Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mining sequential patterns to efficiently manage Energy Storage Systems within smart home buildings

This paper introduces a Smart Energy Management System capable of controlling energy and smart home devices to optimize the power consumption of several buildings individually and smooth consumption peaks by means of a central system. The proposed model consists of two main systems; the Energy Storage Units and the Central Energy Management System. The first ones are able to store energy, communicate with X10 devices and transmit information regarding household consumption. Finally, the Central System is in charge of controlling the Energy Storage Units, analyzing the information provided through data mining techniques and deciding the best operation strategy for each unit, so that they can smooth their load curves. The strategy consists of a set of semantic rules, based on sequential patterns, which aim to avoid peaks by shutting down low-priority X10 devices and using properly the energy stored.
When and how to use maraviroc in HIV-infected patients

CCR5 antagonists have recently entered the HIV armamentarium. This novel class of drugs inhibit viral entry blocking host cellular receptors, and therefore display unique mechanisms of resistance, different from other antiretroviral drugs. Maraviroc only blocks replication of R5 viruses and accordingly patients with X4 or D/M viruses do not or only marginally benefit from maraviroc therapy. Viral tropism has to be tested before considering maraviroc prescription. Phenotypic and more recently genotypic tools have been demonstrated to reliably estimate HIV-1 tropism in most cases and predict viral response. Beyond the initial approval only for antiretroviral-experienced patients, the pharmacokinetic properties and safety profile of maraviroc may support an earlier use of the drug. Studies using maraviroc in drug-naive patients and as part of switch strategies are warranted.
Murine and Canine Models of Appendicular Osteosarcoma

Appendicular osteosarcoma (OSA) is a primary bone sarcoma affecting humans during their second decade of life. Despite aggressive surgical and chemotherapeutic interventions, 30% of patients will experience progressive metastatic disease within 5 years of diagnosis. Understanding the biology of pediatric OSA and potential targets for therapeutic development remains an area of focus for both basic scientists and clinical oncologists. The identification and study of relevant comparative tumor models in mice and canines may allow for a better understanding of OSA biology, and permit the rapid investigation of novel therapeutic strategies for managing this metastatic bone sarcoma. This unit provides a protocol for using an orthotopic, syngeneic murine model of appendicular OSA as an investigative tool for the study of OSA biology. Additionally, the comparative relevance of spontaneously occurring appendicular OSA in canines for the study of pediatric bone sarcomas is discussed.
Coevolution with bacteria drives the evolution of aerobic fermentation in Lachancea kluyveri

The Crabtree positive yeasts, such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae, prefer fermentation to respiration, even under fully aerobic conditions. The selective pressures that drove the evolution of this trait remain controversial because of the low ATP yield of fermentation compared to respiration. Here we propagate experimental populations of the weak-Crabtree yeast Lachancea kluyveri, in competitive co-culture with bacteria. We find that L. kluyveri adapts by producing quantities of ethanol lethal to bacteria and evolves several of the defining characteristics of Crabtree positive yeasts. We use precise quantitative analysis to show that the rate advantage of fermentation over aerobic respiration is insufficient to provide an overall growth advantage. Thus, the rapid consumption of glucose and the utilization of ethanol are essential for the success of the aerobic fermentation strategy. These results corroborate that selection derived from competition with bacteria could have provided the impetus for the evolution of the Crabtree positive trait.
Question Generation Shared Task and Evaluation Challenge – Status Report

The First Shared Task Evaluation Challenge on Question Generation took place in 2010 as part of the 3rd workshop on Question Generation. The campaign included two tasks: Question Generation from Sentences and Question Generation from Paragraphs. This status report briefly summarizes the motivation, tasks and results. Lessons learned relevant to future QG-STECs are also offered.
A Cooking Recipe Recommendation System with Visual Recognition of Food Ingredients

In this paper, we propose a cooking recipe recommendation system which runs on a consumer smartphone as an interactive mobile application. The proposed system employs real-time visual object recognition of food ingredients, and recommends cooking recipes related to the recognized food ingredients. Because of visual recognition, by only pointing a built-in camera on a smartphone to food ingredients, a user can get to know a related cooking recipes instantly. The objective of the proposed system is to assist people who cook to decide a cooking recipe at grocery stores or at a kitchen. In the current implementation, the system can recognize 30 kinds of food ingredient in 0.15 seconds, and it has achieved the 83.93% recognition rate within the top six candidates. By the user study, we confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed system.
The Purchasing Machine: How the Top Ten Companies Use Best Practices to Manage Their Supply Chains

Companies lose billions of pounds daily in potential profit because of poor supply chain management practices. THE PURCHASING MACHINE is the key to eliminating those losses and to gaining a significant competitive edge. Every day, businesses leave hard-earned money on the table that could have yielded lower consumer prices, exciting new products, or fatter shareholder returns. These companies don't even notice that cash is slipping away at the far end of the supply chain- procurement, design and development. The key to saving this money is to become proficient in target costing, value engineering and supplier development- "the new basics of supply management". THE PURCHASING MACHINE describes the costs, benefits, implementation and results of the twenty best practices that must be in place in order to achieve world-class supply management objectives. These include cost management, value analysis, delivery improvement, supplier quality circles and support services and purchasing systems.
High food wastage and low nutritional intakes in hospital patients.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS The aim of this study was to investigate the cause of continuing weight-loss in hospitalized patients. We determined 1. whether the hospital menu was able to meet the patients' minimum nutritional requirements, 2. the proportion of food being wasted and 3. the mean nutritional intakes of patients. METHODS This study was carried out in a University hospital (1200 beds). All the food supplied and wasted was measured over a 28 day period on one ward in each of 4 different specialties. Average food intake per patient was calculated and checked against individual food intake measurements. RESULTS The hospital menu provided over 2000 kcal/day and could meet patients' nutritional requirements. However, high wastage rates of greater than 40% resulted in energy and protein intakes within all specialties being less than 80% of that recommended. The cost of this waste was 139,655 pounds sterling in these four specialties. CONCLUSIONS More than 40% of hospital food was wasted. Energy and protein intakes were low and patients did not, therefore, meet their recommended intakes. This helps to explain continuing weight-loss in hospital patients and represents a large waste of resources. Hospital feeding policies therefore need reviewing and made more appropriate to the needs of the sick.
Psoriasis Induced by Infliximab in a Patient Suffering from Crohn's Disease

We describe the case of a 30-year-old female with no family history of psoriasis and suffering from Crohn's disease successfully treated with infliximab at the dosage of 5 mg/kg. At the 15th week from the start of therapy, the patient developed a palmoplantar pustular psoriasis, which spread to the arms, trunk and scalp with erythematosquamous plaques. Deeming the dermatitis onset due to the anti-TNF-α, we decided to discontinue infliximab, while starting with a topical therapy with emollients and corticosteroids and a systemic therapy with cyclosporine. These treatments achieved a clear improvement of psoriasis after 2 months and a complete regression of skin lesions after 4 months. Several cases have been reported of psoriasis induced by anti-TNF-α, which have shown to exert an effective therapeutic action on this disease. The pathogenic mechanism of such a paradoxical effect has not yet been explained, though a number of hypotheses were proposed, among which one of the most intriguing is that the rapid and strong blockade of TNF-α could result in an enhancement of INF-α activity with consequent induction of psoriasis.
Evaluation Regarding the Efficacy and Safety of a Probiotic Mixture in Healthy Volunteers with Evacuation Disorders

Probiotics have been used in humans for almost a century and are widely recommended because they play an important role in gastrointestinal physiological and pathophysiological processes. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effi- cacy and safety of a probiotic mixture in healthy volunteers with evacuation disorders. We undertook a prospective study with historical control. We used the number of evacuations, effort and stool consistency 10 days before, 10 days during and 10 days after treatment with the probiotic as primary outcome measures. Eligible par-ticipants comprised 25 patients with an average age of 25.12 years (range: 18 - 55) who suffered from evacuation disorders. BIO L6 is a func- tional food consisting of a probiotic preparation that contains 1 mg (108 CFUs) of lyophilized strains of Lactic Acid Bacteria resuspended in 250 mL of drinking water. The probiotic preparation was prescribed daily for two weeks, five days a week. A significant increase in the number of evacuations was observed in 23 patients during BIO L6 consump- tion and continued in 20 after consumption. The degree of effort spent defecating decreased in 17 patients during treat- ment and in 7 after treatment. A significant improvement (P < 0.001) in stool consistency was also observed in all pa- tients receiving BIO L6. Fourteen patients had at least one adverse event (AE) for one or two days during treatment; most treatment-related AEs were considered minor or mild in terms of severity and were consistent with AEs reported for probiotic consumption. The results of this study suggest that the use of probiotic mixture BIO L6 is effective, safe and tolerable and provides beneficial effects for subjects with evacuations disorders.
Adaptive Control of Hydraulic Actuators With LuGre Model-Based Friction Compensation

This paper concerns high-accuracy tracking control for hydraulic actuators with nonlinear friction compensation. Typically, LuGre model-based friction compensation has been widely employed in sundry industrial servomechanisms. However, due to the piecewise continuous property, it is difficult to be integrated with backstepping design, which needs the time derivation of the employed friction model. Hence, nonlinear model-based hydraulic control rarely sets foot in friction compensation with nondifferentiable friction models, such as LuGre model, Stribeck effects, although they can give excellent friction description and prediction. In this paper, a novel continuously differentiable nonlinear friction model is first derived by modifying the traditional piecewise continuous LuGre model, then an adaptive backstepping controller is proposed for precise tracking control of hydraulic systems to handle parametric uncertainties along with nonlinear friction compensation. In the formulated nonlinear hydraulic system model, friction parameters, servovalve null shift, and orifice-type internal leakage are all uniformly considered in the proposed controller. The controller theoretically guarantees asymptotic tracking performance in the presence of parametric uncertainties, and the robustness against unconsidered dynamics, as well as external disturbances, is also ensured via Lyapunov analysis. The effectiveness of the proposed controller is demonstrated via comparative experimental results.
Thrombin-activable Factor X Re-establishes an Intrinsic Amplification in Tenase-deficient Plasmas*

Classical hemophilia results from a defect of the intrinsic tenase complex, the main factor X (FX) activator. Binding of factor VIIa to tissue factor triggers coagulation, but little amplification of thrombin production occurs. Handling of hemophilia by injection of the deficient or missing (thus foreign) factor often causes immunological complications. Several strategies have been designed to bypass intrinsic tenase complex, but none induce true auto-amplification of thrombin production. In an attempt to re-establish a cyclic amplification of prothrombin activation in the absence of tenase, we prepared a chimera of FX having fibrinopeptide A for the activation domain (FXFpA). We reasoned that cascade initiation would produce traces of thrombin that would activate FXFpA (contrary to its normal homologue). Given that the activation domain of FX is released upon activation, thrombin cleavage would produce authentic FXa that would produce more thrombin, which in turn would activate more chimeras. FXFpA was indeed activable by thrombin, albeit at a relatively low rate (5 × 103 m-1 s-1). Nevertheless, FXFpA allowed in vitro amplification of thrombin production, and 100 nm efficiently corrected thrombin generation in tenase-deficient plasmas. A decisive advantage of FXFpA could be that the artificial cascade is self-regulating: FXFpA had little influence on the clotting time of normal plasma, yet corrected that of tenase deficiency. Another advantage could be the half-life of FXFpA in blood; FX has a half-life of about 30 h (less than 3 h for FVIIa). It is also reasonable to expect little or no immunogenicity, because FX and fibrinopeptide A both circulate normally in the blood of hemophiliacs.
The Applications of Electronic Commerce in Supply Chain Management

Electronic commerce (EC) acts as a greater enabler for supply chain management (SCM) and will totally change the way that companies manage their supply chain. It is of great interest to investigate how companies can apply EC to facilitate their SCM and further reap benefits from that. This paper aims to explore this issue. Through extensive literature review, the paper systematically discusses possible applications of EC in traditional (internal) and extended SCM. Some areas of applications of EC in internal SCM are identified as: Internet-based marketing, web storefront and purchasing, virtual warehouses, and online customer services. Some applications of EC in extended SCM include small and medium enterprise (SME) collaboration, supplierassisted inventory management, supplier collaboration and management, customer interaction, Internet-based manufacturing system, enterprise channel integration and inter-supply chain collaboration.
Sentiment Analysis of movie reviews using SentiWordNet Approach

— In this paper, a new kind of domain specific feature-based heuristic for sentiment analysis of movie reviews using aspect-level is presented. The unsupervised learning technique for sentiment classification is used. The SentiWordNet based scheme using two different linguistic feature selections containing adjectives, adverbs and verbs and n-gram feature extraction is performed. In aspect oriented algorithm analysis of textual reviews of a movie is performed and then a sentiment label on each aspect is assigned. By using sentiment labels score is generated. Such scores for each aspect from different reviews are aggregated. Finally, based on all parameters a net sentiment profile of the movie is generated. The document-level sentiment for each movie reviews using SentiWordNet approach is also computed. The generated sentiment profile of a movie is compared with the result derived by using document-level classification. The results obtained present that aspect-level classification generates a more accurate and focused sentiment profile than the document-level sentiment analysis.
Mortality and delay in effective therapy associated with extended-spectrum beta-lactamase production in Enterobacteriaceae bacteraemia: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVES We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to examine the impact of extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) production on mortality and delay in effective therapy in Enterobacteriaceae bacteraemia. METHODS We searched the PubMed database using the terms 'bacteremia or bloodstream' and 'ESBL or extended-spectrum beta-lactamase'. Included studies contained numbers of and mortality figures for patients with bacteraemia caused by ESBL producers and non-producers. Data extracted included crude relative risk (RR), adjusted odds ratio and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for mortality and delayed effective therapy. Results were pooled using a random effects model. RESULTS Sixteen studies met inclusion criteria. Meta-analysis of crude RRs demonstrated significantly increased mortality in ESBL-associated bacteraemia (pooled RR 1.85, 95% CI 1.39-2.47, P < 0.001). However, only one study reported RR controlled for confounding. Ten studies reported comparative data on delay in effective therapy. Meta-analysis of crude RRs demonstrated significantly increased incidence of delay in effective therapy in ESBL-associated bacteraemia (pooled RR 5.56, 95% CI 2.94-10.51, P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS In Enterobacteriaceae bacteraemia, ESBL production is associated with increased mortality and delay in effective therapy. However, lack of controlled studies limits interpretation regarding causality, and further controlled studies are required.
Searching for excellence in business education: an exploratory study of customer impressions of service quality

Examines the concept of service quality in business education with data collected from 388 students. Identifies seven factors which influence student evaluations of service quality. In descending order of importance these factors are: reputation, administrative personnel, faculty, curriculum, responsiveness, physical evidence and access to facilities. Describes the implications for controlling quality and for achieving excellence in business education.
Testing hypotheses of trophic level interactions: a boreal forest ecosystem

Models of community organization involve variations of the top-down (predator control) or bottom-up (nutrient limitation) hypotheses. Verbal models, however, can be interpreted in different ways leading to confusion. Therefore, we predict from first principles the range of possible trophic level interactions, and define mathematically the instantaneous effects of experimental perturbations. Some of these interactions are logically and biologically unfeasible. The remaining set of 27 feasible models is based on an initial assumption, for simplicity, of linear interactions between trophic levels. Many more complex and non-linear models are logically feasible but, for parsimony, simple ones are tested first. We use an experiment in the boreal forest of Canada to test predictions of instantaneous changes to trophic levels and distinguish between competing models. Seven different perturbations systematically removed each trophic level or, for some levels, supplemented them. The predictions resulting from the perturbations were concerned with the direction of change in biomass in the other levels. The direct effects of each perturbation produced strong top-down and bottom-up changes in biomass. At both the vegetation and herbivore levels top-down was stronger than bottom-up despite some compensatory growth stimulated by herbivory. The combination of experiments produced results consistent with two-way (reciprocal) interactions at each level. Indirect effects on one or two levels removed from the perturbation were either very weak or undetectable. Top-down effects were strong when direct but attenuated quickly. Bottom-up effects were less strong but persisted as indirect effects to higher levels. Although the 'pure reciprocal' model best fits our results for the boreal forest system different models may apply to different ecosystems around the world.
Implementing the Jacobi Algorithm for Solving Eigenvalues of Symmetric Matrices with CUDA

Solving the eigenvalues of matrices is an open problem which is often related to scientific computation. With the increasing of the order of matrices, traditional sequential algorithms are unable to meet the needs for the calculation time. Although people can use cluster systems in a short time to solve the eigenvalues of large-scale matrices, it will bring an increase in equipment costs and power consumption. This paper proposes a parallel algorithm named Jacobi on gpu which is implemented by CUDA (Computer Unified Device Architecture) on GPU (Graphic Process Unit) to solve the eigenvalues of symmetric matrices. In our experimental environment, we have Intel Core i5-760 quad-core CPU, NVIDIA GeForce GTX460 card, and Win7 64-bit operating system. When the size of matrix is 10240×10240, the number of iterations is 10000 times, the speedup ratio is 13.71. As the size of matrices increase, the speedup ratio increases correspondingly. Moreover, as the number of iterations increases, the speedup ratio is very stable. When the size of matrix is 8192×8192, the number of iterations are 1000, 2000, 4000, 8000 and 16000 respectively, the standard deviation of the speedup ratio is 0.1161. The experimental results show that the Jacobi on gpu algorithm can save more running time than traditional sequential algorithms and the speedup ratio is 3.02~13.71. Therefore, the computing time of traditional sequential algorithms to solve the eigenvalues of matrices is reduced significantly.