Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Staphylococcus epidermidis produces a cell-associated proteinaceous fraction which causes bone resorption by a prostanoid-independent mechanism: relevance to the treatment of infected orthopaedic implants.

Staphylococcus epidermidis is the most commonly isolated coagulase-negative staphylococcus from the skin, gut and upper respiratory tract. Although it is less virulent than Staphylococcus aureus, it has emerged in recent years as an important causative agent of infections associated with metal implants, prosthetic devices and i.v. lines. We have previously demonstrated that a saline wash of S. aureus contained proteins which had potent bone-resorbing activity in vitro. The purpose of this study was to determine whether gently washing S. epidermidis in saline also released osteolytically active proteins. The so-called surface-associated material (SAM) eluted from S. epidermidis in saline was able to induce osteolysis, and activity was heat and trypsin sensitive, suggesting that the active component was proteinaceous. Fractionation studies have suggested that activity is due to a small number of cationic proteins. This SAM-induced bone resorption was not inhibited by the cyclo-oxygenase inhibitor, indomethacin, or the 5-lipoxygenase inhibitors BWA70C and MK886. However, it was partially inhibited by high concentrations of interleukin-1 receptor antagonist and was completely blocked by a neutralizing antibody to tumour necrosis factor-alpha. Thus, the SAM from this organism is a potent osteolytic agent which differs from that of S. aureus SAM in not being inhibited by cyclo-oxygenase inhibitors. As adjunctive therapy is becoming necessary in infectious diseases, either as a result of the side-effects of antibiotics or their lack of efficacy, consideration should be given to the future treatment of bone infections with staphylococci in the light of the different mechanisms of action of the surface proteins produced by these bacteria.
Ensemble Learning with Dynamic Ordered Pruning for Regression

A novel method of introducing diversity into ensemble learning predictors for regression problems is presented. The proposed method prunes the ensemble while simultaneously training, as part of the same learning process. Here not all members of the ensemble are trained, but selectively trained, resulting in a diverse selection of ensemble members that have strengths in different parts of the training set. The result is that the prediction accuracy and generalization ability of the trained ensemble is enhanced. Pruning heuristics attempt to combine accurate yet complementary members; therefore this method enhances the performance by dynamically modifying the pruned aggregation through distributing the ensemble member selection over the entire dataset. A comparison is drawn with Negative Correlation Learning and a static ensemble pruning approach used in regression to highlight the performance improvement yielded by the dynamic method. Experimental comparison is made using Multiple Layer Perceptron predictors on benchmark datasets.
Effect of checker board failure on yield improvement in 0.15 /spl mu/m embedded flash memory

This work is aimed at the yield improvement with root cause definition on checker board (CB) failure inside flash matrix cell by key process optimizations as well as a novel process introduction in 0.15 /spl mu/m embedded flash memory device. It is reported that the root cause of very gross CB failure was mainly due to the abnormal leakage from flash access transistor (FAT) inside flash matrix cell array and high voltage (HV) devices in the charge pump & decoder system. Furthermore, it turned out that threshold voltage (Vt window) for programming and erasing is one of big modulators to cause CB failures. To tackle these problems, a new approach to reduce HV device leakage by introducing Ti-rich TiN film as CoSi/sub 2/ capping layer is proposed and confirmed by direct experiment. Concurrently, the optimizations of both FAT punch-through implantation and post-cleaning process just after the formation of ONO film as inter-poly dielectric in stacked-gate (FG/CG) were carried out so as to minimize FAT off current and to improve Vt window, respectively, leading to the successful elimination of CB failures.
Sistemas inteligentes adaptativos para aproximación y predicción utilizando arquitecturas avanzadas

Este escrito, lejos de intentar establecer criterios o comparar diferentes tecnicas para el problema planteado, presenta un conjunto de trabajos que pretenden dar solucion a distintos problemas especificos, dentro de la amplisima problematica del modelado de funciones, utilizando diversas tecnicas de modelado continuo. Primeramente, el grueso de este escrito trata el problema de la maldicion en complejidad en los sistemas neuro-difusos, asi como el problema de la perdida de la interpretabilidad en esos sistemas, que ocurre durante el entrenamiento para problemas de modelado a partir de datos de entrada y salida. Se presentan en sucesivos capitulos varias alternativas a los modelos neuro-difusos tradicionales de Takagi-Sugeno-Kang (TSK) (Takagi and Sugeno, 1985) y de redes de Funciones de Base Radial (RBF) (Jang and Sun, 1993) para tratar estas problematicas. Posteriormente se trata el problema de prediccion de series temporales utilizando modelos recursivos de diferentes paradigmas, y se presenta una tecnica general para mejorar este tipo de prediccion, comparandose tambien el rendimiento entre ejemplos de metodos de kernel y modelos difusos. Finalmente se trata el problema de la seleccion de variables, ofreciendo una metodologia robusta basada en la medida de la informacion mutua de la Teoria de la Informacion de Shannon para problemas reales de aproximacion funcional, como prediccion de series temporales (Weigend and Gershenfeld, 1993) y problemas espectrometricos (Rossi et al., 2006), donde en general existe una fuerte interrelacion entre las variables de entrada, y es muy dificil establecer que variables son mas convenientes conservar y cuales y cuantas variables eliminar.
A Multiple Deprivation Index and Its Relation to Health Services Accessibility in a Rural Area of Ecuador

This study produced a Multiple Deprivation Index (MDI) from census information in a rural area, north-west of the Metropolitan District of Quito (MDQ), Ecuador. The index developed uses selected socio-demographic information that represents social deprivation. First, a set of indicators was chosen, and then an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was applied to calculate weights for each indicator. The MDI was calculated using an additive linear combination of the weighted indicators. Finally, using ordinary least squares (OLS), the index values were related to distances from each census area to the nearest health service to find relations between deprivation and distances to these kinds of services. Results showed that health services are located in less deprived areas, nevertheless no complete relation was founded between the index and distances to health services.
Risk factors for nonalcoholic steatohepatitis in cryptogenic cirrhosis.

CONTEXT In about 10% of patients with chronic liver disease, it is not possible to identify an etiologic factor. These cases are called cryptogenic cirrhosis. Currently, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is being considered as a possible etiologic factor for a significant segment of patients that presents with cryptogenic cirrhosis. OBJECTIVE To estimate the prevalence of risk factors for NASH in patients with cryptogenic cirrhosis, in order to verify if there is a causal relationship between them. METHOD Cross-sectional study, with evaluation of the demographic and laboratorial data of patients with cryptogenic cirrhosis. They were compared with data obtained from a group with NASH and a group with alcoholic and/or hepatitis C (HCV) cirrhosis. RESULTS Forty seven patients with cryptogenic cirrhosis were evaluated, 47 with NASH and 196 with HCV and/or alcoholic cirrhosis. The mean age of patients with cryptogenic cirrhosis was 52 years, while in those with NASH it was 46.4 years (P = 0,041). The group with cryptogenic cirrhosis had 23 female and 24 male patients. Of the patients who presented with NASH, 68.1% were female. Of the patients who presented with alcoholic/HCV cirrhosis, 64.8% were male. There were no statistically significant differences between the groups. In cryptogenic cirrhosis patients, the following prevalences could be observed: impaired fasting glycemia - 68.2%; obesity - 27.5%; total hypercholesterolemia - 27.9%; low HDL levels - 58.1% (women - 81%; men - 36.4%); hypertriglyceridemia - 16.3%. The results seen in cryptogenic cirrhosis patients showed statistical similarity with the results of the NASH group regarding fasting glycemia (62.8%) and male HDL levels (53.8%). The comparison with the alcoholic/HCV cirrhosis group showed statistical differences regarding fasting glycemia (45.2%), hypercholesterolemia (13.3%) and female HDL levels (50.8%). CONCLUSIONS It is not possible to establish a causal relationship between cryptogenic cirrhosis and NASH. Only data related to fasting glycemia and HDL levels in male patients showed statistical similarities between both groups of patients.
Turner syndrome: a cytogenetic and molecular study

Two hundred and eleven patients with a clinical diagnosis of Turner syndrome were studied. We report (i) the cytogenetic results, (ii) the frequency of cryptic mosaicism and (iii) the parental age and the parental origin of the abnormality. We scored 100 cells from blood cultures and found 97 patients to have a 45,X constitution, 15 to be 45,X/46,XX or 45,X/47,XXX mosaics, 86 to have a structurally abnormal X and 13 to have a structurally abnormal Y chromosome. Molecular methods were used to look for cryptic X and Y chromosome mosaicism in patients with a 45,X constitution. Two cryptic X but no cryptic Y mosaics were detected. In 74% of the 45,X patients the X was maternal in origin. The i(Xq)s were approximately equally likely to involve the paternal or maternal chromosome, while the majority of deletions and rings and virtually all the abnormal Y chromosomes were paternal in origin. We suggest that the preponderance of paternal errors in Turner syndrome may result from the absence of pairing along the greater part of the XY bivalent during paternal mei I, which may make the sex chromosomes particularly susceptible to both structural and non‐disjunctional errors during male gametogenesis.
Steroid hormone receptors: Evolution, ligands, and molecular basis of biologic function

The characterization of the superfamily of nuclear receptors, in particular the steroid/retinoid/thyroid hormone receptors, has resulted in a more complete understanding of how a repertoire of hormonally and nutritionally derived lipophilic ligands controls cell functions to effect development and homeostasis. As transducers of hormonal signaling in the nucleus, this superfamily of DNA‐binding proteins appears to represent a crucial link in the emergence of multicellular organisms. Because nuclear receptors bind and are conformationally activated by a chemically diverse array of ligands, yet are closely related in general structure, they present an intriguing example of paralogous evolution. It is hypothesized that an ancient prototype receptor evolved into an intricate set of dimerizing isoforms, capable of recognizing an ensemble of hormone‐responsive element motifs in DNA, and exerting ligand‐directed combinatorial control of gene expression. The effector domains of nuclear receptors mediate transcriptional activation by recruiting coregulatory multisubunit complexes that remodel chromatin, target the initiation site, and stabilize the RNA polymerase II machinery for repeated rounds of transcription of the regulated gene. Because some nuclear receptors also function in gene repression, while others are constitutive activators, this superfamily of proteins provides a number of avenues for investigating hormonal regulation of gene expression. This review surveys briefly the latest findings in the nuclear receptor field and identifies particular areas where future studies should be fruitful. J. Cell. Biochem. Suppls. 32/33:110–122, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Sleep, Anesthesiology, and the Neurobiology of Arousal State Control

Sleep, like breathing, is a biologic rhythm that is actively generated by the brain. Neuronal networks that have evolved to regulate naturally occurring sleep preferentially modulate traits that define states of sedation and anesthesia. Sleep is temporally organized into distinct stages that are characterized by a unique constellation of physiologic and behavioral traits. Sleep and anesthetic susceptibility are genetically modulated, heritable phenotypes. This review considers 40 yr of research regarding the cellular and molecular mechanisms contributing to arousal state control. Clinical and preclinical data have debunked and supplanted the primitive view that sleep need is a weakness. Sleep deprivation and restriction diminish vigilance, alter neuroendocrine control, and negatively impact immune function. There is overwhelming support for the view that decrements in vigilance can negatively impact performance. Advances in neuroscience provide a foundation for the sea change in public and legal perspectives that now regard a sleep-deprived individual as impaired.
Methanogenesis from Methanol and Methylamines and Acetogenesis from Hydrogen and Carbon Dioxide in the Sediments of a Eutrophic Lake

14C-tracer techniques were used to examine the metabolism of methanol and methylamines and acetogenesis from hydrogen and carbon dioxide in sediments from the profundal and littoral zones of eutrophic Wintergreen Lake, Michigan. Methanogens were primarily responsible for the metabolism of methanol, monomethylamine, and trimethylamine and maintained the pool size of these substrates below 10 μM in both sediment types. Methanol and methylamines were the precursors for less than 5 and 1%, respectively, of the total methane produced. Methanol and methylamines continued to be metabolized to methane when the sulfate concentration in the sediment was increased to 20 mM. Less than 2% of the total acetate production was derived from carbon dioxide reduction. Hydrogen consumption by hydrogen-oxidizing acetogens was 5% or less of the total hydrogen uptake by acetogens and methanogens. These results, in conjunction with previous studies, emphasize that acetate and hydrogen are the major methane precursors and that methanogens are the predominant hydrogen consumers in the sediments of this eutrophic lake.
Determining Project Management Practices for Enterprise Resource Planning System Projects

ERP is a class of IT systems which has been developing rapidly since the beginning of the 1990s; Ray (2011) explains that ‘enterprise’ means any organization with a set of common goals. Hossein (2004) specifies that the system integrates and automates processes within the entire organization regardless of what kind of organization it is: a private company or a public or state organization. Successful implementation, support, maintenance and further development of ERP is vitally Abstract
Triphalangeal thumb–polysyndactyly syndrome and syndactyly type IV are caused by genomic duplications involving the long range, limb-specific SHH enhancer

Background: The Sonic hedgehog (SHH) protein produced in the zone of polarising activity (ZPA) is a major determinant of the identity and numbers of digits in early limb development. Preaxial polydactyly types II (PPD2) and III (PPD3) have been mapped to a critical region at 7q36, and subsequently shown to be caused by point mutations in the ZPA regulatory sequence (ZRS), a long range cis-regulator for the SHH gene. Triphalangeal thumb–polysyndactyly syndrome (TPTPS) and syndactyly type IV (SD4) were also mapped to the 7q36 region but pathogenic mutations in ZRS have not yet been affirmed. Methods and results: We performed linkage and haplotype analysis in six Han Chinese families with TPTPS and/or SD4, and refined the disease locus to an interval of 646 kb containing ZRS. In all families, the affected individuals heterozygous at rs10254391 (a single nucleotide polymorphism within ZRS) revealed a remarkable allele imbalance on sequence chromatogram. Using real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), we identified duplication of ZRS and found that this duplication segregated with the limb phenotypes in all families but was not detected in unaffected family members or in unrelated control individuals. The duplication was also confirmed by interphase fluorescence in situ hybridisation (FISH) in an affected individual. We designed 17 additional qPCR assays and defined the minimum duplications in all six families, ranging from 131kb to 398kb. Conclusion: Both TPTPS and SD4 are due to duplications involving ZRS, the limb specific SHH enhancer. Point mutations in the ZRS and duplications encompassing the ZRS cause distinctive limb phenotypes.
Visual Focus of Attention Recognition from Fixed Chair Sitting Postures Using RGB-D Data

Person Activity Recognition is an important and active area of research in many robotic applications such as Human-Robot Collaboration and assisted living systems. In these fields, the focus is often on the estimation of the visual focus of attention of a person. Considering the set of fixed chair sitting scenarios where only the upper body is visible, in this paper we focus on the person’s head as an important cue for visual focus of attention estimation. A non-intrusive sensor setup consisting of one single RGB-D camera in front of the person is chosen to monitor the visual focus of attention in an indoor office environment. We propose an extension of the existing head pose estimation method from [1]. The method has been evaluated on existing benchmarking databases (Biwi [2] and VAP [3]). Additionally, we also propose a new database (DLR FC-PEAR) acquired with the Microsoft Kinect v2. To evaluate the generalizability of our proposed extension, we have also performed the final evaluation across domains. Finally, we present the experimental results and an analysis about the limitations of our proposed framework.
La modulation de phase pour la commutation optique dans le système InP/GaInAsP

La these porte sur l'etude de la modulation de phase dans le systeme de materiaux semiconducteurs iii-v inp/gainasp, pour des applications en optique integree, en particulier pour la commutation optique. La modulation de la phase d'une onde se propageant dans un guide semiconducteur resulte de la modification des conditions de propagation due a la variation d'indice de refraction, qui peut etre obtenue dans les semiconducteurs iii-v par l'application d'un champ electrique ou par variation du nombre de porteurs (electrons ou trous) libres. Le but est d'exploiter au mieux tous ces effets pour obtenir une bonne efficacite de modulation de phase, tout en gardant un niveau de pertes optiques faibles, autant dans les parties de guidage passif, necessaires a l'interconnexion des dispositifs, que dans les zones actives de modulation. Nous modelisons dans un premier temps les effets electrooptiques et de porteurs, donnant lieu une variation d'indice et calculons le coefficient d'absorption autour de 1,55 m, la longueur d'onde des telecommunications longues distances. Les effets pockels, kerr et plasma etant bien connus, nous etudions en detail l'influence des porteurs libres sur le bord d'absorption fondamentale et donnons les limites de l'approche theorique. Nous completons la modelisation par une serie de mesures de la modulation de phase en fonction de la longueur d'onde, la polarisation et l'orientation cristallographique, ce qui permet de determiner l'amplitude de chacun des effets et de comparer la theorie a l'experience. Nous exploitons enfin le modele resultant de cette confrontation, pour definir des structures optimisees de modulateur de phase dedies a la commutation optique, en fonction de specifications propres a l'optique integree
Phenology Under Global Warming

In most temperate tree species, phenological events such as flowering and autumnal cessation of growth are not primarily controlled by temperature. Phenological events such as bud burst, flowering, and senescence have received increased interest in the light of global warming (1–3). Spring events at temperate latitudes have advanced by 2.5 days per decade since 1971 (4). As global warming progresses, how will it affect the arrival of spring and the length of the growing season?
Product descriptions as Programs: a Case Study

The company in this case study manufactures furniture for ships. This business sector is characterized by a high degree of customization. One way of handling the various products is to have a separate product description for each variant. Experience shows that this results in a large number of different product descriptions, in one company as many as 40,000. As the number of different descriptions increases, it becomes easier to create a new description than it is to search for an existing description, thus exacerbating the problem. Therefore, the company in the case study placed great importance on keeping the product descriptions to a minimum, but without limiting the variability. We were able to offer a solution. Based on previous research, we have implemented a system for the company whereby product structures are described by means of computer programs instead of using the traditional bill of material structure. This method of defining generic product descriptions makes it possible to handle variability without increasing the number of descriptions. In theory, this highly structured method should offer a better solution if the users manage to program the product descriptions. The idea of this research was to see if the more complex solution also worked in practice.
Project Manager Strategies to Improve the Delivery of Construction Projects

Project Manager Strategies to Improve the Delivery of Construction Projects by Luis Gaspar Crespo Vallejo MS, Universidad Latinoamericana de Ciencia y Tecnología, 2006 BS, Universidad Santa María La Antigua, 1994 Doctoral Study Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Business Administration
A transient thermodynamic model of district heating network for operational optimization of the energy integration system

A transient thermodynamic model of the district heating network considering the topological structure of returning water network, the transient process of temperature variation and the time delay characteristics is proposed in this paper. The method of piecewise linearization adopted in this model not only considers the transient temperature variation for better model accuracy, but also reduces the complexity for solution through simplifying constraints of partial differential equations in the operational optimization model. The results of case study show that compared with the commonly used Time-delay model, the proposed model can lead to nonnegligible differences in the optimal solution of the operational optimization model.
Processus stochastiques et fiabilité des systèmes

Le fil directeur de ce livre, construit a partir des cours de DESS et de DEA de l'auteur, est la fiabilite. Son but est de montrer concretement ce que peut apporter l'etude des processus stochasitques dans ce domaine. Chemin faisant, cela permet d'aborder, dans des cas relativement simples, des techniques variees utilisees dans l'etude des processus stochastiques, tout en conservant l'esprit des demonstrations generales. "