Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Scalable Search based on Fuzzy Clustering for Interest-based P2P Networks

An interest-based P2P constructs the peer connections based on similarities for efficient search of resources. A clustering technique using peer similarities as data is an effective approach to group the most relevant peers. However, the separation of groups produced from clustering lowers the scalability of a P2P network. Moreover, the interest-based approach is only concerned with user-level grouping where topology-awareness on the physical network is not considered. This paper proposes an efficient scalable search for the interest-based P2P system. A scalable multi-ring (SMR) based on fuzzy clustering handles the grouping of relevant peers and the proposed scalable search utilizes the SMR for scalability of peer queries. In forming the multi-ring, a minimized route function is used to determine the shortest route to connect peers on the physical network. Performance evaluation showed that the SMR acquired an accurate peer grouping and improved the connectivity rate of the P2P network. Also, the proposed scalable search was efficient in finding more replicated files throughout the peer network compared to other traditional P2P approaches.
Usefulness of environmental information to bank officers in Malaysia

Corporate social and environmental disclosure practices reflect corporate transparency and accountability towards wider stakeholders. Since information disclosure imposes huge costs upon companies, the usefulness of information to stakeholders is worth examining. Drawing from the notion of normative pressure of institutional theory, this study examined the usefulness of environmental information to bank officers in Malaysia. Several aspects of environmental information disclosure were examined, namely, companies’ environmental attributes, types of environmental information disclosed and forms of disclosure. The results revealed that bank officers perceived environmental information to be important in their lending decisions. We also tested the actual use of environmental information in the lending decisions of bank officers for which it was found that bank officers do not incorporate environmental information in their lending decisions. Accordingly, the notion of normative pressure of institutional theory is partly supported. The present study has important implications for corporate environmental reporting practices in Malaysia.
Reducing the risk of allogeneic blood transfusion.

The restricted use of allogeneic blood transfusions has been accepted throughout the world as important in reducing risk, particularly of the transmission of infectious diseases. [1][1] In orthopedic surgery reduced use of allogeneic transfusions has been shown to prevent both early[2][2] and late[3
EVALUATION OF THE IMPACT OF INNOVATIVE ACTIVITES ON PRODUCTIVITY – EXAMPLE FROM THE CZECH REPUBLIC

The article deals with impacts of innovative activities on productivity of businesses. The survey included 255 businesses participating in subvention programs focusing on support of innovative activities in companies. The study used the “two-sample t-test for means„ and “ANOVA“ methods. The values of productivity indicators were higher in the year after the subvention was received. However, the increase was not statistically significant. At the same time, no difference was confirmed in the achieved values of productivity indicators depending on the amount of the subvention in any of the monitored years.
Thrombin receptor peptides induce shape change in neonatal murine astrocytes in culture

Astrocytes appear star‐shaped in the brain, increasingly so after injury. When astroglia are cultures in serum‐containing medium, they exhibit a flat, fibroblast‐like morphology. In serum‐free medium, astrocytes become stellate, with many long processes. The serine protease α‐thrombin mimics the effects of serum at subnanomolar concentractions, whereas the thrombin‐inhibiting serpin, protease nexin I (PNI), reverses the thrombin effect. In our current experiements, murine neonatal spinal cord astrocytes became stellate after 4 hr in serum‐free medium, while cortical astrocytes requires 12 hr in serum‐free medium for stellation. Astrocytes from either region flattened after 60 min in medium containing 3.0 to 300 pM proteoloytically active human α‐thrombin. After 12 hr in thrombin‐containing medium, 98% of the astrocytes had a flattened morphology. No flattening occured if α‐thrombin was replaced by γ‐thrombin, which has its fibrinogen‐recognition exosite disrupted. PNI added at 1 nM to serum‐containing medium caused stellation after 3 hr, and astroglia were 50% stellate by 12 hr. The effect of thrombin was mimicked by a 7‐amino acid peptide (TRP‐7) action on astrocytes. These results indicate that astrocytes possess a cell surface receptor for thrombin, similar to that described for platelets, endothelial cells, and neurons. © 1994 Wiley‐Liss, Inc. This article is a US Government work and, as such, is in the public domain in the United States of America.
Analysis of Social Networking Platforms to Predict Stock Market Changes

This paper aims at creating a self-learning classifier model that classifies a text or phrase as positive or negative and provide a decision on the current stock market changes based on various information. The classifier plots a graph along with the user sentiments and the future prediction allowing the user to decide whether to invest in the stock or not.
Cell-Specific Transcriptional Profiling Reveals Candidate Mechanisms Regulating Development and Function of Uterine Epithelia in Mice

ABSTRACT All mammalian uteri have luminal (LE) and glandular epithelia (GE) in their endometrium. The LE mediates uterine receptivity and blastocyst attachment for implantation, and the GE synthesize and secrete or transport bioactive substances involved in blastocyst implantation, uterine receptivity, and stromal cell decidualization. However, the mechanisms governing uterine epithelial development after birth and their function in the adult are not fully understood. Here, comprehensive microarray analysis was conducted on LE and GE isolated by laser capture microdissection from uteri on Postnatal Day 10 (PD 10) and day of pseudopregnancy (DOPP) 2.5 and 3.5. This data was integrated with analysis of uteri from gland-containing control and aglandular progesterone-induced uterine gland knockout mice from PD 10 and DOPP 3.5. Many genes were expressed in both epithelia, but there was greater expression of genes in the LE than in the GE. In the neonate, GE-expressed genes were enriched for morphogenesis, development, migration, and retinoic acid signaling. In the adult, LE-expressed genes were enriched for metabolic processes and steroid biosynthesis, whereas retinoid signaling, tight junction, extracellular matrix, and regulation of kinase activity were enriched in the GE. The transcriptome differences in the epithelia support the idea that each cell type has a distinct and complementary function in the uterus. The candidate genes and regulatory networks identified here provide a framework to discover new mechanisms regulating development of epithelia in the postnatal uterus and their functions in early pregnancy.
Incremental and Radical Service Innovation in Living Labs

Living labs provide a new, under researched form of open innovation. Although open innovation is increasingly popular in service development, extant literature lacks knowledge of different open service innovation strategies, which companies can employ. This chapter focuses on strategies that firms can take in co-creating service innovations through living labs. The authors found nine open service innovation strategies based on an analysis of 26 living labs in four countries. Understanding of strategies and their links with incremental or radical innovation outcomes aid managers to set up an efficient innovation management. Knowledge of various strategies helps companies to succeed in service development and innovation novelty assessment based on the characteristics of the living lab.
Widespread over-expression of the non-clustered homeobox gene HLX in acute myeloid leukemia

Homeobox (HOX) transcription factors are important for the regulation of normal hematopoiesis. Many cases of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) are driven by aberrant expression of clustered HOX genes that is mediated by chimeric oncoproteins involving MLL, chromosomal translocations directly affecting
PhoY2 but not PhoY1 is the PhoU homologue involved in persisters in Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

OBJECTIVES Mycobacterial persistence is thought to be the underlying cause of the current lengthy tuberculosis therapy and latent infection. Despite some recent progress, the mechanisms of bacterial persistence are poorly understood. We have recently identified a new persister gene phoU from Escherichia coli and have shown that the phoU mutant has a defect in persisters. The objective of this study is to evaluate the role of two phoU homologues phoY1 and phoY2 from Mycobacterium tuberculosis in mycobacterial persistence. METHODS M. tuberculosis phoY1 and phoY2 mutant strains were constructed. The persister-related phenotypes of the phoY1 and phoY2 mutants were assessed in vitro by MIC testing, drug exposure assays and also by survival in the mouse model of tuberculosis infection. RESULTS We demonstrated that M. tuberculosis PhoY2 is the equivalent of E. coli PhoU in that inactivation of phoY2 but not phoY1 caused a defect in persistence phenotype as shown by increased susceptibility to rifampicin and pyrazinamide in both MIC testing and drug exposure assays and also reduced persistence in the mouse model. CONCLUSIONS This study provides further validation that PhoU is involved in persistence not only in E. coli but also in M. tuberculosis and has implications for the development of new drugs targeting persisters for improved treatment.
A View from the Aisle: Classroom Successes, Failures and Recovery Strategies

As a service that we deliver, teaching has been identified as one of the most intangible of products. This exploratory study investigates how students evaluate the service we provide. A critical incidence study of marketing students was conducted at three universities to identify (dis)satisfying classroom experiences and corresponding improvement suggestions. Three major and six subgroup incident types emerged as well as seven improvement categories. To provide insight into what students perceive as effective responses specific incident types were linked with the recovery approaches. A discussion of the findings and directions for future research concludes the paper.
Microsatellite analysis of North American wapiti (Cervus elaphus) populations

Eleven populations of wapiti (Cervus elaphus) were analysed for genetic diversity using 12 microsatellite loci. Samples were taken from Vancouver Island, British Columbia; Burwash and French River herds in Ontario; Ya Ha Tinda Ranch, Alberta; and Banff, Elk Island, Jasper, Kootenay, Riding Mountain, Yellowstone and Yoho National Parks. Overall, wapiti populations have on average three to four alleles per locus and an average expected heterozygosity that ranged from 25.75 to 52.85%. The greatest genetic distances were observed between the Vancouver population and all other populations. Using the assignment test, Roosevelt wapiti (C. e. roosevelti Merriam 1897) assigned only to the Vancouver Island population. The distance and assignment values suggest a divergence of the Roosevelt wapiti from other populations and support the subspecific status for the Vancouver Island population. No evidence was found for the existence of unique Eastern wapiti (C. e. canadensis Erxleben 1777) in the Burwash or French River herds in Ontario. The overlapping distribution of genotypes from indigenous populations from Riding Mountain, Elk Island and Yellowstone National Parks suggests that wapiti were once a continuous population before settlers decimated their numbers. The lack of differentiation between these populations raises questions about the status of Manitoban (C. e.manitobensis Millais 1915) and Rocky Mountain (C. e.nelsoni Bailey 1935) subspecies.
Vulnerability Analysis of Faults/Attacks in Network Centric Systems

Network Centric Systems (NCS) and their applications have been growing at an amazing rate, the vulnerability of these systems and applications are also increasing because the intruder tools and attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated. To make network systems reliable and robust it becomes highly essential to develop on-line monitoring, analyzing, and quantifying the behavior of networks and applications (vulnerability metrics) under a wide range of faults/attacks. In this paper, we present an agent-based framework and vulnerability metrics to analyze and quantify the impact of faults/attacks on networked systems. This analysis helps us determine the most critical components in the network, the failure of which might lead to a massive network outage or performance degradation and the vulnerability metrics that can be integrated with the control and management system to achieve proactive responses to faults/attacks and thus minimizes the impacts of these attacks and improve survivability of network infrastructure and services. Our approach is based on deploying software agents on routers, clients and servers to continuously monitor the vulnerability metrics that can be used to achieve self-healing and protecting services. We present through simulations how the proposed vulnerability metrics can be used to quantify the impacts of faults/attacks on various components of networked systems and how they can be used to proactively achieve self-healing and protecting services.
Socio, Economic and Cultural Impact of Soap Operas on Home Makers(A Study in Andhra Pradesh)

Soap operas have gained huge popularity all over the world and women are an important component of these soap operas. Contemporary soap operas’ content are mostly dominated by family dramas and house-hold fights. In the process of attracting more female audiences, soaps are presenting values that are different from reality. Various studies conducted on the influence of soap operas on viewer’ attitudes, indicate the growing popularity of soaps all over the world but at the same time it is also important to study the way the content is portrayed in these soaps, particularly in India where socio-cultural values influence the lives of individuals. Portrayal of negative content in soaps can influence the society in a negative way. Socio-cultural values are mostly depicted negatively in Telugu soap operas of Andhra Pradesh. Therefore, this study seeks to re-examine the portrayal of socio, cultural and economic values in Telugu soap operas and their influence on the housewives of Andhra Pradesh. This study examined the content of four Telugu soap operas by using the content analysis method and also conducted a survey in order to know homemakers’ opinions on the patterns of portrayal of values and ideologies in Telugu soap operas. Six districts from Andhra Pradesh were randomly selected for survey with a sample size of 300 homemakers. The study is based on the Cultivation Theory. The findings obtained through content analysis of Telugu soaps suggest that the socio, cultural and economic values in majority of serials are portrayed negatively; soaps are mainly focusing on promoting the ideology of radical feminism in the portrayal of its female characters. The data obtained through the survey indicates that soap opera audiences are not passive, they are critical about the content particularly the portrayal of the socio-cultural values and viewers are not influenced by such negative portrayal but a perception shared by a selection is that there is a likelihood of some audience being influenced by such portrayal.
Negative Online Consumer Reviews

This study proposes that managing the marketing variables of product information, price, promotion and product distribution can mitigate the impact of negative online reviews (NOR). NOR are often inevitable, have a much wider reach, dwell much longer and threaten product sales. It is therefore necessary to understand how the negative impact can be managed more actively. The marketing variables are conceptualised for the e-commerce context. Analysis of objective data on 500 books supports the hypotheses and provides empirical evidence for the relative effectiveness of the variables. In addition to adapting the 4Ps framework of marketing management to the e-commerce context, this study highlights the need and potential to extend theoretical development and research efforts beyond the antecedents and effects of NOR to understand how to manage NOR. The findings have practical relevance for e-commerce businesses. Avenues for future research are also identified.
Online Communities of Practice and Web 2.0

In contemporary Knowledge Management, communication and collaboration play very significant role. Knowledge exists within the stakeholders of an organization. Such knowledge, when extracted and harnessed effectively, can become an extremely valuable asset to achieve organizational goals and objectives. This knowledge, embedded in the people, must be properly released through an appropriate channel to make it usable. Through dialogue and discussions, using online tools, this release and reuses of knowledge can be made possible. The Community of Practice (CoP) is a useful organizing concept for enhancing collaboration, sharing knowledge, and disseminating best practices among researchers and practitioners. This chapter explores the concept of Communities of Practice and how Web 2.0 technologies can facilitate the transformation from a conventional community of practice to online community of practice for better and effective online communities of practices.
Reliability of Anorectal Manometry in the Diagnosis of Hirschsprung's Disease

Anorectal manometry was performed in 79 patients, aged 2 days to 19 years, who were referred to us because of constipation or symptoms of intestinal obstruction. A definitive diagnosis was obtained in 75 of the 79 patients (95%). Thus, anorectal manometry is a reliable tool in the diagnosis of Hirschsprung's disease. In the neonatal period, however, a definite diagnosis was possible in only 17 of the 21 neonates (81%). The age at the time of the first examination was 14 +/- 2 days in those with a definite diagnosis and 5 +/- 1 days in those with an indefinite diagnosis (p less than 0.001). If intestinal obstruction can be managed by conservative therapy, examination should be repeated after two weeks of age if the diagnosis before one week of age is not definite. These results indicate that anorectal manometry is non-invasive and reliable in the diagnosis of Hirschprung's disease. However, further examinations such as barium enema or rectal biopsy should be done, even in the neonatal period.
Survival of Salmonella east bourne and Salmonella typhimurium in chocolate

SUMMARY Experiments were carried out to assess the reduction rate of two salmonella strains (S. eastbourne and S. typhimurium) in chocolate bars. After artificial contamination of chocolate, after ‘conching’, with about 106S. eastbourne/g. this organism was still recovered after 9 months storage. The strain of S. typhimurium was less resistant. Both serotypes died off more rapidly in bitter chocolate than in milk chocolate. After contamination with a smaller dose (about 103/g.) with these two serotypes, similar differences were observed.
Sales Technology: Making the Most of Your Investment

This book is concerned with how executives can effectively manage a complex and costly sales technology initiative in order to get the most out of it. In particular, it begins by providing the reader with a detailed discussion on the various technologies that are being used by sales organizations. It then examines the factors that can lead to effective sales technology implementation and the pathways from using the system to salesperson performance. Next, it offers several methods that executives can use to calculate the performance impacts of such investments.
[Growth and adult height in patients with congenital adrenal hyperplasia].

BACKGROUND The growth of children with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) can be impaired by overproduction of endogenous androgens which after the initial growth acceleration lead to early ossification of the growth plates and a low adult height, and by excessive glucocorticoid treatment as the latter antagonize the effect of growth hormone and cause growth retardation. In order to identify the life period decisive for the adult height of patients with CAH the authors analyzed retrospectively their growth data. METHODS AND RESULTS In 35 children with 21-hydroxylase deficiency (24 girls, age 4.8 - 22.3 years and 11 boys, age 6.3 - 22.3 years) the height and bone maturation was evaluated at the age of 3, 7, 10 and 12 years and the adult height. In all girls and in 5/11 boys treatment of CAH was started at the age of 0.0 - 1.5 years (median 0.1) (early diagnosis), in 6/11 boys at the age of 4.5 - 7.0 years (median 5.2) (late diagnosis). In children with an early diagnosis growth retardation by the age of 3 years occurred (SDS of the girls' height' -1.4 +/- 0.2, n = 24, boys -0.7 +/- 0.4, n = 5). The height deficit in girls at the age of 3 predicted significantly the loss of adult height, as compared with the expected height in the family (r = 0.68, p = 0.02). By the age of 7 years the height deficit declined insignificantly (SDS of girls' height -1.0 +/- 0.2, n = 21), but bone maturation proceeded rapidly (3 years: SDS 0.1 +/- 0.4, n = 7, 7 years: SDS 1.4 +/- 0.5, n = 11). The adult height of girls (n = 12) is 147.0 - 162.5 cm (mean 156.7), i.e. -1.6 +/- 0.2 SDS, in early diagnosed boys (n = 4) 159 - 176.6 cm (mean 167.6), i.e. -1.7 +/- 0.5 SDS, in boys with a late diagnosis (n =4) 165.0 - 172.0 (mean 169.5), i.e. -1.5 +/- 0.3 SDS. CONCLUSIONS In treated children with CAH growth retardation occurs already from the age of 3 years, apparently due to excessive glucocorticoid doses. This retardation predicts a loss of adult height. Between the age of 3 and 7 years the growth prognosis deteriorates further due to accelerated bone maturation resulting from inadequate suppression of androgens. Optimal treatment during these periods in life can improve the prerequisites for attaining the predicted adult height.