Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Predictors of Reading Skill Development in Children with Early Cochlear Implantation

Objective The present study sought to document the word reading and comprehension levels attained by children who were implanted by 5 yr of age. It was hypothesized that the improved speech perception abilities acquired with cochlear implantation would promote phonological coding skills and facilitate the acquisition of beginning reading skills. Design Three subtests from diagnostic reading assessment batteries standardized on hearing children were administered to 181 children between 8 yr 0 mo and 9 yr 11 mo of age who had 4 to 6 yr of implant experience. In addition, a battery of processing measures was administered including a lexical decision task, a rhyme task and the digit span subtest of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. Results Over half of the children scored within the average range for their age compared with the normative data for hearing children. Reading competence was associated with higher nonverbal intelligence, higher family socio-economic status, female gender and later onset of deafness (between birth and 36 mo). After variance due to these child and family characteristics was removed, reading competence was associated with mainstream educational placement, use of an updated implant speech processor with a wide dynamic range, and speech processing characteristics that included longer memory span and use of phonological coding strategies. Reading outcome was most highly predicted by linguistic competence and, secondarily, by speech production skill. Conclusion Children who experience severe to profound deafness early in their development have a better prognosis for normal literacy development than ever before. To the extent that use of a cochlear implant is associated with greater use of phonological coding strategies for decoding print, longer working memory spans for short-term storage of phonemes, words and sentences and accelerated language development for reading comprehension, it should have a facilitative effect on the acquisition of literacy.
Towards Autonomic Service Provisioning Systems

This paper discusses our experience in building SPIRE, an autonomic system for service provision. The architecture consists of a set of hosted Web Services subject to QoS constraints, and a certain number of servers used to run session-based traffic. Customers pay for having their jobs run, but require in turn certain quality guarantees: there are different SLAs specifying charges for running jobs and penalties for failing to meet promised performance metrics. The system is driven by an utility function, aiming at optimizing the average earned revenue per unit time. Demand and performance statistics are collected, while traffic parameters are estimated in order to make dynamic decisions concerning server allocation and admission control. Different utility functions are introduced and a number of experiments aiming at testing their performance are discussed. Results show that revenues can be dramatically improved by imposing suitable conditions for accepting incoming traffic, the proposed system performs well under different traffic settings, and it successfully adapts to changes in the operating environment.
Focusing for Pronoun Resolution in Discourse: An Implementation

Candy Sidner formalized focusing in her 1979 MIT Ph.D. thesis and devised several algorithms to resolve deenite anaphora including pronouns. She presented her theory in a computational framework but did not generally implement the algorithms. Her algorithms related to focusing and pronoun resolution are implemented in this study. This provides a better comprehension of the theory both from a conceptual and a computational point of view. The resulting program has been tested on diierent discourse segments, and an evaluation of the experiments is presented together with the statistical results.
IP Based Traffic Recovery: An Optimal Approach using SDN Application for Data Center Network

With the passage of time and indulgence in Information Technology, network management has proved its significance and has become one of the most important and challenging task in today's era of information flow. Communication networks implement a high level of sophistication in managing and flowing the data through secure channels, to make it almost impossible for data loss. That is why there are many proposed solution that are currently implemented in wide range of network-based applications like social networks and finance applications. The objective of this research paper is to propose a very reliable method of data flow: Choose best path for traffic using SDN application. This is an IP based method in which our SDN application implements provision of best possible path by filtering the requests on base of their IP origin. We'll distinguish among source and will provide the data flow with lowest traffic path, thus resulting in providing us minimum chances of data loss. A request to access our test application will be generated from host and request from each host will be distinguished by our SDN application that will get number of active users for all available servers and will redirect the request to server with minimum traffic load. It will also destroy sessions of inactive users, resulting in maintaining a best responsive channel for data flow.
Suppression of kinesin expression in cultured hippocampal neurons using antisense oligonucleotides

Kinesin, a microtubule-based force-generating molecule, is thought to translocate organelles along microtubules. To examine the function of kinesin in neurons, we sought to suppress kinesin heavy chain (KHC) expression in cultured hippocampal neurons using antisense oligonucleotides and study the phenotype of these KHC "null" cells. Two different antisense oligonucleotides complementary to the KHC sequence reduced the protein levels of the heavy chain by greater than 95% within 24 h after application and produced identical phenotypes. After inhibition of KHC expression for 24 or 48 h, neurons extended an array of neurites often with one neurite longer than the others; however, the length of all these neurites was significantly reduced. Inhibition of KHC expression also altered the distribution of GAP-43 and synapsin I, two proteins thought to be transported in association with membranous organelles. These proteins, which are normally localized at the tips of growing neurites, were confined to the cell body in antisense-treated cells. Treatment of the cells with the corresponding sense oligonucleotides affected neither the distribution of GAP-43 and synapsin I, nor the length of neurites. A full recovery of neurite length occurred after removal of the antisense oligonucleotides from the medium. These data indicate that KHC plays a role in the anterograde translocation of vesicles containing GAP-43 and synapsin I. A deficiency in vesicle delivery may also explain the inhibition of neurite outgrowth. Despite the inhibition of KHC and the failure of GAP- 43 and synapsin I to move out of the cell body, hippocampal neurons can extend processes and acquire as asymmetric morphology.
Thresher: An Efficient Storage Manager for Copy-on-write Snapshots

A new generation of storage systems exploit decreasing storage costs to allow applications to take snapshots of past states and retain them for long durations. Over time, current snapshot techniques can produce large volumes of snapshots. Indiscriminately keeping all snapshots accessible is impractical, even if raw disk storage is cheap, because administering such large-volume storage is expensive over a long duration. Moreover, not all snapshots are equally valuable. Thresher is a new snapshot storage management system, based on novel copy-on-write snapshot techniques, that is the first to provide applications the ability to discriminate among snapshots efficiently. Valuable snapshots can remain accessible or stored with faster access while less valuable snapshots are discarded or moved off-line. Measurements of the Thresher prototype indicate that the new techniques are efficient and scalable, imposing minimal (4%) performance penalty on expected common workloads.
Distributed Termination

Discussed is a distributed system based on communication among disjoint processes, where each process is capable of achieving a post-condition of its local space in such a way that the conjunction of local post-conditions implies a global post-condition of the whole system. The system is then augmented with extra control communication in order to achieve distributed termination, without adding new channels of communication. The algorithm is applied to a problem of constructing a sorted partition.
A Hybrid Intelligent Algorithm for Product Optimization Configuration

Due to the combinatorial nature of product configuration problem and the characteristics of multi-objective and multi-constrain, an effective product configuration model is established to transform the complicated problem into the path optimization problem. A hybrid intelligent algorithm is adopted, which united the genetic principle, the ant colony mechanism and the simulation anneal theory into the original PSO algorithm. Based on the discrete characteristic of the product configuration problem, the hybrid intelligent algorithm is transformed from the sequential to the discrete. The significations of the position and the velocity are redefined, and the operation rules of these variables and the movement equations of the particles are determined. Finally, an example is given to evaluate the performance of the proposed approach. The simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed method in product configuration problem.
Scale Model Experimental Validation and Calibration of the Half-Space Green's Function Born Approximation Model Applied to Cross-Well Radar Sensing

Efficient forward models that describe the physical nature of the geophysical problem are desired for subsurface sensing and reconstruction of a contrasting contaminant pool volume. An analytical model to approximate sensing with radar is developed and implemented in the frequency domain in terms of the half-space lossy dyadic Green's function. The Born approximation is employed as a linear forward model, which will eventually be used for tomographic inversion for object detection. The forward model is compared with measurements generated by a cross-well radar (CWR) experiment in a controlled soil test tank using broadband borehole antennas. Soil parameter (dielectric constant and loss tangent) variance with frequency is represented by a quadratic polynomial. Calibration for soil parameters is performed via CWR data using an iterative nonlinear parameterized inversion technique. With the appropriate calibration, good agreement is obtained with wideband experimental measurements for several different borehole antenna placements, confirming the accuracy of the model.
In vitro modulation of cisplatin resistance by cytokines.

We have previously demonstrated that treatment of wild-type (wt) T98G malignant glioma cells with Cisplatin (CDDP) led to a resistant phenotype. It has been demonstrated that interleukin 1 (IL-1) potentiates the cytotoxic effect of CDDP and that IL-6 decreases cytotoxicity by inhibition of apoptosis in cancer cells. Here we examined the influence of IL-1 and IL-6 on the sensitivity of resistant and wt T98G cells. Using semi-quantitative PCR reactions in three independent experiments, resistant glioma cells revealed a decreased IL-1alpha (50.3+/-7.2), IL-1beta (56.0+/-4.0) and IL-6 (44. 3+/-18.2) mRNA content compared to wt cells (100%;P<0.05). Resistant and wt cells were positive for the receptors IL-1RI and IL-6R (PCR). To investigate whether IL-1alpha, IL-1beta or IL-6 changes the sensitivity of the resistant and wt cells towards CDDP, cells were incubated up to 7 days with 10(-5) M CDDP and with different concentrations (0, 0.01, 0.1, 1 ng/ml) of cytokine. Sensitivity was tested in a colorimetric assay (MTT). IL-6 did not influence the sensitivity towards CDDP of either wt or resistant cells, while IL-1alpha and IL-1beta enhanced sensitivity of resistant cells to CDDP. These data suggest that autocrine IL-1 production is involved in the mechanisms of resistance in T98G cells.
Cigarette Smoking Is Associated With Dose‐Related and Potentially Reversible Impairment of Endothelium‐Dependent Dilation in Healthy Young Adults

BackgroundCigarette smoking is the most important modifiable risk factor for atherosclerosis. Endothelial dysfunction is an early event in atherogenesis, and we hypothesized that smoking might be associated with endothelial damage in the systemic arteries of otherwise healthy young adults. Methods and ResultsWe studied noninvasively the brachial arteries of 200 subjects aged 15 to 57 years, all normotensive, nondiabetic with cholesterol level 5240 mg/dL and no family history of premature vascular disease: 80 control subjects aged 16 to 56 years (mean, 35), 80 current smokers aged 15 to 55 years (mean, 33), and 40 former smokers aged 25 to 57 years (mean, 38). Total lifetime amount smoked varied from 1 to 75 pack years in the smokers. Using high-resolution ultrasound, vessel diameter was measured at rest, during reactive hyperemia (with flow increase causing endothelium-dependent dilation), and after sublingual glyceryl trinitrate (GTN, an endothelium-independent vasodilator). Flow-mediated dilation (FMD) was observed in all the control subjects (10±33%; range, 4% to 22%) but was impaired or absent in the smokers (4±3.9%vo; range, 0% to 17%; P<.0001). FMD in the smokers was inversely related to lifetime dose smoked (6.6±4.0%o in very light smokers, 4.0±3.1% in light smokers, 3.2±3.2% in moderate smokers, and 2.6±1.2% in heavy smokers; P<.01). FMD for the former smokers was 5.1±4.1% (range, 0%/ to 15%). In a multivariate model adjusting for age, sex, cholesterol, smoking history, and vessel size, former smoking was associated with a higher FMD than current smoking (P=.07); when only male former and current smokers were considered, the higher FMD was significant (P=.0001) but not for female smokers (P=.24). GTN caused dilation in all subjects (control subjects, 20±5.2%; smokers, 17±5.8%; former smokers, 17.4±5.4%). Vessel diameter, baseline flow, and degree of reactive hyperemia (Doppler estimated) were similar in all groups. ConclusionsCigarette smoking is associated with dose-related and potentially reversible impairment of endothelium-dependent arterial dilation in asymptomatic young adults, consistent with endothelial dysfunction.
Quantifying the entropic cost of cellular growth control

We quantify the amount of regulation required to control growth in living cells by a Maximum Entropy approach to the space of underlying metabolic states described by genome-scale models. Results obtained for E. coli and human cells are consistent with experiments and point to different regulatory strategies by which growth can be fostered or repressed. Moreover we explicitly connect the ‘inverse temperature’ that controls MaxEnt distributions to the growth dynamics, showing that the initial size of a colony may be crucial in determining how an exponentially growing population organizes the phenotypic space.
Experiences with the Implementation of a Process Migration Mechanism for Amoeba

We describe our experiences with the implementation of a process migration mechanism for the distributed operating system Amoeba. After describing our design goals, we present our implementation for Amoeba. Though our goals have very largely been met, we have fallen short of the goal of complete transparency, and we discuss the consequences of that. We also present performance figures, indicating that the speed of process migration is limited only by the throughput of the network adapters used in our configuration, and that the overhead is comparable to that of process creation. We conclude with a review of the degree to which our design goals have been met, and discussion of the lessons learnt.
Risk factors of supraventricular arrhythmia in adults with congenital heart disease.

BACKGROUND Supraventricular arrhythmia (SVA) is a frequent clinical complication in adult patients with congenital heart disease (CHD). The aim of this study is prognostic evaluation of congenital heart defect complexity, performed cardiac surgery, initial functional impairment of the heart - NYHA > I, cyanosis, age and sex of the adult patients with CHD, presenting for the first time to an outpatient clinic, on SVA occurrence during long-term observation. METHODS We looked at 1,304 patients (586 men), aged 18-72 years (mean 29.4 +/- 10.6 years), and followed-up from 1995 to 2004. The mean observation period was 3.52 +/- 1.83 years. SVA in the form of atrial flutter/fibrillation (FA/FLA) and supraventricular tachycardia was observed in 133 patients, 10.3% of the study population. Ten-year follow-up showed that the likelihood of SVA occurrence in the whole studied population after two years was 5.2%, and 14.4% after ten years. RESULTS Univariate analysis proved that the incidence of SVA is greater in patients with complex heart defects (p = 0.0001), those not previously operated upon (p = 0.0001), those with baseline impairment of cardiac function (NYHA > I; p = 0.0001) and those with cyanosis (0.0001). The patient's sex seems to have little significance. Cox regression analysis showed that baseline heart failure is the strongest risk factor for SVA (HR = 4.66). Congenital heart defect complexity (HR = 2.31) and the patient's age are also significant prognostic factors of this arrhythmia (HR = 1.32). Cardiac surgery, cyanosis and patient sex are not significant in prognosis. CONCLUSIONS Baseline impairment of heart function, heart defect complexity and patient's age all increase the risk of SVA in the population of adults with congenital heart disease. Cyanosis and the lack of cardiac surgery in the past led to a higher incidence of the analyzed arrhythmia but are not risk factors for its occurrence. Gender has no prognostic significance for SVA.
of the 23 rd Annual EMBS International Conference , October 25-28 , Istanbul , Turkey HOW EFFICIENTLY A GANGLION CELL CODES THE VISUAL SIGNAL

Ahrtraa-The retina's visual message is transmitted to the brain by ganglion cells that integrate noisy synaptic inputs to create a spike train. We asked how efficiently the retinal ganglion cell spike generator creates the spike train message. Intracellular and extracellular recordings were made from in vilro guinea pig retina, in response to a spot of light flashed over the receptive field center. Responses were analyzed nith an "ideal observer," a program that discriminated between two contrasts based on an optimal decision rule. Spike trains from ganglion cells had thresholds as low as 1% contrast, but thresholds for the cur. responding graded potentials were loner by a factor of 2. Using a computational model of the ganglion cell, we asked what factors in the spike generator mechanism are responsible for the spike train's loss in performance. The model included dendritidaxonal morphology, noisy synaptic inputs and membrane channels. Adaptation of spike rate was provided by K(Ca) channels which were actirated by Ca2+ flux during spikes. When K(Ca) channels were included, they controlled the duration of the inter-spike interval and thus set the level of noise in the spike train. These results imply that the spike generator adds noise lo the spike train signal.
Scheduling problems of automated guided vehicles in job shop, flow shop, and container terminals

Automated guided vehicles have been widely used in flexible manufacturing systems especially in a job shop and flow shop. Recently, they are included in other fields such as container terminals. This paper demonstrates a literature review of the last three decades about the scheduling problems of the automated guided vehicles in three main classes, namely job shops, flow shops, and container terminals. We classify the literature according to the scheduling problems and the solution approaches. The results of the survey are that the solution methods mainly focus on using simulation as a key performance analysis tool, whereas, the big computation times of the developed mathematical models make heuristics approaches are dominant for solving such models. After that, we discuss research gaps to the purpose of finding new research directions.
Evaluating equipment manufacturing enterprise information system adaptaption based on complexity theory

This paper studies the adaptation of enterprise information system in equipment manufacturing industry. In order to overcome the inadequacy of previous research, the study analysizes the connotation and internal composition of system adaptation. The internal composition of system adaptation includes organization, cooperation, and technique. Complexity adaptation analysis is conducted for equipment manufacturing enterprise information system. Finally, emphasis is placed on the evaluation model of equipment manufacturing enterprise information system adaptation.
Identification of a Selective Small-Molecule Inhibitor Series Targeting the Eyes Absent 2 (Eya2) Phosphatase Activity

Eya proteins are essential coactivators of the Six family of homeobox transcription factors and also contain a unique protein tyrosine phosphatase activity, belonging to the haloacid dehalogenase family of phosphatases. The phosphatase activity of Eya is important for a subset of Six1-mediated transcription, making this a unique type of transcriptional control. It is also responsible for directing cells to the repair instead of apoptosis pathway upon DNA damage. Furthermore, the phosphatase activity of Eya is critical for transformation, migration, invasion, and metastasis of breast cancer cells. Thus, inhibitors of the Eya phosphatase activity may be antitumorigenic and antimetastatic, as well as sensitize cancer cells to DNA damage-inducing therapies. In this article, we identified a previously unknown chemical series using high-throughput screening that inhibits the Eya2 phosphatase activity with IC50s ranging from 1.8 to 79 µM. Compound activity was confirmed using an alternative malachite green assay and H2AX, a known Eya substrate. Importantly, these Eya2 phosphatase inhibitors show specificity and do not significantly inhibit several other cellular phosphatases. Our studies identify the first selective Eya2 phosphatase inhibitors that can potentially be developed into chemical probes for functional studies of Eya phosphatase or into anticancer drugs in the future.
Counting plane graphs: perfect matchings, spanning cycles, and Kasteleyn's technique

We derive improved upper bounds on the number of crossing-free straight-edge spanning cycles (also known as Hamiltonian tours and simple polygonizations) that can be embedded over any specific set of N points in the plane. More specifically, we bound the ratio between the number of spanning cycles (or perfect matchings) that can be embedded over a point set and the number of triangulations that can be embedded over it. The respective bounds are O(1.8181N) for cycles and O(1.1067N) for matchings. These imply a new upper bound of O(54.543N) on the number of crossing-free straight-edge spanning cycles that can be embedded over any specific set of N points in the plane (improving upon the previous best upper bound O(68.664N)). Our analysis is based on a weighted variant of Kasteleyn's linear algebra technique.
Exotic phase transitions of k-cores in clustered networks

The giant k-core-maximal connected subgraph of a network where each node has at least k neighbors-is important in the study of phase transitions and in applications of network theory. Unlike Erdős-Rényi graphs and other random networks where k-cores emerge discontinuously for k≥3, we show that transitive linking (or triadic closure) leads to 3-cores emerging through single or double phase transitions of both discontinuous and continuous nature. We also develop a k-core calculation that includes clustering and provides insights into how high-level connectivity emerges.