Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Lupus Glomerulonephritis

3mg/kg/day). Long-term observation showed that either MMF or AZA was superior to CYC in the prevention of the composite outcome of renal failure and death. MMF was more efficacious than pulse CYC in the prevention of renal flares. Moreover, maintenance treatment with CYC was associated with more side effects such as nausea, vomiting and infection. Although the sample size is small, this study shows that maintenance treatment of lupus nephritis with either AZA or MMF is safe and effective. However, whether MMF is more cost-effective than AZA is not clear because significant difference in all outcomes is not apparent between MMF- and AZA-treated patients. Moroni et al. (2006) studied 69 patients (mainly Caucasians) with lupus nephritis and compared the efficacy of cyclosporin A (CSA) with AZA for maintenance therapy. After initial induction treatment with pulse methylprednisolone, prednisone and oral CYC (91.5  23.8 mg/day for a median of 3 months), patients were randomized to receive either cyclosporin A (Neoral; 4.0 to 2.5-3.0mg/kg/day) (N=36) or AZA (2mg/kg/day) (N=33) for maintenance. At 4 years of follow-up, flare occurred in 24% of AZA-treated and 19% of CSA-treated patients, respectively (no significant difference). Minor infections and leucopenia were more commonly reported with AZA treatment whilst arthralgia and gastrointestinal symptoms were more common in CSA-treated patients. mofetil has emerged to be the standard regimen. Intravenous pulse or daily oral cyclophosphamide reserved for more serious or refractory cases of lupus nephritis. The evidence for calcineurin inhibitors in lupus nephritis is less strong and these agents are reserved for patients intolerant or recalcitrant to standard therapies. B cell modulation is emerging as novel therapeutic modalities for lupus nephritis. While further evidence from controlled trials is eagerly awaited, the current use of B cell modulating agents is confined to recalcitrant lupus renal disease. Conventional markers for activity of lupus nephritis are neither sensitive nor specific. Novel biomarkers are being studied for earlier detection of renal flares and better prognostic stratification so that intervention can early to minimize damage to renal function. An Update on Glomerulopathies - Clinical and Treatment Aspects is a systemic overview of recent advances in clinical aspects and therapeutic options in major syndromes of glomerular pathology. The book contains twenty four chapters divided conveniently into five sections. The first section deals with primary glomerulopathies, and the second section is devoted to glomerulopathies complicating infectious conditions. The third section deals with systemic autoimmune disorders and vasculitides which constitute major causes of glomerular disease and often renal failure. The fourth section includes chapters discussing the glomerular involvement in some major metabolic and systemic conditions. The final section has chapters which relate to some general aspects of glomerular diseases. This book will form an excellent reference tool for practicing and academic nephrology community.
CERVICOVAGINAL CYTOPATHOLOGY BY LIQUIPREP™ A NEW LIQUID BASED METHOD IN COMPARISON WITH CONVENTIONAL PAP SMEAR

Background and Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the screening performance of a new modified liquid-based cytology method (Liquiprep™) with conventional PAP smear (CP) in a low risk population, using colposcopy followed by histology as “gold standard”. Patients and Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed on random referred specimens to a general gynecological clinic in Tehran, during 20 months by a split-sample method. In both CP and Liquiprep™ group, all positive and 10% of negative results of smears were followed by colposcopy. A biopsy was taken whenever any atypical transformation zone seen. Sensitivity, specificity, negative and positive predictive values (PV), and overall accuracy of both methods were analyzed in relation to histology. Results: A total of 1265 patients were analyzed by two methods. In 158 (12.5%) of cases histological diagnosis was made. Liquiprep™ samples (94.7%) were more adequate than CP (92.1%). There was not any low or high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (SIL). Atypical squamous cell of undetermined significance (ASC-US) was diagnosed more with CP than with Liquiprep™ (1.43% vs. 0.79%) while pathologically 60% of ASC-US in Liquiprep™ and 16.6% in CP had degrees of SIL. The Liquiprep™ had a significantly higher sensitivity (83% vs. 66%) and positive PV (83% vs. 33%) than the CP to detect SIL at histology but the difference in specificity was non significant (98% vs. 86%). Conclusions: This study confirms the superiority of the Liquiprep™ method to detect cervical lesions in a low risk population.
Complex Neuromuscular Changes Post-Stroke Revealed by Clustering Index Analysis of Surface Electromyogram

The objective of this paperwas to characterize complex neuromuscular changes induced by a hemisphere stroke through a novel clustering index (CI) analysis of surface electromyogram (EMG). The CI analysis was performed using surface EMG signals collected bilaterally from the thenar muscles of 17 subjects with stroke and 12 age-matched healthy controls during their performance of varying levels of isometric muscle contractions. Compared with the neurologically intact or contralateral muscles, mixed CI patterns were observed in the paretic muscles. Two paretic muscles showed significantly increased CI implying dominant neurogenic changes, whereas three paretic muscles had significantly reduced CI indicating dominantmyopathic changes; the other paretic muscles did not demonstrate a significant CI alternation, likely due to a deficit of descending central drive or a combined effect of neuromuscular factors. Such discrimination of paretic muscles was further highlighted using a modified CI method that emphasizes between-side comparison for each individual subject. The CI findings suggest that there appears to be different central and peripheral processes at work in varying degrees after stroke. This paper provides a convenient and quantitative analysis to assess the nature of neuromuscular changes after stroke, without using any special equipment but conventional surface EMG recording. Such assessment is helpful for the development of appropriate rehabilitation strategies for recovery of motor function.
Retrieval Influences on Tests for the Automaticity of the Encoding of Temporal Order Information

Replication and extension of the study on the automatic nature of the encoding of temporal order information conducted by Zacks, Hasher, Alba, Sanft, and Rose (1984) are reported. In Experiment 1, we assessed retrieval influences during the performance of the temporal order judgment task by monitoring subjects' order of filling in the judgments. Data showed that a change in output order, similar to that observed for recency items in studies of multiple-list free recall, could account for the reported practice effects for temporal order judgments. In Experiment 2, we found no improvement in recency performance when there were experimenter constraints on the order in which the temporal order judgments were assigned. The data are discussed in terms of the methodological problems faced by investigations of the automaticity hypothesis.
Conceptualising the Student-University relationship within a UK higher education university

Student voice in higher education has the potential to empower students to influence change and improve the collective teaching and learning experience; working to counter the use of student voice as a mechanism to satisfy a marketised sector. To achieve this goal requires a shift in practices, challenging the traditional modes of working that define the student-university relationship and underpin the power dynamics at play within an institution. Conceptualising how student voice is integrated within the student-university relationship and governance models stems from the position that students should be provided with the space and opportunity to be heard, be empowered to influence change and have equal roles as partners with staff in the development and enhancement of the student experience. This framing and current thinking is suggestive of a democratic relationship between students and the institution, which is an intriguing prospect that has captured the interests of academic developers (Curran and Millard, 2016) educational researchers (Bovill and Felton, 2016) and is the focus of scrutiny and research interest within academic communities (Klemencic, 2014; Bovill et al., 2015). In particular, it raises debate and dialogue about how students, students’ unions, staff and senior managers can work collectively to form the student-university relationship and the impact this can have on learning environments. This paper will present findings from a research study that sought to conceptualise and discursively construct the student-university relationship within a UK higher education institute that promotes the involvement of students in the institutions governance models and policies. Specifically, the research sought to examine the: nature and extent of student voice; impact of student voice on decision-making in institutional governance; and the power relations at play between the institution, staff and students. The research used a blended design of critical theory and post-structuralism within an ethnographic case study. The data for the project were drawn from interviews/group interviews, observations, a survey and texts/policy documentation at differing hierarchical levels of the institution. A Foucauldian critical discourse analysis was used to analyse the multiple forms of data, exploring the concepts of discipline, surveillance and governmentality to help expose the problematic practices and the external power that has helped develop the discourse narratives and practices in the university. The findings of the research provide a rich and detailed assessment of how students are positioned within the student-university relationship and the reasons for such positioning, developing a greater understanding of the complexities in practice
How Useful Is Bagging in Forecasting Economic Time Series? A Case Study of U.S. Consumer Price Inflation

This article focuses on the widely studied question of whether the inclusion of indicators of real economic activity lowers the prediction mean squared error of forecasting models of U.S. consumer price inflation. We propose three variants of the bagging algorithm specifically designed for this type of forecasting problem and evaluate their empirical performance. Although bagging predictors in our application are clearly more accurate than equally weighted forecasts, median forecasts, ARM forecasts, AFTER forecasts, or Bayesian forecast averages based on one extra predictor at a time, they are generally about as accurate as the Bayesian shrinkage predictor, the ridge regression predictor, the iterated LASSO predictor, or the Bayesian model average predictor based on random subsets of extra predictors. Our results show that bagging can achieve large reductions in prediction mean-squared errors even in such challenging applications as inflation forecasting; however, bagging is not the only method capable of achieving such gains.
Rare NaV 1 . 7 variants associated with painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy

Diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) is a common disabling complication of diabetes. Almost half of the patients with DPN develop neuropathic pain (NeuP) for which current analgesic treatments are inadequate. Understanding the role of genetic variability in the development of painful DPN is needed for improved understanding of pain pathogenesis for better patient stratification in clinical trials and to target therapy more appropriately. Here, we examined the relationship between variants in the voltage-gated sodium channel NaV1.7 and NeuP in a deeply phenotyped cohort of patients with DPN. Although no rare variants were found in 78 participants with painless DPN, we identified 12 rare NaV1.7 variants in 10 (out of 111) study participants with painful DPN. Five of these variants had previously been described in the context of other NeuP disorders and 7 have not previously been linked to NeuP. Those patients with rare variants reportedmore severe pain and greater sensitivity to pressure stimuli on quantitative sensory testing. Electrophysiological characterization of 2 of the novel variants (M1852T and T1596I) demonstrated that gain of function changes as a consequence of markedly impaired channel fast inactivation. Using a structural model of NaV1.7, we were also able to provide further insight into the structural mechanisms underlying fast inactivation and the role of the C-terminal domain in this process. Our observations suggest that rare NaV1.7 variants contribute to the development NeuP in patients with DPN. Their identification should aid understanding of sensory phenotype, patient stratification, and help target treatments effectively.
Cache Organizations for H.264/AVC Motion Compensation

A large demand on memory bandwidth puts limitation on the performance improvement of an H.264/AVC decoder. In order to reduce the amount of frame memory access, this paper proposes a new memory architecture that uses a cache memory to store the data for motion compensation. Optimized for the data access pattern of motion compensation, two new cache organizations are proposed to reduce cache conflict misses. A split-index direct mapped cache maps a page of a frame memory into two consecutive cache lines by turns. Another cache organization, called a circular cache, does not fetch the entire line of a cache but reads only the necessary part of a cache line. A block pre-fetching scheme is proposed to prefetch a block of data which is likely to be used by the motion compensation of the next block. With the circular cache and block pre-fetching, a frame memory bandwidth requirement is reduced by an average of 72% which is 5% better than the previous work. In addition, the number of the non-sequential data accesses is reduced by an average of 68%.
A falling detection system with plural thermal array sensors

This paper describes a falling detection system by using two thermal array sensors. In the system, the sensors are attached to the ceiling and wall in a room, and acquire temperature distributions by each 16 × 16 pixels. The temperature distributions represent a state of temperature in the room, and they are analyzed to detect human falling. The falling is detected by time-series posture transition diagram and the sum of temperature. In our experiment, we measured the temperature distributions in a room modeled as private room in a nursing home. As the results, the system successfully detected the falling.
Competitive online searching for a ray in the plane

A method and system are provided for converting a computer program from a current version first language to a localized version in a target language. All resource information of the program is stored in a resource dynamic link library (DLL). A current version resource DLL is separated from executable code and compared by a leverage tool to resource DLLs of a previous version of the computer program and to a previous target language translation. The leverage tool stores all resource data from the current version resource DLL as translation records in a resource database. The translation records may include translation instructions and comments. Strings in the current version resource DLL that were present in the previous version, and already translated in the previous target language resource DLL are stored in a new target language resource DLL. Strings which are not to be translated to the target language are locked. In the preferred embodiment, the new target language resource DLL and resource database are distributed to a localization vendor for translation. A translation tool allows a translator to translate the resource database to the target language. Locked strings are not translated and the already-translated strings are re-used.
Dynamic political distortions under alternative constitutional settings

This paper studies a dynamic model of electoral competition where two parties (or candidates) compete for power over redistribution and over public employment/public good provision. Parties only have diverging preferences over redistribution. Nevertheless, since public employment aects voters’ long run political preferences, they commit and implement socially suboptimal policies to improve their long term electoral strength. We investigate the non-institutional and institutional determinants of the resulting distortions in platforms and implemented policies. We nd that more forward looking voters or more political persistence increase distortions. Consensual constitutions (as opposed to majoritarian) are associated with more platform divergence (only when the horizon is nite), less inecient public good provision, and more redistribution. A mixed constitution can improve welfare over both. Finally, the model’s empirical implications {in particular, on the relationship between inequality and redistribution{ are consistent with the available evidence.
The evolutionary genetics of personality

Genetic influences on personality differences are ubiquitous, but their nature is not well understood. A theoretical framework might help, and can be provided by evolutionary genetics. We assess three evolutionary genetic mechanisms that could explain genetic variance in personality differences: selective neutrality, mutation‐selection balance, and balancing selection. Based on evolutionary genetic theory and empirical results from behaviour genetics and personality psychology, we conclude that selective neutrality is largely irrelevant, that mutation‐selection balance seems best at explaining genetic variance in intelligence, and that balancing selection by environmental heterogeneity seems best at explaining genetic variance in personality traits. We propose a general model of heritable personality differences that conceptualises intelligence as fitness components and personality traits as individual reaction norms of genotypes across environments, with different fitness consequences in different environmental niches. We also discuss the place of mental health in the model. This evolutionary genetic framework highlights the role of gene‐environment interactions in the study of personality, yields new insight into the person‐situation‐debate and the structure of personality, and has practical implications for both quantitative and molecular genetic studies of personality. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Efalizumab for the Treatment of Moderate to Severe Plaque Psoriasis

OBJECTIVE: To review the pharmacology, efficacy, and safety of efalizumab for the treatment of moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. DATA SOURCES: A MEDLINE search (1966–May 2005%) using the key words hu1124, anti-CD11a, efalizumab, Raptiva, Xanelim, and psoriasis was conducted. References of identified articles were reviewed for additional citations. STUDY SELECTION AND DATA EXTRACTION: Clinical trials evaluating the pharmacology, efficacy, and safety of efalizumab for treatment of moderate to severe plaque psoriasis in adults were included in our review. DATA SYNTHESIS: Efalizumab's ability to inhibit the binding of CD11a, a subunit of leukocyte function–associated antigen type 1, to intracellular adhesion molecule 1 results in decreased T-cell activation and migration, 2 key steps in the immunopathogenesis of psoriasis. Results of clinical trials have demonstrated that efalizumab administered subcutaneously is a safe and effective treatment for moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. Efalizumab was well tolerated in trials, with the majority of adverse events arising with the first dose and decreasing with subsequent doses. The high cost of this agent and lack of head-to-head trials with other drugs will likely restrict its use to patients who have failed prior systemic therapy or phototherapy. CONCLUSIONS: Efalizumab is a safe and effective therapy for treatment of moderate to severe plaque psoriasis in patients who have failed prior systemic therapy or phototherapy.
Is the Volatility of the Market Price of Risk Due to Intermittent Portfolio Re-Balancing?

Our paper examines whether the well-documented failure of unsophisticated investors to rebalance their portfolios can help to explain the enormous counter-cyclical volatility of aggregate risk compensation in financial markets. To answer this question, we set up a model in which CRRA-utility investors have heterogeneous trading technologies. In our model, a large mass of investors do not re-balance their portfolio shares in response to aggregate shocks, while a smaller mass of active investors adjust their portfolio each period to respond to changes in the investment opportunity set. We find that these intermittent re-balancers more than double the effect of aggregate shocks on the time variation in risk premia by forcing active traders to sell more shares in good times and buy more shares in bad times.
Neural bases of gaze and emotion processing in children with autism spectrum disorders

Abnormal eye contact is a core symptom of autism spectrum disorders (ASD), though little is understood of the neural bases of gaze processing in ASD. Competing hypotheses suggest that individuals with ASD avoid eye contact due to the anxiety‐provoking nature of direct eye gaze or that eye‐gaze cues hold less interest or significance to children with ASD. The current study examined the effects of gaze direction on neural processing of emotional faces in typically developing (TD) children and those with ASD. While undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), 16 high‐functioning children and adolescents with ASD and 16 TD controls viewed a series of faces depicting emotional expressions with either direct or averted gaze. Children in both groups showed significant activity in visual‐processing regions for both direct and averted gaze trials. However, there was a significant group by gaze interaction such that only TD children showed reliably greater activity in ventrolateral prefrontal cortex for direct versus averted gaze. The ASD group showed no difference between direct and averted gaze in response to faces conveying negative emotions. These results highlight the key role of eye gaze in signaling communicative intent and suggest altered processing of the emotional significance of direct gaze in children with ASD.
Bilingual speaker identification: Chinese and English

Very few studies have examined voice memory and speaker identification in bilingual contexts. This study investigated how well bilingual listeners could identify bilingual voices in different language conditions. 89 Cantonese-English and 89 Mandarin-English listeners participated in voice line-ups with Cantonese-English voices in the same-language and cross-language conditions. Results show that the overall identification accuracy was low. Cantonese-English listeners performed significantly better in the same-language than cross-language conditions, similar to previous findings based on monolingual subjects. However, there was no language effect for the Mandarin-English listeners, possibly due to their unfamiliarity with the languages concerned. Confidence ratings showed that all listeners were more confident in the same-language condition with their most familiar language, although the relationship between confident and accuracy was not reliable. The results suggest that some indexical information about speaker identity is language-dependent. Different articulatory settings may explain the better performance of Cantonese-English listeners in the same-language conditions.