Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
What to Fix? Distinguishing between Design and Non-design Rules in Automated Tools

Design problems, frequently the result of optimizing for delivery speed, are a critical part of long-term software costs. Automatically detecting such design issues is a high priority for software practitioners. Software quality tools promise automatic detection of common software quality rule violations. However, since these tools bundle a number of rules, including rules for code quality, it is hard for users to understand which rules identify design issues in particular. Research has focused on comparing these tools on open source projects, but these comparisons have not looked at whether the rules were relevant to design. We conducted an empirical study using a structured categorization approach, and manually classified 466 software quality rules from three industry tools—CAST, SonarQube, and NDepend. We found that most of these rules were easily labeled as either non-design (55%) or design (19%). The remainder (26%) resulted in disagreements among the labelers. Our results are a first step in formalizing a definition of a design rule, to support automatic detection.
Measurement Invariance of a Classroom Engagement Measure among Academically At-Risk Students

The current study investigated the measurement invariance of a classroom engagement measure across time points, genders, and ethnicities using a sample of 523 academically at-risk students across grades 7 through 9; this measure was based on Skinner et al.'s (1990) original engagement measure. The engagement measure was comprised of 16 items, yielding three factors: Behavioral Engagement, Behavioral Disaffection, and Emotional Engagement. Configural, metric, and scalar invariance held across the three time points, as did invariance of factor covariances and means, indicating that scores have a similar meaning across all 3 years. The engagement measure also featured adequate configural, metric, and scalar invariance, and invariance of factor covariances and means across genders and ethnicities. These findings suggest the measure is appropriate for investigating substantive hypotheses regarding classroom engagement across different grade levels, genders, and ethnicities. In summary, the current results indicate this measure of classroom engagement is suitable for testing hypotheses regarding group differences in engagement across grade levels, genders, and ethnicities. Researchers may also use this measure to examine relationships between the engagement factors and other important academic outcomes. Limitations of the current study, such as certain caveats regarding convergent validity and internal consistency, are also discussed.
Selective targeting of indel‐inferred differences in spatial structures of highly homologous proteins

Recent findings have shown that the protein elongation factor‐1α (EF‐1α) from the eukaryotic pathogen Leishmania donovani possesses virulence properties. This was unexpected, since it has greater than 80% sequence identity with its human homologue. Given that EF‐1α is essential for cell survival, in principle, it can be considered an attractive drug target. However, the challenge is to be able to selectively target the protein so as not to affect function of the human homologue. While a limited number of discrete differences were scattered throughout the sequence, most of the difference between these 2 homologues could be attributed to a 12–amino acid insert present in human EF‐1α and absent from the leishmania sequence. In the present study, we modeled the spatial differences in structures of human and L. donovani EF‐1α's inferred by this insertion–deletion (or “indel”). The protein models were used to develop antibodies directed specifically toward the deletion region of the pathogen protein. The strategy described allowed successful selective targeting of this putative leishmania virulence factor while avoiding recognition of the highly similar human EF‐1α homologue. These findings may establish a new strategy for the development of antagonists directed against certain pathogenic targets having close human homologues. Proteins 2005 © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
How Salmonella survive against the odds.

The enteric pathogen Salmonella typhimurium faces daunting odds during its voyages in the natural environment and through an infected host. It must manage stresses ranging from feast to famine, acid to base, and high to low osmolarity, among others, as well as counter various types of oxidative stress and a variety of antimicrobial peptides. The defenses used to survive these encounters can be specific or can provide cross protection to a variety of hostile conditions. Once inside a host, Salmonella spp. escape the extracellular environment and thus humoral immunity by invading professional and nonprofessional phagocytes in which a new set of challenges await. Some of these stresses are similar to those encountered in the natural environment (e.g. acid, starvation) but the bacterial response is complicated by the simultaneous occurrence of multiple stresses. S. typhimurium appears to sense various in vivo cues and responds by seducing the host signal-transduction pathways that are required to phagocytize the bacterial cell. The pathogen then calls upon components of its stress-response arsenal to survive the intracellular environment. These survival strategies enable the organism to persist in nature, where conditions are usually suboptimal, and equip the bacterium with pathogenic properties that, if successful, will provide it with a very rich and stress-free growth environment, a dead host.
Robotic drilling under force control: execution of a task

This paper presents the analysis and characterisation of force controlled robotic drilling. We demonstrate that a robot manipulator can perform drilling if enough contact thrust-force is provided between a workpiece and drill, and is controlled properly. It is shown that the key parameters for robotic drilling are the drill rotational speed and thrust force. We believe that this implementation of a force control strategy on a robot manipulator for robotic drilling is unique; nobody has previously reported on the end point force control of a robot manipulator using a force/torque sensor for a drilling operation. <<ETX>>
Bolometric response in graphene based superconducting tunnel junctions

We fabricate graphene-TiOx-Al tunnel junctions and characterize their radio frequency response. Below the superconducting critical temperature of Al and when biased within the superconducting gap, the devices show enhanced dynamic resistance which increases with decreasing temperature. Application of radio frequency radiation affects the dynamic resistance through electronic heating. The relation between the electron temperature rise and the absorbed radiation power is measured, from which the bolometric parameters, including heat conductance, noise equivalent power and responsivity, are characterized.
A Broken α-Helix in Folded α-Synuclein*

α-Synuclein is a small cytosolic protein of presynaptic nerve terminals composed of seven 11-residue repeats and a hydrophilic tail. α-Synuclein misfolding and dysfunction may contribute to the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease and neurodegenerative dementias, but its normal folding and function are unknown. In solution, α-synuclein is natively unstructured but assumes an α-helical conformation upon binding to phospholipid membranes. We now show that this conformation of α-synuclein consists of two α-helical regions that are interrupted by a short break. The structural organization of the α-helices of α-synuclein was not anticipated by sequence analyses and may be important for its pathogenic role.
Relative sensitivity of polymerase chain reaction assays used for detection of feline herpesvirus type 1 DNA in clinical samples and commercial vaccines.

OBJECTIVE To determine relative detection rates and detection limits for 6 published polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays used for detection of feline herpesvirus type 1 (FHV-1) DNA. SAMPLE POPULATION 5 vaccines licensed for use in preventing FHV-1-associated disease; 15 conjunctival biopsy specimens collected from cats with keratitis, conjunctivitis, or both; and a plaque-purified field isolate of FHV-1 cultured in vitro. PROCEDURE Vaccines and clinical samples were assessed for FHV-1 DNA by use of all 6 assays. Detection rates were calculated by assuming that any sample in which FHV-1 DNA was detected was a true-positive result. Detection limits were estimated by use of serial dilutions of DNA extracted from cultured FHV-1 and 1 clinical sample. RESULTS Testing by use of all 6 assays resulted in detection of FHV-1 DNA in all 5 vaccines. Testing by use of all 6 assays yielded concordant results for 9 of 15 conjunctival biopsy specimens (8 with negative results and 1 with a positive result). Calculated detection rates for clinical samples ranged from 29% to 86%. Assay sensitivity was ranked similarly by use of detection rate or detection limit. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Testing by use of all assays was equally likely to detect vaccine virus. Therefore, a positive PCR result in a cat may reflect vaccine virus rather than wild-type virus. Test sensitivity as assessed by detection limits and detection rates varied greatly. Because FHV-1 can be shed in clinically normal animals, high detection rate will not necessarily correlate with high diagnostic sensitivity.
Universal access to HIV treatment in developing countries: going beyond the misinterpretations of the ‘cost-effectiveness’ algorithm

Background:Economic cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) has been proposed as the appropriate tool to set priorities for resource allocation among available health interventions. Controversy remains about the way CEA should be used in the field of HIV/AIDS. Methods and objectives:This paper reviews the general literature in health economics and public economics about the use of CEA for priority setting in public health, in order better to inform current debates about resource allocation in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Results:Theoretical and practical limitations of CEA do not raise major problems when it is applied to compare alternatives for treating the same medical condition or public health problem. Using CEA to set priorities among different health interventions by ranking them from the lowest to the highest values of their cost per life-year saved is appropriate only under the very restrictive and unrealistic assumptions that all interventions compared are discrete and finite alternatives that cannot vary in terms of size and scale. In order for CEA to inform resource allocation compared across programmes to fight the AIDS epidemic, a pragmatic interpretation of this economic approach, like that proposed by the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, is better suited. Interventions, like a number of preventive strategies and first-line antiretroviral treatments for HIV, whose marginal costs per additional life-year saved are less than three times the gross domestic product per capita, should be considered cost-effective. Conclusion:Because of their empirical and theoretical limitations, results of CEA should only be one element in priority setting among interventions for HIV/AIDS, which should also be informed by explicit debates about societal and ethical preferences.
A heuristic evaluation of usability of Web interfaces

The PAI Project Evaluation Interfaces, investigates the degree of usability of interfaces. Uses a case study of a Website secretariat of a School of Higher Education. The usability of a Web application is critical because a high degree of usability, reflects that users perform their tasks with ease, speed and satisfaction. The usability evaluation seeks to identify specific problems in the interface being a process that uses several methods. One of them, heuristic evaluation, is demonstrated by checking the website compliance with a set of guidelines. In this case we used the widely accepted developed by UserFocus and published in the scientific community. Gave excellent results but has the drawback, for its completeness and thorough examination, is very laborious and time consuming in its total use as is shown, which is reserved for large or critical projects.
Antifungal Susceptibility of Candida Biofilms: Unique Efficacy of Amphotericin B Lipid Formulations and Echinocandins

ABSTRACT Biofilms, likely the predominant mode of device-related microbial infection, exhibit resistance to antimicrobial agents. Evidence suggests that Candida biofilms have dramatically reduced susceptibility to antifungal drugs. We examined antifungal susceptibilities of Candida albicans and Candida parapsilosis biofilms grown on a bioprosthetic model. In addition to conventional agents, we determined if new antifungal agents (triazoles, amphotericin B lipid formulations, and echinocandins) have activities against Candida biofilms. We also explored effects of preincubation of C. albicans cells with subinhibitory concentrations (sub-MICs) of drugs to see if they could modify subsequent biofilm formation. Finally, we used confocal scanning laser microscopy (CSLM) to image planktonic- and biofilm-exposed blastospores to examine drug effects on cell structure. Candida biofilms were formed on silicone elastomer and quantified by tetrazolium and dry weight (DW) assays. Susceptibility testing of fluconazole, nystatin, chlorhexidine, terbenafine, amphotericin B (AMB), and the triazoles voriconazole (VRC) and ravuconazole revealed resistance in all Candida isolates examined when grown as biofilms, compared to planktonic forms. In contrast, lipid formulations of AMB (liposomal AMB and AMB lipid complex [ABLC]) and echinocandins (caspofungin [Casp] and micafungin) showed activity against Candida biofilms. Preincubation of C. albicans cells with sub-MIC levels of antifungals decreased the ability of cells to subsequently form biofilm (measured by DW; P < 0.0005). CSLM analysis of planktonic and biofilm-associated blastospores showed treatment with VRC, Casp, and ABLC resulted in morphological alterations, which differed with each agent. In conclusion, our data show that Candida biofilms show unique susceptibilities to echinocandins and AMB lipid formulations.
Small scale problems of the $\Lambda$CDM model: a short review

The $\Lambda$CDM model, or concordance cosmology, as it is often called, is a paradigm at its maturity. It is clearly able to describe the universe at large scale, even if some issues remain open, such as the cosmological constant problem , the small-scale problems in galaxy formation, or the unexplained anomalies in the CMB. $\Lambda$CDM clearly shows difficulty at small scales, which could be related to our scant understanding, from the nature of dark matter to that of gravity; or to the role of baryon physics, which is not well understood and implemented in simulation codes or in semi-analytic models. At this stage, it is of fundamental importance to understand whether the problems encountered by the $\Lambda$DCM model are a sign of its limits or a sign of our failures in getting the finer details right. In the present paper, we will review the small-scale problems of the $\Lambda$CDM model, and we will discuss the proposed solutions and to what extent they are able to give us a theory accurately describing the phenomena in the complete range of scale of the observed universe.
Half-mode substrate integrated waveguide six-port front-end circuits for direct-conversion transceiver design

Two six-port junction circuits based on the half-mode substrate integrated waveguide (HMSIW) technique are proposed and implemented in this paper. The first six-port junction consists of four directional couplers, which can work as a reflection-type I/Q modulator in a direct-conversion transmitter. The other six-port junction involves one T-junction and three directional couplers, and it can work as a demodulator in a direct-conversion receiver. One T-junction, two couplers and a 50Ohm matching load are independently simulated and designed by using the recently proposed HMSIW technique. Two six-port junction circuits are designed and integrated on the basis of the developed basic building components. Measurements of the proposed two six-port junctions are presented over a frequency band from 22GHz to 26GHz.
Smoking Behaviors in Kosova: Results of Steps Survey

Abstract Introduction Tobacco use continues to be the leading global cause of preventable death. Most of these deaths occur in low and middle-income countries, and this trend is expected to widen further over the next several decades. The overall objective of the study is to describe and analyse the smoking behaviours of adults in Kosova. Methods According to the STEPs methodology, 6,400 respondents, aged 15 - 64 years, are selected randomly within each sex and 10-year age-group. Out of 6,400 participants, 6,117 were selected, which is approximately 95.6%. Results The prevalence of smoking was higher among males (37.4%) compared with females (19.7%). In all age groups, the prevalence of smoking was higher among males compared with females. Regarding the age group of 15 - 24 years, the prevalence of smoking was 16.0%, but in the age group of 25 - 34 years, it nearly doubled to the rate of 31.9%. We have a smaller increase in the age group of 35 - 44 years, and after the age of 45, it falls gradually. Conclusions The prevalence of smoking in Kosova is high compared with other countries in Eastern Europe. In future decades, Kosova will face a high probability of an increased burden of smoking-related diseases.
Stochastic Optimization with Multiple Objectives

In this paper we propose a general framework to characterize and solve the stochastic optimization problems with multiple objectives underlying many real world learning applications. We first propose a projection based algorithm which attains an O(T−1/3) convergence rate. Then, by leveraging on the theory of Lagrangian in constrained optimization, we devise a novel primal-dual stochastic approximation algorithm which attains the optimal convergence rate of O(T−1/2) for general Lipschitz continuous objectives.
Changes in the Pathogenesis and Prevention of Chronic Lung Disease of Prematurity

With the increasing survival of extremely premature infants there is a large number of them who are developing chronic lung disease (CLD), but the severity of the lung damage is considerably less than that observed in the classic form of bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD). Because many of these infants have only a mild initial respiratory distress and therefore do not receive aggressive ventilation, it is clear that factors other than oxygen toxicity and barotrauma are involved in the pathogenesis of this new milder type of CLD. CLD results from the interaction of multiple factors that can injure the immature lung. For this reason the prevention must be based on the elimination of all the factors implicated in its pathogenesis. Clinical and epidemiological data strongly suggest that infections, either prenatal or nosocomial, and the presence of a patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) play a major role in the development of CLD in these infants. For this reason, efforts to prevent CLD in extremely low birth weight infants should include an aggressive approach to the prevention and treatment of prenatal and neonatal infections and an early closure of the PDA.
Call Admission Control for Voice/Data Integration in Broadband Wireless Networks

This paper addresses bandwidth allocation for an integrated voice/data broadband mobile wireless network. Specifically, we propose a new admission control scheme called EFGC, which is an extension of the well-known fractional guard channel scheme proposed for cellular networks supporting voice traffic. The main idea is to use two acceptance ratios, one for voice calls and the other for data calls in order to maintain the proportional service quality for voice and data traffic while guaranteeing a target handoff failure probability for voice calls. We describe two variations of the proposed scheme: EFGC-REST, a conservative approach which aims at preserving the proportional service quality by sacrificing the bandwidth utilization, and EFGC-UTIL, a greedy approach which achieves higher bandwidth utilization at the expense of increasing the handoff failure probability for voice calls. Extensive simulation results show that our schemes satisfy the hard constraints on handoff failure probability and service differentiation while maintaining a high bandwidth utilization.
A LOW POWER, HIGH GAIN, LOW NOISE AMPLIFIER WITH IMPROVED NOISE FIGURE AND INPUT MATCHING FOR ULTRA WIDE BAND APPLICATIONS

Abstract– In this paper, two low noise amplifiers (LNAs), one without feedback and another one with active shunt partial feedback, are proposed for ultra wide band (UWB) applications. Both the proposed LNAs are designed using 90 nm CMOS technology and their performance parameters are analyzed by using post layout simulation. The proposed LNA without feedback achieves a power gain (S21) of 16.4 dB over the band of 3 – 10.4 GHz with NF (Noise Figure) in the range of 4.9 – 5.2 dB. This high NF has been reduced to 2.4 – 2.7 dB by employing active shunt partial feedback. The proposed LNA with active shunt partial feedback achieves a power gain of 15 dB over the band of 2 – 12 GHz. The input matching (S11) and output matching (S22) are less than – 10 dB while maintaining the reverse isolation (S12) is less than -60 dB for both of the proposed circuits. Both circuits, with and without active shunt partial feedback, maintain better linearity with in-band third order input intercept point (IIP3) of – 1 dBm and – 4.242 dBm, respectively and consume 3.643 mW and 2.862 mW of power while operating at 1 V power supply.
Effects of contralateral electroacupuncture on brain function: a double-blind, randomized, pilot clinical trial.

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to ascertain the effects of contralateral acupuncture on brain function using blind-spot mapping. DESIGN AND PARTICIPANTS Forty (40) healthy volunteers in whom the right-side blind spot was larger than the left-side one-which indicates lower left-brain function-were randomly assigned into the following two groups in which electroacupuncture was applied to: (1) the contralateral ST36 acupuncture point (right side), and (2) the ipsilateral ST36 acupuncture point (left side). OUTCOME MEASURE Blind-spot perimetry length was the outcome measure. RESULTS Electroacupuncture to the contralateral side decreased the blind-spot perimetry length by 5.0 (-9.3 to 0.9) [median (interquartile range, IQR)], whereas that to the ipsilateral side increased the length by 4.5 (-3.7 to 7.8) [median, IQR]. There was significant difference in this length between the two groups (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that electroacupuncture application increased or decreased the brain function- as assessed by changes to the blind spot-depending on the treatment side: Contralateral-side treatment has a better effect than ipsilateral-side treatment on brain function. However, further randomized studies that include both right- and left-side-enlarged subjects with a sham needle are needed to convincingly show the effects of contralateral acupuncture on brain function.