LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Melatonin and the circadian system: contributions to successful female reproduction.

OBJECTIVE
To summarize the role of melatonin and circadian rhythms in determining optimal female reproductive physiology, especially at the peripheral level.


DESIGN
Databases were searched for the related English-language literature published up to March 1, 2014. Only papers in peer-reviewed journals are cited.


SETTING
Not applicable.


PATIENT(S)
Not applicable.


INTERVENTION(S)
Melatonin treatment, alterations of the normal light:dark cycle and light exposure at night.


MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S)
Melatonin levels in the blood and in the ovarian follicular fluid and melatonin synthesis, oxidative damage and circadian rhythm disturbances in peripheral reproductive organs.


RESULT(S)
The central circadian regulatory system is located in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). The output of this master clock is synchronized to 24 hours by the prevailing light-dark cycle. The SCN regulates rhythms in peripheral cells via the autonomic nervous system and it sends a neural message to the pineal gland where it controls the cyclic production of melatonin; after its release, the melatonin rhythm strengthens peripheral oscillators. Melatonin is also produced in the peripheral reproductive organs, including granulosa cells, the cumulus oophorus, and the oocyte. These cells, along with the blood, may contribute melatonin to the follicular fluid, which has melatonin levels higher than those in the blood. Melatonin is a powerful free radical scavenger and protects the oocyte from oxidative stress, especially at the time of ovulation. The cyclic levels of melatonin in the blood pass through the placenta and aid in the organization of the fetal SCN. In the absence of this synchronizing effect, the offspring may exhibit neurobehavioral deficits. Also, melatonin protects the developing fetus from oxidative stress. Melatonin produced in the placenta likewise may preserve the optimal function of this organ.


CONCLUSION(S)
Both stable circadian rhythms and cyclic melatonin availability are critical for optimal ovarian physiology and placental function. Because light exposure after darkness onset at night disrupts the master circadian clock and suppresses elevated nocturnal melatonin levels, light at night should be avoided.
Provably good algorithm for low power consumption with dual supply voltages

Dual-voltage approach emerges as an effective and practical technique for power reduction. In this paper we explore the power optimization with dual supply voltages under the given timing constraints. By analyzing the relations among the timing slack, delay and power consumption in a given circuit, we relate the voltage-scaling power optimization to Maximal-Weighted-Independent-Set (MWIS) problem which is polynomial-time solvable on transitive graph. Then we develop a provably good lower-bound algorithm based on MWIS to generate the lower bound of power consumption. Also, we propose a fast approach to predict the optimum supply voltages. The maximum power reduction is obtained by using the modified lower-bound algorithm with optimum voltages. Experimental results show that the resulting lower bound is tight for most circuits and that the estimated optimum supply voltage is exactly, or very close to, the best choice of actual voltages.
Automaticity in social-cognitive processes

Over the past several years, the concept of automaticity of higher cognitive processes has permeated nearly all domains of psychological research. In this review, we highlight insights arising from studies in decision-making, moral judgments, close relationships, emotional processes, face perception and social judgment, motivation and goal pursuit, conformity and behavioral contagion, embodied cognition, and the emergence of higher-level automatic processes in early childhood. Taken together, recent work in these domains demonstrates that automaticity does not result exclusively from a process of skill acquisition (in which a process always begins as a conscious and deliberate one, becoming capable of automatic operation only with frequent use) - there are evolved substrates and early childhood learning mechanisms involved as well.
Prevention of Betel Quid Chewers' Oral Cancer in the Asian-Pacific Area.

"Betel quid chewers' oral cancer" is one of the most common malignancies in South and Southeast Asian countries. Oral premalignancies are also very common in betel quid chewers and about 10% of these undergo malignant transformation. Although education for cessation of the betel quid chewing habit is important, there are few adequate strategies and policies for primary prevention, health promotion and education related to oral cancer control, especially in rural areas. In addition to oral health education, it is also crucial to establish a data-management system as well as monitoring and evaluation systems for oral cancer prevention.
Improving the Way We Think about Students with Emotional and/or Behavioral Disorders

Creating a positive classroom setting is exciting for teachers. At the beginning of the school year, before even meeting the students, anticipation mounts and teachers begin to consider every possible detail. The event is much like that of arranging a party. First, the host must consider the environment. She selects the colors, the place settings, atid images to post, the seating arrangements, and the visual effects to enhance the setting for all those attending. She also thinks about who will be seated next to each other atid considers the stmcture or flow of the party—when will the band begin to play? And when will the guest of honor make a toast?
Experimental Investigation of Pongamia, Jatropha and Neem Methyl Esters as Biodiesel on C.I. Engine

The methyl esters of vegetable oils, known as biodiesel are becoming increasingly popular because of their low environmental impact and potential as a green alternative fuel for diesel engine and they would not require significant modification of existing engine hardware. Methyl ester of Pongamia (PME), Jatropha (JME) and Neem (NME) are derived through transesterification process. Experimental investigations have been carried out to examine properties, performance and emissions of different blends (B10, B20, and B40) of PME, JME and NME in comparison to diesel. Results indicated that B20 have closer performance to diesel and B100 had lower brake thermal efficiency mainly due to its high viscosity compared to diesel. However, its diesel blends showed reasonable efficiencies, lower smoke, CO and HC. Pongamia methyl ester gives better performance compared to Jatropha and Neem methyl esters. © 2008 Jordan Journal of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. All rights reserved
Associations between perceptions of school connectedness and adolescent health risk behaviors in South African high school learners.

BACKGROUND
This study investigated the relationship between school connectedness and health risk behaviors, specifically, substance abuse, violence-related behaviors, sexual risk behaviors, and suicidal ideation among school-going adolescents. School connectedness was understood to encompass a range of aspects pertaining to a learner's sense of belonging to the school. We hypothesized that strong perceptions of school connectedness will more likely be associated with lower levels of risk behaviors among school-going adolescents.


METHODS
The study was conducted in 2 neighboring public co-educational schools in Durban, South Africa. Independent measures assessed school connectedness, substance abuse, violence-related behaviors, sexual risk behaviors, and suicidal ideation.


RESULTS
Strong negative correlations were found between adolescents' perceptions of school connectedness and the 4 health risk behaviors, particularly suicidal ideation. The relative importance of risk factors was also evidenced in the sample.


CONCLUSIONS
Adolescents with lower perceptions of school connectedness were more likely to engage in various risk behaviors, supporting the literature that a lack of school connectedness can act as a risk factor for adolescent involvement in clustering of risk behaviors. Further the relative weighting of individual risk factors, it is argued, was an effect of the sociocultural context of the study.
Golgi protein 73 (GOLPH2) is a valuable serum marker for hepatocellular carcinoma.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS
Golgi protein 73 (GP73) as a potential serum marker for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has not been validated in large cohort studies. Furthermore, its significance in the assessment of tumour recurrence after HCC resection remains unknown. The aim of this study was to determine the value of serum GP73 in the diagnosis of HCC.


METHODS
Serum GP73 and alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) were compared in a total of 4217 human subjects in this multicentre study, including 1690 healthy adults, 337 hepatitis B virus (HBV) carriers, 512 patients with cirrhosis, 789 patients with HCC, 61 patients with other malignant liver lesions, 206 patients with benign liver lesions and 622 patients with 14 different kinds of non-liver cancers. The main outcome measures were the specificity and sensitivity of GP73 in patients at risk for the development of HCC.


RESULTS
Using 8.5 relative units as a cut-off value, the sensitivity and specificity of serum GP73 for HCC were 74.6% (95% CI 71.5% to 77.6%) and 97.4% (95% CI 96.8 to 98.3%), compared with 58.2% (95% CI 55.2% to 62.1%) and 85.3% (95% CI 83.4% to 88.1%) for AFP (p<0.001) using 35 ng/ml as a cut-off value. The GP73 level was significantly increased in patients with HCC compared with healthy controls (14.7 vs 1.2, p<0.001). Although GP73 levels in HBV carriers (2.9) and patients with cirrhosis (4.7) were somewhat elevated, they were much lower than that in patients with HCC (p<0.001). GP73 decreased following surgical resection of HCC lesions and increased with tumour recurrence. Fourteen types of non-liver cancers were analysed; all the benign and other malignant liver lesions had moderate elevations of GP73, albeit at a much lower level than in HCC.


CONCLUSIONS
GP73 is an accurate serum marker for the detection of HCC and its recurrence after surgery, with higher sensitivity and specificity than AFP. Clinical implementation of serum GP73 measurement as a standard test for HCC is recommended.
A phase I trial of aprinocarsen (ISIS 3521/LY900003), an antisense inhibitor of protein kinase C-α administered as a 24-hour weekly infusion schedule in patients with advanced cancer

Purpose: A phase I study was performed to determine the maximum tolerated dose (MTD), safety profile and pharmacology of aprinocarsen (ISIS 3521), an antisense oligonucleotide to protein kinase C-α, in patients with refractory solid tumors. Experimental design: Fourteen patients were treated in sequential cohorts of aprinocarsen by 24-hour continuous infusion (CIV), weekly, at doses of 6, 12, 18 and 24 mg/kg. Results: One grade 4 toxicity was observed, transient grade 4 neutropenia at 18 mg/kg. Grade 3 toxicities included neutropenia at 12 mg/kg, fever and hemorrhage at 18 mg/kg, and neutropenia, nausea, and chills at 24 mg/kg. Grade 2 toxicities included thrombocytopenia myalgias, chills, headache, fatigue, fever and nausea/vomiting. Mean prothrombin times and activated partial thromboplastin times (aPTT) increased by 10% and 29% from baseline (p = 0.006 and 0.005). Mean complement split products (Bb and C3a) increased 1.6-fold and 3.6-fold (from p = 0.014 and 0.004, respectively). These changes correlated with dose and were transient with recovery to baseline by day 7. Steady state plasma concentrations (Css) of aprinocarsen were achieved within four hours. Css better described changes in aPTT than dose. Clinical evidence of complement activation was not observed. Conclusions: In contrast to 21-day protracted infusion schedules, delivery of aprinocarsen over a 24-hour infusion schedule showed concentration-dependent effects on coagulation and complement, which are consistent with nonclinical toxicology studies performed in the phosphorothioate DNA antisense drug class. These coagulation and complement changes resulted in a maximum tolerated dose 24 mg/kg.
Sustainability of service provisioning systems under attack

We propose a resource allocation model that captures the interaction between legitimate users of a distributed service provisioning system with malicious intruders attempting to disrupt its operation. The system consists of a bank of servers providing service to incoming requests. Malicious intruders generate fake traffic to the servers attempting to degrade service provisioning. Legitimate traffic may be balanced using available mechanisms in order to mitigate the damage from the attack. We characterize the guaranteed region, i.e. the set of legitimate traffic intensities that are sustainable given specific intensities of the fake traffic, under the assumption that the fake traffic is routed using static policies. This assumption will be relaxed, allowing arbitrary routing policies, in the full version of this work.
Singularity Analysis of 3-DOF Planar Parallel Mechanisms via Screw Theory

This paper presents the results of a detailed study of the singular configurations of 3planar parallel mechanisms with three identical legs. Only prismatic and revolute jo are considered. From the point of view of singularity analysis, there are ten diffe architectures. All of them are examined in a compact and systematic manner using p screw theory. The nature of each possible singular configuration is discussed an singularity loci for a constant orientation of the mobile platform are obtained. For so architectures, simplified designs with easy to determine singularities are identified. @DOI: 10.1115/1.1582878 #
Directions in General Relativity: Jacobi's Action and the Density of States

The authors have introduced recently a ``microcanonical functional integral" which yields directly the density of states as a function of energy. The phase of the functional integral is Jacobi's action, the extrema of which are classical solutions at a given energy. This approach is general but is especially well suited to gravitating systems because for them the total energy can be fixed simply as a boundary condition on the gravitational field. In this paper, however, we ignore gravity and illustrate the use of Jacobi's action by computing the density of states for a nonrelativistic harmonic oscillator. (Festschrift for Dieter Brill)
Universal Artificial Intelligence

The dream of creating artificial devices that reach or outperform human intelligence is many centuries old. In this talk I present an elegant parameter-free theory of an optimal reinforcement learning agent embedded in an arbitrary unknown environment that possesses essentially all aspects of rational intelligence. The theory reduces all conceptual AI problems to pure computational questions. The necessary and sufficient ingredients are Bayesian probability theory; algorithmic information theory; universal Turing machines; the agent framework; sequential decision theory; and reinforcement learning, which are all important subjects in their own right. I also present some recent approximations, implementations, and applications of this modern top-down approach to AI. Marcus Hutter 3 Universal Artificial Intelligence Overview Goal: Construct a single universal agent that learns to act optimally in any environment. State of the art: Formal (mathematical, non-comp.) definition of such an agent. Accomplishment: Well-defines AI. Formalizes rational intelligence. Formal “solution” of the AI problem in the sense of ... =⇒ Reduces the conceptional AI problem to a (pure) computational problem. Evidence: Mathematical optimality proofs and some experimental results. Marcus Hutter 4 Universal Artificial Intelligence
Social theory, its situation and its task : a critical introduction to Politics, a work in constructive social theory

Social theory: its situation and its task is an introduction both to Unger's ideas and to the major debates of contemporary social, political and economic thought. Unger shows how the failures of social science and the criticism of such ambitious, deterministic theories as Marxism offer materials for an alternative practice of social understanding. This alternative severs, once and for all, the link between the explanation of social arrangements and the vindication of their necessity. Unger argues that the disappointment of so many liberal and socialist hopes coexists with unforeseen opportunities to advance progressive commitments. To seize such opportunities, however, we must rethink many of our basic beliefs about society--about what it is and what it can become. Social Theory: Its Situation and Its Task shows that what at first seems a circumstance of intellectual and political paralysis turns out to be rich in unrecognized transformative possibility.
Effects of tai chi mind-body movement therapy on functional status and exercise capacity in patients with chronic heart failure: a randomized controlled trial.

PURPOSE
To examine the effects of a 12-week tai chi program on quality of life and exercise capacity in patients with heart failure.


METHODS
Thirty patients with chronic stable heart failure and left ventricular ejection fraction < or =40% (mean [+/- SD] age, 64 +/- 13 years; mean baseline ejection fraction, 23% +/- 7%; median New York Heart Association class, 2 [range, 1 to 4]) were randomly assigned to receive usual care (n = 15), which included pharmacologic therapy and dietary and exercise counseling, or 12 weeks of tai chi training (n = 15) in addition to usual care. Tai chi training consisted of a 1-hour class held twice weekly. Primary outcomes included quality of life and exercise capacity. Secondary outcomes included serum B-type natriuretic peptide and plasma catecholamine levels. For 3 control patients with missing data items at 12 weeks, previous values were carried forward.


RESULTS
At 12 weeks, patients in the tai chi group showed improved quality-of-life scores (mean between-group difference in change, -25 points, P = 0.001), increased distance walked in 6 minutes (135 meters, P = 0.001), and decreased serum B-type natriuretic peptide levels (-138 pg/mL, P = 0.03) compared with patients in the control group. A trend towards improvement was seen in peak oxygen uptake. No differences were detected in catecholamine levels.


CONCLUSION
Tai chi may be a beneficial adjunctive treatment that enhances quality of life and functional capacity in patients with chronic heart failure who are already receiving standard medical therapy.
A Practical Guide to Support Vector Classification

The support vector machine (SVM) is a popular classification technique. However, beginners who are not familiar with SVM often get unsatisfactory results since they miss some easy but significant steps. In this guide, we propose a simple procedure which usually gives reasonable results.
Action-dependent perceptual invariants: From ecological to sensorimotor approaches

Ecological and sensorimotor theories of perception build on the notion of action-dependent invariants as the basic structures underlying perceptual capacities. In this paper we contrast the assumptions these theories make on the nature of perceptual information modulated by action. By focusing on the question, how movement specifies perceptual information, we show that ecological and sensorimotor theories endorse substantially different views about the role of action in perception. In particular we argue that ecological invariants are characterized with reference to transformations produced in the sensory array by movement: such invariants are transformation-specific but do not imply motor-specificity. In contrast, sensorimotor theories assume that perceptual invariants are intrinsically tied to specific movements. We show that this difference leads to different empirical predictions and we submit that the distinction between motor equivalence and motor-specificity needs further clarification in order to provide a more constrained account of action/perception relations.
Prognostic significance of foveal capillary drop-out and previous panretinal photocoagulation for diabetic macular oedema treated with ranibizumab.

AIMS
To investigate the prognostic significance of macular capillary drop-out and previous panretinal laser photocoagulation in diabetic macular oedema treated with intravitreal ranibizumab.


METHODS
Retrospective observational case series. Treatment-naive patients with diabetic macular oedema that had been treated with intravitreal ranibizumab as per the RESTORE study protocol for at least 12 months were included. Some patients (n=15) had previous panretinal laser photocoagulation. Best-corrected visual acuity and central retina thickness were recorded monthly. The foveal avascular zone and the perifoveal capillaries were quantitatively and qualitatively assessed on fluorescein angiography on two occasions during the observational period.


RESULTS
From the 46 eyes (46 patients) in this study, 13 (28%) had evidence of perifoveal capillary drop-out. Central retinal thickness was significantly thinner at baseline (p=0.02) and throughout the study period in these eyes compared with those with normal perifoveal capillaries. Both groups responded with a significant gain of best-corrected visual acuity to ranibizumab treatment (7.6±3.3 and 6.3±1.3 ETDRS letters, respectively). Eyes with previous panretinal laser photocoagulation displayed a comparable final outcome regarding function and morphology, requiring a similar intensity of intravitreal injections.


CONCLUSIONS
Perifoveal capillary drop-out did not limit the gain of visual acuity from intravitreal ranibizumab treatment. The reduction of central retina thickness was similar to that seen in eyes with normal perifoveal capillaries. Central retinal thickness in eyes with perifoveal capillary drop-out was generally reduced. However, this did not affect their benefit from treatment. Ranibizumab did not increase the amount of perifoveal capillary loss.