Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Foot and mouth disease: the human consequences

The current major outbreak of foot and mouth disease (FMD) is the latest in a series of disasters that are putting British agriculture under stress.1 The disease affects all cloven-hoofed animals and is the most contagious of animal diseases. It is caused by a virus of the family Picornaviridae, genus Aphthovirus, of which there are seven serotypes (O, A, C, SAT1, SAT2, SAT3, and Asia1). The current outbreak in the United Kingdom is due to the highly virulent pan-Asiatic serotype O.1 In animals the disease presents with acute fever, followed by the development of blisters chiefly in the mouth and on the feet. Infected animals secrete numerous virus particles before clinical signs appear.2 Foot and mouth disease is a zoonosis, a disease transmissible to humans, but it crosses the species barrier with difficulty and with little effect. Given the high incidence of the disease in animals, both in the past and in more recent outbreaks worldwide, its occurrence in man is rare3 so experience of the human infection is limited. The last human case reported in Britain occurred in 1966, during the last epidemic of foot and mouth disease.4 The circumstances in which it …
Performance analysis of a human–robot collaborative target recognition system

SUMMARY This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of time and action operational costs on an objective function developed by Bechar et al. (A. Bechar, J. Meyer and Y. Edan, “An objective function to evaluate performance of human–robot collaboration in target recognition tasks,” IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cybern. Part C39(6), 611–620 (2009)) for collaborative target recognition systems. Different task types, system reaction types, and environments were evaluated. Results reveal two types of task and system reactions – one focused on minimizing false alarms, and the second on detecting a target when one is presented. In addition, the analysis reveals a new property of the objective function based on a specific ratio between the weight differences that generalizes the model's objective function and facilitates its analysis. Results indicate that human decision time strongly influences system performance.
Portal vein imaging and flow: comparing Doppler sonography and MRI

The diagnosis of diffuse liver disease, including characterization and quantification, has gained particular importance in recent years, reflecting in large measure advances in imaging techniques. During the same time period concern has escalated about the use of CT due to the harmful effects of radiation. The net result is that the non-invasive techniques of sonography and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have achieved considerable interest. Both methods are non-invasive, innocuous and safe, but with important and noticeable differences. While sonography is a well established and widely used method, reflecting its low cost and portability, it suffers with high operator dependence variations, low sensitivity and even lower specificity. On the other hand, MRI is a comprehensive method with multiple types of data acquisition, and unmatched ability to differentiate normal from diseased tissues. The drawbacks of MRI are less availability, no portability, and higher cost. Despite these limitations and others discussed below, both methods are progressively replacing more invasive diagnostic techniques. Portal system morphology and hemodynamics constitute suitable application areas for both Doppler sonography (DUS) and MR techniques. Clinical indications for hepatic venous pressure gradient measurements performed by angiography are: prediction of clinical events, sequential assessment of clinical evolution, assessment of pharmacologic therapy, and assessment of pre-
Web interests tangle over DNS proposal

A COMMITTEE FORMED BY THE INTERnet Society and the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority is putting the final touches on the new governance framework for the Internet’s global Domain Name System (DNS). The details of this framework are spelled out in the much publicized gTLD-MoU, a memorandum of understanding on the generic top-level domain name space of the DNS. Supporters of the document hail it as the beginning of a new era for the Internet, one of selfgovernance, maturity, and stability. Other segments of the Internet community see it differently, vigorously objecting to central aspects of the memorandum, including the way it was created. The debate has grown considerably more rancorous in recent months as the memorandum nears its scheduled autumn implementation. Both supporters and detractors of the document know that the memorandum will fundamentally alter the Internet DNS administration for the foreseeable future. Both sides are well aware that fortunes hang in the balance.
Inference of missing PV monitoring data using neural networks

Complete photovoltaic monitoring data are required in order to evaluate PV system performance and to ensure confidence in project financing. Monitoring sub-system failures are common occurrences, reducing data availability in meteorological and electrical datasets. A reliable backfilling method can be applied in order to mitigate the impact of long monitoring gaps on system state and performance assessment. This paper introduces a method of inferring in-plane irradiation from remotely obtained global horizontal irradiation, by means of a neural network approach. Generation output is then calculated utilizing a simple electrical model with fitted coefficients. The proposed method is applied to a UK case study for which the mean absolute error in monthly system output was reduced significantly, to as low as 0.9%. This yielded more accurate results in backfilling the missing datasets when compared to standard approaches. The impact of missing data on monthly performance ratio is also investigated. Using backfilling to synthesize lost data increases performance ratio prediction accuracy significantly when compared to simply omitting such periods from the calculation.
Network Effects in Crowdfunding

textabstractWe study the various network effects that are at work on crowdfunding platforms. From a theoretical perspective, we distinguish between network effects that relate to participation or to usage decisions. We use novel entrepreneur-backer data to identify their relative importance on project funding dynamics. We empirically show that backers decide on their usage of the platform based on intra-project activity – as documented by prior work – but also on inter-project activity. In a difference-in-differences research design, we estimate that inter-project network effects account for 2-3% in the increase of contributions that projects generate on a daily basis. Then we find that participation decisions create a positive feedback loop fueling the growth of the platform and explaining how positive inter-project network effects can arise. Our results represent the first attempt in the literature to unbundle the web of network effects on project funding dynamics and suggest that many existing results in the crowdfunding literature are driven by network effects.
Mmu-microRNA-200a Overexpression Leads to Implantation Defect by Targeting Phosphatase and Tensin Homolog in Mouse Uterus

Successful mouse embryo implantation requires a receptive uterus and an activated blastocyst. A large number of genes, cytokines, and other factors are involved in the process. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) regulate the expression of many genes, and previous studies have investigated the relationship between miRNA expression and embryo implantation. In this study, we show that mmu-microRNA-200a (mmu-miR-200a) is expressed in a spatiatemporal manner during implantation in mouse uterus and found that phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN), SON, and programmed cell death 4 (Pdcd4) are the target genes of mmu-miR-200a by bioinformatics analysis. In vitro gain and loss of function experiments confirm that PTEN, a critical gene for cell proliferation and apoptosis, is the target gene of mmu-miR-200a. Our experiments also show that injection of the uterine horn with mmu-miR-200a lentivirus leads to a decreased implantation rate. Collectively, our results suggest that mmu-miR-200a affects embryo implantation by regulating PTEN protein expression. Thus, clarifying the physiological functions of uterine miRNAs will help to elucidate the embryo implantation process and may even contribute to curing infertility and inventing new contraceptives.
FEATURE: New Product Development Using Feature-Drift Based Framework for Unique Aspect Recommendation

In today's highly competitive markets, the challenge for product manufacturers is not only to improve a product's performance by evolving its current features but also to provide out-of-the-box product designs and characteristics. This paper proposes the FEATURE framework, which recommends product manufacturers with the unique features to be added to the next generation of a product by examining features of (a) related products, (b) competitors' products and (c) product's predecessors. FEATURE differs from existing approaches as it introduces and uses the concept of feature drift to suggest the unique and out-of-the-box features from related products apart from just improving the current features. The recommended features' popularity is investigated using social media and depending on the designer's decision criteria on innovativeness or viability, the features are ranked. The uniqueness of FEATURE is that it can help designers by providing a broader range of ideas to develop novel products.
Blackout Model Considering Slow Process

In this paper a blackout model that considers the slow process at the beginning of blackouts is proposed based on the improved ORNL-PSerc-Alaska (OPA) model. It contains two layers of iteration. The inner iteration, which describes the fast dynamics of the system, simulates the power system cascading failure, including the tree contact and failure of lines caused by heating. The simulation of protective relays and the dispatching center is also improved to make it closer to practical conditions. The outer iteration, which describes the long-term slow dynamics of the system, adds the simulation of tree growth and utility vegetation management (UVM). Typical blackout process with slow process is simulated on the Northeast Power Grid of China and self-organized criticality (SOC) characteristic of this system is analyzed with the proposed model. The effectiveness of the proposed model is verified by the simulation results.
Competitiveness Identification of Supply Chain Management Enterprises Based on DEMATEL-ANP Method

This paper analyzes the main factors of the competitiveness of supply chain management enterprises, and identified them competitiveness by DEMATEL-ANP, creating an integrated evaluation model that combines de-cision making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) and analytic net-work process (ANP) based on the correlation between indexes. DEMATEL can verify the dependent relationship and strength of indexes. ANP can cal-culate the weight of indexes. Finally, it takes Eternal Asia Supply Chain Man-agement Enterprise as an example and calculates its competitiveness. The re-sult of the evaluation not only confirms the interrelationship of each index, also can clarify the importance of each index, which will provide a scientific basis for the supply chain management enterprises to build their competi-tiveness.
EduCart: a hardware management system for supporting devices in a classroom learning environment

Today, more and more devices are used in the classroom. In this paper, the author focus on integrating the hardware, and provide teacher and student a hardware management system which will easily establish devices supporting classroom learning environment. A hardware device, named EduCart is invented and implemented on classroom devices. Teachers can easily establish their learning environment with EduCart. EduCart was experimented in Da-Hu elementary school in Taipei for six weeks. It was experimented on two classes, one is grade 2, and the other is grade 4. The teacher who participated in the experiment indicated that the EduCart reduces many tedious works in managing and establishing devices supported classroom learning. According to the author's observation, the students are more interested, and proud of their studying environment when using the EduCart. This project is a working in progress project. Several related subsystems and detailed evaluation are needed in the future.
Cytomegalovirus and vasculitis.

during pregnancy. A slight stress incontinence had remained after an operation for vaginal prolapse in 1967. Renal function was normal, and the intravenous urogram showed only slight pyelonephritic changes. Urinary cultures were negative. Because blood pressure control with 50 mg chlorthalidone and 300 mg metoprolol daily was insufficient prazosin was added in a dose increasing in four weeks from 1 5 to 6 mg daily. On a dose of 3 mg she developed orthostatic complaints, and she collapsed once. After four weeks she complained of complete incontinence of urine, which started one to two hours after taking prazosin. One day after prazosin withdrawal the incontinence had disappeared. Urodynamic investigations were then performed before and during treatment with prazosin. Urethral closure pressure profiles were obtained by the catheter-withdrawal technique4 with an empty bladder in supine position, and with a full bladder (400 ml) supine and standing. These profiles give a measure for the maximum urethral closure pressure (maximum urethral pressure minus bladder pressure) and the functional urethral length (distance where urethral pressure exceeds bladder pressure). To exclude urinary incontinence caused by "unstable bladder" a cystometrogram with pressure/flow analysis was also performed. In the three investigations before taking prazosin the maximum closure pressure and the functional urethral length were low-normal (see figure).
Designing secure business processes from organisational goal models

Business processes are essential instruments used for the coordination of organisational activities in order to produce value in the form of products and services. Information security is an important non-functional characteristic of business processes due to the involvement of sensitive data exchanged between their participants. Therefore, potential security shortfalls can severely impact organisational reputation, customer trust and cause compliance issues. Nevertheless, despite its importance, security is often considered as a technical concern and treated as an afterthought during the design of information systems and the business processes which they support. The consideration of security during the early design stages of information systems is highly beneficial. Goal-oriented security requirements engineering approaches can contribute to the early elicitation of system requirements at a high level of abstraction and capture the organisational context and rationale behind design choices. Aligning such requirements with process activities at the operational level augments the traceability between system models of different abstraction levels and leads to more robust and context-aware operationalisations of security. Therefore, there needs to be a well-defined and verifiable interconnection between a system’s security requirements and its business process models. This work introduces a framework for the design of secure business process models. It uses security-oriented goal models as its starting point to capture a socio-technical view of the system to-be and its security requirements during its early design stages. Concept mappings and model transformation rules are also introduced as a structured way of extracting business process skeletons from such goal models, in order to facilitate the alignment between the two different levels of abstraction. The extracted business process skeletons, are refined to complete business process models through the use of a set of security patterns, which standardise proven solutions to recurring security problems. Finally, the framework also offers security verification capabilities of the produced process models through the introduction of security-related attributes and model checking algorithms. Evaluation of this work is performed: (i) through individual evaluation of its components via their application in real-life systems, (ii) a workshop-based modelling exercise where participants used and evaluated parts of the framework and (iii) a case study from the public administration domain where the overall framework was applied in cooperation with stakeholders of the studied system. The evaluation indicated that the developed framework provides a structured ap-
Pronounced Differences of Recombination Activity at the Sex Determination Locus of the Honeybee, a Locus Under Strong Balancing Selection

Recombination decreases the association of linked nucleotide sites and can influence levels of polymorphism in natural populations. When coupled with selection, recombination may relax potential conflict among linked genes, a concept that has played a central role in research on the evolution of recombination. The sex determination locus (SDL) of the honeybee is an informative example for exploring the combined forces of recombination, selection, and linkage on sequence evolution. Balancing selection at SDL is very strong and homozygous individuals at SDL are eliminated by worker bees. The recombination rate is increased up to four times that of the genomewide average in the region surrounding SDL. Analysis of nucleotide diversity (π) reveals a sevenfold increase of polymorphism within the sex determination gene complementary sex determiner (csd) that rapidly declines within 45 kb to levels of genomewide estimates. Although no recombination was observed within SDL, which contains csd, analyses of heterogeneity, shared polymorphic sites, and linkage disequilibrium (LD) show that recombination has contributed to the evolution of the 5′ part of some csd sequences. Gene conversion, however, has not obviously contributed to the evolution of csd sequences. The local control of recombination appears to be related to SDL function and mode of selection. The homogenizing force of recombination is reduced within SDL, which preserves allelic differences and specificity, while the increase of recombination activity around SDL relaxes conflict between SDL and linked genes.
Wybrane modele rachunku kosztów jakości i ich zastosowanie

Głównym celem artykułu jest przedstawienie najważniejszych modeli rachunku kosztów jakości dla przedsiębiorstw oraz ich funkcji. Ponadto autor podejmuje próbę oceny zaprezentowanych modeli pod kątem możliwości ich zastosowania w różnych typach organizacji. W pierwszej części rozważania skupiają się na strukturalnych modelach kosztów jakości. Drugi punkt dotyczy charakterystyki modeli opartych na działaniach. W trzeciej części zawarte są dotychczasowe zastosowania modeli rachunku kosztów jakości. Obiekt badań stanowi rachunek kosztów jakości, który w praktyce gospodarczej wykorzystywany jest jako narzędzie stosowane do pomiaru i optymalizacji kosztów jakości. W pracy przeprowadzono analizę piśmiennictwa naukowego z zakresu rachunkowości, zarządzania jakością oraz zastosowano metody indukcji i dedukcji. Globalizacja oraz rozwój naukowo-techniczny spowodowały, że w centrum uwagi przedsiębiorców znalazł się klient i jego potrzeby. Aby sprostać wymaganiom i potrzebom konsumentów, poprzez oferowanie produktów/usług najwyższej jakości, przedsiębiorstwa coraz większą uwagę skupiają na stosowaniu rachunku kosztów jakości. Tradycyjne modele rachunku kosztów jakości straciły na znaczeniu, rośnie natomiast zainteresowanie modelami opartymi na działaniach oraz postrzegającymi produkt/usługę z perspektywy konsumenta, zwiększa się także rola takich modeli.
Antioxidants modify the effect of X rays on blood vessels.

BACKGROUND It was recently shown, with the chicken embryo chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) model, that X rays decrease the number of blood vessels within the first hours after irradiation. In the present study, the possible role of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and nitric oxide (NO) in this effect of X rays was evaluated. MATERIALS AND METHODS An area of 1 cm2 of the CAM, restricted by a plastic ring, was irradiated at room temperature, in the presence or absence of the tested agents. The number of vessels was measured 48 h after irradiation of the tissue. RESULTS Superoxide dismutase and tempol, which are superoxide ion scavengers and catalase, a hydrogen peroxide scavenger, had additive effects, while dimethylsulfoxide, a hydroxyl radical scavenger, reversed the vascular targeting effect of X rays. The combination of X rays with W1400, a selective inducible NO synthase (NOS) inhibitor, had an additive effect on the decrease in number of CAM blood vessels. In contrast, L-NAME, a non-selective NOS inhibitor and D-NAME, its inactive analog, reversed the vascular-targeting effect of X rays, possibly due to their ability to act as potent hydroxyl radical scavengers. CONCLUSION The above data collectively suggest that hydroxyl radicals mediate the damaging effects of X rays on CAM blood vessels, while antioxidants against other ROS do not protect against the vascular-targeting effect of X rays.
Hamstrings—an anterior cruciate ligament protagonist

A cadaveric model that incorporated quadriceps and hamstrings muscle loads was developed to simulate the squat exercise. The addition of hamstrings load affected knee kinematics in two ways. First, anterior tibial translation during flexion ("femoral roll-back") was significantly reduced (P = 0.003) and second, internal tibial rotation during flexion was reduced (P = 0.008). However, quadriceps force was unaffected by the ad dition of hamstrings load. Thus, it seems likely that hamstrings muscle activity that has been observed in vivo during a squat probably functions synergistically with the anterior cruciate ligament to provide anterior knee stability. After the ACL was sectioned, anterior tibial transla tion was significantly increased during the squat (P = 0.04). The anterior cruciate ligament was then recon structed using a graft instrumented with a load cell. During passive motion, maximal graft tension was at full extension. During simulated squat exercise, the addition of hamstrings caused a significant decrease in graft load ( P = 0.006). During the squat, maximal graft tension was at full extension, and was equal to the graft tension at full passive extension. Thus, the squat exercise may be useful in the early stages of anterior cruciate ligament rehabilitation.
A real-time scheduling algorithm for embedded systems with various resource requirements

The scheduling algorithm is one of the most important portions of embedded operating systems especially for real-time embedded operating systems. The performance of scheduling algorithm influences the performance of the whole system. Real-time embedded operating system needs better response time for real-time process; it is more rigid on response time for hard real-time embedded operating system. A high-performance scheduling algorithm is required in order to make embedded operating system more efficient. Most of the mainstream scheduling algorithms are able to ensure response time for most processes, but for specific real-time applications for embedded system, a specialized real-time scheduling algorithm is required to ensure real-time response. In this paper, we propose a novel real-time scheduling algorithm for real-time embedded system. This algorithm divides all tasks into different sets and schedules the tasks according to the features of the set