as if they were independent. The developed PWM techniques have low computational complexity and are suitable for low-cost hardware implementations. Simulation results are used to compare the proposed topology with a conventional configuration in terms of harmonic distortion and semiconductor losses. Experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed drive system.
Gamma Radiation Assisted Grafting of Low Surface Energy Long Chain Molecule on Various Types of Polyolefin Elastomers (POE)

Surface modification of polymers can lead to changes of properties such as surface wettability, adhesion, bioactivity and biocompatibility. Here, a long chain, low surface energy monomer, docecyl methacrylate (DMA), which is difficult to graft by chemical mean was grafted onto three different types of ‘Engages’ (a polyolefin elastomer, POE) in ethanol/water medium by gamma radiation. Total dose and DMA concentration were optimized for the desired amount of low degree grafting (less than 15wt%). The surface wetting properties towards water were decreased for all Engage surfaces after grafting. Mechanical properties of the base polymers remained almost unchanged after grafting.
Toward a Framework of Cultural Effects on Software Development

Culture is one of the major concerns when companies choose offshore outsourcing for software development. However, cultural effects on software development are hard to measure. Therefore, culture is often ignored in offshore outsourcing contracts for software development, or treated as a patch-up issue in the software eventually delivered by the offshore entity. Either scenario might jeopardize the achievement of effective software solutions, or make it difficult for companies to achieve the economic benefits of outsourcing software development to offshore entities. To better understand cultural effects on software development, this paper develops a framework of the influences of offshore-country culture on software being developed for a foreign country. It examines culture’s effects on both the process and product aspects of offshore software development.
Keyword-based Query Comprehending via Multiple Optimized-Demand Augmentation

In this paper, we consider the problem of machine reading task when the questions are in the form of keywords, rather than natural language. In recent years, researchers have achieved significant success on machine reading comprehension tasks, such as SQuAD and TriviaQA. These datasets provide a natural language question sentence and a pre-selected passage, and the goal is to answer the question according to the passage. However, in the situation of interacting with machines by means of text, people are more likely to raise a query in form of several keywords rather than a complete sentence. The keyword-based query comprehension is a new challenge, because small variations to a question may completely change its semantical information, thus yield different answers. In this paper, we propose a novel neural network system that consists a Demand Optimization Model based on a passage-attention neural machine translation and a Reader Model that can find the answer given the optimized question. The Demand Optimization Model optimizes the original query and output multiple reconstructed questions, then the Reader Model takes the new questions as input and locate the answers from the passage. To make predictions robust, an evaluation mechanism will score the reconstructed questions so the final answer strike a good balance between the quality of both the Demand Optimization Model and the Reader Model. Experimental results on several datasets show that our framework significantly improves multiple strong baselines on this challenging task.
Optimization Design of a Repetitive Nanosecond Pulse Generator Based on Saturable Pulse Transformer and Magnetic Switch

Saturable pulse transformer (SPT) and magnetic switch (MS) are widely used together in pulse generators (PGs). It is easy to obtain a desirable output with a high voltage and low rise time when choosing the suitable PG topology. A compact, unipolar, and repetitive high-voltage nanosecond PG, which is based on SPT and MS, is designed and constructed. The operation principles of the resonant charging based on SPT and MS are described. The design and performance optimization of the magnetic components including SPT and MS are presented. The minimum volume of the SPT is derived and verified in the experiment. The core volume and turns of the MS are determined both considering the charging process and the output characteristic. The saturation times of the pulse transformer and MS can be optimally determined based on the B-H curve, which is obtained under the same working conditions. It reveals that the design and performance optimization methods of the SPT and MS are reasonable and can be used to guide the design of pulse transformers and MSs in pulsed power, power electronics, and industrial electronics.
Missing ordinal covariates with informative selection

This paper considers the problem of parameter estimation in a model for a continuous response variable y when an important ordinal explanatory variable x is missing for a large proportion of the sample. Nonmissingness of x, or sample selection, is correlated with the response variable and/or with the unobserved values the ordinal explanatory variable takes when missing. We suggest solving the endogenous selection, or ‘not missing at random’ (NMAR), problem by modelling the informative selection mechanism, the ordinal explanatory variable, and the response variable together. The use of the method is illustrated by re-examining the problem of the ethnic gap in school achievement at age 16 in England using linked data from the National Pupil database (NPD), the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE), and the Census 2001. JEL classification: C13, C35, I21.
Bimodal Biometric Person Authentication System Using Speech and Signature Features

Biometrics offers greater security and convenience than traditional methods of person authentication. Multi biometrics has recently emerged as a means of more robust and efficient person authentication scheme. Exploiting information from multiple biometric features improves the performance and also robustness of person authentication. The objective of this paper is to develop a robust bimodal biometric person authentication system using speech and signature biometric features. Speaker based unimodal system is developed by extracting Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) and Wavelet Octave Coefficients of Residues (WOCOR) as feature vectors. The MFCCs and WOCORs from the training data are modeled using Vector Quantization (VQ) and Gaussian Mixture Modeling (GMM) techniques. Signature based unimodal system is developed by using Vertical Projection Profile (VPP), Horizontal Projection Profile (HPP) and Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) as features. A bimodal biometric person authentication system is then built using these two unimodal systems. Experimental results show that the bimodal person authentication system provides higher performance compared with the unimodal systems. The bimodal system is finally evaluated for its robustness using the noisy data and also data collected from the real environments. The robustness of the bimodal system is more compared to the unimodal person authentication systems.
Extensive, Nonrandom Diversity of Excision Footprints Generated by Ds-Like Transposon Ascot-1Suggests New Parallels with V(D)J Recombination

ABSTRACT Upon insertion, transposable elements can disrupt or alter gene function in various ways. Transposons moving through a cut-and-paste mechanism are in addition often mutagenic when excising because repair of the empty site seldom restores the original sequence. The characterization of numerous excision events in many eukaryotes indicates that transposon excision from a given site can generate a high degree of DNA sequence and phenotypic variation. Whether such variation is generated randomly remains largely to be determined. To this end, we have exploited a well-characterized system of genetic instability in the fungus Ascobolus immersus to perform an extensive study of excision events. We show that this system, which produces many phenotypically and genetically distinct derivatives, results from the excision of a novel Ds-like transposon,Ascot-1, from the spore color gene b2. A unique set of 48 molecularly distinct excision products were readily identified from a representative sample of excision derivatives. Products varied in their frequency of occurrence over 4 orders of magnitude, yet most showed small palindromic nucleotide additions. Based on these and other observations, compelling evidence was obtained for intermediate hairpin formation during the excision reaction and for strong biases in the subsequent processing steps at the empty site. Factors likely to be involved in these biases suggest new parallels between the excision reaction performed by transposons of thehAT family and V(D)J recombination. An evaluation of the contribution of small palindromic nucleotide additions produced by transposon excision to the spectrum of spontaneous mutations is also presented.
Making sense of archived e-mail: Exploring the Enron collection with NetLens

Informal communications media pose new challenges for information systems design, but the nature of informal interaction offers new opportunities as well. This paper describes NetLensEmail, a system designed to support exploration of the content-actor network in large email collection. Unique features of NetLens-Email include close coupling of orientation, specification, restriction and expansion and introduction and incorporation of a novel capability for iterative projection between content and actor networks within the same collection. Scenarios are presented to illustrate the intended employment of NetLens-Email, and design walkthroughs with two domain experts provide an initial basis for assessment of the suitability of the design by scholars and analysts.
Use of technology in follow-up of HIV positive pregnant women and their babies till 18 months of age- an innovation by Maharashtra State AIDS Control Society (MSACS), India

ObjectiveThe purpose of this study is to assess the utility of web-based mobile technology monitoring tool, for ensuring linkages, and tracking of HIV-exposed child until 18 months of age. MethodsThe ‘early infant diagnosis (EID) Follow-up System’ was designed as a tool for reminding the field level staff for follow-up of HIV-exposed babies. Using Java Swing Framework, software was developed which generates automatic advance SMS alerts regarding patient information to the Counsellor of the respective Integrated Counselling and Testing Center and district supervisor, 7 days prior to due dates. Simultaneously, system generated e-mail is sent to district program officer for monitoring and updating the line-list. ResultsBefore the introduction of ‘EID Follow-up System’ in June 2013, only 55.9% (637/1139) of the HIV-exposed babies born were tested at 6 weeks for DNA-Polymerase Chain Reaction during April 2011–March 2012. However, after its introduction, 68.4% (1117/1631) of them were tested during April 2012–March 2013. Correspondingly, the 18 months confirmatory HIV testing in eligible babies increased from 45.6% (934/2044) to 54.7%(1118/2044) during the same period. ConclusionThe replicable technology driven initiative would help in strengthening the follow-up mechanisms and reach every HIV-exposed child for EID.