Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Assessment and Prognostic Relevance of Right Ventricular Contractile Reserve in Patients With Severe Pulmonary Hypertension

Background— This study sought to analyze a new approach to assess exercise-induced pulmonary artery systolic pressure (PASP) increase by means of stress Doppler echocardiography as a possible measure of right ventricular contractile reserve in patients with severe pulmonary hypertension and right heart failure. Methods and Results— In this prospective study, patients with invasively diagnosed pulmonary arterial hypertension or inoperable chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension and impaired right ventricular pump function despite a stable targeted pulmonary arterial hypertension medication underwent a broad panel of noninvasive assessments, including stress echocardiography and cardiopulmonary exercise testing. On the basis of the assumption that exercise-induced PASP is a measure of right ventricular contractile reserve, patients were classified into 2 groups according to an exercise-induced PASP increase above or below the median. Patients were followed up for 3.0±1.8 years. Univariate and multivariate analyses were used for factors predicting survival. Of 124 patients, 66 were below the median exercise-induced PASP increase of 30 mm Hg (low PASP), and 58 patients were above the median (high PASP). These groups were not significantly different in terms of medication and resting hemodynamics. Low PASP was associated with a significantly lower 6-minute walking distance, peak O2 per kilogram, and 1-, 3-, and 4-year survival rates (92%, 69%, and 48%, respectively, versus 96%, 92%, and 89%). In the multivariate Cox model analysis adjusted for age and sex, PASP increase during exercise and peak O2 per kilogram remained independent prognostic markers (hazard ratio, 2.56 for peak O2 per kilogram and 2.84 for PASP increase). Conclusions— Exercise-induced PASP increase is of high clinical and prognostic relevance in pulmonary hypertension patients and may indicate right ventricular contractile reserve. Stress Doppler echocardiography may be a useful tool for prognostic assessment in pulmonary hypertension patients.
Theoretical Limits of Hydrogen Storage in Metal–Organic Frameworks: Opportunities and Trade-Offs

Because of their high surface areas, crystallinity, and tunable properties, metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) have attracted intense interest as next-generation materials for gas capture and storage. While much effort has been devoted to the discovery of new MOFs, a vast catalog of existing MOFs resides within the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD), many of whose gas uptake properties have not been assessed. Here we employ data mining and automated structure analysis to identify, “cleanup,” and rapidly predict the hydrogen storage properties of these compounds. Approximately 20 000 candidate compounds were generated from the CSD using an algorithm that removes solvent/guest molecules. These compounds were then characterized with respect to their surface area and porosity. Employing the empirical relationship between excess H2 uptake and surface area, we predict the theoretical total hydrogen storage capacity for the subset of ∼4000 compounds exhibiting nontrivial internal porosity. Our screening identifies.
Induction of propranolol metabolism by rifampicin.

The effect of rifampicin on the blood concentration-time curve of propranolol at steady-state following oral administration of 120 mg every 8 h was investigated in six normal, young, male subjects. After an initial 2 week dosing period, all individuals additionally received 600 mg rifampicin daily for 3 weeks followed by a 4 week period during which again only the propranolol was given. In four of the subjects the effects of 900 and 1200 mg rifampicin daily was also studied. Changes in disposition were assessed by estimation of propranolol's oral clearance and elimination half-life during the dosage interval. Rifampicin (600 mg/day) caused a large increase in propranolol's oral clearance (35.7 +/- 16.3 vs 96.1 +/- 26.9 ml min-1 kg-1, mean +/- s.d.), but neither the elimination half-life nor extent of plasma binding were affected. Increasing the daily dosage to 900 and 1200 mg did not cause any additional changes in oral clearance. Four weeks after discontinuing rifampicin, propranolol's oral clearance had essentially returned to its pre-induction level. The oral clearance of propranolol was significantly smaller (89.5 +/- 14.4%) during the dosage interval immediately after administration of the last rifampicin dose than the value measured 24 h later. The findings are consistent with rifampicin causing induction of the drug metabolizing enzymes responsible for propranolol's biotransformation. The marked reduction in the steady-state propranolol blood concentration that results from chronic rifampicin administration would be expected to result in a significant change in clinical effectiveness of the beta-adrenoceptor blocker when the two drugs are used concurrently.
Electron cryo‐microscopy and image reconstruction of adeno‐associated virus type 2 empty capsids

Adeno‐associated virus type 2 empty capsids are composed of three proteins, VP1, VP2 and VP3, which have relative molecular masses of 87, 72 and 62 kDa, respectively, and differ in their N‐terminal amino acid sequences. They have a likely molar ratio of 1:1:8 and occupy symmetrical equivalent positions in an icosahedrally arranged protein shell. We have investigated empty capsids of adeno‐associated virus type 2 by electron cryo‐microscopy and icosahedral image reconstruction. The three‐dimensional map at 1.05 nm resolution showed sets of three elongated spikes surrounding the three‐fold symmetry axes and narrow empty channels at the five‐fold axes. The inside of the capsid superimposed with the previously determined structure of the canine parvovirus ( Q. Xie and M.S. Chapman, 1996, J. Mol. Biol., 264, 497–520), whereas the outer surface showed clear discrepancies. Globular structures at the inner surface of the capsid at the two‐fold symmetry axes were identified as possible positions for the N‐terminal extensions of VP1 and VP2.
The Educational Resettlement of Refugee Children: Examining Several Theoretical Approaches.

Amy B. Lerner is a Ph.D. student in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. and challenges that Brofenbrenner’s ecological model of development helps to clarify” (p. 242). Lustig explains that “aspects of the refugee experience may vary widely. but are characterized in all cases by certain chaos-generating physical and emotional universals: deprivation, upheaval, fear, uncertainty, and loss” (p. 242). Research has helped demonstrate these “chaos-generating” effects on the psychological development of refugees, particularly with regard to academic achievement and psychopathology. For example, Leavey, Hollins, King, Barnes, Papadopoulos, and Grayson (2004) found that refugee children are likely to have many risk factors for academic failure and psychological distress, while researchers Beiser, Dion, Gotowiec, Hyman, and Vu (1995) and Kinzie, Sack, Angell, Manson, abd Rath (1986) discovered that behavioral problems, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are all common among refugee students. Similarly, Roxas (2008) found that refugee students often experience rejection, isolation, lower achievement scores on standardized tests, and higher dropout rates. While the existing research is rife with Western psychological perspectives, there has been very little investigation of cultural issues surrounding the resettlement of refugee children.
The fractionation of spoken language understanding by measuring electrical and magnetic brain signals

This paper focuses on what electrical and magnetic recordings of human brain activity reveal about spoken language understanding. Based on the high temporal resolution of these recordings, a fine-grained temporal profile of different aspects of spoken language comprehension can be obtained. Crucial aspects of speech comprehension are lexical access, selection and semantic integration. Results show that for words spoken in context, there is no ‘magic moment’ when lexical selection ends and semantic integration begins. Irrespective of whether words have early or late recognition points, semantic integration processing is initiated before words can be identified on the basis of the acoustic information alone. Moreover, for one particular event-related brain potential (ERP) component (the N400), equivalent impact of sentence- and discourse-semantic contexts is observed. This indicates that in comprehension, a spoken word is immediately evaluated relative to the widest interpretive domain available. In addition, this happens very quickly. Findings are discussed that show that often an unfolding word can be mapped onto discourse-level representations well before the end of the word. Overall, the time course of the ERP effects is compatible with the view that the different information types (lexical, syntactic, phonological, pragmatic) are processed in parallel and influence the interpretation process incrementally, that is as soon as the relevant pieces of information are available. This is referred to as the immediacy principle.
TopicXP: Exploring topics in source code using Latent Dirichlet Allocation

Acquiring general understanding of large software systems and components from which they are built can be a time consuming task, but having such an understanding is an important prerequisite to adding features or fixing bugs. In this paper we propose the tool, namely TopicXP, to support developers during such software maintenance tasks by extracting and analyzing unstructured information in source code identifier names and comments using Latent Dirichlet Allocation. TopicXP enables developers to gain an overview of a software system under analysis by extracting and visualizing natural language topics, which generally correspond to concepts or features implemented in software classes. TopicXP is implemented as an open-source Eclipse plug-in, which proposes interactive visualization of topics along with structural dependencies between underlying classes implementing these topics. The paper also presents the results of a preliminary user study aimed at evaluating TopicXP.
The jPET-D4: Performance evaluation of four-layer DOI-PET scanner using the NEMA NU2-2001 standard

We have developed a high-performance brain PET scanner, jPET-D4. This scanner is designed to achieve not only high spatial resolution but also high sensitivity using four-layered depth-of-interaction (DOI) detectors. The scanner has five block detector rings with the ring diameter of 390 mm and each block detector ring consists of 24 DOI detectors. In this paper, we describe the system and performance evaluation of the jPET-D4. In particular, we evaluate scatter fraction, sensitivity and count-rate performance of the jPET-D4 by using the NEMA NU2-2001 standard. The average scatter fraction for this system is 42 % with an energy window of 400-600 keV. The sensitivity at the center of the field-of-view is 19.5 kcps/MBq with energy window of 400-600 keV. Peak NECRs (noise equivalent count rate; NEC1R and NEC2R) with 10 ns coincidence time window are 82 kcps at 8.7 kBq/ml and 56 kcps at 7.6 kBq/ml, respectively. These evaluation measurements indicate the jPET-D4 has excellent performance.
Response to Algarabel et al., 2012 “Recognition memory deficits in mild cognitive impairment”. Reconsidering claims of familiarity disruptions in mild cognitive impairment

ABSTRACT There is some debate over the relative impairment of recollection and familiarity in mild cognitive impairment (MCI). A recent publication by Algarabel et al. (2012, Recognition memory deficits in mild cognitive impairment, Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, 19, 608–619) claims to undermine previous studies reporting preserved familiarity in patients with MCI. Here, we respond to their main criticisms, concluding that they are not sufficiently supported by the data presented. The role of recollection and familiarity in MCI remains unresolved and further work will be required to disentangle the mixed literature.
Microstructure and Tensile Properties of a 1.25Cr-0.5Mo Main Steam Pipe After Long-Term Service

Metallographic tests, micro-hardness tests and tensile tests were conducted for a 1.25Cr-0.5Mo main steam pipe weldment served for more than 26 years. The results were compared with those for virgin material. Microstructural evolution of 1.25Cr-0.5Mo base metal was investigated. Degradation in micro-hardness and tensile properties were also studied. In addition, the tensile properties of subzones in the ex-service weldment were characterized by using miniature specimens. The results show that obvious microstructural changes including carbide coarsening, increasing inter lamella spacing and grain boundary precipitates take place after long-term service. Degradation in micro-hardness is not obvious. However, the effects of long term service on tensile deformation behavior, ultimate tensile strength and yield stress are remarkable. Based on the yield stress of micro-specimens, the order of different subzones is: WM > HAZ > BM, which is consistent with the order of different subzones based on micro-hardness. However, the ultimate tensile strength and fracture strain of HAZ are lower than BM. Brittle failures can happen more easily for HAZ due to its high yield ratio.
Detecting repackaged smartphone applications in third-party android marketplaces

Recent years have witnessed incredible popularity and adoption of smartphones and mobile devices, which is accompanied by large amount and wide variety of feature-rich smartphone applications. These smartphone applications (or apps), typically organized in different application marketplaces, can be conveniently browsed by mobile users and then simply clicked to install on a variety of mobile devices. In practice, besides the official marketplaces from platform vendors (e.g., Google and Apple), a number of third-party alternative marketplaces have also been created to host thousands of apps (e.g., to meet regional or localization needs). To maintain and foster a hygienic smartphone app ecosystem, there is a need for each third-party marketplace to offer quality apps to mobile users. In this paper, we perform a systematic study on six popular Android-based third-party marketplaces. Among them, we find a common "in-the-wild" practice of repackaging legitimate apps (from the official Android Market) and distributing repackaged ones via third-party marketplaces. To better understand the extent of such practice, we implement an app similarity measurement system called DroidMOSS that applies a fuzzy hashing technique to effectively localize and detect the changes from app-repackaging behavior. The experiments with DroidMOSS show a worrisome fact that 5% to 13% of apps hosted on these studied marketplaces are repackaged. Further manual investigation indicates that these repackaged apps are mainly used to replace existing in-app advertisements or embed new ones to "steal" or re-route ad revenues. We also identify a few cases with planted backdoors or malicious payloads among repackaged apps. The results call for the need of a rigorous vetting process for better regulation of third-party smartphone application marketplaces.
AMPSO: A New Particle Swarm Method for Nearest Neighborhood Classification

Nearest prototype methods can be quite successful on many pattern classification problems. In these methods, a collection of prototypes has to be found that accurately represents the input patterns. The classifier then assigns classes based on the nearest prototype in this collection. In this paper, we first use the standard particle swarm optimizer (PSO) algorithm to find those prototypes. Second, we present a new algorithm, called adaptive Michigan PSO (AMPSO) in order to reduce the dimension of the search space and provide more flexibility than the former in this application. AMPSO is based on a different approach to particle swarms as each particle in the swarm represents a single prototype in the solution. The swarm does not converge to a single solution; instead, each particle is a local classifier, and the whole swarm is taken as the solution to the problem. It uses modified PSO equations with both particle competition and cooperation and a dynamic neighborhood. As an additional feature, in AMPSO, the number of prototypes represented in the swarm is able to adapt to the problem, increasing as needed the number of prototypes and classes of the prototypes that make the solution to the problem. We compared the results of the standard PSO and AMPSO in several benchmark problems from the University of California, Irvine, data sets and find that AMPSO always found a better solution than the standard PSO. We also found that it was able to improve the results of the Nearest Neighbor classifiers, and it is also competitive with some of the algorithms most commonly used for classification.
Designing persuasive robots: How robots might persuade people using vocal and nonverbal cues

Social robots have to potential to serve as personal, organizational, and public assistants as, for instance, diet coaches, teacher's aides, and emergency respondents. The success of these robots - whether in motivating users to adhere to a diet regimen or in encouraging them to follow evacuation procedures in the case of a fire - will rely largely on their ability to persuade people. Research in a range of areas from political communication to education suggest that the nonverbal behaviors of a human speaker play a key role in the persuasiveness of the speaker's message and the listeners' compliance with it. In this paper, we explore how a robot might effectively use these behaviors, particularly vocal and bodily cues, to persuade users. In an experiment with 32 participants, we evaluate how manipulations in a robot's use of nonverbal cues affected participants' perceptions of the robot's persuasiveness and their compliance with the robot's suggestions across four conditions: (1) no vocal or bodily cues, (2) vocal cues only, (3) bodily cues only, and (4) vocal and bodily cues. The results showed that participants complied with the robot's suggestions significantly more when it used nonverbal cues than they did when it did not use these cues and that bodily cues were more effective in persuading participants than vocal cues were. Our model of persuasive nonverbal cues and experimental results have direct implications for the design of persuasive behaviors for humanlike robots.
Towards reduced reference parametric models for estimating audiovisual quality in multimedia services

We have developed reduced reference parametric models for estimating perceived quality in audiovisual multimedia services. We have created 144 unique configurations for audiovisual content including various application and network parameters such as bitrates and distortions in terms of bandwidth, packet loss rate and jitter. To generate the data needed for model training and validation we have tasked 24 subjects, in a controlled environment, to rate the overall audiovisual quality on the absolute category rating (ACR) 5-level quality scale. We have developed models using Random Forest and Neural Network based machine learning methods in order to estimate Mean Opinion Scores (MOS) values. We have used information retrieved from the packet headers and side information provided as network parameters for model training. Random Forest based models have performed better in terms of Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Pearson correlation coefficient. The side information proved to be very effective in developing the model. We have found that, while the model performance might be improved by replacing the side information with more accurate bit stream level measurements, they are performing well in estimating perceived quality in audiovisual multimedia services.
Choice of nest types by hens of three lines of broiler breeders

1. Choice of three different nest types by hens of broiler breeder lines was investigated: metal nests (26 × 29 × 33–45 cm, w × d × h) with inclined rubber mats, metal nests of the same size with litter, and larger wooden nests (30 × 40 × 38) with litter. Three lines were studied: line B (324 females + 36 males), line P (315 + 36), and line WM (306 + 32). Each line was housed in a pen 23·3 × 3·9 m (90·7 m2); half the area was concrete floor with litter, and the other half raised plastic slats, on which stood 84 nests, 28 of each type, in two-tier blocks. 2. Ninety-five per cent of eggs were laid in nests, with significant variation between types: 63% metal littered, 30% wooden littered, and 2·3% metal with inclined rubber mats. Choice between types was similar in the three lines. Hens of line B laid 66% of nest eggs in lower nests, P laid 57% and WM laid 64%. 3. The other 5·1% of eggs were laid on the floor: 1·2% on the litter and 3·9% on the slats in front of the nests. It is suggested that some subordinate hens were excluded from nests, and therefore laid on the floor.
Ten Microseconds Over LAN, for Free (Extended)

The status quo for time stamping in personal computers (PCs) is ntpd, which, under general conditions, is accurate to 1 ms at best. For precision applications, it is inadequate, but it is a low-cost solution that suits many generic applications. IEEE-1588 provides mechanisms for submicrosecond accuracy, but to achieve this, more hardware is needed. We have developed the TSCclock, which gives the performance between these two solutions [about 10 mus on a local area network (LAN)] beyond submilliseconds using commodity hardware. We benchmark the TSCclock to show its potential as an inexpensive yet accurate software clock, which can be used with IEEE-1588 for LANs but has wider applicability as a replacement to ntpd.
Deep Exploration via Bootstrapped DQN

Efficient exploration in complex environments remains a major challenge for reinforcement learning. We propose bootstrapped DQN, a simple algorithm that explores in a computationally and statistically efficient manner through use of randomized value functions. Unlike dithering strategies such as epsilon-greedy exploration, bootstrapped DQN carries out temporally-extended (or deep) exploration; this can lead to exponentially faster learning. We demonstrate these benefits in complex stochastic MDPs and in the large-scale Arcade Learning Environment. Bootstrapped DQN substantially improves learning times and performance across most Atari games.
Simulated annealing using a reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm for fuzzy clustering

In this paper, an approach for automatically clustering a data set into a number of fuzzy partitions with a simulated annealing using a reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm is proposed. This is in contrast to the widely used fuzzy clustering scheme, the fuzzy c-means (FCM) algorithm, which requires the a priori knowledge of the number of clusters. The said approach performs the clustering by optimizing a cluster validity index, the Xie-Beni index. It makes use of the homogeneous reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo (RJMCMC) kernel as the proposal so that the algorithm is able to jump between different dimensions, i.e., number of clusters, until the correct value is obtained. Different moves, like birth, death, split, merge, and update, are used for sampling a candidate state given the current state. The effectiveness of the proposed technique in optimizing the Xie-Beni index and thereby determining the appropriate clustering is demonstrated for both artificial and real-life data sets. In a part of the investigation, the utility of the fuzzy clustering scheme for classifying pixels in an IRS satellite image of Kolkata is studied. A technique for reducing the computation efforts in the case of satellite image data is incorporated.