Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Can Protostellar Jets Drive Supersonic Turbulence in Molecular Clouds?

Jets and outflows from young stellar objects have been proposed as candidates to drive supersonic turbulence in molecular clouds. Here we present the results from multidimensional jet simulations where we investigate in detail the energy and momentum deposition from jets into their surrounding environment and quantify the character of the excited turbulence with velocity probability density functions. Our study includes jet-clump interaction, transient jets, and magnetized jets. We find that collimated supersonic jets do not excite supersonic motions far from the vicinity of the jet. Supersonic fluctuations are damped quickly and do not spread into the parent cloud. Instead, subsonic, noncompressional modes occupy most of the excited volume. This is a generic feature that cannot be fully circumvented with overdense jets or magnetic fields. Nevertheless, jets are able to leave strong imprints in the cloud structure and can disrupt dense clumps. Our results question the ability of collimated jets to sustain supersonic turbulence in molecular clouds.
High prevalence of peripheral arterial disease in HIV-infected persons.

BACKGROUND Atherosclerosis has been assessed in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected persons by using various methods. Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) has not been evaluated, however. We studied the cross-sectional prevalence of lower limb PAD in an HIV-infected population. METHODS PAD was assessed using the Edinburgh Claudication Questionnaire and by measuring the systolic ankle-brachial blood pressure index (ABI) at rest and after exercise. Patients with PAD were further evaluated by duplex scan of lower limb arteries. RESULTS Ninety-two consecutive HIV-infected patients were evaluated (23.9% women; mean age, 49.5 years; 61.9% current smokers). Claudication was reported by 15.2% of the patients. PAD was found in 20.7% of the patients: 9.8% had an abnormal ABI (<0.90) at rest, and 10.9% had normal ABI at rest but a >25% decrease after exercise. Of the patients with PAD, 84.2% were investigated with duplex scan, all of whom had atherosclerotic occlusions or stenoses of the iliac or femoral arteries. Age, diabetes, smoking, and low CD4+ T lymphocyte counts were identified as independent predictors of PAD. CONCLUSIONS The prevalence of symptomatic and asymptomatic PAD is high in the HIV-infected population and is much higher than expected (prevalence in the general population, approximately 3% at 60 years). This study suggests the presence of an epidemic of PAD approximately 20 years earlier in the HIV-infected than in the general population. Larger epidemiological studies are needed to better define risk factors and to evaluate whether PAD is associated with increased mortality, as it is in the general population.
Reliability modeling for dependent competitive failure processes

In practical engineering applications, many factors of systems themselves and of random environments cause systems to suffer from degradation and shocks. Degradations, such as wear and erosion, occur in many systems, especially mechanical systems. Shocking is also a significant cause of system failure and hence has been paid more attention to. Shocks caused by the factors of the systems themselves usually have regular periods; especially for rotating devices, shocks have approximately fixed periods. Shocks caused by the factors of random environment usually follow Poisson process. In this paper, a new system reliability model is proposed for systems that involve dependent and competitive degradations and shocks. This model will have wide application in many fields. A numerical example is given to illustrate the model.
Meeting Review: Epigenetics in Development and Disease

The 2002 Keystone symposia held in Taos, New Mexico (21–26 February) saw the convergence of two related fields; Epigenetics in Development and Disease, and RNA Interference, Cosuppression and Related Phenomena. The meeting highlights presented here concentrate upon the sessions within the Epigenetics in Development and Disease meeting, although there were joint sessions which will also be discussed. Of course epigenetic regulation is not restricted to the vertebrates but I have chosen, rightly or wrongly, to limit the highlights to those concerning vertebrates.
Intrinsically active variants of Erk oncogenically transform cells and disclose unexpected autophosphorylation capability that is independent of TEY phosphorylation

The RTK/Ras/Raf cascade is overactive in cancers. Its targets are the MAP kinases Erks, but Erks are not mutated in cancers. An active Erk, Erk1(R84S), is an oncoprotein. Further, Erk1(R84S) and Erk2(R65S) autophosphorylate the TEY motif and Thr-207/Thr-188. Erk2(R65S) autophosphorylates Thr-188 when dually mutated in the TEY.
Cryptogenic Multifocal Ulcerous Stenosing Enteritis: A Review of the Literature

Cryptogenic multifocal ulcerous stenosing enteritis (CMUSE) is an extremely rare illness characterised by chronic or relapsing subileus status resulting from multiple small intestinal fibrous strictures and multiple shallow ulcers of the small bowel. The etiology is unknown and pathogenesis is not fully understood. Therapy with systemic glucocorticosteroids is the treatment of choice. However, most patients develop corticosteroid dependence. Deep enteroscopy enables precise diagnostic work, possible endoscopic treatment of stenoses; may obviate the need for surgery and prevent excessive small bowel resections.
BigFUN: A performance study of big data management system functionality

In this paper, we report on an evaluation of four representative Big Data management systems (BDMSs): Mon-goDB, Hive, AsterixDB, and a commercial parallel shared-nothing relational database system. In terms of features, all offer to store and manage large volumes of data, and all provide some degree of query processing capabilities on top of such data. Our evaluation is based on a micro-benchmark that utilizes a synthetic application that has a social network flavor. We analyze the performance results and discuss the lessons learned from this effort. We hope that this study will inspire future domain-centric evaluations of BDMSs with a focus on their features.
Asymptotic Behavior of a Markovian Stochastic Algorithm with Constant Step

We first derive from abstract results on Feller transition kernels that, under some mild assumptions, a Markov stochastic algorithm with constant step size $\varepsilon$ usually has a tight family of invariant distributions $\nu^{\varepsilon}$, $\varepsilon \in(0,\varepsilon_0]$, whose weak limiting distributions as $\varepsilon\downarrow 0$ are all flow-invariant for its ODE. Then the main part of the paper deals with a kind of converse: what are the possible limiting distributions among all flow-invariant distributions of the ODE? We first show that no repulsive invariant (thin) set can belong to their supports. When the ODE is a stochastic pseudogradient descent, these supports cannot contain saddle or spurious equilibrium points either, so that they are eventually supported by the set of local minima of their potential. Such results require only the random perturbation to lie in L2. Various examples are treated, showing that these results yield some weak convergence results for the $\nu^{\varepsilon}$'s, sometimes toward a saddle point when the algorithm is not a pseudogradient.
The Bus Stop Revisited: Discipline and Psychiatric Patients in Prison

Prisoners requiring intensive psychiatric care are one of the most difficult populations to manage in terms of manpower, resources and potential liabilities. This study examines the discipline and control of psychiatric inmates, contrasting the amount and types of disciplinary actions they receive with those of non-patient inmates. The disciplinary histories of the psychiatric patients are discussed using Toch's model of the “disturbed disruptive” inmate. The difference between this study and previous efforts is that an attempt is made to control for disruptiveness. Using samples composed of inmates currently involved in disciplinary actions, it is hoped that differences between the two groups will be explained by psychiatric status.
CyberKnife therapy of 24 multiple brain metastases from lung cancer: A case report

Brain metastasis is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality and a critical complication of non-central nervous system primary carcinoma. The present study describes the clinical case of a 46-year-old male with lung cancer and life-threatening brain metastases. The patient was diagnosed with lung cancer with a clinical stage of T2N0M1 (stage IV). Six months after the initial diagnosis and administration of conformal radiotherapy combined with three cycles of chemotherapy, an enhanced computed tomography (CT) scan of the brain revealed abnormalities with double-dosing of intravenous contrast. The CT scan identified >24 lesions scattered in the whole brain. The patient was treated with three-fraction Cyberknife radiotherapy at 22 Gy, delivered to the brain metastases at the Center for Tumor Treatment of People’s Liberation Army 107th Hospital. Following CyberKnife therapy, a CT scan of the brain revealed that most of the tumors had disappeared with almost no residual traces. The stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) conducted using CyberKnife, an image-guided frameless robotic technology for whole-body radiosurgery, had produced a marked response. The present case report demonstrates that CyberKnife therapy plays a significant role in the management of multiple meta-static brain tumors.
Biased Exposure–Health Effect Estimates from Selection in Cohort Studies: Are Environmental Studies at Particular Risk?

Background The process of creating a cohort or cohort substudy may induce misleading exposure–health effect associations through collider stratification bias (i.e., selection bias) or bias due to conditioning on an intermediate. Studies of environmental risk factors may be at particular risk. Objectives We aimed to demonstrate how such biases of the exposure–health effect association arise and how one may mitigate them. Methods We used directed acyclic graphs and the example of bone lead and mortality (all-cause, cardiovascular, and ischemic heart disease) among 835 white men in the Normative Aging Study (NAS) to illustrate potential bias related to recruitment into the NAS and the bone lead substudy. We then applied methods (adjustment, restriction, and inverse probability of attrition weighting) to mitigate these biases in analyses using Cox proportional hazards models to estimate adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Results Analyses adjusted for age at bone lead measurement, smoking, and education among all men found HRs (95% CI) for the highest versus lowest tertile of patella lead of 1.34 (0.90, 2.00), 1.46 (0.86, 2.48), and 2.01 (0.86, 4.68) for all-cause, cardiovascular, and ischemic heart disease mortality, respectively. After applying methods to mitigate the biases, the HR (95% CI) among the 637 men analyzed were 1.86 (1.12, 3.09), 2.47 (1.23, 4.96), and 5.20 (1.61, 16.8), respectively. Conclusions Careful attention to the underlying structure of the observed data is critical to identifying potential biases and methods to mitigate them. Understanding factors that influence initial study participation and study loss to follow-up is critical. Recruitment of population-based samples and enrolling participants at a younger age, before the potential onset of exposure-related health effects, can help reduce these potential pitfalls. Citation Weisskopf MG, Sparrow D, Hu H, Power MC. 2015. Biased exposure–health effect estimates from selection in cohort studies: are environmental studies at particular risk? Environ Health Perspect 123:1113–1122; http://dx.doi. org/10.1289/ehp.1408888
Networked Predictive Control of Uncertain Constrained Nonlinear Systems: Recursive Feasibility and Input-to-State Stability Analysis

In this paper, the robust state feedback stabilization of uncertain discrete-time constrained nonlinear systems in which the loop is closed through a packet-based communication network is addressed. In order to cope with model uncertainty, time-varying transmission delays, and packet dropouts (typically affecting the performances of networked control systems), a robust control scheme combining model predictive control with a network delay compensation strategy is proposed in the context of non-acknowledged UDP-like networks. The contribution of the paper is twofold. First, the issue of guaranteeing the recursive feasibility of the optimization problem associated to the receding horizon control law has been addressed, such that the invariance of the feasible region under the networked closed-loop dynamics can be guaranteed. Secondly, by exploiting a novel characterization of regional Input-to-State Stability in terms of time-varying Lyapunov functions, the networked closed-loop system has been proven to be Input-to-State Stable with respect to bounded perturbations.
Restorative Interventions and School Discipline Sanctions in a Large Urban School District

A large urban district (N = 90,546 students, n = 180 schools) implemented restorative interventions as a response to school discipline incidents. Findings from multilevel modeling of student discipline records (n = 9,921) revealed that youth from groups that tend to be overrepresented in suspensions and expulsions (e.g., Black, Latino, and Native American youth; boys; and students in special education) had similar, if not greater, rates of participation in restorative interventions than their peers. First-semester participants in restorative interventions had lower odds of receiving office discipline referrals (OR .21, p < .001) and suspensions (OR .07, p < .001) in the second semester. However, the suspension gap between Black and White students persisted. Implications for reform in school discipline practices are noted.
Prognostic effect of liver metastasis in lung cancer patients with distant metastasis

Because the need of clinical prognostic evaluation by specific metastatic organ, we aim to analyze the prognostic factors in lung cancer patients with M1b disease with Surveillance Epidemiology and End-Results database (SEER). This retrospective study evaluated lung cancer patients of adenocarcinoma (AD), squamous cell carcinoma (SQCC), and small cell lung cancer (SCLC) selected from SEER. We provided the prognostic correlates of overall survival (OS) and lung cancer-specific survival (LCSS) in this population. 23,679 eligible patients were included. Bone was the most common metastatic site in AD (63.1%) and SQCC (61.1%), while liver was the most prevalent site (61.9%) in SCLC. Single site metastasis was significantly associated with better outcome compared to multiple sites metastases in all patients. Among patients with single site metastasis, OS and LCSS were longer for AD and SCLC if involving brain or bone, with median survival time of 5 to 7 months, comparing to 3 months if invloving liver (all p-values < 0.001). Similarly, among patients with multiple metastases, better outcomes were observed in AD patients (4 vs 3 months; OS and LCSS, p < 0.001) and SCLC patients (6 vs 4 months; OS, p = 0.017; LCSS, p = 0.023) without liver metastasis compared to those with liver metastasis. In conclusion, we estimated multiple survival outcomes by histology of primary tumor and sites of metastasis. Liver metastasis is found to be the worst prognostic factor for AD and SCLC patients with distant metastasis. More in-depth research is warranted to identify patients who are prone to develop distance metastasis, especially to liver.
A dynamic regularized radial basis function network for nonlinear, nonstationary time series prediction

In this paper, constructive approximation theorems are given which show that under certain conditions, the standard Nadaraya-Watson (1964) regression estimate (NWRE) can be considered a specially regularized form of radial basis function networks (RBFNs). From this and another related result, we deduce that regularized RBFNs are m.s., consistent, like the NWRE for the one-step-ahead prediction of Markovian nonstationary, nonlinear autoregressive time series generated by an i.i. d. noise processes. Additionally, choosing the regularization parameter to be asymptotically optimal gives regularized RBFNs the advantage of asymptotically realizing minimum m.s. prediction error. Two update algorithms (one with augmented networks/infinite memory and the other with fixed-size networks/finite memory) are then proposed to deal with nonstationarity induced by time-varying regression functions. For the latter algorithm, tests on several phonetically balanced male and female speech samples show an average 2.2-dB improvement in the predicted signal/noise (error) ratio over corresponding adaptive linear predictors using the exponentially-weighted RLS algorithm. Further RLS filtering of the predictions from an ensemble of three such RBFNs combined with the usual autoregressive inputs increases the improvement to 4.2 dB, on average, over the linear predictors.
Analysis and Functional Consequences of Increased Fab-Sialylation of Intravenous Immunoglobulin (IVIG) after Lectin Fractionation

It has been proposed that the anti-inflammatory effects of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) might be due to the small fraction of Fc-sialylated IgG. In this study we biochemically and functionally characterized sialic acid-enriched IgG obtained by Sambucus nigra agglutinin (SNA) lectin fractionation. Two main IgG fractions isolated by elution with lactose (E1) or acidified lactose (E2) were analyzed for total IgG, F(ab’)2 and Fc-specific sialic acid content, their pattern of specific antibodies and anti-inflammatory potential in a human in vitro inflammation system based on LPS- or PHA-stimulated whole blood. HPLC and LC-MS testing revealed an increase of sialylated IgG in E1 and more substantially in the E2 fraction. Significantly, the increased amount of sialic acid residues was primarily found in the Fab region whereas only a minor increase was observed in the Fc region. This indicates preferential binding of the Fab sialic acid to SNA. ELISA analyses of a representative range of pathogen and auto-antigens indicated a skewed antibody pattern of the sialylated IVIG fractions. Finally, the E2 fraction exerted a more profound anti-inflammatory effect compared to E1 or IVIG, evidenced by reduced CD54 expression on monocytes and reduced secretion of MCP-1 (CCL2); again these effects were Fab- but not Fc-dependent. Our results show that SNA fractionation of IVIG yields a minor fraction (approx. 10%) of highly sialylated IgG, wherein the sialic acid is mainly found in the Fab region. The tested anti-inflammatory activity was associated with Fab not Fc sialylation.
Reduced developmental stability in Tilia cordata leaves: effects of disturbed environment

Background and Purpose: Developmental stability (DS) or homeostasis refers to the ability of an individual to produce a consistent phenotype in a given environment. Reduced DS can result from a wide variety of environmentally (or genetically) induced perturbations. The main aim of the presented paper is to highlight the importance of the differences in ability of Tilia cordata leaves to buffer their development under contrasting environmental conditions and points to the concept that developmental stability is
In vitro evaluation of matched-taper single-cone obturation with a fluid filtration method.

OBJECTIVE Widespread use of rotary nickel-titanium systems has caused manufacturers to produce gutta-percha cones that match the taper of the canals prepared with these systems. Obturations with these cones may provide 3-dimensional obturation of the root canal in less time. The aim of this study was to use a fluid filtration method to compare the apical sealing ability of matched-taper single-cone, Thermafil and lateral condensation obturations. MATERIALS AND METHODS Sixty-six extracted human lower premolar teeth were instrumented to size F3 with ProTaper instruments. The teeth were divided into 3 groups and obturated with matched-taper single-cone, Thermafil and lateral condensation techniques. AH Plus was used as a sealer. Six teeth were used as positive and negative controls. A fluid filtration system was used to evaluate the apical seal. Measurements were made at 2-minute intervals for 8 minutes and the average of these values was recorded. One-way analysis of variance test was used for statistical analysis. RESULTS Mean leakage values for the lateral condensation, single-cone and Thermafil groups were 0.49 +/- 0.37 microL min(-1), 0.39 +/- 0.24 microL min(-1) and 0.44 +/- 0.25 microL min(-1), respectively. The difference between the groups was not statistically significant (p > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS The apical sealing ability of matched-taper single-cone obturation was comparable with that of lateral condensation and Thermafil techniques.
Going for Broke: A Multiple-Case Study of Brokerage in Education

Although the central role of educational intermediaries that can connect research and practice is increasingly appreciated, our present understanding of their motivations, products, and processes is inadequate. In response, this multiple-case study asks how and why three large-scale intermediaries—Edutopia, the Marshall Memo, and Usable Knowledge—are engaging in brokerage activities, and compares the features of the knowledge they seek to share and mobilize. These entities were deliberately chosen and anticipated to reveal diversity. Multiple data sources were analyzed based primarily upon Ward’s knowledge mobilization framework. These entities contrasted widely, especially in relation to core knowledge dimensions, enabling us to identify two distinct brokerage types. To conclude, theoretical (how to conceptualize brokerage) and practical (how to foster interactive knowledge exchange) implications are presented. This study also reveals certain innovative mobilization approaches, including skillful use of social media and the production of videos depicting how and why to adopt particular strategies.
The Physical spectrum of conformal SU(N) gauge theories

We investigate the physical spectrum of vector-like SU(N) gauge theories with infrared coupling close to but above the critical value for a conformal phase transition. We use dispersion relations, the momentum dependence of the dynamical fermion mass and resonance saturation. We show that the second spectral function sum rule is substantially affected by the continuum contribution, allowing for a reduction of the axial vector - vector mass splitting with respect to QCD-like theories. In technicolor theories, this feature can result in a small or even negative contribution to the electroweak S parameter.
STABILITY OF TWO FAMILIES OF REAL-TIME QUEUEING NETWORKS

Abstract: We study open multiclass queueing networks with renewal arr ival streams and general service time distributions. Upon arrival to the network, customers from each class are assigned a random deadline drawn from a distri bution associated with this class. We show that preemptive subcritical EDF network s with fixed customer routes are stable. We also prove that a broad class of (not nec essarily subcritical) networks with reneging and Markovian routing, including ED F, FIFO, LIFO, SRPT, fixed priorities and processor sharing, is stable.