Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Investigation of Changes in Retinal Detachment-Related Brain Region Activities and Functions Using the Percent Amplitude of Fluctuation Method: A Resting-State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Purpose The percent amplitude of fluctuation (PerAF) method was used to study the changes in neural activities and functions in specific brain regions of patients with a retinal detachment (RD). Patients and Methods In this study, we recruited 15 RD patients (nine males and six females) and 15 healthy controls (HCs) matched for gender, age, and weight. All participants were scanned with resting functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI). The PerAF method was then used for data analysis to evaluate and detect changes in neural activity in relevant brain regions. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to evaluate the two groups. Results The PerAF signal values of the right fusiform gyrus and the left inferior temporal gyrus of RD patients were significantly higher than those of HCs. This may indicate changes in neural activity and function in the related brain regions. The anxiety and depression scores of hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS) and the durations in RD patients were positively correlated with the PerAF values of the left inferior temporal gyrus. Conclusion In this study, we demonstrated that there were significant changes in the PerAF values in specific areas of the brain in patients with RD. The change of PerAF values represent the changes of BOLD signal intensity, which reflect the hyperactivity or weakening of specific brain regions in RD patients, which are helpful to predict the development and prognosis of RD patients, and play an important role in the early diagnosis of RD. In addition, according to the results, changes in neural activity in specific brain regions of RD patients increase the risk of brain dysfunction related diseases, which may help to understand the pathological mechanism of vision loss in RD patients.
Pneumococcal nasopharyngeal carriage in Indonesia infants and toddlers post-PCV13 vaccination in a 2+1 schedule: A prospective cohort study

Background The PCV13 immunization demonstration program began in October 2017 in Indonesia. The aim of this study is to assess the dynamic changes of pneumococcal serotype before and after PCV13 administration, with two primary and one booster doses. Methods The prospective cohort study was conducted as a follow up study measuring the impact of PCV13 demonstration program by the Indonesian Ministry of Health in Lombok Island, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, from March 2018 to June 2019. The subjects were two-month-old healthy infants who were brought to the primary care facility for routine vaccination and followed until 18 months of age. We use convenience sampling method. There were 115 infants in the control group and 118 infants in the vaccine group, and the PCV immunization was given on a 2+1 schedule. Nasopharyngeal (NP) swabs were collected four times during the vaccination periods by trained medical staff. Specimens were analyzed by culture methods to detect S. pneumonia colonization and multiplex polymerase chain reaction (mPCR) to determine serotype. The most frequently detected serotypes will be named as dominant serotypes. Descriptive analysis of demographic characteristics, the prevalence of overall and serotype colonization, and the distribution of serotypes were performed. The prevalence of both cohort groups were compared using chi-square test. Statistical significance was set at p < 0.05. Results Two hundred and thirty three infants age two months old were recruited, with 48.9% of the subjects were male and 51.1% of the subjects were female. Sociodemographic data in both cohort groups were relatively equal. Nasopharyngeal pneumococcal colonization before PCV13 administration occurred in 19.1% of the control and 22.9% of the vaccine group. The prevalence increased with increasing age in both groups. The prevalence of VT serotypes in control groups aged 2 months, 4 months, 12 months, and 18 months was 40.9%, 44.2%, 53.8%, and 54.3%, respectively, and in the vaccine group, 25.9%, 40.4%, 38.0%, and 22.6%, respectively. The most common VT serotypes in both groups were 6A/6B, 19F, 23F, and 14. The prevalence of VT serotypes decreased significantly compared to non-vaccine type serotypes after three doses of the PCV13 vaccine (p < 0.001). Another notable change was the decline in prevalence of serotype 6A/6B after PCV13 administration using the 2+1 schedule. Conclusions This study shows lower prevalence of VT and 6A/6B serotypes in the nasopharynx among children who were PCV13 vaccinated compared with those who were unvaccinated. The result from this study will be the beginning of future vaccine evaluation in larger population and longer period of study.
Awareness of climate change's impacts and motivation to adapt are not enough to drive action: A look of Puerto Rican farmers after Hurricane Maria

Understanding how perceptions around motivation, capacity, and climate change’s impacts relate to the adoption of adaptation practices in light of experiences with extreme weather events is important in assessing farmers’ adaptive capacity. However, very little of this work has occurred in islands, which may have different vulnerabilities and capacities for adaptation. Data of surveyed farmers throughout Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria (n = 405, 87% response rate) were used in a structural equation model to explore the extent to which their adoption of agricultural practices and management strategies was driven by perceptions of motivation, vulnerability, and capacity as a function of their psychological distance of climate change. Our results show that half of farmers did not adopt any practice or strategy, even though the majority perceived themselves capable and motivated to adapt to climate change, and understood their farms to be vulnerable to future extreme events. Furthermore, adoption was neither linked to these adaptation perceptions, nor to their psychological distance of climate change, which we found to be both near and far. Puerto Rican farmers’ showed a broad awareness of climate change’s impacts both locally and globally in different dimensions (temporal, spatial, and social), and climate distance was not linked to reported damages from Hurricane Maria or to previous extreme weather events. These results suggest that we may be reaching a tipping point for extreme events as a driver for climate belief and action, especially in places where there is a high level of climate change awareness and continued experience of compounded impacts. Further, high perceived capacity and motivation are not linked to actual adaptation behaviors, suggesting that broadening adaptation analyses beyond individual perceptions and capacities as drivers of climate adaptation may give us a better understanding of the determinants to strengthen farmers’ adaptive capacity.
Uniform patterns based area-efficient and accurate stochastic computing finite impulse response filter

Stochastic computing has recently gained attention due to its low hardware complexity and better fault tolerance against soft errors. However, stochastic computing based circuits suffer from different errors which affect the output accuracy of these circuits. In this paper, an accurate and area-efficient stochastic computing based digital finite impulse response filter is designed. In the proposed work, constant uniform patterns are used as stochastic numbers for the select lines of different MUXes in the filter and the error performance of filter is analysed. Based on the error performance, the combinations of these patterns are proposed for reducing the output error of stochastic computing based filters. The architectures for generating these uniform patterns are also proposed. Results show that the proposed design methodology has better error performance and comparable hardware complexity as compared to the state-of-the-art implementations.
Effect of partial hysterectomy on the neurons of the paracervical ganglion (PCG) of the pig

Autonomic neurons innervating uterine horn is probably the only nerve cell population capable of periodical physiological degeneration and regeneration. One of the main sources of innervation of the uterus is paracervical ganglion (PCG). PCG is a unique structure of the autonomic nervous system. It contains components of both the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. The present study examines the response of neurons of PCG innervating uterine horn to axotomy caused by partial hysterectomy in the domestic pig animal model. The study was performed using a neuronal retrograde tracing and double immunofluorescent staining for tyrosine hydroxylase (TH), dopamine beta-hydroxylase (DβH), choline acetyltransferase (ChAT), vesicular acetylcholine transporter (VAChT), neuronal nictric oxide synthase (nNOS), galanin, neuropeptide Y (NPY), vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP), pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating peptide (PACAP), somatostatin and substance P (SP). Our study showed that virtually all neurons of the porcine PCG innervating uterine horn are adrenergic and we did not confirm that PCG is the source of cholinergic fibers innervating uterine horn of the pig. After axotomy there was a decrease in expression of catecholamine-synthesizing enzymes (TH, DβH) and a strong increase in the galanin expression. The increase of the number of NPY-IR neurons in the ganglia after axotomy was observed. There were no changes in the expression of other studied substances in the PCG neurons innervating the uterine horn, what was often found in rodents studies. This indicates that neurons can respond to damage in a species-specific way.
Hypertriglyceridemia Is an Independent Risk Factor for Cardiovascular Diseases in Korean Adults Aged 30–49 Years: a Nationwide Population-Based Study

Objective This study was conducted to estimate the incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) independently from low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol according to triglyceride (TG) levels in young adults. Methods Subjects aged 30–49 years with data from routine health check-ups provided by the National Health Insurance Service during 2009 were selected. The primary outcome was incident CVD, defined as a composite of ischemic heart disease and ischemic stroke during the follow-up period from 2009 to 2018. Results The mean age of study subjects (n=1,823,537) was 40.1±5.7 years, and the median follow-up period was 8.3 years. The quartiles of serum TG levels at the baseline were calculated: Q1, <74 mg/dL; Q2, 74–108 mg/dL; Q3, 109–166 mg/dL; and Q4: >166 mg/dL. The highest quartile of TG levels (Q4) had a significantly higher risk of the primary outcome than Q1 (hazard ratio [HR], 2.40 [95% confidence interval; CI, 2.33–2.47]). Q2 and Q3 also experienced the primary outcome more frequently than Q1 (HR, 1.37 [95% CI, 1.33–1.42] and HR, 1.80 [95% CI, 1.75–1.86], respectively). Even after adjustment for age, sex, obesity, alcohol drinking amount, smoking, LDL cholesterol, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, lipid-lowering medication use, and family history of CVD, there was a significant dose-response relationship between TG quartiles and the risk of the primary outcome (HR per quartile, 1.13 [95% CI, 1.12–1.14]). Conclusion In conclusion, in the Korean population aged 30–49 years, high TG levels independently increased future CVD risk in both men and women.
CircNRIP1 Modulates the miR-515-5p/IL-25 Axis to Control 5-Fu and Cisplatin Resistance in Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma

Background The development of drug resistance leads many NPC patients to experience disease relapse following the completion of chemotherapy. It is thus essential that the mechanistic basis for such chemoresistance be clarified in an effort to identify approaches to sensitizing NPC tumors to treatment with cisplatin and related agents. Methods A qRT-PCR approach was used to measure the expression of circNRIP1 in NPC, while luciferase assays were used to identify interactions with downstream targets of circNRIP1 activity including miR-515-5p and IL-25. CCK8 assays were also utilized to detect IC50 values for cisplatin and 5-Fu. Results The expression of circNRIP1 was significantly increased in the serum of chemoresistant NPC patients. At a functional level, we determined that circNRIP1 is able to sequester miR-515-5p, thereby inhibiting its ability to post-transcriptionally suppress IL-25 expression. We observed a significant negative correlation between the expression of miR-515-5p and circNRIP1 in serum samples from chemoresistant NPC patients, consistent with a functional interaction between these two factors. We further found that 5-Fu and CDDP IC50 values in NPC cells in which circNRIP1 had been knocked down were restored following miR-515-5p inhibitor transfection. Similarly, changes in these IC50 values were reversed in NPC cells transfected with miR-515-5p mimics following the overexpression of IL-25 in these same cells. Conclusion These data highlight the circNRIP1/miR-515-5p/IL-25 as a novel regulator of 5-Fu and cisplatin resistance in NPC, suggesting that this pathway may be amenable to therapeutic targeting as an approach to treating this cancer type.
Career Management and Work Behavior in Malaysian Banking Sector Perspective

Career management is a very important, sensitive and a key factor for both employer and employee. Because both want to grow, develop and successful in present and future as well. Along with career management turnover intention is also a point of concern for employer and employees. Turnover intention is increasing day by day in top talented employees and in organizations as well. Both the factors career management and turnover intention are always keep in the consideration of the researchers. The present study was aimed at understanding the concept of individual career management and organizational career management in the context of Malaysian banking sector. Literature supports the concept that individual career management and organizational career management are interlinked concepts and it has the linkage with the turnover intention as well. Banking sector the world over is facing the issue of employee turnover and Malaysian banking sector is no exception. Therefore, the present study is aimed at exploring to deal with this burning issue with the help of career management practices and its impact on turnover intention. Data was analyzed by using PLS-SEM. The results of the study have important implications for the banks to deal effectively with the existing problem of employee turnover. Overall the proposed model of this study shows high explanatory power in understanding the concepts of career management to reduced turnover intention in Malaysian banking sector.
Reduction of nitrate in clayey subsoils controlled by geochemical and microbial barriers

Vertical distribution of redox zones, concentrations of redox‐sensitive constituents, numbers of aerobic heterotrophic bacteria, and potential denitrification activity were studied in 1‐m cores taken at the transition between the oxidized and reduced layers in two Danish clayey subsoils. Based on the matrix soil colors, a redox sequence of oxidized, suboxic, and reduced zones was identified at both sites. The geochemical composition of the oxidized brown colored zone (to depths of 2.6 and 3.2 m) was characterized by high concentrations of NO3 − and low amounts of total organic carbon, exchangeable forms of NH4 +, Fe2+, and Mn2+, and structural Fe(II) in the clay minerals. In the underlying 20‐ to 30‐cm‐deep suboxic zone, decreasing NO3 − concentrations were observed together with increasing amount of exchangeable forms of Fe2+ and Mn2+, and structural Fe(II). Finally, in the reduced grey zone, NO3 − was no longer present and maximum concentrations of other redox sensitive constituents occurred. Throughout.
Effective conditions for extracting higher quality kernels from walnuts

Samples of walnut at 9.25, 15.98, 23.36, and 29.72% (wet basis) moisture contents were subjected to impact energy ranged from 0.13 to 1.11 J using an impact test apparatus. Data obtained on the quantity of fully cracked and unbroken kernel, fully cracked but broken kernel and uncracked nuts were used in the computation of the nuts cracking characteristics. Results showed that impact energy, moisture content and the interaction effects of these two variables significantly influenced the cracking characteristics of walnuts (P<0.01). Full cracking of nuts increased with decreasing moisture content and increased impact energy. The optimum moisture content for cracking walnuts that gave the best result in combination with a high whole kernel yield and low kernel breakage was found to be about 16%. The optimum impact energy for cracking was found to be about 1.01 J. However, the result of the study shows that development of a centrifugal impact cracker, which uses impact to crack walnuts is possible. It suggest.
Prediction of femoral fracture pattern using finite element analysis of dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry-based model

Osteoporotic bone fracture is a significant public health problem. Therefore, it has attracted several physicians and biomedical researchers’ attention. The main objective of this study is to predict hip fracture location under various loading conditions. The use of bone densitometry in clinics to evaluate and predict osteoporosis has been expanded. Therefore, in this research, finite element analysis is carried out using models based on images and reports of dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry system to predict the femoral fracture pattern. Initially, the finite element models were created based on the bone mineral density reported in four distinct regions including neck, greater trochanter, inter trochanter, and total hip. To improve the accuracy of predictions, the pixel by pixel bone mineral density map was extracted based on the raw data of the HOLOGIC bone densitometry device. Linear finite element analysis was performed using the maximum risk factor, which has been defined based on the ratio of the strain energy density to the yield strain energy density, and thus the location of femoral fractures was determined based on the location of critical elements. The results demonstrate that using the non-homogeneous distribution of bone mineral density in a finite element analysis of the 2D models based on dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry can be considered as a useful tool for predicting the location of the bone fracture.
Identification of Potential Biomarkers and Their Pathways for Breast Cancer using Integrated Bioinformatics Analysis

Breast cancer (BC) is a serious risk to women's health and became the nation's top cause of death in women. To date, the potential to treat advanced cancer is constrained by a lack of understanding of the precise hub genes. The objective of this study would be to classify hub genes and identify novel biomarkers for designing therapeutic drugs as well as establish prognostically important DEG within upregulated and downregulated expression. There is a total of 433 genes breast cancer which retrieved from GEO database. A proteinprotein interaction (PPI) network was constructed for network analysis using Cytoscape. CytoHubba app in Cytoscape discovered the 6 hub genes. Moreover, GO and KEGG pathway analysis mainly involved cellular component, biological process, biological pathway and molecular function using DAVID database. MYLK, MYH11, PK5, ACTA2, TAGLN and CNN1 were recognized as the hub genes in the network based on MCC scoring method. A comprehensive perspective was provided by the bioinformatics analysis such as Cytoscape, GEO, DAVID to understand the mechanism underlying breast cancer
AND DIVESTITURES

Divestitures are major corporate restructuring transactions that narrow firm boundaries by removing one or more of a company’s businesses, subsidiaries, or divisions. Globally, divestitures account for about 30-40% of overall deal-making activity and create more than double the shareholder value of mergers and acquisitions (M&A), their expansionary counterparts. Yet, restructuring and divestitures have been relatively understudied in the field of management. In this chapter, I present an agenda for research into the phenomena of restructuring and divestitures by surveying past and current literature about them and laying out some productive directions for future research in this domain. The core insight to emerge from this chapter is that although divestitures are often seen as reactive solutions to problems within organizations, these transactions are and should be viewed by managers as proactive, strategic tools that have the potential to create significant value for the companies that undertake them.
A PROBABILISTIC MACHINE LEARNING FRAMEWORK FOR CLOUD RESOURCE SELECTION ON THE CLOUD

By Syeduzzaman Khan University of the Pacific 2020 The execution of the scientific applications on the Cloud comes with great flexibility, scalability, cost-effectiveness, and substantial computing power. Market-leading Cloud service providers such as Amazon Web service (AWS), Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) offer various general purposes, memory-intensive, and compute-intensive Cloud instances for the execution of scientific applications. The scientific community, especially small research institutions and undergraduate universities, face many hurdles while conducting highperformance computing research in the absence of large dedicated clusters. The Cloud provides a lucrative alternative to dedicated clusters, however a wide range of Cloud computing choices makes the instance selection for the end-users. This thesis aims to simplify Cloud instance selection for end-users by proposing a probabilistic machine learning framework to allow to users select a suitable Cloud instance for their scientific applications. This research builds on the previously proposed A2Cloud-RF framework that recommends high-performing Cloud instances by profiling the application and the selected Cloud instances. The framework produces a set of objective scores called the A2Cloud scores, which denote the compatibility level between the application and the selected Cloud instances. When used alone, the A2Cloud scores become increasingly unwieldy with an increasing number of tested Cloud instances. Additionally, the framework only examines the raw application
Unemployment and Economic Growth in Nigeria : An Empirical Analysis 1985 to 2015

Unemployment is looked upon as a grave problem faced by most developed and developing countries and resulting socio-economic problems. The main purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of unemployment on economic growth in Nigeria. The study employed panel data, which includes a combination of time series and horizontal section data. In the study, the impact of unemployment on economic growth in Nigeria was examined for the period 1985-2015. The data set taken was taken from Nigerian Statistical Bureau and consists of economic growth and unemployment between 1985-2015. The ordinary least square (OLS) method was used to test the influence of unemployment on economic growth in Nigeria. The results indicated that the coefficient of economic growth represented by GDP was found negative and significant at the 5% level, implying that unemployment will fall economic growth. The study therefore, concludes that unemployment has significant impact on Nigeria’s economic growth. The study recommends among others that, the government should ensure there is job creation in the economy especially in the real sector, i.e. agriculture and manufacturing sector to raise employment opportunities from these sectors, reduce unemployment rate and trigger economic growth in the country.