AN EFFICIENT ALGORITHM FORMINING HIGH UTILITY ASSOCIATION RULES FROM LATTICE

In business, most of companies focus on growing their profits. Besides considering profit from each product, they also focus on the relationship among products in order to support effective decision making, gain more profits and attract their customers, e.g. shelf arrangement, product displays, or product marketing, etc. Some high utility association rules have been proposed, however, they consume much memory and require long time processing. This paper proposes LHAR (Lattice-based for mining High utility Association Rules) algorithm to mine high utility association rules based on a lattice of high utility itemsets. The LHAR algorithm aims to generates high utility association rules during the process of building lattice of high utility itemsets, and thus it needs less memory and runtim

Thinning and drilling laser-assisted hatching in thawed embryo transfer : A randomized controlled trial

Objective: In frozen and thawed embryos, the zona pellucida (ZP) can be damaged due to hardening. Laser-assisted hatching (LAH) of embryos can increase the pregnancy rate. This study compared thinning and drilling of the ZP before frozen embryo transfer (FET). Methods: Patients were randomly allocated into two groups for LAH using thinning or drilling on day 2 after thawing. Twenty-five percent of the ZP circumference and 50% of the ZP thickness was removed in the thinning group, and a hole 40 μm in diameter was made in the drilling group. Results: A total of 171 in vitro fertilization/intracytoplasmic sperm injection FET cycles, including 85 cycles with drilling LAH and 86 cycles with thinning LAH, were carried out. The thinning group had a similar β-human chorionic gonadotropin-positive rate (38.4% vs. 29.4%), implantation rate (16.5% vs. 14.4%), clinical pregnancy rate (36.0% vs. 25.9%), miscarriage rate (5.8% vs. 2.4%), ongoing pregnancy rate (30.2% vs. 23.5%), and multiple pregnancy rate (7.0% vs. 10.6%) to the drilling LAH group. There were no significant differences in pregnancy outcomes between subgroups defined based on age (older or younger than 35 years) or ZP thickness (greater or less than 17 μm) according to the LAH method. Conclusion: The present study demonstrated that partial ZP thinning or drilling resulted in similar outcomes in implantation and pregnancy rates using thawed embryos, irrespective of women's age or ZP thickness. © 2018. The Korean Society for Reproductive Medicine.Peer reviewe

Efficient and precise CRISPR/Cas9-mediated MECP2 modifications in human-induced pluripotent stem cells

Patients with Rett syndrome (RTT) have severe mental and physical disabilities. The majority of RTT patients carry a heterozygous mutation in methyl-CpG binding protein 2 (MECP2), an X-linked gene encoding an epigenetic factor crucial for normal nerve cell function. No curative therapy for RTT syndrome exists, and cellular mechanisms are incompletely understood. Here, we developed a CRISPR/Cas9-mediated system that targets and corrects the disease relevant regions of the MECP2 exon 4 coding sequence. We achieved homologous recombination (HR) efficiencies of 20% to 30% in human cell lines and iPSCs. Furthermore, we successfully introduced a MECP2(R270X) mutation into the MECP2 gene in human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Consequently, using CRISPR/Cas9, we were able to repair such mutations with high efficiency in human mutant iPSCs. In summary, we provide a new strategy for MECP2 gene targeting that can be potentially translated into gene therapy or for iPSCs-based disease modeling of RTT syndrome

Chemical potential, Helmholtz free energy and entropy of argon with kinetic Monte Carlo simulation

We present a method based on kinetic Monte Carlo (kMC) to determine the chemical potential, Helmholtz free energy and entropy of a fluid within the course of a simulation. The procedure requires no recourse to auxiliary methods to determine the chemical potential, such as the implementation of a Widom scheme in Metropolis Monte Carlo simulations, as it is determined within the course of the simulation. The equation for chemical potential is proved, for the first time in the literature, to have a direct connection with inverse Widom potential theory in using real molecules rather than ghost molecules. We illustrate this new procedure by several examples, including fluid argon and adsorption of argon as a non-uniform fluid on a graphite surface and in slit pores. © 201

Self-reported daily stress, squelching of anger and the management of daily stress and the prevalence of uterine leiomyomata: The ultrasound screening study

Self-reported daily stress, ways of managing stress and squelching anger were examined in association with uterine leiomyomata (aka fibroids). These stress factors were obtained from 560 Black and 375 White women enrolled in the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Uterine Fibroid Study. Race-specific prevalence differences (PD) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were calculated. Black women with severe stress had a prevalence of fibroids that was 11% higher (95% CI: 0%, 21%) than those in the no or mild stress group (referent). White women with severe stress, compared to the referent, had a non-significantly (NS) higher prevalence of fibroids [PD = 7%; 95% CI: (-10%, 21%)]. For both groups, moderate daily stress was associated with a weak elevation (NS) in fibroid prevalence. Black women who reported squelching their anger had an elevated prevalence of fibroids (8%) compared to non-squelchers [95% CI: (-0%, 15%)] while there was no association for White women. Women with symptomatic fibroids had higher stress than those without, but exclusion of symptomatic women only slightly attenuated the associations. Consistent with a previous report, symptomatic fibroids may cause stress. However, further research is warranted to prospectively investigate a possible aetiologic role for stress in the development of fibroids

A molecular simulation study of adsorption and desorption in closed end slit pores: Is there a hysteresis loop?

This paper reports detailed simulations of adsorption and desorption of argon in closed end slit pores with the aim of investigating the existence of hysteresis. The classical thermodynamic approach implies that there should be no hysteresis in a closed end pore because it assumes that the condensed phase is identical to a uniform bulk liquid and that the interface between the gas-like region and the dense adsorbate region is the same when the pore fills as when it empties. Our simulations show that hysteresis is possible and we support this assertion with evidence from a critical analysis of the classical equation. Our extensive results show that hysteresis can occur in closed end pores because of the continuous structuring of the adsorbed phase induced by the combined effects of the solid-fluid interaction and the fluid-fluid interaction

A new molecular model for water adsorption on graphitized carbon black

Adsorption of water on graphitized carbon black at various temperatures has been studied with a new molecular model of graphitized carbon black using Monte Carlo simulation. The model is a collection of graphene layers, modelled by the Steele potential, and a number of phenol groups forming clusters of various sizes which are placed randomly at the graphene edge sites to give an O/C ratio of 0.006. The results are compared with experimental data reported by Kiselev et al. [1] in 1968 for a range of temperatures, and for the first time a reconciliation between the experimental data and simulation has been successfully achieved. The simulation results show that water adsorbs preferentially around the functional groups to form clusters, which then grow and merge at the edges of the graphene layers, rather than adsorbing onto the basal planes of the graphene because the electrostatic interactions (hydrogen bonding) between water molecules are stronger than the basal plane-water dispersion interactions

Water as a potential molecular probe for functional groups on carbon surfaces

A new and simple method, using water as a potential molecular probe, is proposed for the determination of the concentration of surface oxygen groups on carbon adsorbents. The procedure is based on a determination of the Henry constant between a water molecule and a functional group from the volume integration of the Boltzmann factor over the accessible space around the functional group. Three porous carbons are used in this study to test the new method: A-5, RF-100 and RF-200. The results obtained are in good agreement with those measured by Boehm titration. This new method can be applied to adsorbents containing small concentrations of oxygen groups where the Boehm titration method may give unreliable results