Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Panel on "Issues on Concurrent Transaction and Query Processing"

Today’s database systems control the execution of concurrent transactions by ensuring the serializability condition. Serializability is easy to understand and allows to reason about a transaction independently of others. The application programmer only needs to specify the statements which constitute a single transaction. However, operations at the system-internal level are synchronized differently. For example, operations on B+trees are synchronized by applying specific tree locking protocols. In addition, some relational database systems guarantee atomicity of operations on tuples with short locks at the page level. The appearance of non-conventional applications like CAD/CAM, office automation, and electronic publishing together with the need to integrate distributed, heterogeneous and even autonomous database systems imposes some further requirements on transaction and query processing [3]. For example, how can long-lasting transactions be synchronized since they tend to decrease heavily the amount of possible parallelism? How can the restrictions of serializability be relaxed? How can locks on large objects be released earlier? How can we integrate different transaction managers?
Living the Global Transport Network in Great Expectations

Great Expectations (1860–61) offers a lesson in what it meant to live through the nineteenth century’s global revolution in transportation. The narrating protagonist Pip, looking back from 1860, structures his story partly around his recognition that he was born into an increasingly connected global network. From a first-person perspective, unknown activity at a distance—such as that of the convict Magwitch in Australia—turns out to be synchronically consequential. Rather than discovering, however, the fragmentation of an unknowable world, the narrator learns from the collocation and interchangeability of the transport system’s passengers. These help to contribute to the development of Pip’s limited third-person view of himself, from which the narrator relays his story as a networked subject.
Chromosomal alterations of Candida albicans are associated with the gain and loss of assimilating functions

We have demonstrated that a normal laboratory strain of Candida albicans spontaneously produces mutants which acquire the ability to assimilate certain carbon sources that are not utilized by the parental strain. The examination of mutants acquiring the ability to utilize either sorbose or D-arabinose revealed a few additional phenotypic changes, including the gain and loss of the capacity to assimilate other carbon sources. The change of assimilation patterns resembled the polymorphic variation of assimilation patterns found among different wild-type strains of C. albicans. Most importantly, these sorbose- and D-arabinose-positive mutants were associated with chromosomal rearrangements, with each class of positive mutants having alterations of specific chromosomes. These findings demonstrated for the first time that chromosomal alterations in C. albicans are involved in genetic variation of fundamental functions of this asexual microorganism.
Avian influenza virus infections. 3. Antibody response by turkeys to influenza A-turkey-Wisconsin-1966 virus.

SUMMARY The antibody responses of turkeys to Influenza A/Turk/Wis/66 virus were measured by the HI test. Response varied considerably with the amount of virus received and the environmental conditions. High levels of antibody, 80 or greater (expressed as the reciprocal), were usually transient. Most responses were in the range of 10-40. Antibody usually persisted for up to seven months, with the levels rising if turkeys were subjected to stress by chilling. These data suggested that virus persisted in some turkeys for long periods and could be released to immune competent cells upon cold stress. It was concluded that HI titers of 10 or greater signify infection, past or present. Such information could be useful for the conduct of serological surveys.
MOULD PREVENTION STRATEGIES FOR LIBRARY BUILDINGS IN TROPICAL CLIMATE

This paper presents mould prevention strategies that should be applied in the library buildings. Library constructed in tropical climatic conditions must be moisture controlled from fungi or mould growth on any potential material. In order to identify the magnitude and the causes for mould growth, comprehensive research was carried out within three libraries in Malaysia universities. Aspergillus, Penicillium, Stachybotrys's and fungal had been identified as a common mould growth found. Thus, the growth of mould on the building elements such as walls and floors carpets, books, air conditioning parts of the surrounding library areas will be inevitable unless prevention strategies applied. Four strategies have been identified as possible mould prevention strategies in the library building.
Differential Expression of Matrix Metalloproteinases and Inhibitors in Developing Rat Lung Mesenchymal and Epithelial Cells

Lung development requires extracellular matrix remodeling. This involves matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and their endogenous inhibitors [tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases (TIMPs)]. Because these have been generally studied only in whole lung, we focused specifically on mesenchymal and epithelial cells freshly isolated at various developmental stages. In fibroblasts, the most striking developmental change was a peak (fourfold the prenatal level) of membrane type 1 (MT1)-MMP transcript during alveolarization, consistent with the known crucial role of MT1-MMP in this process. TIMP-1 and -2 mRNAs transiently increased on postnatal d (pn) 3. In alveolar epithelial cells (AECs), MMP-2 expression was maximal on fetal d (f) 19 when alveolar type II cells (ATII) differentiate and on pn5; by contrast, MT1-MMP expression changed little and TIMP-1 expression decreased with advancing gestation. In cells expressing in vitro the ATI phenotype, TIMP-1 and -2 activities were nine- and fivefold those in cells expressing ATII features, respectively, whereas ATII presented higher MMP-2 activity and were the only cell type to express MMP-9. This indicates higher remodeling potential for ATII. Pulmonary mesenchymal and epithelial cells have therefore quite distinct MMP/TIMP expression patterns. Changes in cell compartments should be specifically documented in developing lung diseases such as bronchopulmonary dysplasia in which changes in MMP activities have been reported.
The influence of early feeding practices on fruit and vegetable intake among preschool children in 4 European birth cohorts.

BACKGROUND Fruit and vegetable intake in children remains below recommendations in many countries. The long-term effects of early parental feeding practices on fruit and vegetable intake are not clearly established. OBJECTIVE The purpose of the current study was to examine whether early feeding practices influence later fruit and vegetable intake in preschool children. DESIGN The study used data from 4 European cohorts: the British Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), the French Etude des Déterminants pre et postnatals de la santé et du développement de l'Enfant study, the Portuguese Generation XXI Birth Cohort, and the Greek EuroPrevall study. Fruit and vegetable intake was assessed in each cohort by food-frequency questionnaire. Associations between early feeding practices, such as breastfeeding and timing of complementary feeding, and fruit and/or vegetable intake in 2-4-y-old children were tested by using logistic regressions, separately in each cohort, after adjustment for infant's age and sex and maternal age, educational level, smoking during pregnancy, and maternal fruit and vegetable intake. RESULTS Large differences in early feeding practices were highlighted across the 4 European cohorts with longer breastfeeding duration in the Generation XXI Birth Cohort and earlier introduction to complementary foods in ALSPAC. Longer breastfeeding duration was consistently related to higher fruit and vegetable intake in young children, whereas the associations with age of introduction to fruit and vegetable intake were weaker and less consistent across the cohorts. Mothers' fruit and vegetable intake (available in 3 of the cohorts) did not substantially attenuate the relation with breastfeeding duration. CONCLUSION The concordant positive association between breastfeeding duration and fruit and vegetable intake in different cultural contexts favors an independent specific effect.
Dense-Granule Protein NcGRA7, a New Marker for the Serodiagnosis of Neospora caninum Infection in Aborting Cows

ABSTRACT To investigate whether the production of an antigen-specific antibody is associated with Neospora caninum-induced bovine abortion, 62 serum samples were tested with an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay using the recombinant antigens NcSAG1, NcSRS2, and NcGRA7. Our study suggested that NcGRA7 would be a new marker for the serodiagnosis of N. caninum infection resulting in abortion.
PHONOLOGICAL DESCRIPTIONS OF PLANG SPOKEN IN MAN NOI, LA GANG, AND BANG DENG VILLAGES (IN CHINA)

This thesis presents phonological descriptions of three Plang villages in Menghai County of Xishuangbanna Tai Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan Province of the People's Republic of China. Plang is a Mon-Khmer language of the Palaungic branch. The purpose of this thesis is to give phonological descriptions of Man Noi, La Gang, and Bang Deng Plang for the purpose of determining, from a phonological perspective, if these three varieties could be written with one single orthography. The phonological description will include word structure, syllable structure, phonemes, register complex, and tonal analysis. This thesis found that these varieties of Plang do not differ enough phonologically to require three separate orthographies. The main difference between the varieties is that La Gang, unlike Man Noi and Bang Deng, has not lost voiceless nasals. There for the orthography would need to include a grapheme for these phonemes. This would lead to an overdifferentiation for readers from Man Noi and Bang Deng.
Development of a novel mouse model for dengue virus infection.

In the present study, we established an animal model for dengue virus infection using severe combined immunodeficient mice transplanted with a human hepatocarcinoma cell line (HepG2). At 7-8 weeks after transplantation, the HepG2-grafted mice were infected intraperitoneally with dengue virus type 2 (DEN-2). A higher titer of the virus was detected in the liver and serum but not in the brain in the early stage of postinfection. When the mice showed paralysis, the highest titer of virus was detected in the serum and brain. DEN-2 antigens were also found in HepG2 cells of the liver in the early stage and some neurons of the brain in the late stage. Upon clinical examination, thrombocytopenia, prolonged partial thromboplastin time, and increased hematocrit, blood urea nitrogen, and tumor necrosis factor alpha were seen in the paralyzed mice. Moreover, mild hemorrhage in the liver and tarry stool in the small intestine were observed in some mice. Our results show some similarities to human DEN infection and this mouse model might be valuable for studying some aspects of pathogenesis of this disease.
Probabilistic characterization of uncertainty in the photovoltaic cell modeling

In the paper the uncertainty of the photovoltaic (PV) cell model, by properly deriving the probability density function of the interest parameters, is characterized. This issue is crucial for predicting the capability of the photovoltaic source in producing electrical energy, but also for the control aspects of designing an efficient Maximum Power Point Tracker (MPPT). The PV source is modeled by means of a five parameters model: Iph, I0, VT, Rs and Rsh. The probabilistic approach is based upon the knowledge of the cell datasheet. The shunt resistance Rsh, in absence of information, is characterized by a Gamma distribution. A statistical analysis, based upon Monte Carlo simulation, is performed for verify how the other parameters can be affected by the stochastic nature of the random variable. In the final part of the paper, the uncertainty of the datasheet values is also introduced. A case study is reported and the numerical results are discussed in detail.
Feature Selection for Summarising: The Sunderland DUC 2004 Experience

In this paper we describe our participation in task 1-very short single-document summaries in DUC 2004. The task chosen is related to our research project, which aims to produce abstracting summaries to improve search engine result summaries. DUC allowed us to produce summaries no longer than 75 characters, therefore we focused on feature selection to produce a set of key words as summaries instead of complete sentences. Three descriptions of our summarisers are given. Each of the summarisers performs very differently in the six ROUGE metrics. One of our summarisers which uses a simple algorithm to produce summaries without any supervised learning or complicated NLP technique performs surprisingly well among different ROUGE evaluations. Finally we give an analysis of ROUGE and participants’ results. ROUGE is an automatic evaluation of summaries package, which uses n-gram matching to calculate the overlapping between machine and human summaries, and indeed saves time for human evaluation. However, the different ROUGE metrics give different results and it is hard to judge which is the best for automatic summaries evaluation. Also it does not include complete sentences evaluation. Therefore we suggest some work needs to be done on ROUGE in the future to make it really effective.
Limits to Dihydrogen Incorporation into Electron Sinks Alternative to Methanogenesis in Ruminal Fermentation

Research is being conducted with the objective of decreasing methane (CH4) production in the rumen, as methane emissions from ruminants are environmentally damaging and a loss of digestible energy to ruminants. Inhibiting ruminal methanogenesis generally results in accumulation of dihydrogen (H2), which is energetically inefficient and can inhibit fermentation. It would be nutritionally beneficial to incorporate accumulated H2 into propionate or butyrate production, or reductive acetogenesis. The objective of this analysis was to examine three possible physicochemical limitations to the incorporation of accumulated H2 into propionate and butyrate production, and reductive acetogenesis, in methanogenesis-inhibited ruminal batch and continuous cultures: (i) Thermodynamics; (ii) Enzyme kinetics; (iii) Substrate kinetics. Batch (N = 109) and continuous (N = 43) culture databases of experiments with at least 50% inhibition in CH4 production were used in this meta-analysis. Incorporation of accumulated H2 into propionate production and reductive acetogenesis seemed to be thermodynamically feasible but quite close to equilibrium, whereas this was less clear for butyrate. With regard to enzyme kinetics, it was speculated that hydrogenases of ruminal microorganisms may have evolved toward high-affinity and low maximal velocity to compete for traces of H2, rather than for high pressure accumulated H2. Responses so far obtained to the addition of propionate production intermediates do not allow distinguishing between thermodynamic and substrate kinetics control.
Accelerated dendritic development of rat cortical pyramidal cells and interneurons after biolistic transfection with BDNF and NT4/5

Neurotrophins are candidate molecules for regulating dendritogenesis. We report here on dendritic growth of rat visual cortex pyramidal and interneurons overexpressing `brain-derived neurotrophic factor' BDNF and `neurotrophin 4/5' NT4/5. Neurons in organotypic cultures were transfected with plasmids encoding either `enhanced green fluorescent protein' EGFP, BDNF/EGFP or NT4/5/EGFP either at the day of birth with analysis at 5 days in vitro, or at 5 days in vitro with analysis at 10 days in vitro. In pyramidal neurons, both TrkB ligands increased dendritic length and number of segments without affecting maximum branch order and number of primary dendrites. In the early time window, only infragranular neurons were responsive. Neurons in layers II/III became responsive to NT4/5, but not BDNF, during the later time window. BDNF and NT4/5 transfectants at 10 days in vitro had still significantly shorter dendrites than adult pyramidal neurons, suggesting a massive growth spurt after 10 days in vitro. However, segment numbers were already in the range of adult neurons. Although this suggested a role for BDNF, long-term activity-deprived, and thus BDNF-deprived, pyramidal cells developed a dendritic complexity not different from neurons in active cultures except for higher spine densities on neurons of layers II/III and VI. Neutralization of endogenous NT4/5 causes shorter and less branched dendrites at 10 days in vitro suggesting an essential role for NT4/5. Neutralization of BDNF had no effect. Transfected multipolar interneurons became identifiable during the second time window. Both TrkB ligands significantly increased number of segments and branch order towards the adult state with little effects on dendritic length. The results suggested that early in development BDNF and NT4/5 probably accelerate dendritogenesis in an autocrine fashion. In particular, branch formation was advanced towards the adult pattern in pyramidal cells and interneurons.
The incretin response after successful islet transplantation.

1. Montgomery RA. Renal transplantation across HLA and ABO antibody barriers: integrating paired donation into desensitization protocols. Am J Transplant 2010; 10: 449. 2. Noreen HJ, McKinley DM, Gillingham KJ, et al. Positive remote crossmatch: impact on shortterm and long-term outcome in cadaver renal transplantation. Transplantation. 2003;75:501. 3. Montgomery JR, Berger JC, Warren DS, et al. Outcomes of ABO incompatible kidney transplantation in the United States. Transplantation 2012; 93: 603. 4. Montgomery RA, Lonze BE, King KE, et al. Desensitization in HLA-incompatible kidney recipients and survival. N Engl J Med 2011; 365: 318.
Tuning a fuzzy racing car by coevolution

In this paper, we design, build and tune a fuzzy rule-based car controller for FUZZ-IEEE 2007 Car Racing Competition. The membership functions of the car controller are tuned with coevolutionary genetic algorithms. Cooperative and competitive approaches to tuning parameters are compared. In principle, results obtained with a cooperative approach with a BLX cross operator are slightly better than results derived from a competitive method with a 1-point cross operator. In any case, further experiments are needed to support our findings.
University of Huddersfield Repository A New Semantic Hierarchical Storage for Sensor Data

—Sensor networks usually generate mass of data, which if not structured for future applications, will require much effort on analytical processing and interpretations. Thus, storing sensor data in an effective and structured format is a key issue in the area of sensor networks. In the meantime, even a little improvement on data storing structure may lead to a significant effect on the lifetime and performance of the sensor network. This paper describes a new method for sensor storage that combines semantic web concepts, a data aggregation method along with aligning sensors in hierarchical form. This solution is able to reduce the amount of data stored at the sink nodes significantly. At the same time, the method structures sensed data in a way that we can respond to semantic web-based queries with less consumption of energy compared to previous conventional methods. Results show that, in some situations especially when the diversity of query responses and life of network are vital, the efficiency of our new solution is much better.
[Effects of prenatal exposure to stress and lead on spatial learning and memory development in rats].

OBJECTIVE To explore the effects of prenatal exposure to stress and lead on spatial learning and memory development in rats. METHODS All 32 Sprague-Dawley (SD) pregnant rats were divided randomly into 4 groups, 8 per group in line with the Random Number Table. The four groups were: no maternal stress, no Pb exposure (NS/C); non-maternal stress, Pb exposure (NS/L), maternal stress, no Pb exposure (S/C), and maternal stress plus Pb exposure (S/L). The spatial learning and memory ability, the serum corticosterone level both pre and post-testing of 30-day old offsprings, and lead concentration in hippocampus were tested by means of Morris Water Maze, radioimmunoassay and Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). RESULTS The residence time of male and female in NS/L was (16.08+/-3.41) s, (15.72+/-3.33) s, which were significantly shorter than NS/L (25.42+/-4.76) s, (24.55+/-4.43) s and S/C (20.96+/-3.45) s, (20.65+/-2.98) s, and significant difference was observed in the joint exposure effect (F=5.478, P<0.05). The effect of the joint exposure was significant on post-testing serum corticosterone. The hippocampus lead concentrations of NS/L and S/L were (0.4378+/-0.1041) microg/g and (0.4679+/-0.1243) microg/g without significant differences (F=0.298, P>0.05). CONCLUSION Prenatal joint exposure to restraint stress and lead might increase the effects of single exposure on the spatial learning and memory ability and serum corticosterone level of offsprings, and the joint influence on corticosterone level might be one of the reasons of further impairment of learning and memory.
Escherichia coli adhesion to Saccharomyces cerevisiae and mammalian cells: role of piliation and surface hydrophobicity

A number of Escherichia coli strains isolated from patients with urinary tract infections, bacteremia, or diarrhea were studied with respect to their (i) capacity to agglutinate human AB, bovine, and guinea pig erythrocytes as well as yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) cells; (ii) adhesion to monolayers of cells from human intestine (intestine 407; ATCC CCL6), monkey kidney (Vero; ATCC CCL81), feline embryo (Flow no. 05-552), and porcine kidney (PK1; ATCC CRL1392) and of primary rat kidney cell cultures; and (iii) surface hydrophobicity as measured by hydrophobic interaction chromatography. No correlation could be found between the capacity of the bacteria to adhere to the different cultured mammalian cells and their agglutination patterns. The results indicated not only a complexity of bacterial receptors on the eucaryotic cells, but also a multiplicity of bacterial adhesions as expressed by the selectivity of bacterial binding. Binding of bacteria was found to be attributed to the presence of pili on the bacterial surface. It was observed that the bacteria were differently piliated: some had only common type I or related pili which gave rise to mannose-sensitive (MS) adhesion or agglutination (MS pili), some had only pili which gave rise to mannose-resistant (MR) adhesion or agglutination (MR pili), and some had both MS and MR pili. Bacteria with MS pili were more hydrophobic than those with MR pili or with none at all.
Comparison and Choice: Relations between Similarity Processes and Decision Processes

two anonymous reviewers, and especially Hal Arkes for valuable advice , comments, and suggestions. The research described in this article conforms to the American Psychological Association ethical standards for research involving human participants. Research and theory in decision making and in similarity judgment have developed along parallel paths. We review and analyze phenomena in both domains that suggest that similarity processing and decision making share important correspondences. The parallels are explored at the level of empirical generalizations and underlying processing principles. Important component processes that are shared by similarity judgments and decision making include generation of alternatives, recruitment of reference points, dynamic weighting of aspects, creation of new descriptors, development of correspondences between items, and justification of judgment.