Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Addressing World Food Problems: A Review

Food is very vital for existence of man. Similarly, it is believed that food is basic to world peace, security and togetherness. An adage says that “a hungry world is an angry world”. It is impossible to imagine a world without available and affordable food. Generally, we tend to believe that food is not the problem but the purchasing power. Ignoring the fact that world currencies are not antidote to world food security. Global food availability and affordability is governed by law of demand and supply. In a world of over 6 billion people and maximum kilocalorie requirement of 2500 per day per person; the world requires 6 billion x 2500 kilocalories per day. For 7 days x 4 weeks x 12 months a year, you can imagine the kilocalorie alone required. Before you add protein, fat, mineral and vitamins. The world land is fixed at 13.07 billion hectares and not evenly available and distributed. Resources and technologies, political/government will and structure; world free trade in era of globalisation are major determinants of food availability, affordability and security. To add insult to injury are natural disasters like erosion, tsunami, flood, desertification, hurricane, and wildfire. Other impediment are problems of pests and diseases, inputs, allocation of resources, civil unrest, war, terrorism, economic recession/depression and high rate of poverty especially in developing world. World food problem has no clear answers. Nevertheless, sustainable agricultural revolution, world without borders, food democracy, political democracy, all round discipline and proper use and allocation of natural resources can help address the problems. Similarly, population checks not predicated on war and genocide as the world population is targeted to hit 9 billion by 2050.
A novel compound heterozygous mutation of SLC26A4 in two Chinese families with nonsyndromic hearing loss and enlarged vestibular aqueducts.

Enlarged vestibular aqueduct (EVA)‑associated hearing loss is frequently detected in individuals carrying the SLC26A4 mutation in the Chinese population. The present study aimed to identify the causative SLC26A4 coding mutations in a patient group with nonsyndromic hearing loss (NSHL) and EVA. Genomic DNA was extracted from blood samples obtained from 52 NSHL patients with EVA and from 60 normal controls. The mutation analysis for 20 coding exons of SLC26A4 was performed by direct sequencing. The results of the mutational analysis showed that there were two probands from two separate families suffering from bilateral sensorineural hearing loss with EVA, carrying the same novel compound heterozygous mutation of SLC26A4 (c.1644_1645insA and c.2168A>G). Other members of the two families had heterozygous mono‑allelic mutations with normal hearing. However, neither of these mutations were detected in the 60 normal controls. These results are the first, to the best of our knowledge, to link the compound heterozygote mutation, c. 1644_1645insA and c.2168A>G, in the SLC26A4 gene to NSHL patients with EVA. The two mutations identified in the present study were located in the anti‑sigma factor antagonist domain, the core region for plasma membrane targeting of anion transporters, which suggested that the reduced or complete loss of SLC26A4 function was the direct cause of hearing loss in the two patients. These results provide a foundation for further elucidating the genetic factors responsible for EVA‑associated NSHL.
Missed opportunities for HIV diagnosis: a three-year audit in the West of Scotland

Background National specialty guidelines for HIV testing aim to increase diagnosis and reduce late presentation. An audit of new HIV diagnoses in Glasgow was performed to assess local performance against these guidelines and estimate the proportion of patients presenting who had previous missed opportunities for diagnosis. Methods A retrospective case note review of 339 patients diagnosed from September 2008 to September 2011 was performed. Documented past medical history was assessed for HIV clinical indicator conditions prior to HIV diagnosis and prior review by medical services. Results Ninety (26%) individuals had at least one documented clinical indicator condition prior to HIV diagnosis, of whom 80 had prior contact with at least one speciality. This group also had a lower mean nadir CD4 count (258 cells/cmm versus 393 cells/cmm, p = <0.005) and were more likely to be severely immunocompromised at diagnosis, with a CD4 count below 50 cells/cmm (31% versus 9%, p = <0.005). AIDS-defining illnesses were also more common (31% versus 8%, p ≤ 0.005) as was HIV-related mortality (p ≤ 0.005). Conclusion Additional support and training are required to increase adherence to HIV-testing guidelines within primary and secondary care in order to prevent ongoing late presentation with both individual clinical and public health implications.
The Possible Connection of Gamma Oscillation and 3-D Object Representation

We process and encode for different features of a particular object (shape, color, texture, etc.) in distinct areas of the brain. How we bind these attributes together into a unified perception of an object is unknown. Past research suggests that synchronized activity between brain areas, particularly induced gamma activity (~ 40 Hz), may account for this binding process and the basis of our conscious perceptual experience, specifically through object represenptation. In this study, participants were asked to look at a series of 2-D pictures of cars from distinctive rotations (0, 90, 180) and were asked to distinguish whether two pictures are of the same or different cars; meanwhile, electroencephalography (EEG) was used to measure electrical activity on participants’ scalps. Our preliminary analysis showed a difference in gamma oscillation after the stimulus onset when comparing 180 rotations to no rotation in one participant. This suggests the possible relationship between induced gamma oscillation and 3-D object representation.
BAG-1 prevents stress-induced long-term growth inhibition in breast cancer cells via a chaperone-dependent pathway.

BAG-1 is a multifunctional protein that interacts with a wide range of cellular targets. There is accumulating evidence that overexpression of BAG-1 may play an important role in breast cancer; however, the functional consequences of BAG-1 expression and its mechanism of action in breast cancer cells have not been studied in detail. Here we demonstrate that BAG-1 overexpression completely protected breast cancer cells from apoptosis and long-term growth inhibition induced by heat shock and also partially protected cells from other stresses, including hypoxia, radiation, and chemotoxic drugs. BAG-1 exists as three protein isoforms, and all isoforms prevented stress-induced growth inhibition. This required a conserved lysine in the BAG-1S ubiquitin-like domain thought to be important for proteasome binding and COOH-terminal amino acids required for interaction with the chaperone molecules, Hsc70 and Hsp70. Although expression of BAG-1 was unaltered by heat shock, endogenous and overexpressed BAG-1S relocalized from the cytoplasm to the nucleus after heat shock. The endogenous BAG-1S.Hsc70/Hsp70 complex dissociated after heat shock but was maintained at a detectable level in cells overexpressing BAG-1S. BAG-1-mediated resistance to stress-induced growth inhibition is likely to have a major impact on the development and response to therapy of breast cancer. Targeting the interaction of BAG-1 with chaperones is an attractive strategy to counter the biological effects of BAG-1.
Modulation of Carbon and Electron Flow in Clostridium acetobutylicum by Iron Limitation and Methyl Viologen Addition

The metabolic flexibility of Clostridium acetobutylicum during growth on glucose with methyl viologen addition (1 mM) and/or iron limitation was examined in batch cultures at pH 5.5. The physiological effects of iron limitation and methyl viologen addition are additive, suggesting that they have different and complementary sites of action.
ULTRASOUND MEASUREMENT OF THE FETAL HEAD TO ABDOMEN CIRCUMFERENCE RATIO IN THE ASSESSMENT OF GROWTH RETARDATION

Fetal head and abdomen circumference measurements have been made using pulsed ultrasound techniques. The mean head to abdomen (H/A) circumference ratio with 95 per cent confidence limits was determined in 568 normal pregnancies from 17 to 41 weeks menstrual age. The mean ratio was 1·18 at 17 weeks, but decreased slowly until 29 weeks when the ratio was 1·11; thereafter there was a sharp fall in the mean ratio to 1·01 at 36 weeks and 0·96 at 40 weeks. The H/A circumference ratio was also determined in 31 small‐for‐dates fetuses within one week of delivery. In all cases the fetal weight as predicted from the fetal abdomen circumference measurement was below the 5th centile weight for gestation. The ratio was above the 95th centile limit in 22 (71 per cent) of these fetuses and evidence is presented to suggest that the H/A circumference ratio can be used to distinguish between symmetrical and asymmetrical growth retardation.
A new FPGA based architecture to improve performance of deflectometry image processing algorithm

Image processing has gained its popularity over the recent years in areas, such as computer vision, artificial intelligence and automation. Deflectometry image processing technique is developed to inspect defects on reflecting surfaces. FPGA offers flexibility by employing reconfigurability, and furthermore, provides parallelization and pipelining to improve latency and execution time. The performance gain of deflectometry image processing algorithm in terms of execution times can be achieved by using an architecture based on FPGA, as proposed in this paper. The results show the correlation between performance and resource consumption. The simulation results are calculated and arranged in form of comparison between software and hardware implementation, using proposed architecture. Moreover, for the rapid prototyping purpose, Xilinx High Level Synthesis (HLS) tool is selected in the development methodology to realize the proposed design.
Design pattern detection using a DSL‐driven graph matching approach

Knowledge about design pattern (DP) instances improves program comprehension and reengineering of object‐oriented systems. Effectively, it helps to discover developer design decisions and trade‐offs that often are not documented. This work describes an approach to automatically detect DPs in existing object‐oriented systems by tracing systems' source code components with the roles they play in the patterns. In the proposed approach, DPs are modeled based on their high‐level structural properties (e.g., inheritance, dependency, invocation, delegation, type nesting, and membership relationships) that are checked, by source code parsing, against the system structure and components. Moreover, the approach can also detect pattern variants, defined by overriding the pattern properties. This paper presents a description of the approach, provides a brief description of the supporting tool, and discusses the results from the experiments carried out to validate it. The approach was validated on seven systems of an open benchmark that contains systems of increasing sizes. For five additional systems, the results have been compared with the ones from a similar approach existing in the literature. The obtained results, the identified DP variants, and the effectiveness of the approach are thoroughly presented and discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Diagnostic values for skin temperature assessment to detect diabetes-related foot complications.

BACKGROUND Skin temperature assessment is a promising modality for early detection of diabetic foot problems, but its diagnostic value has not been studied. Our aims were to investigate the diagnostic value of different cutoff skin temperature values for detecting diabetes-related foot complications such as ulceration, infection, and Charcot foot and to determine urgency of treatment in case of diagnosed infection or a red-hot swollen foot. MATERIALS AND METHODS The plantar foot surfaces of 54 patients with diabetes visiting the outpatient foot clinic were imaged with an infrared camera. Nine patients had complications requiring immediate treatment, 25 patients had complications requiring non-immediate treatment, and 20 patients had no complications requiring treatment. Average pixel temperature was calculated for six predefined spots and for the whole foot. We calculated the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for different cutoff skin temperature values using clinical assessment as reference and defined the sensitivity and specificity for the most optimal cutoff temperature value. Mean temperature difference between feet was analyzed using the Kruskal-Wallis tests. RESULTS The most optimal cutoff skin temperature value for detection of diabetes-related foot complications was a 2.2°C difference between contralateral spots (sensitivity, 76%; specificity, 40%). The most optimal cutoff skin temperature value for determining urgency of treatment was a 1.35°C difference between the mean temperature of the left and right foot (sensitivity, 89%; specificity, 78%). CONCLUSIONS Detection of diabetes-related foot complications based on local skin temperature assessment is hindered by low diagnostic values. Mean temperature difference between two feet may be an adequate marker for determining urgency of treatment.
The Dual Logics Behind International Human Resource Management: Pressures for Global Integration and Local Responsiveness

2 Strategic international human resource management in multinational enterprises: developments and directions 15 Helen De Cieri and Peter J. Dowling 3 The dual logics behind international human resource management: pressures for global integration and local responsiveness 36 Philip M. Rosenzweig 4 The human resource department: roles, coordination and influence 49 Philip Stiles and Jonathan Trevor 5 Comparing HRM policies and practices across geographical borders 68 Chris Brewster 6 International human resource management and firm performance 91 Jaap Paauwe and Elaine Farndale 7 Global knowledge management and HRM 113 Paul Sparrow
Cardiovascular Response of Individuals With Spinal Cord Injury to Dynamic Functional Electrical Stimulation Under Orthostatic Stress

In this pilot study, we examined how effectively functional electrical stimulation (FES) and passive stepping mitigated orthostatic hypotension in participants with chronic spinal cord injury (SCI). While being tilted head-up to 70° from the supine position, the participants underwent four 10-min conditions in a random sequence: 1) no intervention, 2) passive stepping, 3) isometric FES of leg muscles, and 4) FES of leg muscles combined with passive stepping. We found that FES and passive stepping independently mitigated a decrease in stroke volume and helped to maintain the mean blood pressure. The effects of FES on stroke volume and mean blood pressure were greater than those of passive stepping. When combined, FES and passive stepping did not interfere with each other, but they also did not synergistically increase stroke volume or mean blood pressure. Thus, the present study suggests that FES delivered to lower limbs can be used in individuals with SCI to help them withstand orthostatic stress. Additional studies are needed to confirm whether this use of FES is applicable to a larger population of individuals with SCI.
Regulation of interferon and Toll‐like receptor signaling during macrophage activation by opposing feedforward and feedback inhibition mechanisms

Summary: Activated macrophages and their inflammatory products play a key role in innate immunity and in pathogenesis of autoimmune/inflammatory diseases. Macrophage activation needs to be tightly regulated to rapidly mount responses to infectious challenges but to avoid toxicity associated with excessive activation. Rapid and potent macrophage activation is driven by cytokine‐mediated feedforward loops, while excessive activation is prevented by feedback inhibition. Here we discuss feedforward mechanisms that augment macrophage responses to Toll‐like receptor (TLR) ligands and cytokines that are mediated by signal transducer and activator of transcription 1 (STAT1) and induced by interferon‐γ (IFN‐γ). IFN‐γ also drives full macrophage activation by inactivating feedback inhibitory mechanisms, such as those mediated by interleukin‐10 (IL‐10), and STAT3. Priming of macrophages with IFN‐γ reprograms cellular responses to other cytokines, such as type I IFNs and IL‐10, with a shift toward pro‐inflammatory STAT1‐dominated responses. Similar but partially distinct priming effects are induced by other cytokines that activate STAT1, including type I IFNs and IL‐27. We propose a model whereby opposing feedforward and feedback inhibition loops crossregulate each other to fine tune macrophage activation. In addition, we discuss how dysregulation of the balance between feedforward and feedback inhibitory mechanisms can contribute to the pathogenesis of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus.
Formal methods in real-time systems

The design of intricate real-time systems typically involves several notations that describe the system at different levels of abstraction. Graphical notations inspired by timing diagrams are helpful at the requirements level, structured automata are common at the design level and dedicated languages are used at the programming level. The question arises how these different notations are linked together in a semantically meaningful way. The author argues that a logic-based approach is making a real contribution.
Modulating the immune response in spinal cord injury

Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada; Division of Neurosurgery, Department of Surgery, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada; McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada; Department of Surgery, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada; Spine Program, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada; Krembil Neuroscience Centre, University Health Network, Toronto, Canada
Peak intensity prediction in mass spectra using machine learning methods

Massenspektrometrie ist heutzutage unersetzlich, um Proteine und Peptide in komplexen biologischen Proben schnell zu untersuchen. Das Hauptproblem bei der quantitativen Analyse mit Methoden der Massenspektrometrie ist dabei die Tatsache, dass die Empfindlichkeit von Massenspektrometern prinzipbedingt peptidabhangig ist. Daher ist die Beziehung zwischen beobachteten Peakintensitaten und den entsprechenden Peptidkonzentrationen in der Probe unklar. Es gibt verschiedene Ansatze, dieses Problem durch Labeling-Techniken zu umgehen. Allerdings sind diese Techniken extrem teuer und zeitaufwandig in der Anwendung. Wenn man die peptidabhangige Empfindlichkeit verlasslich vorhersagen konnte, dann konnte man einen peptidabhangigen Korrekturfaktor berechnen, wodurch die Genauigkeit von absoluten Quantifizierungstechniken ohne den Einsatz von Labeling-Techniken (label-free absolute quantitation) verbessert werden konnte. In dieser Arbeit beschaftige ich mich mit der Frage, ob es moglich ist, die peptidspezifische Empfindlichkeit eines Massenspektrometers zu modellieren. Zu diesem Zweck wird mithilfe von Datensatzen eines Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization (MALDI)-Massenspektrometers ein Verfahren entwickelt, das Simulation und Uberwachte Lernverfahren kombiniert. Der zweite Teil der Arbeit hat zum Ziel, jene Peptideigenschaften zu ermitteln, die den grosten Einflus auf die peptidspezifischen Empfindlichkeiten haben. Diese Arbeit stellt einen wichtigen Schritt dar, um die Genaugkeit Label-freier Quantifizierung mithilfe von Massenspektrometrie zu verbessern: Ich zeige, dass die Vorhersage der peptidabhangigen Empfindlichkeit tatsachlich moglich ist, sogar mit nur wenig Daten. Das beste hier vorgestellte Verfahren erreicht eine signifikante quadratische Pearson-Korrelation von 0,46 in einer zehnfachen Kreuzvalidierung (ten-fold cross-validation). Wissensextraktion mit Feature Selection-Methoden deckt sowohl bereits bekannte als auch neue Peptid-Eigenschaften auf, die fur das Problem relevant sind. Im Zuge dessen wird Least-Angle Regression, eine moderne Feature Selection-Technik, evaluiert und als geeignet befunden, auch auf verrauschten Daten gute Ergebnisse zu erzielen.
Determinants of Tourist Destination Competitiveness in a Low-Carbon Tourism

Low-carbon tourism represents a sustainable way to make tourist destinations more competitive and efficient. Therefore, tourist destination competitiveness has to consider natural resources preservation and environmentally sustainable development. Many cities have become more attractive through upgrading their quality of services, investing in low-carbon policies, and consequently, improving their competitiveness. In these contexts, innovation and technology were used to provide benefits to the tourist as well as to the resident like in the “smart city” model. Many tourist destinations are exposed to very high levels of competition, so it becomes really significant to change policy and strategy ameliorating environmental standards to maintain profit margins. The purpose of this chapter is to study the low-carbon tourists' destination competitiveness. It intends to contribute to the literature analyzing this topic and explaining how low-carbon goods and services can determine the competitiveness of a tourist destination.
The International Society for Bipolar Disorders Task Force report on pediatric bipolar disorder: Knowledge to date and directions for future research

Objectives Over the past two decades, there has been tremendous growth in research regarding bipolar disorder (BD) among children and adolescents (ie, pediatric BD [PBD]). The primary purpose of this article is to distill the extant literature, dispel myths or exaggerated assertions in the field, and disseminate clinically relevant findings. Methods An international group of experts completed a selective review of the literature, emphasizing areas of consensus, identifying limitations and gaps in the literature, and highlighting future directions to mitigate these gaps. Results Substantial, and increasingly international, research has accumulated regarding the phenomenology, differential diagnosis, course, treatment, and neurobiology of PBD. Prior division around the role of irritability and of screening tools in diagnosis has largely abated. Gold‐standard pharmacologic trials inform treatment of manic/mixed episodes, whereas fewer data address bipolar depression and maintenance/continuation treatment. Adjunctive psychosocial treatment provides a forum for psychoeducation and targets primarily depressive symptoms. Numerous neurocognitive and neuroimaging studies, and increasing peripheral biomarker studies, largely converge with prior findings from adults with BD. Conclusions As data have accumulated and controversy has dissipated, the field has moved past existential questions about PBD toward defining and pursuing pressing clinical and scientific priorities that remain. The overall body of evidence supports the position that perceptions about marked international (US vs elsewhere) and developmental (pediatric vs adult) differences have been overstated, although additional research on these topics is warranted. Traction toward improved outcomes will be supported by continued emphasis on pathophysiology and novel therapeutics.