Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stress testing software to determine fault tolerance for hardware failure and anomalies

Today's military systems rely for their performance on combinations of hardware and software. While testing of hardware performance during design, development and operation is well understood, the testing of software is less mature. In particular, the effect of hardware failures in the field on software performance, and therefore systems performance, is all-too-often overlooked or is tested in a far less rigorous manner that that applied to Hardware failures alone. Numerous examples exist of major system failures driven by software anomalies but triggered by Hardware failures, with consequences that range from degraded mission performance to weapons system destruction and operator fatalities. Measuring software development quality and fault tolerance is a challenging task. Many software test methods focus on source-code only approach (unit tests, modular test) and neglect the impacts caused by hardware anomalies or failures. Such missing test coverage can and will result in potential degraded software performance quality, thereby adding to project cost and delaying schedule. It can also result in far more disastrous consequences for the warfighters. This paper will discuss the general nature of the hardware-failure-software anomaly - system failure flow-down. It will then describe techniques that exist for system software testing and will highlight extensions of these techniques to focus on an effective and comprehensive software testing that includes performance prediction and hardware failure fault tolerance. The end result is a suite of test methods that, when properly applied, offer a systematic and comprehensive analysis of prime software behaviors under a range of hardware field failure conditions.
Poverty Impacts of Trade Integration with the EU: lessons for Ecuador

This research proposes to measure the effects of a trade agreement with the European Union on poverty in Ecuador. Both poverty and the signing of a trade agreement with the EU are issues under discussion in Ecuador. Ecuador is seeking to sign a trade agreement with the EU due to their complementary trade: the EU is a major market for Ecuadorian agricultural and fish products, and Ecuador imports mainly manufacturing goods from the EU. In particular, the EU is the main market for the main agricultural export product of Ecuador: bananas. The transmission mechanisms to study these issues include changes in commodity prices, wages and earnings, and labor market demands. This research combines a reduced-form micro household income and occupational choice model with a standard single-country computable general equilibrium model (CGE) for Ecuador, using a top-down approach. This study highlights that a trade agreement with the EU may have a different impact on poverty depending on the degree of initial tariff reduction, on labor market considerations (employment, unemployment, labor market segments), and on whether better access to Ecuadorian bananas is granted by the negotiations or not. Through trade liberalization there is a significant increase in imports from the EU, particularly in protected sectors. With better access for bananas to the EU market, investment constraints may mean that increasing banana export and production can be achieved by pulling resources (namely production and labor) out of other sectors. Nearly every scenario of a trade agreement leads to a decline in extreme poverty in rural regions. In contrast, extreme poverty in urban regions may increase.
Clinical significance of intensive endoscopic screening for synchronous esophageal neoplasm in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

Abstract Objectives. Patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) often develop second primary tumors in the upper aerodigestive tract. Early detection of synchronous esophageal squamous cell neoplasm (ESCN) is important because the prognosis of HNSCC can be affected by the statuses of second primary tumors. Methods. In a prospective study, 308 patients with HNSCC were screened for synchronous ESCN between May 2010 and April 2012. All patients underwent conventional white-light endoscopic examination with Lugol chromoendoscopy and narrow band image. Results. The median age was 61 years (range, 26–87 years), and the male-to-female ratio was 4.2:1. Two hundred and thirty-four patients (76.0%) were current or ex-smokers, 207 patients (67.2%) had a history of alcohol consumption and 56 patients (18.2%) had previous history of cancer. Synchronous ESCN was detected in 22 patients (7.1%), and most patients were at an early stage. The locations of index HNSCC in these patients were as follows: hypopharynx (n = 12), larynx (n = 6), oropharynx (n = 2) and oral cavity (n = 2). Synchronous ESCN was detected in 25.5% (12/47) of hypopharyngeal cancer and in 27.8% (15/54) of HNSCC involving the pyriform sinus. Multivariate analysis showed that smoking (current smoker vs. never smoker, Odds Ratio [OR] 8.3, p = 0.028), a history of cancer (OR 5.0, p = 0.002) and pyriform sinus involvement (OR 9.2, p < 0.0001) increased the risk of developing synchronous ESCN. Conclusions. Patients with HNSCC, especially those who are current smokers, have a history of cancer and have pyriform sinus involvement, should undergo intensive endoscopic screening to detect synchronous ESCN.
Context-dependent multifunctionality of galectin-1: a challenge for defining the lectin as therapeutic target

Introduction: One route of translating the information encoded in the glycan chains of cellular glycoconjugates into physiological effects is via receptor (lectin) binding. A family of endogenous lectins, sharing folding, a distinct sequence signature and affinity for β-galactosides (thus termed galectins), does so effectively in a context-dependent manner. Areas covered: An overview is given on the multifunctional nature of galectins, with emphasis on galectin-1. The broad range of functions includes vital processes such as adhesion via glycan bridging, glycoconjugate transport or triggering signaling relevant, for example, for growth regulation. Besides distinct glycoconjugates, this lectin can also interact with certain proteins so that it can target counterreceptors at all sites of location, that is, in the cytoplasm and/or nucleus, at both sides of the membrane or extracellularly. Approaches to strategically exploit galectin activities with therapeutic intentions are outlined. Expert opinion: The wide versatility of sugar coding and the multifunctionality of galectin-1 explain why considering to turn the protein into a therapeutic target is an ambitious aim. Natural pathways shaped by physiologic master regulators (e.g., the tumor suppressor p16INK4a) are suggested to teach inspiring lessons as to how the lectin might be recruited to clinical service.
Changing Identities of the Plantation Community in Ceylon

The 19th century plantations in Ceylon initially relied on migrant labour from the Tamil Districts South India to meet the needs of production. The spread of plantations and the increased demand for more and perennial workforce led to a more settled Indian community in the Island. This paper analyses how the legacies of slavery and the struggles against class, ethnic and political discrimination shaped the identities of this community in Ceylon. Using the concepts of political articulation, appellation and framing, it analyses how the Ceylon planters, with the support of the colonial state, recruited migrant workers from the Tamil districts of the Madras Presidency in South India from the 1830s, and incorporated them into a form of production that retained the labour controls and the ‘enclave’ nature of the slave plantation, and complemented these through debt bondage and new forms of legal coercion to ‘enslave’ workers. The spread of plantations in Ceylon led to a permanent and settled population of Tamil workers by the beginning of the 20th century. The paper shows how trade unionism and franchise rights from the 1930s resulted in the awareness of their identities as part of the working class and as stakeholders in local politics, while links with the Indian national movement also reinforced their identity as part of the Indian Diaspora. The post-Independence government enacted laws in 1948 and 1949 that rendered the vast majority of the population stateless and without franchise. Four decades of struggles and negotiations, as well as strategic intervention in the prevailing civil war were necessary to gain significant labour and full citizenship rights for all members of the community. In the process, they also challenged the prevailing discourse and frames of identification, and claimed their identity as a separate, distinct and regionally-based ethnic minority in the country.
Connecting family needs and TBI caregiver mental health in Mexico City, Mexico

Abstract Purpose: This study examined relationships between caregiver mental health and the extent to which needs were met in families of individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI) in Mexico City, Mexico. Method: Sixty-eight TBI caregivers completed Spanish versions of instruments assessing their own mental health and whether specific family needs were met. Results: Twenty-seven per cent of caregivers reported clinically significant depression levels, 40% reported below-average life satisfaction and 49% reported mild-to-severe burden. Several of the most frequently met family needs were in the emotional support domain, whereas the majority of unmet needs were in the health information domain. Family needs and caregiver mental health were significantly and highly related. When family needs were met, caregiver mental health was better. The strongest pattern of connections in multivariate analyses was between family instrumental support (assistance in the completion of daily life tasks) and caregiver burden, such that caregivers with less instrumental support had greater burden. Additional results suggested that instrumental support uniquely predicted caregiver satisfaction with life, burden and depression. Conclusions: Interventions for TBI caregivers, especially in Latin America, should help family members determine how best to meet their health information and instrumental needs, with the former being likely to improve caregiver mental health.
Risk of Recurrence After an Initial Unprovoked Seizure

Summary: A cohort of 424 patients was followed to determine the patterns of risk for recurrence after an initial unprovoked seizure. Overall, the risk of recurrence was 36% by 1 year, 48% by 3 years, and 56% by 5 years. The risk of subsequent seizures was lower for patients with idiopathic seizures than for those whose seizures had a presumed etiology. Among cases for which initial seizure was classified as idiopathic, EEG abnormalities, abnormal neurologic examination findings, and initial partial seizures were identified as significant independent predictors of higher recurrence risks.
Low polling time TDM ONOC with direction-based wavelength assignment

Optical network-on-chip (ONoC) is a promising technology for future on-chip many-core communications. ONoC can achieve high bandwidth density and low communication latency under low network cost, which leads to an energy-efficient network. Time-division multiplexing (TDM)-based ONoC aims to solve the congestion problem faced by many optical circuit switching (OCS)-based mesh ONoCs. But TDM-based ONoC still suffers fromhigh network polling time, which causes high average network latency, especially under low network load. In this paper, we propose a novel TDMONoC using torus topology and direction-based wavelength assignment, named TTWA. TTWA ONoC combines TDM communication strategy and torus network topology to solve the congestion problem under the heavy network load faced by OCS-based ONoCs.With the utilization of direction-based wavelength assignment and torus topology, we further propose a high-efficiency communication strategy to improve the adjacent inter-cluster parallel communications and decrease the total TDM slot number, which contributes to a smaller network polling time and lower average network latency. A novel optical router is simultaneously designed to meet the communication strategy in TTWA. The analyses and simulation results indicate that TTWA ONoCimproves the polling time compared with other TDM-based ONoCs and achieves better network performance compared with the equivalent OCS-based ONoCs under various synthetic traffic patterns and realistic scientific applications. After the calculation,TTWA ONoC reduces the network insertion loss of OCS-based mesh ONoC 46.92% and that of OCS-based torus ONoC 31.75% and reduces the required laser power of OCS-based mesh ONoC 62.90% and that of OCSbased torus ONoC 40.66% under the worst-case situation.
Chiral Nematic Structure of Cellulose Nanocrystal Suspensions and Films; Polarized Light and Atomic Force Microscopy

Cellulosic liquid crystalline solutions and suspensions form chiral nematic phases that show a rich variety of optical textures in the liquid crystalline state. These ordered structures may be preserved in solid films prepared by evaporation of solvent or suspending medium. Film formation from aqueous suspensions of cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) was investigated by polarized light microscopy, optical profilometry and atomic force microscopy (AFM). An attempt is made to interpret qualitatively the observed textures in terms of the orientation of the cellulose nanocrystals in the suspensions and films, and the changes in orientation caused by the evaporative process. Mass transfer within the evaporating droplet resulted in the formation of raised rings whose magnitude depended on the degree of pinning of the receding contact line. AFM of dry films at short length scales showed a radial orientation of the CNC at the free surface of the film, along with a radial height variation with a period of approximately P/2, ascribed to the anisotropic shrinkage of the chiral nematic structure.
Hypoglycemia as a predictor of mortality in hospitalized elderly patients.

BACKGROUND Hypoglycemia during hospitalization occurs in patients with and without diabetes. The aims of this study were to determine the incidence, associated risk factors, and short- and long-term outcome of hypoglycemia among hospitalized elderly patients. METHODS This is a case-control study conducted at geriatric and medicine departments. All patients 70 years or older with documented hypoglycemia hospitalized within 1 year (n = 281) were compared with a nonhypoglycemic group of 281 elderly, randomly selected patients from the same hospitalized population. RESULTS Among 5404 patients 70 years or older, 281 (5.2%) had documented hypoglycemia. Compared with the nonhypoglycemic group, we found the following characteristics to be true in the hypoglycemic group: there were more women than men (58% vs 44%, P =.001); sepsis was 10 times more common (P<.001); malignancy was 2.8 times more common (P =.04); the mean serum albumin level was lower (2.8 g/dL vs 3.4 g/dL, P<.001); and the mean serum creatinine and alkaline phosphatase levels were higher (P<.001 for both). Diabetes was known in 42% of the hypoglycemic group and in 31% of the nonhypoglycemic group (P =.03); 70 patients in the hypoglycemic group were taking sulfonylureas or insulin. Multivariate logistic analysis showed that sepsis, albumin level, malignancy, sulfonyurea and insulin treatment, alkaline phosphatase level, female sex, and creatinine level were all independent predictors of developing hypoglycemia. In-hospital mortality and 3-month mortality were about twice as high in the hypoglycemic group (P<.001). Multivariate analysis of mortality found that sepsis, low albumin level, and malignancy were independent predictors, while hypoglycmia was not. CONCLUSIONS Hypoglycemia was common in elderly hospitalized patients and predicted increased in-hospital 3- and 6-month cumulative mortality. However, in a multivariate analysis, hypoglycemia was not an independent predictor for mortality, implying that it is only a marker.
Systematic Identification of Selective Essential Genes in Helicobacter pylori by Genome Prioritization and Allelic Replacement Mutagenesis

ABSTRACT A comparative genomic approach was used to identifyHelicobacter pylori 26695 open reading frames (ORFs) which are conserved in H. pylori J99 but highly diverged in other eubacteria. A survey of selected pathways of central intermediary metabolism was also carried out, and genes with a potentially selective role in H. pylori were identified. Forty-five ORFs identified in these two analyses were screened using a rapid vector-free allelic replacement mutagenesis technique, and 33 were shown to be essential in vitro. Notably, 13 ORFs gave essentiality results which are unexpected in view of their known or proposed functions, and phylogenetic analysis was used to investigate the annotation of 7 such ORFs which are highly diverged. We propose that the products of a number of these H. pylori-specific essential genes may be suitable targets for novel anti-H. pylori therapies.
Desminopathies in muscle disease

A recently identified class of myopathies is produced by abnormal desmin, and is characterized by a disorganization of the desmin filament network, the accumulation of insoluble desmin‐containing aggregates, and destructive changes in the sarcomeric organization of striated muscles. The desmin filaments interact with various other cytoskeletal proteins. The distinct clinical phenotypes are heterogeneous, with progressive skeletal myopathy, cardiomyopathy, and respiratory insufficiency as the most prominent features. Most of the desmin mutations are autosomal dominant. Identification of the causal genetic mutations shows that the desmin gene is not the only gene implicated in desminopathies; other genes encoding desmin‐associated proteins, such as alpha‐B‐crystallin, and synemin may also be involved. Patients with mutations in their alpha‐B‐crystallin gene, which produce similar skeletal and cardiac myopathies, also have opaque lenses. Knockout mice have helped to reveal the fundamental role of desmin filaments in cell architecture, sarcomere alignment, myofibril organization, and the distribution of mitochondria. Transgenic mice, which accumulate aggregates of desmin and associated proteins in their muscles, show that the loss of desmin intermediate function as a result of mutations in desmin itself, or in the desmin‐associated constituents, is important for disease progression. Copyright © 2004 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Antigen Presentation to Celiac Lesion-Derived T Cells of a 33-Mer Gliadin Peptide Naturally Formed by Gastrointestinal Digestion1

Celiac disease is an HLA-DQ2-associated disorder characterized by intestinal T cell responses to ingested wheat gluten proteins. A peptide fragment of 33 residues (α2-gliadin 56–88) produced by normal gastrointestinal proteolysis contains six partly overlapping copies of three T cell epitopes and is a remarkably potent T cell stimulator after deamidation by tissue transglutaminase (TG2). This 33-mer is rich in proline residues and adopts the type II polyproline helical conformation in solution. In this study we report that after deamidation, the 33-mer bound with higher affinity to DQ2 compared with other monovalent peptides harboring gliadin epitopes. We found that the TG2-treated 33-mer was presented equally effectively by live and glutaraldehyde-fixed, EBV-transformed B cells. The TG2-treated 33-mer was also effectively presented by glutaraldehyde-fixed dendritic cells, albeit live dendritic cells were the most effective APCs. A strikingly increased T cell stimulatory potency of the 33-mer compared with a 12-mer peptide was also seen with fixed APCs. The 33-mer showed binding maximum to DQ2 at pH 6.3, higher than maxima found for other high affinity DQ2 binders. The 33-mer is thus a potent T cell stimulator that does not require further processing within APC for T cell presentation and that binds to DQ2 with a pH profile that promotes extracellular binding.
The Evaluation of Teacher Dispatching Program For Indonesian Children’s Education In Sabah Malaysia

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the teacher dispatching program for Indonesian children's education in Malaysia. Currently, there are 53,687 children of Indonesian citizens in Malaysian Sabah plantations that have difficult access to education. Since 2006, the government of Indonesia has periodically sent teachers to provide education services for Indonesian children in Sabah Malaysia. This research uses the qualitative approach with the evaluative method. The research model used is a model developed by Stufflebeam, namely CIPP model (context, input, process, product). The results of this study indicate that the implementation of the teacher dispatching program for Indonesian children's education in Sabah Malaysia in some aspects has not yet reached the evaluation criteria and needs revamping, but in general the program is running well and must be continuously implemented to provide the right of quality basic education services for every Indonesian citizen without discrimination. Keywords—Program Evaluation, CIPP, Teacher dispatching
Regional cerebral function determined by FDG-PET in healthy volunteers: normal patterns and changes with age.

UNLABELLED The main objective of this study was to determine patterns of regional brain metabolic activity utilizing high-resolution PET in normal healthy volunteers and variations in different age groups. METHODS High-resolution [18F]FDG PET images of the entire brain were obtained in 120 healthy normal volunteers (64 men, 56 women), age range from 19 to 79 yr. Each anatomic region was assessed using a qualitative rating scale with a score ranging from 1 to 6 (1 = definitely normal and 6 = definitely abnormal). Local metabolic activity was also estimated as showing increased (+) or decreased (-) compared to normal (0) states. RESULTS The most consistent finding in normal aging was decreased cortical metabolism, particularly in the frontal lobes. Temporal, parietal and occipital lobe metabolism varied considerably among subjects within the same age group as well as over decades. Basal ganglia, hippocampal area, thalami, cerebellum, posterior cingulate gyrus and visual cortex remained metabolically unchanged with advancing age. CONCLUSION These data indicate that qualitative interpretation of FDG-PET images allows accurate assessment of regional metabolic activity of the brain in normal subjects similar to those described with quantitative techniques. Adequate knowledge of normal variations and changes related to normal aging is necessary for optimal assessment of pathologic states.