Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of Proliferating Cell Nuclear Antigen Expression in Odontogenic Keratocyst and Ameloblastoma: An Immunohistochemical Study

Proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) is a nuclear protein synthesized in the late G1 and S phase of the cell cycle, and immunohistochemical detection of the protein represents a useful marker for the proliferating fraction of cells in tissue specimens. PCNA expression was studied in odontogenic keratocysts (n = 15) and ameloblastomas (n = 46) using an avidin–biotin–peroxidase complex method on routinely processed paraffin sections. The percentage of PCNA-positive cells determined by point counting was significantly lower in the ameloblastomas (mean 9.4%, standard deviation (SD) 11.0) than in odontogenic keratocysts (mean 29.9%, SD 24.0). In ameloblastomas, the mean percentage of PCNA-positive cells was lowest in the acanthomatous pattern and highest in plexiform pattern. The mean percentage of PCNA-positive cells in plexiform pattern was non-significantly higher than that in follicular pattern. The mean percentage of PCNA-positive cells in plexiform and follicular patterns was significantly higher than that in cyctic and acanthomatous patterns. The frequency of PCNA-positive cells was significantly higher in the peripheral cells of follicular and plexiform patterns than in the central cells of both patterns (p < 0.01). Therefore, peripheral cells were regarded as reserve cell of central cells. The mean percentage of PCNA-positive cells in the epithelial lining of odontogenic keratocyst was not significantly different from those in the peripheral cells of follicular and plexiform patterns of ameloblastoma. In contrast, the odontogenic keratocyst exhibited a mean percentage of PCNA-positive cells which was statistically higher than that in other histological elements of ameloblastomas. The present study suggests that odontogenic keratocyst is regarded as benign odontogenic tumour.
Monetizing the Cloud: Pricing Model Governance

Infrastructure cloud providers provision computing capacity in the form of virtual instances and charge customers on a time-varying price for the period they use these instances. The providers problem is to choose most appropriate set of resources for provisioning so as to maximize expected revenue and at the same time satisfy tenancy demand fluctuations. This paper describes our position on a pricing model to be used by small or medium sized cloud providers who have limited set of resources, unlike the usual IaaS providers who are assumed to own large data centres. We briefly put forth the currently employed pricing strategies in general and outline challenges and complexities from the perspective of cloud providers. Our model is geared towards maximizing provider revenue and is based on optimal resource capacity utilization and offers a transparent pay-as-you-go payment model.
Understanding Public Libraries’ Conversations: Promises and Challenges of Microblogging Data

This paper examines the concept of “conversation” on Twitter as expressed by both social media metrics and network analysis. This paper offers a methodology for studying library engagement on Twitter and reflexively critiques the method to probe different discursive styles and technical expressions of “engagement” by Canadian public libraries.Cet article examine le concept de « conversation » sur Twitter tel qu'il est exprimé par les métriques de médias sociaux et l'analyse de réseau. L’article propose une méthodologie pour étudier l'engagement des bibliothèques sur Twitter et critique par réflexe la méthode pour sonder différents styles discursifs et expressions techniques de « l'engagement » des bibliothèques publiques canadiennes.
Speaker authentication using video-based lip information

The lip-region can be interpreted as either a genetic or behavioural biometric trait depending on whether static or dynamic information is used. In this paper, we use a texture descriptor called Local Ordinal Contrast Pattern (LOCP) in conjunction with a novel spatiotemporal sampling method called Windowed Three Orthogonal Planes (WTOP) to represent both appearance and dynamics features observed in visual speech. This representation, with standard speaker verification engines, is shown to improve the performance of the lipbiometric trait compared to the state-of-the-art. The improvement obtained suggests that there is enough discriminative information in the mouth-region to enable its use as a primary biometric as opposed to a “soft” biometric trait.
MINI-DB : A Pedagogical tool for Teaching Advanced Database Systems

It seems that designing and implementing database engines may have become a lost art. Although most standard database text books [1] [2] [3] include ample coverage of algorithms for design and implementation database engines, many computer science programs seem to provide minimal coverage of file organizations, theoretical foundations, and algorithms necessary to build a database engine. The systematic removal of “file organizations and information retrieval” as a topic of study coupled with greater emphasis on the so called “practical applications” of databases, have joined hands to eliminate the coverage of theory and implementation of the underlying database engine.
A randomized controlled trial of interventions to promote cervical cancer screening among Chinese women in North America.

BACKGROUND North American Chinese women have lower levels of Papanicolaou (Pap) testing than other population subgroups. We conducted a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of two alternative cervical cancer screening interventions for Chinese women living in North America. METHODS Four hundred and eighty-two Pap testing underutilizers were identified from community-based surveys of Chinese women conducted in Seattle, Washington, and Vancouver, British Columbia. These women were randomly assigned to one of two experimental arms or control status. Several Chinese-language materials were used in both experimental arms: an education-entertainment video, a motivational pamphlet, an educational brochure, and a fact sheet. Women in the first experimental group (outreach worker intervention) received the materials, as well as tailored counseling and logistic assistance, during home visits by trilingual, bicultural outreach workers. Those in the second experimental group (direct mail intervention) received the materials by mail. The control group received usual care. Follow-up surveys were completed 6 months after randomization to ascertain participants' Pap testing behavior. All statistical tests were two-sided. RESULTS A total of 402 women responded to the follow-up survey (83% response rate). Of these women, 50 (39%) of the 129 women in the outreach group, 35 (25%) of the 139 women in the direct mail group, and 20 (15%) of the 134 women in the control group reported Pap testing in the interval between randomization and follow-up data collection (P<.001 for outreach worker versus control, P =.03 for direct mail versus control, and P =.02 for outreach worker versus direct mail). Intervention effects were greater in Vancouver than in Seattle. CONCLUSION Culturally and linguistically appropriate interventions may improve Pap testing levels among Chinese women in North America.
Growth-Phase-Dependent Expression of the Cyclopeptide Antibiotic Microcin J25

ABSTRACT Microcin J25 is a 2,107-Da, plasmid-encoded, cyclopeptide antibiotic produced by Escherichia coli. We have isolatedlacZ fusions to mcjA (encoding the 58-amino-acid microcin precursor) and mcjB andmcjC (which are required for microcin maturation), and the regulation of these fusions was used to identify factors that control the expression of these genes. The mcjA gene was found to be dramatically induced as cells entered the stationary phase. Expression of mcjA could be induced by resuspending uninduced exponential-phase cells in spent supernatant obtained from an early-stationary-phase culture. Induction of mcjAexpression was not dependent on high cell density, pH changes, anaerobiosis, or the buildup of some inducer. A starvation for carbon and inorganic phosphate induced mcjA expression, while under nitrogen limitation there was no induction at all. These results taken together suggest that stationary-phase induction ofmcjA is triggered by nutrient depletion. ThemcjB and mcjC genes were also regulated by the growth phase of the culture, but in contrast to mcjA, they showed substantial expression already during exponential growth. Induction of the microcin genes was demonstrated to be independent of RpoS, the cyclic AMP-Crp complex, OmpR, and H-NS. Instead, we found that the growth-phase-dependent expression of mcjA,mcjB, and mcjC may be explained by the concerted action of the positively acting transition state regulators ppGpp, Lrp, and integration host factor. Measurements of microcin J25 production by strains defective in these global regulators showed a good correlation with the reduced expression of the fusions in such mutant backgrounds.
Conclusions of the Joint WHO/UNICEF/IAEA/IZiNCG Interagency Meeting on Zinc Status Indicators

Zinc deficiency is an important cause of morbidity in developing countries, particularly among young children, yet little information is available on the global prevalence of zinc deficiency. A working group meeting was convened by the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the International Zinc Nutrition Consultative Group (IZiNCG) to review methods of assessing population zinc status and provide standard recommendations for the use of specific biochemical, dietary, and functional indicators of zinc status in populations. The recommended biochemical indicator is the prevalence of serum zinc concentration less than the age/sex/time of day-specific cutoffs; when the prevalence is greater than 20%, intervention to improve zinc status is recommended. For dietary indicators, the prevalence (or probability) of zinc intakes below the appropriate estimated average requirement (EAR) should be used, as determined from quantitative dietary intake assessments. Where the prevalence of inadequate intakes of zinc is greater than 25%, the risk of zinc deficiency is considered to be elevated. Previous studies indicate that stunted children respond to zinc supplementation with increased growth. When the prevalence of low height-for-age is 20% or more, the prevalence of zinc deficiency may also be elevated. Ideally, all three types of indicators would be used together to obtain the best estimate of the risk of zinc deficiency in a population and to identify specific subgroups with elevated risk. These recommended indicators should be applied for national assessment of zinc status and to indicate the need for zinc interventions. The prevalence of low serum zinc and inadequate zinc intakes may be used to evaluate their impact on the target population's zinc status.
Interspecific hybridization as a genomic stressor inducing mobilization of transposable elements in Drosophila

Transposable elements (TEs) are DNA sequences able to be mobilized in host genomes. They are currently recognized as the major mutation inducers because of their insertion in the target, their effect on neighboring regions, or their ectopic recombination. A large number of factors including chemical and physical factors as well as intraspecific crosses have traditionally been identified as inducers of transposition. Besides environmental factors, interspecific crosses have also been proposed as promoters of transposition of particular TEs in plants and different animals. Our previous published work includes a genome-wide survey with the set of genomic TEs and shows that interspecific hybridization between the species Drosophila buzzatii and Drosophila koepferae induces genomic instability by transposition bursts. A high percentage of this instability corresponds to TEs belonging to classes I and II. The detailed study of three TEs (Osvaldo, Helena, and Galileo), representative of the different TE families, shows an increase of transposition in hybrids compared with parental species, that varies depending on the element. This study suggests ample variation in TE regulation mechanisms and the question is why this variation occurs. Interspecific hybridization is a genomic stressor that disrupts the stability of TEs probably contributing to a relaxation of the mechanisms controlling TEs in the Drosophila genome. In this commentary paper we will discuss these results and the molecular mechanisms that could explain these increases of transposition rates observed in interspecific Drosophila hybrids.
Potential Fields Generated by Oblique Dipole Layers Modeling Excitation Wavefronts in the Anisotropic Myocardium: Comparison with Potential Fields Elicited by Paced Dog Hearts in a Volume Conductor

The potential distribution in a homogeneous, cylindrical volume conductor surrounding an isolated paced dog heart was first measured and then calculated by using a mathematical model that simulates an anisotropic excitation wavefront spreading through the heart muscle. The study was performed with a view to establish to what extent the anisotropy of cardiac generators affects the potential field in the extra-cardiac conducting media at a great distance from the heart. The model considers an oblique dipole layer on the wavefront which, assuming axial symmetry of the electrical properties of the fibers, can be viewed as the superposition of an axial and a transverse dipole layer. These layers are, respectively, parallel and perpendicular to the local fiber direction. A notable feature of the model is that, in the case of axial symmetry, the potential field due to such an oblique distribution is also equivalent to the sum of the potentials generated, respectively, by a normal and an axial dipole layer. In this form, the model generalizes the classical, uniform double layer model, upon which the solid angle theory is based, by adding to it an axial component. The features of the measured potential fields, which could not be interpreted on the basis of the solid angle theory, were satisfactorily reproduced by the model, at least on a qualitative basis. The results clearly showed the dominant role played by the axial component of the potential field even at a considerable distance from the heart.
An Empirical Study on Object-Oriented Metrics and Software Evolution in Order to Reduce Testing Costs by Predicting Change-Prone Classes

Software maintenance cost is typically more than fifty percent of the cost of the total software life cycle and software testing plays a critical role in reducing it. Determining the critical parts of a software system is an important issue, because they are the best place to start testing in order to reduce cost and duration of tests. Software quality is an important key factor to determine critical parts since high quality parts of software are less error prone and easy to maintain. As object oriented software metrics give important evidence about design quality, they can help software engineers to choose critical parts, which should be tested firstly and intensely. In this paper, we present an empirical study about the relation between object oriented metrics and changes in software. In order to obtain the results, we analyze modifications in software across the historical sequence of open source projects. Empirical results of the study indicate that the low level quality parts of a software change frequently during the development and management process. Using this relation we propose a method that can be used to estimate change-prone classes and to determine parts which should be tested first and more deeply.
Supporting the Selection of Design Patterns by Formal Definition and Considering Semantics

Extensibility and maintainability of software becomes more an issue as the complexity of the software development process rises. Design patterns in the sense of Gamma et al. [3] aid in reducing the problem of architectural decay. However, new publications steadily increase the number of documented patterns. This makes the automated and tool-supported processing of design patterns more important. Here, the definition of pattern templates receives prominent relevance. A pattern template is a semantically enriched definition of a pattern for a specific process, e.g. the selection of the pattern. This paper supports the definition of pattern templates by introducing manually added semantics via annotations to the template and to source code, along with distinguishing several types of elements that correspond between pattern template and source code. Annotations allow for explicitly declaring the sense/intention and the meaning of pattern and program parts that would otherwise not be reasonable by a tool. This leads to the possibility of tool-supported selection of applicable patterns and assists in their application and detection.
Signature-based intrusion detection in healthcare wireless sensor networks implemented over IEEE 802 . 15 . 4 beacon enabled clusters

Definition: We analyze possible security attacks to the personal WSN carried on the patient’s body and its close vicinity. We assume that WSN is implemented using 802.15. 4 beacon enabled technology with a secure sensing, location and power management blocks based on the ZigBee specification and built on top of 802.15. 4 link layer. We present networking and security issues which can be used as a basis for security attacks.
Redesigning the Financial Aid System: Why Colleges and Universities Should Switch Roles with the Federal Government

Contents: Lists of Tables and Figures Preface and Acknowledgements1. Introduction 2. The History of Financial Aid in the United States 3. The Financial System: How It Works and How Well It Works 4. Theoretical Considerations: Access, Choice, Affordability, and Merit 5. Institutionally Funded Grants 6. Federal Loan Gaurantees 7. Eligibility for Financial Aid and Other Redesign Issues 8. Evaluating the Redesign Proposals 9. On Political Feasibility 10. Final Thoughts: Facing Trade-offs Notes References Index
Automatic panorama mosaicing with high distorted fisheye images

Automatic construction of a full view panorama is an active area of research in the fields of photogrammetry, computer vision and computer graphics. Using fisheye camera for panorama generation could greatly reduce the number of images thanks to its wide field of view. A key step in creating panorama with fisheye camera is to estimate the cameras' motion parameters which are usually estimated by established correspondences. However, establishing correspondences is a difficult thing particularly for high distorted images. For this reason, most of the traditional systems based on fisheye cameras for creating panorama are only designed for some specific configurations such that correspondences can be easily established. In this paper, we try to give a more general solution to establishing correspondences for a fisheye image pair. First, the feature detector unaffected by the non-linear distortion (like the MSER-regions) is used to extract features in original image. Then feature matching is realized on the virtual camera plane (VCP). Next the interested region is back-projected onto the VCP where it becomes a perspective one, so the standard affine invariant based matching algorithms can be employed directly. To combat data noise and improve the precision of the estimates of motion parameters, more correspondences are searched by applying guided matching strategy. Experiments showed that our algorithm can lead to the precise and reliable estimates and the final full view panorama is satisfactory.
Quality of Secondary Education in Russia: Between Soviet Legacy and Challenges of Global Competitiveness

In this paper we examine determinants of the quality of secondary education for making informed policy decisions at the levels of student / family, school, country's education system institutions and macroeconomic indicators. The quality of education is estimated by the outcomes of the latest round of PISA from 2009 on mathematics and science skills of 15-year old students from 67 countries. After regression analysis for the pool of countries, we estimate the same determinants for Russia in order to reveal in what way the Russian secondary education system is different from other countries, with a special attention paid to possible explanation of a surprisingly different performance of Russian students on TIMSS and PISA tests. We conclude with the discussion of the limitations of analysis based on international tests and possible policy issues related to the factors of quality of secondary education in Russia.
The structure of Escherichia coli ExoIX—implications for DNA binding and catalysis in flap endonucleases

Escherichia coli Exonuclease IX (ExoIX), encoded by the xni gene, was the first identified member of a novel subfamily of ubiquitous flap endonucleases (FENs), which possess only one of the two catalytic metal-binding sites characteristic of other FENs. We have solved the first structure of one of these enzymes, that of ExoIX itself, at high resolution in DNA-bound and DNA-free forms. In the enzyme–DNA cocrystal, the single catalytic site binds two magnesium ions. The structures also reveal a binding site in the C-terminal domain where a potassium ion is directly coordinated by five main chain carbonyl groups, and we show this site is essential for DNA binding. This site resembles structurally and functionally the potassium sites in the human FEN1 and exonuclease 1 enzymes. Fluorescence anisotropy measurements and the crystal structures of the ExoIX:DNA complexes show that this potassium ion interacts directly with a phosphate diester in the substrate DNA.
Physiotypic Plasticity and Survival of Arido-active Euphorbia triaculeata (Euphorbiaceae) in its Natural Habitat

Leafless stem succulent Euphorbia triaculeata Forssk. is abundant in arid regions southwest of the Arabian Peninsula. These regions are characterized by short wet season with erratic rainfall and long dry season with high temperature and high irradiance. Field observations indicated that the plant survives the long dry season and acquires a red stem colour under high irradiance and protracted drought. Our work aimed at investigating survival of this arido-active species in its natural habitat by studying diurnal and seasonal changes in stomatal conductance, cell sap acidity, and chlorophyll fluorescence. Results showed that E. triaculeata is obligate crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) plant. Under protracted drought, low stomatal conductance and dampening of CAM denoted a shift to CAM-idling. Observed stress-induced reduction of Photosystem II activity occurred in concomitance with increased non-photochemical quenching of chlorophyll fluorescence and increased anthocyanin content. These results reflected operation of a photoprotective mechanism involving interplay of non-photochemical energy dissipation via xanthophyll cycle and alleviation of oxidative stress by anthocyanin. It was concluded that E. triaculeata survives in its arid habitat by performing obligate CAM, shifting to CAM-idling under protracted drought, increasing non-photochemical excess energy dissipation, and accumulating anthocyanin pigment for its antioxidant attributes.