Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Finite volume simulation of 2-D steady square lid driven cavity flow at high reynolds numbers

In this work, computer simulation results of steady incompressible flow in a 2-D square lid-driven cavity up to Reynolds number (Re) 65000 are presented and compared with those of earlier studies. The governing flow equations are solved by using the finite volume approach. Quadratic upstream interpolation for convective kinematics (QUICK) is used for the approximation of the convective terms in the flow equations. In the implementation of QUICK, the deferred correction technique is adopted. A non-uniform staggered grid arrangement of 768x768 is employed to discretize the flow geometry. Algebraic forms of the coupled flow equations are then solved through the iterative SIMPLE (Semi-Implicit Method for Pressure-Linked Equation) algorithm. The outlined computational methodology allows one to meet the main objective of this work, which is to address the computational convergence and wiggled flow problems encountered at high Reynolds and Peclet (Pe) numbers. Furthermore, after Re > 25000 additional vortexes appear at the bottom left and right corners that have not been observed in earlier studies.
A prototype chip of reconfigurable logic device using variable grain logic cell architecture

We propose a variable grain logic cell (VGLC) architecture. Its key feature is variable granularity which helps to create a balance between two types of devices: coarse-grain type and fine-grain type. Because of this, the VGLC can achieved high-performance on any applications. In this paper, we describe the VGLC prototype chip designed in e-Shuttle 65nm library. In addition, in order to implement circuits, we newly developed the configuration bit stream generator. In the evaluation with benchmarks, the VGLC with only logic function uses 36%-97% of logic blocks more than LUT-based FPGA. However, the arithmetic functions of VGLC greatly contributed to the device performance, VGLC achieved a half of device area compared to FPGA.
Technological Innovation Specificity Investment and Governance Mechanism

This paper provides a framework for addressing the question of the underinvestment of technological innovation. Following Hart and Moore, we propose a contract model to show the mechanism of the underinvestment of technological innovation according to analytical framework of assets specificity theory. Further analyses show that the underinvestment of technological innovation is due to the high degree of transaction costs. We would choose the proper governance mechanism to operate technological innovation varies with the degree of asset specificity.
Lactococcus lactis Metabolism and Gene Expression during Growth on Plant Tissues

ABSTRACT Lactic acid bacteria have been isolated from living, harvested, and fermented plant materials; however, the adaptations these bacteria possess for growth on plant tissues are largely unknown. In this study, we investigated plant habitat-specific traits of Lactococcus lactis during growth in an Arabidopsis thaliana leaf tissue lysate (ATL). L. lactis KF147, a strain originally isolated from plants, exhibited a higher growth rate and reached 7.9-fold-greater cell densities during growth in ATL than the dairy-associated strain L. lactis IL1403. Transcriptome profiling (RNA-seq) of KF147 identified 853 induced and 264 repressed genes during growth in ATL compared to that in GM17 laboratory culture medium. Genes induced in ATL included those involved in the arginine deiminase pathway and a total of 140 carbohydrate transport and metabolism genes, many of which are involved in xylose, arabinose, cellobiose, and hemicellulose metabolism. The induction of those genes corresponded with L. lactis KF147 nutrient consumption and production of metabolic end products in ATL as measured by gas chromatography-time of flight mass spectrometry (GC-TOF/MS) untargeted metabolomic profiling. To assess the importance of specific plant-inducible genes for L. lactis growth in ATL, xylose metabolism was targeted for gene knockout mutagenesis. Wild-type L. lactis strain KF147 but not an xylA deletion mutant was able to grow using xylose as the sole carbon source. However, both strains grew to similarly high levels in ATL, indicating redundancy in L. lactis carbohydrate metabolism on plant tissues. These findings show that certain strains of L. lactis are well adapted for growth on plants and possess specific traits relevant for plant-based food, fuel, and feed fermentations.
Pebble Technology Corporation: from dorm room dream to high tech pioneer

Synopsis Pebble Technology Corporation (Pebble) was an early entrant into the smartwatch industry. Pebble’s Founder, Eric Migicovsky, began thinking about creating a smartwatch in 2008 while still an undergraduate engineering student. After selling about 1,500 prototype watches, he was accepted into Silicon Valley’s prestigious Y Combinator business start-up program. Finding it difficult to attract investors, Migicovsky launched a crowdfunding campaign that raised a record-breaking $10.27m on Kickstarter. The case concludes shortly after Apple’s unveiling of its soon-to-be-released Apple Watch. The case provides an opportunity to evaluate Pebble’s various strategic options at the time of Apple’s announcement. Research methodology The authors observed over 30 h of video and audio recordings of speeches, interviews and other events involving Pebble’s founder, other Pebble executives, investors and competitors. These recordings are all publicly available. Whenever possible, the authors also reviewed the Twitter feeds, Facebook sites and personal websites of Pebble’s top executives over time. Similarly, the authors followed Pebble’s official website, corporate blog and Kickstarter campaign websites. The authors also drew from numerous media reports. Due to the public nature of the data, no company release is provided nor has any information been disguised in any way. Relevant courses and levels The case is designed for both undergraduate and graduate students for courses in strategic management.
Simultaneous Segmentation of Multiple Organs Using Random Walks

Random walks-based (RW) segmentation methods have been proven to have a potential application in segmenting the medical image with minimal interactive guidance. However, the approach leads to large-scale graphs due to number of nodes equal to voxel number. Also, segmentation is inaccurate because of the unavailability of appropriate initial seed points. It is a challenge to use the RW-based segmentation algorithm to segment organ regions from 3D medical images interactively. In this paper, a knowledge-based segmentation framework for multiple organs is proposed based on random walks. This method employs the previous segmented slice as prior knowledge (the shape and intensity constraints) for automatic segmentation of other slices, which can reduce the graph scale and significantly speed up the optimization procedure of the graph. To assess the efficiency of our proposed method, experiments were performed on liver tissues, spleen tissues and hepatic cancer and it was extensively evaluated both quantitatively and qualitatively. Comparing our method with conventional RW and state-of-the-art interactive segmentation methods, our results show an improvement in the accuracy for multi-organ segmentation (p < 0.001).
Caspase-8 promotes NLRP1/NLRP3 inflammasome activation and IL-1β production in acute glaucoma

Significance Retinal damage and resulting irreversible vision loss are feared complications of rapid and substantially elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) in acute glaucoma. An inflammatory response to retinal ischemia/reperfusion injury involving Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) and IL-1β has been implicated in disease pathogenesis; however, the underlying mechanisms remain incompletely understood. This study demonstrates the critical role of caspase-8 in IOP-induced cell death in rodent models of acute glaucoma. TLR4 signaling, mediated by caspase-8, was crucial for the activation of Nod-like receptor family, pyrin domain containing 1 (NLRP1)/NLRP3 inflammasomes and processing of IL-1β. Inhibition of either TLR4 or caspase-8 signaling significantly blocked production of IL-1β and attenuated retinal ischemic damage. These findings identify a mechanism of retinal retinal ganglion cell death and provide a previously unidentified treatment strategy to preserve vision in acute glaucoma. Acute glaucoma is a sight-threatening condition characterized by a sudden and substantial rise in intraocular pressure (IOP) and consequent retinal ganglion cell (RGC) death. Angle closure glaucoma, a common cause of glaucoma in Asia that affects tens of millions of people worldwide, often presents acutely with loss of vision, pain, and high IOP. Even when medical and surgical treatment is available, acute angle closure glaucoma can cause permanent and irreversible loss of vision. Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) signaling has been previously implicated in the pathogenesis of IOP-induced RGC death, although the underlying mechanisms are largely unknown. In the present study, we used an acute IOP elevation/glaucoma model to investigate the underlying mechanism of RGC death. We found that TLR4 leads to increased caspase-8 expression; this elevation increases IL-1β expression and RGC death via a caspase-1–dependent pathway involving Nod-like receptor family, pyrin domain containing 1 (NLRP1)/NLRP3 inflammasomes and a caspase-1–independent pathway. We show that inhibition of caspase-8 activation significantly attenuates RGC death by down-regulating the activation of NLRP1 and NLRP3, thus demonstrating the pivotal role of caspase-8 in the TLR4-mediated activation of inflammasomes. These findings demonstrate collectively a critical role of caspase-8 in transducing TLR4-mediated IL-1β production and RGC death and highlight signal transduction in a caspase-1–dependent NLRP1/NLRP3 inflammasome pathway and a caspase-1–independent pathway in acute glaucoma. These results provide new insight into the pathogenesis of glaucoma and point to a treatment strategy.
Production of antioxidant hydrolysate from bovine casein using immobilized Penicillium aurantiogriseum protease on magnetic nanoparticles

Peptides with bioactive properties can be released from the precursor proteins during food processing or digestion, and act as antioxidative compounds. Although, it has been proven that hydrolysate exerts higher antioxidant activity than purified peptides. The process of enzyme immobilization proved to be more practical and advantageous for catalysis than using free enzyme. The aim of this study was to use a protease produced by Penicillium aurantiogriseum immobilized on polianilin-coated magnetic nanoparticles, for bovine casein hydrolysis and to evaluate the hydrolysate antioxidant properties. The 60-80% saline fraction of crude extract was used in immobilization. Commercial casein from bovine milk 1% (w/v) was hydrolyzed by 10 mg/mL of immobilized protease. The casein hydrolysates were used in ABTS and H2O2 scavenging activity assays, where Trolox was used as standard. In the ABTS scavenging assay, the hydrolysate (1% w/v) revealed a 1341 μmol of Trolox equivalent activity and in the hydrogen peroxide scavenging assay, the hydrolysate (using 0.1% w/v) presented a 547.82 μmol of Trolox equivalent activity. In both assays the hydrolysates presented a more than 2.5 times greater activity than non-hydrolyzed casein, which validates the process capacity of developing casein derived natural antioxidant ingredients with potential for functional foods.
Mismatch Repair Modulation of MutY Activity Drives Bacillus subtilis Stationary-Phase Mutagenesis

ABSTRACT Stress-promoted mutations that occur in nondividing cells (adaptive mutations) have been implicated strongly in causing genetic variability as well as in species survival and evolutionary processes. Oxidative stress-induced DNA damage has been associated with generation of adaptive His+ and Met+ but not Leu+ revertants in strain Bacillus subtilis YB955 (hisC952 metB5 leuC427). Here we report that an interplay between MutY and MutSL (mismatch repair system [MMR]) plays a pivotal role in the production of adaptive Leu+ revertants. Essentially, the genetic disruption of MutY dramatically reduced the reversion frequency to the leu allele in this model system. Moreover, the increased rate of adaptive Leu+ revertants produced by a MutSL knockout strain was significantly diminished following mutY disruption. Interestingly, although the expression of mutY took place during growth and stationary phase and was not under the control of RecA, PerR, or σB, a null mutation in the mutSL operon increased the expression of mutY several times. Thus, in starved cells, saturation of the MMR system may induce the expression of mutY, disturbing the balance between MutY and MMR proteins and aiding in the production of types of mutations detected by reversion to leucine prototrophy. In conclusion, our results support the idea that MMR regulation of the mutagenic/antimutagenic properties of MutY promotes stationary-phase mutagenesis in B. subtilis cells.
Effects of high-intensity resistance training on untrained older men. II. Muscle fiber characteristics and nucleo-cytoplasmic relationships.

During growth and repair of skeletal muscle fibers, satellite cells become activated, undergo mitosis, and a daughter nucleus becomes incorporated into the muscle fiber to increase myonuclear numbers. An increase in myonuclei appears to be required for this postnatal growth. This study examined whether muscle fibers of elderly men can hypertrophy with strength training and, if so, whether they have the capacity to incorporate nuclei into the fibers. The sarcoplasmic area associated with each myonucleus was calculated in nine elderly men before and after 16 weeks of strength training, and compared to nine elderly control men. Muscle fiber type changes and myosin heavy chain composition were also compared. All major fiber types (I, IIA, IIB) became significantly larger after training, and a transition of type IIB fibers to IIA occurred with training. The area occupied by each fiber type correlated with myosin heavy chain percentage, and both of these changed similarly with strength training. The cytoplasm-to-myonucleus ratio increased, but not significantly (p = .07), with muscle fiber hypertrophy. Number of myonuclei per fiber and myonuclei per unit length of muscle fiber increased, but not significantly. Cross-sectional areas of the muscle fibers in untrained elderly men were much smaller than in untrained young men (when compared with our earlier studies). Training increased the sizes of the elderly muscle fibers to that of the untrained young men. This hypertrophy of muscle fibers by 30% with training resulted in no change in the cytoplasm-to-myonucleus ratio. This suggests that the myonuclear population continues to adapt to growth stimuli in the elderly muscles.
Paraoxonases as Potential Antibiofilm Agents: Their Relationship with Quorum-Sensing Signals in Gram-Negative Bacteria

ABSTRACT The property of many bacteria to form biofilms constitutes a major health problem. Bacteria living in biofilms have a very high resistance to antibiotics. Biofilms may develop at a certain locations with the participation of secreted molecules, termed quorum-sensing signals, when a sufficient density of bacterial growth occurs. In Gram-negative bacteria, acyl homoserine lactones (AHL) have been identified as major quorum-sensing signals. The paraoxonases (PONs) constitute a family of enzymes comprising 3 members (PON1, PON2, and PON3) that have lactonase activity and are able to hydrolyze AHL. In this minireview, we summarize some existing basic knowledge on PON genetics, biochemistry, and function and describe recent research that reports evidence of the important roles that they may play in the organism's defense against biofilm formation. Finally, we propose some lines of future research that could be very productive.
Efficacy of gabapentin versus diclofenac in the treatment of chest pain and paresthesia in patients with sternotomy.

OBJECTIVE Chronic post-sternotomy chest pain and paresthesia (PCPP) are frequently seen and reduce the quality of life. We aimed to demonstrate the efficacy and safety of gabapentin compared with diclofenac in the treatment of PCPP and to elucidate the similarities of PCPP to neuropathic pain syndromes. METHODS The prospective, randomized, open-label, blinded end-point design of study was used. One hundred and ten patients having PCPP lasting three months or more were randomized to receive 800 mg/daily gabapentin (n=55) and 75 mg/daily diclofenac (n=55) for thirty days. All patients have undergone cardiac surgery and median sternotomy. The perception of pain or paresthesia was evaluated as 0--Normal (no pain or paresthesia), 1--Mild, 2--Moderate, 3--Severe at baseline and after thirty days of treatment. Recurrences were questioned after three months. Statistical analyses were performed using independent samples t, Chi-square, continuity correction, Fisher's exact, Mann Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis tests. RESULTS In gabapentin group, mean pain and paresthesia scores regressed from 2.12+/- 0.76 to 0.54+/- 0.83 (p<0.001) and from 1.72+/- 0.74 to 0.49+/- 0.62 (p<0.001), respectively. Mean pain and paresthesia scores regressed in diclofenac group from 1.93+/- 0.8 to 1.0+/- 1.13 (p<0.001) and from 1.76+/- 0.74 to 1.24+/- 0.96 (p=0.002), respectively. Although, both gabapentin and diclofenac were found to be effective without obvious side effects in the treatment of PCPP (p<0.001), gabapentin was found to be superior to diclofenac (p=0.001 and p<0.001, respectively). Adverse effects were seen in 7% of patients on gabapentin and 4% of patients on diclofenac. Results also showed that symptomatic relief with gabapentin lasts longer than diclofenac (p<0.001). CONCLUSION Both gabapentin and diclofenac are effective in the treatment of chronic PCPP, without obvious side effects. However, gabapentin is found to be superior to diclofenac and its effects sustain longer. The results show that there may be some evidence in PCPP as a kind of neuropathic pain.
Human resource management practices and employee retention among private hospital nurses

The biggest challenge that organizations are facing today is not only managing human resources but also retaining them. Securing and retaining skilled employees plays an important role for any organization, particularly in the service industry. The service sector such as the healthcare has been recognized as one of the main contributors to the growth of Malaysian economy. Nurses tend to leave the workplace, nation and even profession because of the amount of healthcare associations and the challenging economic situation of a country. The shortage of nurses has become a worldwide issue. It is even a critical issue in that the demand for nurses is expected to increase and how to retain the nurses’ has become a topic of great importance to researchers. Thus, it is essential for organization to manage their capable workforce with a specific end goal to increase upper hand. This research is carried out to examine the relationship between compensation and benefits, training and development and work environment with employee retention among nurses in a private hospital in Penang. In order to discover factors that have significant impact in retaining the nurses, a survey was carried out in a private hospital in Penang. A total of 250 questionnaires were distributed but only 200 questionnaires were returned and utilized for data analysis. Regression analysis results indicate that only compensation and benefits were positively related and have significant relationship with employee retention. Thus, compensation and benefits is considered as the most important variable in influencing the nurses to retain in an organization. On the other hand, training and development and work environment were not significant in predicting retention among private hospital nurses. Finally, implications, limitations of the study, recommendations and conclusion were also highlighted.
Recent studies in primary pulmonary hypertension, including pharmacodynamic observations on pulmonary vascular resistance.

S25~55g522R V IMARY pulmonary hypertension appears to be diagnosed more frequently. It is distinguished from secondary pulmonary hypertension by the absence of any intrinsic heart or lung disease and by the absence of mechanical e , blocks in the pulmonary vascular bed seeded from without, e.g., pulmonary emboli. Cardiac catheterization, of course, has given impetus to this by making possible the measurement of pulmonary vascular pressures as well as by ruling out certain congenital deformities. Wood,' in England, found six cases which he classified as idiopathic pulmonary hypertension during a study of 233 unselected cases of suspected congenital heart disease, I52 of which were catheterized. Chapman2 in a similar study so diagnosed two of seventy-two patients who had right heart catheterizations. It seems that many people working in cardiopulmonary laboratories have had the experience of studying some patients with pulmonary hypertension and failing to establish the etiology of the hypertension despite careful evaluation by recognized clinical and physiological methods. However, primary pulmonary hypertension should not be a "waste paper basket" category into which are tossed all the apparently unexplained diagnoses of pulmonary hypertension. The syndrome of primary pulmonary hypertension is fairly distinct. The diagnosis should be made not only by a process of elimination but by looking for and recognizing the definite clinical characteristics of this syndrome of which the patho-physiological processes can be evaluated in the cardio-pulmonary laboratory.
[A voice].

: A speech affected by consonants of differing degrees of constriction. Measures of glottal contact (Closed 25 Quotient: CQ) and strength of voicing (Strength of Excitation: SoE) were used in Conditional 26 Inference Tree analyses. Broadly, the results show that as the degree of constriction increases, both 27 CQ and SoE values decrease, indicating breathier and weaker voicing. Similar changes in voicing 28 quality are observed throughout the course of the production of a given segment. Implications of 29 these results for a greater understanding of source-tract interactions and for the phonological notion 30 of sonority are discussed. (n= 9) in our corpus, and on English-only coronal segments to control for segments not in English and for any possible place of articulation effects. The results are qualitatively similar as what we have presented here with all our speakers and segments.