Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Control of streptokinase gene expression in group A & C streptococci by two-component regulators.

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES Group A streptococci (GAS) and human isolates of group C streptococci (GCS) have the stable capacity to produce the plasminogen activator streptokinase, albeit with varying efficiency. This property is subject to control by two two-component regulatory systems, FasCAX and CovRS, which act as activator and repressor, respectively. The present work aims at balancing these opposing activities in GAS and GCS, and at clarifying the phylogenetic position of the FasA response regulator, the less understood regulator of the two systems. METHODS The GCS strain H46A and GAS strain NZ131 were used. Escherichia coli JM 109 was used as host for plasmid construction. Streptokinase activity of various wild type and mutant strains was measured. Phylogenetic trees of streptococcal FasA homologues were established. RESULTS The streptokinase activities of the GAS strain NZ131 and the GCS strain H46A were attributable to more efficient CovR repressor action in NZ131 than in H46A. The FasA activator, on the other hand, functioned about equally efficient in the two strains. Phylogenetically, FasA homologues clustered distinctly in the proposed FasA-BlpR-ComE family of streptococcal response regulators and used the LytTR domain for DNA binding. INTERPRETATION & CONCLUSION Assessing the apparent streptokinase activity of streptoccal strains require the dissection of the activities of the cov and fas systems. Although experimental evidence is still missing, FasA is closely related to a widely distributed family of streptococcal response regulators that is involved in behavioral processes, such as quorum sensing.
On Relativistic Models in the Equilibrium Statistical Mechanics

Relativistic effects in the thermodynamical properties of interacting particle systems are investigated within the framework of the relativistic direct interaction theory in various forms of dynamics. In the front form of relativistic dynamics an exactly solvable model of a one-dimensional hard spheres gas is formulated and an equation of state and thermodynamical potentials for such a gas are found. Weakly-relativistic corrections to the thermodynamical functions of the dilute gas with short-range interactions are discussed on the basis of the approximately relativistic Hamiltonian function in the instant form of dynamics.
Bio-inspired step crossing algorithm for a hexapod robot

Inspired by the observation that the cockroach changes the tripod gait to other gait to cross the step, we report on the design of the step crossing gait in a RHex-style hexapod robot which enables the robot to cross the step with height more than twice of the leg length. Similar to the cockroach's motion, the gait is composed by two stages: rearing stage to lift the front side of the body, and lifting stage to maneuver the center of mass of the body to pass the edge of the step. The inclinometer is utilized to detect the height of the step during crossing, so the robot can automatically adjust the gait to cross the steps with different heights. The performance of the algorithm is experimentally evaluated.
A Versatile Bonding Method for PDMS and SU-8 and Its Application towards a Multifunctional Microfluidic Device

This paper reports a versatile and irreversible bonding method for poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) and SU-8. The method is based on epoxide opening and dehydration reactions between surface-modified PDMS and SU-8. A PDMS replica is first activated via the low-cost lab equipment, i.e., the oxygen plasma cleaner or the corona treater. Then both SU-8 and plasma-treated PDMS samples are functionalized using hydrolyzed (3-aminopropyl)triethoxysilane (APTES). Ultimately, the samples are simply brought into contact and heated to enable covalent bonding. The molecular coupling and chemical reactions behind the bonding occurring at the surfaces were characterized by water contact angle measurement and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis. The reliability of bonded PDMS-SU-8 samples was examined by using tensile strength and leakage tests, which revealed a bonding strength of over 1.4 MPa. The presented bonding method was also applied to create a metal-SU-8-PDMS hybrid device, which integrated SU-8 microfluidic structures and microelectrodes. This hybrid system was used for the effective trapping of microparticles on-chip, and the selective releasing and identification of predefined trapped microparticles. The hybrid fabrication approach presented here, based on the PDMS-SU-8 bonding, enables multifunctional integration in complex microfluidic devices.
An XML server for networked physical objects

This thesis examines how to return desired portions of Product Markup Language (PML) files in response to client queries. Information about physical objects will be stored in the form of PML files that reside on servers scattered across the Internet. The syntax of PML is based on XML so we make use of XML technologies to implement the PML server. We use the Simple Access Object Protocol (SOAP) as the communication protocol, Apache Tomcat Java Servlet Engine as the Internet application server, XML Query Language (XQL) as the query language, and the Infonyte XQL engine as the query handler. We also present our implementation for the Tracking Server. A Tracking Server stores location information about physical objects and resides at a node in the supply chain. It is implemented using SOAP as the communication protocol, Tomcat as the Internet Application Server, the MM MySQL JDBC driver as the query handler, and MySQL as the database. We make use of a Tracking Package that implements the distributed algorithms necessary to retrieve the tracking information. Thesis Supervisor: Kai-Yeung Siu Title: Associate Professor Acknowledgements I would like to thank my thesis supervisor, Sunny Siu, for introducing me to the Auto-ID Center and giving me an opportunity to work there. I thank him for looking out for my long-term interests and keeping my work in perspective. I am grateful to Ching Law and Dan Engels for the countless discussions that provided me with invaluable suggestions and guidance. I could not have done this without them. Ching was my primary source of assistance, and someone I heavily depended on throughout my research. I thank Sanjay Sarma for being approachable and someone from whom I could solicit any type of advice. His general friendliness and sense of humor made him a pleasure to work with. Thanks to Amar for always being there and offering help in any shape or form when I needed it throughout my education at MIT. Thanks to all the brothers of Phi Beta Epsilon for giving me a home away from home. Thanks to Parul, Sneha, Neesha, Amit, Richa, and all my friends at MIT for providing balance in my life and making the last four years so memorable. I owe a special thanks to my twin brother, Paritosh, who has provided me lifelong companionship and has been with me every step of the way. He has been a perennial source of encouragement and motivation. Lastly, I would like to thank Mom, Dad, and Anju for their everlasting love and support.
Research on Staff Explicitation in Organizational Knowledge ManagementBased on Fuzzy Set Similarity to Ideal Solution

In this paper, we prompt that the promoting relationship between three layers of DKMC model based on the fuzzy set similarity to ideal solution. The knowledge fundamental competence impulses the knowledge transfer compe- tence, and the knowledge transfer competence impulses the knowledge dynamic application competence. It is also proved that the knowledge dynamic application competence, which pushes the OP by organization innovation, is the key of the DKMC model to shift the OP. It brings forward the evaluation system of the DKMC. At the first time, it utilizes particle swarm optimization method in the field of the colony intelligence into the optimization of the evaluation model, so as to recommend a full set of methods to optimize DKMC evaluation model based on the fuzzy set similarity to ideal solution.
Sariling Gawa Youth Council as a Case Study of Youth Leadership Development in Hawai'i

SUMMARY This article describes Sariling Gawa Youth Council as a case study of youth leadership development in Hawai'i. Since 1980, thousands of young people-primarily Filipino youth-have participated in Sariling Gawa activities which have developed their leadership skills. Many of them have continued to lead the organization and utilize what they learned with numerous local organizations and state agencies. The authors examine Sariling Gawa's growth, structure, and other factors that contribute to its longevity. The model includes (1) youth empowerment through building their leadership skills, (2) fostering and strengthening peer social support and social networks, (3) promotion of positive ethnic identity, and (4) community capacity building by involving youth in civic and community affairs.
Modeling Overloaded Voice over Internet Protocol Systems

A gateway controller (100) for facilitating the exchange of information between PCI busses (101,103). The controller (100) may comprise a single printed wiring board (301) or two printed wiring boards (201,203) connected by cable (205). Busses (101, 103) are physically isolated from one another for security or other reasons. This technique provides for controlled communication capability which does not require direct linking of two subsystem buses. This technique also provides for a method of transparent communication between subsystems. This gateway controller (100) allows data control while providing bus security and physical isolation of communication buses.
Mixed early and late-type properties in the bar of NGC 6221: Evidence for evolution along the Hubble sequence?

Rotation curves and velocity dispersion pro- les are presented for both the stellar and gaseous com- ponents along ve dierent position angles (PA = 5, 50 ,9 5, 125, and 155) of the nearby barred spiral NGC 6221. The observed kinematics extends out to about 80 00 from the nucleus. Narrow and broad-band imaging is also presented. The radial proles of the fluxes ratio (N II) ( 6583.4 A)/H reveal the presence of a ring-like struc- ture of ionized gas, with a radius of about 9 00 and a depro- jected circular velocity of about 280 km s 1 . The analysis of the dynamics of the bar indicates this ring is related to the presence of an inner Lindblad resonance (ILR) at 1.3 kpc. NGC 6221 is found to exhibit intermediate prop- erties between those of the early-type barred galaxies: the presence of a gaseous ring at an ILR, the bar edge located between the ILR's and the corotation radius beyond the steep rising portion of the rotation curve, the dust-lane pattern, and those of the late-type galaxies: an almost ex- ponential surface brightness prole, the presence of H regions along all the bar, the spiral-arm pattern. It is con- sistent with scenarios of bar-induced evolution from later to earlier-type galaxies 1 .
An AES Tightly Coupled Hardware Accelerator in an FPGA-based Embedded Processor Core

This paper presents the implementation of a tightly coupled hardware architectural enhancement to the Altera FPGA-based Nios II embedded processor. The goal is to accelerate Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) operations in 128, 192 and 256-bits, for application in a high-performance embedded system implementing symmetric key cryptography. The concept is to augment the embedded processor with a new custom instruction for encryption and decryption operations. In order to show the effectiveness of tightly coupled hardware implementation over coprocessor based approach, we have also realized the design in coprocessor approach using the same AES core. Experimental results show that for the encryption or decryption operations, real implementation with custom instructions and tightly coupled hardware is about 35% faster than the co-processor based hardware.
Fuzzy Tumor Segmentation based on Iterative Watersheds

This paper deals with a novel semi-automatic segmentation method giving realistic results on head and neck tumors. To the classical “inside” and “outside”, we add a fuzzy area with a tumor probability between 0 and 1 which represents the area where even specialists do not have an unique solution. We describe here the technique and its results, then we will discuss about the marker number diminution and future work. Keywords—Fuzzy tumor segmentation; Marker based watershed; Iterative watershed; Gradient vector flow
Uncertainties of predictions from parton distribution functions

We apply the Lagrange multiplier method to study the uncertainties of physical predictions due to the uncertainties of parton distribution functions ~PDF’s! , using the cross section sW for W production at a hadron collider as an archetypal example. An effective x function based on the CTEQ global QCD analysis is used to generate a series of PDF’s, each of which represents the best fit to the global data for some specified value of sW . By analyzing the likelihood of these ‘‘alterative hypotheses,’’ using available information on errors from the individual experiments, we estimate that the fractional uncertainty of sW due to current experimental input to the PDF analysis is approximately 64% at the Fermilab Tevatron, and 68 –10% at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. We give sets of PDF’s corresponding to these up and down variations of sW . We also present similar results onZ production at the colliders. Our method can be applied to any combination of physical variables in precision QCD phenomenology, and it can be used to generate benchmarks for testing the accuracy of approximate methods based on the error matrix.
The Legacy of Disadvantaged Origins: Blocked Social Mobility of Descendants of Nobi Great-Grandfathers in Korea (1765–1894)

Abstract:Despite the emerging literature on multigenerational stratification beyond twogeneration models, our understanding of how disadvantages are transmitted over multiple generations at the bottom of the socioeconomic hierarchy is limited, with the lack of data on the extremely disadvantaged. We fill this research gap by investigating the legacy of the nobi system, a system by which individuals were treated as property and owned by the government or private individuals, upon social mobility across four generations. The formal abolition of the nobi system in 1801 provides an opportunity to assess the extent to which nobi great-grandfathers still mattered for great-grandsons' upward mobility, more than six decades after the dismantling of the system. Korean household registers, which were compiled every three years during 1765–1894 in two villages on Jeju Island and incorporated a variety of individual demographic and social status information, allow us to link families across generations. We identify the social status of adult males recorded in 1864–94 registers as well as that of their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers. Logistic regression results show that the odds of attaining high status were substantially lower for adult males whose great-grandfathers were nobis than for those whose great-grandfathers held high-or middle-status positions, even after controlling for the social statuses of fathers and grandfathers. Despite the abolition of the nobi system and the rapid expansion of high-status positions throughout the nineteenth century, the upward mobility of descendants of nobi great-grandfathers was considerably restricted, revealing the continuity of disadvantages over multiple generations.
Autoregulation of tubulin synthesis in hepatocytes and fibroblasts

Microtubule polymer levels in mouse 3T6 fibroblasts and primary cultures of rat hepatocytes can be manipulated by treatment of cells with long term, low doses of colcemid. Such treatment produces a rather uniform population of cells with microtubules of reduced lengths. Using this system, we demonstrate (a) that the rate of tubulin synthesis is sensitive to small changes (10%) in microtubule polymer mass and (b) that the percent of inhibition of synthesis is proportional to the level of soluble tubulin. Experiments with hepatocytes indicate that not only synthesis but the stability of tubulin protein was also regulated to maintain a specific level of tubulin. Treatment of hepatocytes with colcemid or other microtubule-depolymerizing drugs reduced the half-life of tubulin from 50 to 2 h, whereas taxol, which stabilizes microtubules, increased the half-life. To assess the consequences of altering microtubule polymer mass, we have analyzed the effect of controlled depolymerization of microtubules in rat hepatocytes on the processing of endocytosed ligands and found it sensitive to small changes in microtubule polymer levels.
“Gallantry in Action”: Evidence of Advantageous Selection in a Voluntary Army

A voluntary army’s quality exceeds or falls below a drafted army’s average quality depending on whether selection is advantageous or adverse. Using a collection of data sets that cover the majority of the US Army soldiers during World War II, we test for adverse selection into the army. Rather, we find advantageous selection: volunteers and drafted men showed no significant difference in fatalities, but volunteers earned distinguished awards at a higher rate than drafted men, particularly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Analyses at the level of units concur with our findings based on enlistment records.
Binary Permutation Sequences as Subsets of Levenshtein Codes and Higher Order Spectral Nulls Codes

We obtain long binary sequences by concatenating the columns of (0,1)-matrices derived from permutation sequences. We then prove that these binary sequences are subsets of the Levenshtein codes, capable of correcting insertion/deletion errors and subsets of the higher order spectral nulls codes, with spectral nulls at certain frequencies
A Quantitative Study of the On-Chip Network and Memory Hierarchy Design for Many-Core Processor

In this paper, we will study the on-chip network and memory hierarchy design of the Godson-T - a homogeneous many-core processor. Godson-T has 64 cores (with private L1 cache), and 16 global L2 cache banks. All these on-chip units are connected by a 2D 8 × 8 mesh network. Our study reveals that:(a) Global on-chip L2 cache can effectively alleviate the memory pressure caused by the data-thirsty on-chip computing engines. However, its potential is still limited by both the off-chip and the in-chip bandwidth, especially when increasing the number of active threads. (b) On-chip traffic congestion is largely caused by the intensive memory access requests issued from the on-chipcores. Therefore, the design of the on-chip network must consider the available performance of the datapath that connects the processor to the main memory. (c) In theory, different applications have different communication patterns (Berkeley's view). However, the application's runtime communication pattern is only determined by the design of the underlying memory hierarchy and on-chip interconnection. These conclusions are generally applicable to a wide variety of many-core processors with similar design.
Cytosolic calcium ions exert a major influence on the firing rate and maintenance of pacemaker activity in guinea-pig sinus node

The sino-atrial node (SAN) provides the electrical stimulus to initiate every heart beat. Cellular processes underlying this activity have been debated extensively, especially with regards to the role of intracellular calcium. We have used whole-cell application of 1,2-bis(o-aminophenoxy)ethane-N,N,N′,N′-tetraacetic acid (BAPTA), a rapid calcium chelator, to guinea pig isolated SAN myocytes to assess the effect of rapid reduction of intracellular calcium on SAN cell electrical activity. High-dose (10 mM) BAPTA induced rapid and complete cessation of rhythmic action potential (AP) firing (time to cessation 5.5 ± 1.7 s). Over a range of concentrations, BAPTA induced slowing of action potential firing and disruption of rhythmic activity, which was dose-dependent in its time of onset. Exposure to BAPTA was associated with stereotyped action potential changes similar to those previously reported in the presence of ryanodine, namely depolarization of the most negative diastolic potential, prolongation of action potentials and a reduction in action potential amplitude. These experiments are consistent with the view that cytosolic calcium is essential to the maintenance of rhythmic pacemaker activity.
Case Study of Second Language Acquisition: What Contributes to Speaking Proficiency

The purpose of this study is to investigate: what contributes to speaking proficiency in second language acquisition. In this case the researcher intends to investigate how language input, conducive environment, and motivation influence studentsâ€™ speaking proficiency. To develop a deep understanding to the success of speaking proficiency, a qualitative research was conducted. Further, since this study intended to figure out the cause or effect relationship between behavior and outcome, a descriptive qualitative was used to describe the process of succeeding the subjectsâ€™ speaking proficiency. The learner who is not less than 12 years old is the potential subject. The subject should qualify to have categorized as â€œgoodâ€ level of speaking proficiency minimum based on the test. Research instruments used are in-depth interview and questionnaire. From the finding, the result shows that three aspects, language input, conducive learning environment, and motivation, have contribution in deciding the level of English speaking proficiency.
Dynamic of Hyperglycemia as a Predictor of Stroke Outcome in the ECASS-II Trial

Background and Purpose— Baseline hyperglycemia has been considered an independent predictor of stroke outcome. The present study analyzes the dynamics of serum glucose levels within the first 24 hours and its impact on stroke outcome. Methods— We studied 748 patients with acute ischemic hemispheric stroke in the second European Cooperative Acute Stroke Study (ECASS-II). The patients had 2 serum glucose measurements, at baseline and at 24 hours. Four dynamic patterns were defined as baseline hyperglycemia present only at baseline, 24-hour hyperglycemia present only at 24 hours, persistent hyperglycemia, ie, hyperglycemia at baseline and at 24 hours, and persistent normoglycemia, ie, normoglycemia at baseline and at 24 hours. The end points were 7-day neurological improvement on National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale, 30-day favorable functional outcome (Barthel Index 95 or 100), 90-day negligible dependence (modified Rankin Scale 0 to 2), all-cause mortality within 90 days, and hemorrhagic transformation on CT within the first 7 days. Results— In nondiabetic patients, persistent hyperglycemia was inversely associated with neurological improvement (OR=0.31; 95% CI=0.16 to 0.60), 30-day favorable functional outcome (OR=0.27; 95% CI=0.12 to 0.62), and 90-day negligible dependence (OR=0.36; 95% CI=0.17 to 0.73); it was associated with an increased risk of mortality within 90 days (OR=7.61; 95% CI=3.23 to 17.90) and for parenchymal hemorrhage (OR=6.64; 95% CI=2.63 to 16.78), whereas it was inversely associated with hemorrhagic infarction (OR=0.30; 95% CI=0.13 to 0.71). Delayed hyperglycemia at 24 hours was associated with the risks of death (OR=5.99; 95% CI=2.51 to 14.2) and parenchymal hemorrhage (OR=5.69; 95% CI-2.05 to 15.8) and inversely associated with no and negligible dependency (OR=0.40; 95% CI=0.20 to 0.78). Hyperglycemia at baseline only was not associated with any parameter of worse outcome. In patients with diabetes, the dynamic patterns of hyperglycemia did not suggest an association with stroke outcome. Conclusions— Persistent hyperglycemia was associated with all bad outcome end points studied. In addition to a single glucose measurement, the pattern of change should be considered in the prediction of stroke outcome.