Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparative analysis of the tear protein profile in mycotic keratitis patients

Purpose Mycotic keratitis is a major cause of corneal blindness in India. A proper understanding of the pathogenesis may help in refining the existing treatment. The purpose of this study is to examine the total tear protein profile of fungal keratitis patients, which may have a bearing on pathogenesis and disease progression. Methods Tear samples were collected from culture positive fungal keratitis patients. Tears from the uninfected fellow eye and from other healthy individuals served as controls. Two-dimensional electrophoresis (2DE) was used for the separation of fractionated tear proteins, and selected protein spots, which showed differential expressions, were identified using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry. Wherever needed, tag sequencing of peptide fragments using post source decay (PSD) was done to confirm the identification. Results The glutaredoxin-related protein was expressed only in the tears of fungal keratitis patients. Six other normal tear proteins were present in both samples but with varied expression levels. Prolactin inducible protein and serum albumin precursor were upregulated in the infected samples. Cystatin S precursor, cystatin SN precursor, cystatin, and human tear lipocalin were downregulated in the infected samples. Conclusions Tears can be used as a clinical source to study the proteomic responses in patients with fungal keratitis. The glutaredoxin-related protein is known to be produced by Aspergillus during oxidative stress conditions, and the presence of this protein in the tears of patients with mycotic keratitis indicates that this pathogen undergoes stress-related gene expression during infection.
A visual logic programming language based on sets and partitioning constraints

This paper presents a new programming language named SPARCL that has four major elements: it is a visual language, it is a logic programming language, it relies on sets to organize data, and it supports partitioning constraints on the contents of sets. It is a visual programming language in that the representation of the language depends extensively on non-textual graphics and the programming process relies on graphical manipulation of this representation. It is a logic programming language in that the underlying semantics of the language is the resolution of clauses of a Horn-like subset of first order predicate logic. It uses sets as the only method of combining terms to build complex terms. Finally, one may constrain a set's structure by specifying a partitioning into pairwise disjoint subsets. <<ETX>>
Oscillation mechanics of the respiratory system in never-smoking patients with silicosis: pathophysiological study and evaluation of diagnostic accuracy

OBJECTIVES: Silicosis is a chronic and incurable occupational disease that can progress even after the cessation of exposure. Recent studies suggest that the forced oscillation technique may help to clarify the changes in lung mechanics resulting from silicosis as well as the detection of these changes. We investigated the effects of airway obstruction in silicosis on respiratory impedance and evaluated the diagnostic efficacy of the forced oscillation technique in these patients. METHODS: Spirometry was used to classify the airway obstruction, which resulted in four subject categories: controls (n = 21), patients with a normal exam (n = 12), patients with mild obstruction (n = 22), and patients with moderate-to-severe obstruction (n = 12). Resistive data were interpreted using the zero-intercept resistance (R0), the resistance at 4 Hz (Rrs4), and the mean resistance. We also analyzed the mean reactance (Xm) and the dynamic compliance. The total mechanical load was evaluated using the absolute value of the respiratory impedance (Z4Hz). The diagnostic potential was evaluated by investigating the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01725971. RESULTS: We observed significant (p<0.0002) increases in R0, Rrs4, Rm, and Z4Hz and significant reductions in Crs,dyn (p<0.0002) and Xm (p<0.0001). R0, Rrs4, Rm, and Z4Hz performed adequately in the diagnosis of mild obstruction (area under the curve>0.80) and highly accurately in the detection of moderate-to-severe obstruction (area under the curve>0.90). CONCLUSIONS: The forced oscillation technique may contribute to the study of the pathophysiology of silicosis and may improve the treatment offered to these patients, thus representing an alternative and/or complementary tool for evaluating respiratory mechanics.
High density biomass estimation: Testing the utility of Vegetation Indices and the Random Forest Regression algorithm

Accurate estimates of wetland above ground biomass (AGB) have increasingly been identified as a critical component for an efficient wetland monitoring and management system. Multispectral remote sensing based indices have proven inadequate in estimating biomass especially at high canopy density. In this study we investigated the use of vegetation indices derived from field hyperspectral data to estimate papyrus (Cyperus papyrus) biomass. Spectral and above ground biomass measurements were collected at three different areas in the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park, South Africa. We evaluated the potential of narrow-band normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) calculated from all possible two band combinations between 700 nm to 1000 nm. Subsequently, we utilized random forest (RF) as a modeling tool for predicting papyrus biomass. The results showed that papyrus biomass can be estimated at full canopy level under swamp wetland conditions (R = 0.73, RMSEP = 276 g/m; 8.6 % of the mean). From our results, random forest has proved to be a robust feature selection method in identifying the minimum number (n = 4) of narrow-band NDVIs that offered the best overall predictive accuracy. The results can be scaled to spaceborne or airborne sensors such as Hyperion or HYMAP for predicting vegetation biomass in wetland areas using remotely sensed data.
User requirements for assistance of the supporting hand in bimanual daily activities via a robotic glove for severely affected stroke patients

For independent functioning in activities of daily life (ADL), proper hand function is paramount. Many stroke patients have a reduced ability to grasp and handle objects, while they don't fully recover functional use of the arm and hand, even after extensive (robotic) training. These patients may benefit from assistive support of the arm and hand in daily life. To address the needs of stroke patients during the design of an assistive device, a user-centered approach has been applied to identify user requirements for development of a dynamic hand orthosis to support hand opening during functional bimanual activities. A survey of literature showed that preferred ADL tasks are personal hygiene, dressing-grooming, eating and preparing food. Since the more affected hand will mainly be used as a supporting hand to stabilize objects during prehensile tasks, the most important grasp to support was identified as the cylinder grasp. User requirements were extracted from interviews with primary and secondary end-users and experts in the field, highlighting that ease of use is an essential aspect for user acceptance and uptake of the device.
Pattern of eclampsia in a tertiary health facility situated in a semi-rural town in Northern Nigeria.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVE To determine the pattern of eclampsia and its contribution to maternal mortality at the Federal Medical Centre, Birnin Kudu, Jigawa State in Northern Nigeria. METHOD A 4-year retrospective review of the case records of all women who presented with eclampsia at the center. All the case records were retrieved from the medical record department and analyzed. RESULTS There were 207 cases of eclampsia out of 2197 deliveries during the period giving an incidence of 9.42%. 171 (82.6%) of the patients were unbooked. Majority (58.5%) of the patients were aged less than 20 years. The highest frequency (78.3%) was recorded in the primigravida. Delay before reaching the hospital was established in 116 (56%) of patients. The condition was antepartum in 68 (32.9%), intrapartum in 112 (54.1%) and postpartum in 27 (13%). 107 (51.7%) of the patients were delivered by cesarean section. Twenty two (10.6%) of the mothers died. Eclampsia was the commonest cause of maternal mortality and contributed 43.1% of all maternal deaths. 180 (87%) of the babies were delivered alive while 27 (13%) died. CONCLUSION Eclampsia is a major cause of maternal mortality. There is need for health education on the need for patients to avail themselves of antenatal care.
The (Mythical?) Housing Wealth Effect

Models used to guide policy, as well as some empirical studies, suggest that the effect of housing wealth on consumption is large and greater than the wealth effect on consumption from stock holdings. Recent theoretical work, in contrast, argues that changes in housing wealth are offset by changes in housing consumption, meaning that unexpected shocks in housing wealth should have little effect on non-housing consumption. We reexamine the impact of housing wealth on non-housing consumption, employing the Case-Quigley-Shiller data on U.S. housing wealth that have been used in prior studies to estimate a large housing wealth effect. Existing empirical work fails to control for the fact that changes in housing wealth may be correlated with changes in expected permanent income, biasing the resulting estimates. Once we control for the endogeneity bias resulting from the correlation between housing wealth and permanent income, we find that housing wealth has a small and insignificant effect on consumption. Additional analysis of time-series results provides further support for that view.
Reconstructing the giant: On the importance of rigour in documenting the literature search process

Science is a cumulative endeavour as new knowledge is often created in the process of interpreting and combining existing knowledge. This is why literature reviews have long played a decisive role in scholarship. The quality of literature reviews is particularly determined by the literature search process. As Sir Isaac Newton eminently put it: If I can see further, it is because I am standing on the shoulders of giants. Drawing on this metaphor, the goal of writing a literature review is to reconstruct the giant of accumulated knowledge in a specific domain. And in doing so, a literature search represents the fundamental first step that makes up the giant's skeleton and largely determines its reconstruction in the subsequent literature analysis. In this paper, we argue that the process of searching the literature must be comprehensibly described. Only then can readers assess the exhaustiveness of the review and other scholars in the field can more confidently (re)use the results in their own research. We set out to explore the methodological rigour of literature review articles published in ten major information systems (IS) journals and show that many of these reviews do not thoroughly document the process of literature search. The results drawn from our analysis lead us to call for more rigour in documenting the literature search process and to present guidelines for crafting a literature review and search in the IS domain.
STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF THE WIRELESS PROPAGATION CHANNEL AND ITS MUTUAL INFORMATION

Tyo kasittelee siirtyvan tietoliikenteen radiokanavan ja tiettyjen siihen liittyvien funktioiden tilastollista analyysia. Ensimmaisena aiheena analysoidaan haipyvan ns. moniantenniradiokanavan keskinaisinformaatiota. Tarkemmin eriteltyna tyossa johdetaan likimaarainen lauseke Rayleigh-haipyvan moniantennikanavan keskinaisinformaation todennakoisyysjakaumalle. Lisaksi johdetaan ylaraja Rice-haipyvan kanavan ergodiselle keskinaisinformaatiolle, seka uudentyyppinen keskinaisinformaatiohajotelma, joka patee korkeilla signaalikohinasuhteilla. Hajotelman perusteella ehdotetaan myos tunnuslukua moniantennikanavan ns. multipath richnessille. Toisena aiheena tyossa johdetaan yleistetyn monisirontakanavan amplitudin todennakoisyysjakauma. Rayleigh-, Rice- ja kaksois-Rayleigh-jakaumat ovat yleisen tuloksen erikoistapauksia. Tyon kolmannessa aiheessa osoitetaan etta myos summamalli – verrattuna perinteiseen tulomalliin – voi olla selityksena ns. hitaan haipyman lognormaaliuteen. Tyossa esitetaan mittaustuloksia, jotka tukevat summamallia.
Improving Initial Sound Segmentation Skills of Preschool Children with Severe to Profound Hearing Loss: An Exploratory Investigation.

The purpose of this exploratory study was to evaluate the functional relation between initial sound awareness instruction and increased initial sound segmentation skill in children with hearing loss. Two preschool children with hearing loss participated in this multiple probe design single subject study. The children participated individually in initial sound awareness instruction (37–39 half-hour sessions). Assessment of children’s initial sound segmentation skill occurred at the beginning of each session. Initial sound awareness training was associated with an increase in initial sound segmentation skill for the two children with hearing loss but performance did not consistently move to mastery level.
Turbulent heat flux in the deep ocean above diffuse hydrothermal vents

Turbulence data collected near diffuse hydrothermal vents on the Endeavour Segment of the Juan de Fuca Ridge reveal the processes important in turbulent heat transfer in this unusual oceanic environment. Temperature measurements obtained at the rock / water interface demonstrate that low-temperature diffuse effluent leaving the oceanic crust is highly variable. Our calculations showthat this variability at the interface is quickly mixed in the near-bottom boundary layer. Velocity and temperature time series, at a measurement height of roughly 0.5 meters above the seafloor, indicate that heat and momentum flux occur at nearly the same scale. Typical turbulent eddies are 0.10 to 0.25 m in dimension, with the largest (energy containing) turbulent eddies occurring at scales of approximately 0.45 m. The turbulent eddies that are responsible for heat transfer depend mainly on the shear forcing, not thermal buoyancy. Probability distribution functions confirm that most of the heat flux occurs in intermittent events, and yield a mean heat flux value of order 4 kW/m 2 .
Unsupervised training of a speech recognizer: recent experiments

Current speech recognition systems require large amounts of transcribed data for parameter estimation. The transcription, however, is tedious and expensive. In this work we describe our experiments which are aimed at training a speech recognizer with only a minimal amount (30 minutes) of transcriptions and a large portion (50 hours) of un-transcribed data. A recognizer is bootstrapped on the transcribed part of the data and initial transcripts are generated with it for the remainder (the untranscribed part). Using a lattice-based con(cid:12)dence measure, the recognition errors are (partially) detected and the remainder of the hypotheses is used for training. Using this scheme, the word error rate on a broadcast news speech recognition task dropped from more than 32.0% to 21.4%. In a cheating experiment we show, that this performance cannot be signi(cid:12)cantly improved by improving the measure of con(cid:12)dence. By combining the unsupervisedly trained system with our currently best recognizer which is trained on 15.5 hours of transcribed data, an additional error reduction of 5% relative (as compared to the system trained in a standard fashion) is possible.
Educational Intervention among Barbers to Improve Their Knowledge regarding HIV/AIDS: A Pilot Study from a South Asian Country

ABSTRACT One of the Millennium Development Goals is to combat HIV, the burden of which continues to increase in developing countries, like Pakistan. The prevalence is high among the high-risk population, and the use of unsterilized surgical instruments, traditional straight razors, and blades adds to the spread of this disease. This study assesses the effect of an educational intervention on the knowledge of 70 barbers practising in a suburban community in Pakistan regarding HIV and its symptoms and transmission. At baseline, only 10% of the barbers reported that they had ever heard about HIV compared to 49% after the intervention. Similarly, 4% and 6% of them had good knowledge at baseline about symptoms and transmission of the disease, increasing to 39% and 43% respectively, after the intervention (p<0.001). The results of this educational intervention warrant consideration of activation of mass campaigns to increase public awareness about bloodborne diseases and to educate personnel who might harm the persons in their communities by unsafe practices.
The Wireless Control Network: A New Approach for Control Over Networks

We present a method to stabilize a plant with a network of resource constrained wireless nodes. As opposed to traditional networked control schemes where the nodes simply route information to and from a dedicated controller (perhaps performing some encoding along the way), our approach treats the network itself as the controller. Specifically, we formulate a strategy for each node in the network to follow, where at each time-step, each node updates its internal state to be a linear combination of the states of the nodes in its neighborhood. We show that this causes the entire network to behave as a linear dynamical system, with sparsity constraints imposed by the network topology. We provide a numerical design procedure to determine appropriate linear combinations to be applied by each node so that the transmissions of the nodes closest to the actuators will stabilize the plant. We also show how our design procedure can be modified to maintain mean square stability under packet drops in the network, and present a distributed scheme that can handle node failures while preserving stability. We call this architecture a Wireless Control Network, and show that it introduces very low computational and communication overhead to the nodes in the network, allows the use of simple transmission scheduling algorithms, and enables compositional design (where the existing wireless control infrastructure can be easily extended to handle new plants that are brought online in the vicinity of the network).
Rhythm2Recovery: A Model of Practice Combining Rhythmic Music with Cognitive Reflection for Social and Emotional Health within Trauma Recovery

Rhythm pervades life in almost every context, from the smallest pulsating atom to the epic scale of our expanding universe. In our behaviour we are creatures of rhythm, following, initiating, and embedding patterns from the moment we are born, and within our physical anatomy rhythm is ever present, from our beating heart, through the rise and fall of our lungs and across the firing of our neurons. Healing traditions across all cultures invoke the rhythms of music, and the latest research from the field of neuro-biology into the way this element impacts the brain, reinforces this traditional knowledge and provides a new understanding of the real potential for rhythmic music to be utilised in therapy. This article details the use of rhythmic music in combination with cognitive behavioural therapy as a model for practitioners working with those recovering from trauma, and the supporting evidence validating this approach. Since 2003 this model has been utilised in diverse settings from behavioural centres for young people at risk to refugee trauma centres, forensic psychiatric wards in prisons, and child and adult mental health services. Currently over 4,000 professionals across 20 different countries have completed training in this model. Consistent feedback has highlighted the value of this model in engaging clients not readily engaged in ‘talk-based’ therapies, increasing social connection, and reducing psychological distress. The benefits of playing music socially with others, and of rhythmic music specifically, include increased levels of social integration, improvements in affect, mood stabilisation, reductions in anxiety and depression, and increases in self-esteem. When combined with exercises that draw attention and initiate reflection on important life issues, such as improving relationships and overcoming adversity, this has the added benefit of utilising the whole brain and embedding learning at a deeper level.
OpenECOCOMO: The algorithms and implementation of Extended Cost Constructive Model (E-COCOMO)

Traditional software development approaches is obsoleting day by day and the place is being taken by some new evolved approaches like. Cleanroom development approach, Agile development approach etc. due to the evolution in development methodology there is a strong need of evolution in estimation models also. In this work we have proposed an extended version of COCOMO that is E-COCOMO and based on this model a tool has been implemented called OpenECOCOMO. The evolved model is proposed for the new development methodologies and includes some more factors for estimation used in these new approaches.
FTY720 Shows Promising In vitro and In vivo Preclinical Activity by Downmodulating Cyclin D1 and Phospho-Akt in Mantle Cell Lymphoma

Purpose: Despite the progress that has been made in the treatment of mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), all patients invariably relapse with the currently available therapies. Because of the absence of curative therapy for MCL, we explored FTY720 as a novel agent against MCL. Experimental Design: The cytotoxic effect of FTY720 in primary MCL tumor cells and cell lines were evaluated in vitro. The effects of FTY720 on caspase activation, generation of reactive oxygen species, and modulation of Cyclin D1 and Akt, which are implied in the pathogenesis of MCL, were investigated. The in vivo efficacy of FTY720 was evaluated in a Jeko-severe combined immunodeficient xenograft model of human MCL. Results: FTY720 mediated time- and dose-dependent cytotoxicity in primary MCL tumor cells and MCL cell lines in vitro. FTY720-induced cytotoxicity occured independent of caspase activation but dependent on the generation of ROS in MCL. In addition, FTY720 treatment resulted in the time-dependent downmodulation of Cyclin D1 and accumulation of cells in G0-G1 and G2-M phases of the cell cycle with concomitant decrease in S-phase entry. Furthermore, concentrations of FTY720 that induced cytotoxicity led to decreased phospho-Akt in primary MCL cells and cell lines. Most importantly, the in vivo therapeutic activity of FTY720 was shown in severe combined immunodeficient mice engrafted with the Jeko MCL cell line. Conclusions: These results provide the first evidence for a potential use of FTY720 in targeting key pathways that are operable in the pathogenesis of MCL and warrant further investigation of FTY720 in clinical trials to treat patients with MCL. Clin Cancer Res; 16(12); 3182–92. ©2010 AACR.
On maximum spanning DAG algorithms for semantic DAG parsing

Consideration of the decoding problem in semantic parsing as finding a maximum spanning DAG of a weighted directed graph carries many complexities that haven’t been fully addressed in the literature to date, among which are its actual appropriateness for the decoding task in semantic parsing, not to mention an explicit proof of its complexity (and its approximability). In this paper, we consider the objective function for the maximum spanning DAG problem, and what it means in terms of decoding for semantic parsing. In doing so, we give anecdotal evidence against its use in this task. In addition, we consider the only graph-based maximum spanning DAG approximation algorithm presented in the literature (without any approximation guarantee) to date and finally provide an approximation guarantee for it, showing that it is an O( 1 n ) factor approximation algorithm, where n is the size of the digraph’s vertex set.