Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Is Obesity an Additional Risk Factor for Alcoholic Chronic Pancreatitis?

Background/Aims: Obesity is a known risk factor for severe acute pancreatitis (AP). Since alcoholic chronic pancreatitis (ACP) is closely linked to alcoholic AP, overweight before disease onset might impact on incidence and outcome of ACP, and represent an additional risk factor for ACP. This issue has not been investigated, despite discussions on the ‘hypercaloric-high-fat’ hypothesis as an additional risk factor for ACP for many years. Methods: The study is part of our prospective long-term study of a large, mixed, medical/surgical series of ACP patients. All cooperative patients were studied according to a protocol regarding clinical symptoms, physical status, routine laboratory tests, pancreatic function and pancreatic morphology (e.g. calcification) at yearly follow-ups. Our study includes 227 ACP patients with recorded body mass index (BMI) before disease onset followed up on average for 18 years from chronic pancreatitis (CP) onset. Results: Males predominated (89.9%), age at onset averaged at 36 years, and exocrine insufficiency (97.4%) and calcification (88.1%) developed in virtually all patients. Surgery for B-type pain was performed in 57.7%, and death occurred in 62.8%. Overweight before disease onset was found in 54.2% (obesity in 15.0%) compared to 37.7% (3.1%) from a contemporary male control population. The highest BMI before disease onset did not impact on some major variables of ACP such as gender, age, progression of exocrine insufficiency, diabetes and calcification, and mortality from CP, except for a delayed progression rate of ACP indices in the surgical series. Conclusion: Overweight before disease onset appears to be another risk factor for ACP, supporting the ‘hypercaloric-high-fat’ hypothesis.
A simulation analysis of factors influencing the flexibility of cellular manufacturing

The performance of cellular manufacturing (CM) systems in a variable demand and flexible workforce environment has been examined using simulation modelling. Discrepancies between academicians and practitioners’ findings with respect to flexibility and uneven machine utilization in CM systems are discussed. The views of two parties were incorporated in simulation models to rectify the existing discrepancies. While the results of this study confirm the previous findings of academicians regarding the deterioration of the performance of CM in a variable product mix situation, it appears that those results may be significantly influenced by considering a flexible workforce. The simulation results show that the practice of using flexible crossed-trained operators can improve the flexibility of CM in dealing with an unstable demand and can reduce load imbalance inherent in machine dedication in manufacturing cells.
Neural Precursors Derived from Embryonic Stem Cells, but Not Those from Fetal Ventral Mesencephalon, Maintain the Potential to Differentiate into Dopaminergic Neurons After Expansion In Vitro

Neural precursors (NPs) derived from ventral mesencephalon (VM) normally generate dopaminergic (DA) neurons in vivo but lose their potential to differentiate into DA neurons during mitogenic expansion in vitro, hampering their efficient use as a transplantable and experimental cell source. Because embryonic stem (ES) cell‐derived NPs (ES NP) do not go through the same maturation process during in vitro expansion, we hypothesized that expanded ES NPs may maintain their potential to differentiate into DA neurons. To address this, we expanded NPs derived from mouse embryonic day‐12.5 (E12.5) VM or ES cells and compared their developmental properties. Interestingly, expanded ES NPs fully sustain their ability to differentiate to the neuronal as well as to the DA fate. In sharp contrast, VM NPs almost completely lost their ability to become neurons and tyrosine hydroxylase‐positive (TH+) neurons after expansion. Expanded ES NP‐derived TH+ neurons coexpressed additional DA markers such as dopa decarboxylase and DAT (dopamine transporter). Furthermore, they also expressed other midbrain DA markers, including Nurr1 and Pitx3, and released significant amounts of DA. We also found that these ES NPs can be cryopreserved without losing their proliferative and developmental potential. Finally, we tested the in vivo characteristics of the expanded NPs derived from J1 ES cells with low passage number. When transplanted into the mouse striatum, the expanded NPs as well as control NPs efficiently generated DA neurons expressing mature DA markers, with approximately 10% tumor formation in both cases. We conclude that ES NPs maintain their developmental potential during in vitro expansion, whereas mouse E12.5 VM NPs do not.
Nonlinear magnetohydrodynamics from gravity

We apply the recently established connection between nonlinear fluid dynamics and AdS gravity to the case of the dyonic black brane in AdS4. This yields the equations of fluid dynamics for a 2+1 dimensional charged fluid in a background magnetic field. We construct the gravity solution to second order in the derivative expansion. From this we find the fluid dynamical stress tensor and charge current to second and third order in derivatives respectively, along with values for the associated transport coefficients.
Ancient homeobox gene loss and the evolution of chordate brain and pharynx development: deductions from amphioxus gene expression

Homeobox genes encode a large superclass of transcription factors with widespread roles in animal development. Within chordates there are over 100 homeobox genes in the invertebrate cephalochordate amphioxus and over 200 in humans. Set against this general trend of increasing gene number in vertebrate evolution, some ancient homeobox genes that were present in the last common ancestor of chordates have been lost from vertebrates. Here, we describe the embryonic expression of four amphioxus descendants of these genes—AmphiNedxa, AmphiNedxb, AmphiMsxlx and AmphiNKx7. All four genes are expressed with a striking asymmetry about the left–right axis in the pharyngeal region of neurula embryos, mirroring the pronounced asymmetry of amphioxus embryogenesis. AmphiMsxlx and AmphiNKx7 are also transiently expressed in an anterior neural tube region destined to become the cerebral vesicle. These findings suggest significant rewiring of developmental gene regulatory networks occurred during chordate evolution, coincident with homeobox gene loss. We propose that loss of otherwise widely conserved genes is possible when these genes function in a confined role in development that is subsequently lost or significantly modified during evolution. In the case of these homeobox genes, we propose that this has occurred in relation to the evolution of the chordate pharynx and brain.
The DLV system for knowledge representation and reasoning

Disjunctive Logic Programming (DLP) is an advanced formalism for knowledge representation and reasoning, which is very expressive in a precise mathematical sense: it allows one to express every property of finite structures that is decidable in the complexity class ΣP2 (NPNP). Thus, under widely believed assumptions, DLP is strictly more expressive than normal (disjunction-free) logic programming, whose expressiveness is limited to properties decidable in NP. Importantly, apart from enlarging the class of applications which can be encoded in the language, disjunction often allows for representing problems of lower complexity in a simpler and more natural fashion.This article presents the DLV system, which is widely considered the state-of-the-art implementation of disjunctive logic programming, and addresses several aspects. As for problem solving, we provide a formal definition of its kernel language, function-free disjunctive logic programs (also known as disjunctive datalog), extended by weak constraints, which are a powerful tool to express optimization problems. We then illustrate the usage of DLV as a tool for knowledge representation and reasoning, describing a new declarative programming methodology which allows one to encode complex problems (up to ΔP3-complete problems) in a declarative fashion. On the foundational side, we provide a detailed analysis of the computational complexity of the language of DLV, and by deriving new complexity results we chart a complete picture of the complexity of this language and important fragments thereof.Furthermore, we illustrate the general architecture of the DLV system, which has been influenced by these results. As for applications, we overview application front-ends which have been developed on top of DLV to solve specific knowledge representation tasks, and we briefly describe the main international projects investigating the potential of the system for industrial exploitation. Finally, we report about thorough experimentation and benchmarking, which has been carried out to assess the efficiency of the system. The experimental results confirm the solidity of DLV and highlight its potential for emerging application areas like knowledge management and information integration.
What Is the Sense of Agency and Why Does it Matter?

Sense of agency refers to the feeling of control over actions and their consequences. In this article I summarize what we currently know about sense of agency; looking at how it is measured and what theories there are to explain it. I then explore some of the potential applications of this research, something that the sense of agency research field has been slow to identify and implement. This is a pressing concern given the increasing importance of ‘research impact. ’
Altered Dopamine Release and Uptake Kinetics in Mice Lacking D2 Receptors

Dysregulation of dopamine transmission is thought to contribute to schizophrenic psychosis and drug dependence. Dopamine release is regulated by D2 dopamine autoreceptors, and D2receptor ligands are used to treat psychosis and addiction. To elucidate the long-term effects of D2 autoreceptor activity on dopamine signaling, dopamine overflow evoked by single or paired-pulse stimulation was compared in striatal slices from D2-null mutant and wild-type mice. Quinpirole, a D2/D3 receptor agonist, had no effect on evoked dopamine release in D2 mutant mice, indicating that D2 receptors are the only release-regulating receptors at the axon terminal. Dopamine release inhibition by GABABreceptor activation was unchanged in D2 mutant mice, suggesting that other G-protein-coupled pathways remained normal in the absence of D2 autoreceptors. Paired-pulse stimulation revealed that autoinhibition of dopamine release was maximal 500 msec after stimulation and lasted <5 sec. In D2-null mutants, dopamine overflow in response to single stimuli was severely decreased. Experiments with the uptake inhibitor nomifensine indicated that this was caused by enhanced dopamine uptake rather than reduced release. Analysis of dopamine overflow kinetics using a simulation model suggested that the enhanced uptake was caused by an increase in the maximal velocity of uptake, Vmax. These results from D2-null mutant mice support the suggestion that D2 autoreceptors and dopamine transporters interact to regulate the amplitude and timing of dopamine signals.
Proinflammatory mediators elicit the secretion of the intracellular B- lymphocyte stimulator (BLyS) pool that is stored in activated neutrophils: implications for inflammatory diseases. Short Title: Inducible BLyS secretion by activated neutrophils

Prepublished online September 9, 2004; Bambara and Marco A Cassatella Merigo, Nicola Tamassia, Sara Pieropan, Domenico Biasi, Andrea Sbarbati, Silvano Sozzani, Lisa Patrizia Scapini, Antonio Carletto, Bernardetta Nardelli, Federica Calzetti, Viktor Roschke, Flavia neutrophils: implications for inflammatory diseases B-lymphocyte stimulator (BLyS) pool that is stored in activated Proinflammatory mediators elicit the secretion of the intracellular
A performance and usability comparison of automated planners for IT change planning

Change Management, a core process of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), is concerned with the management of changes to networks and services to satisfy business goals and to minimize costly disruptions on the business. As part of Change Management, IT changes need to be planned for. Despite previous efforts to use planning algorithms to generate IT change plans, it remains unknown as to which automated planning algorithm does best solve the IT change planning problem. To answer this question, we compare four domain independent automated planners in the context of an Infrastructure as a Service deployment case study of a three-tier business application. We focus on two aspects: (1) The scalability of the planners to large Configuration Management Databases (CMDBs) comprising thousands of resources and (2) their usability by a change manager, in particular how easily a change manager can specify the planning domain and rules to guide the search. For the deployment case study we conclude that Hierarchical Task Network algorithms scale to significantly larger CMDBs than all other examined algorithms. Furthermore, we find that their way to formalize search control naturally matches to the domain of IT change planning compared to that of others who require change managers to have a profound knowledge of the planning algorithm or temporal logic.
Correlates of acute exercise-induced ocular hypotension.

PURPOSE To understand those factors that determine the decrease in intraocular pressure (IOP) that occurs during acute dynamic exercise. METHODS Three aspects of the exercise-IOP relationship were studied. These included graded exercise, with and without CO2 addition for isocapnia; comparison of the IOP response of trained and sedentary subjects to a fixed external work load; and exercise after ocular beta-adrenoceptor blockade. Graded exercise consisted of 7 minutes each at 30 and 90 watts on a cycle ergometer, then progressive work to exhaustion. Trained and sedentary subjects were defined on the basis of the blood lactate response to fixed external work (10 minutes at 90 watts). Selective beta 1-adrenoceptor blockade (betaxolol) and nonselective beta-adrenoceptor blockade (levobunolol) were superimposed on graded exercise. Intraocular pressure was measured using applanation tonometry. RESULTS Graded exercise: Intraocular pressure decreased in proportion to exercise intensity. Hypocapnia developed in the last minutes of exhausting work, but preventing hypocapnia with CO2 addition failed to lessen the decrease in IOP. Response to fixed external work load: Intraocular pressure decreased significantly more in sedentary than in trained subjects; this decline was correlated with elevations in blood lactate but not with changes in metabolic rate or plasma osmolarity. Selective and nonselective beta-adrenoceptor blockade: Both drugs lowered IOP at baseline and throughout graded exercise; the drugs and exercise had apparently additive ocular hypotensive effects. CONCLUSIONS Acute dynamic exercise lowers IOP in a graded fashion proportional to relative, not absolute, work load. The IOP decline is correlated with blood lactate but not with PCO2 or plasma osmolarity changes, and exercise potentiates the ocular hypotensive effects of beta-adrenoceptor blockade.
Local ice caps in Finderup Land, North Greenland, survived the Holocene Thermal Maximum

Local glaciers and ice caps (GICs) comprise only ~5.4% of the total ice volume, but account for ~14–20% of the current ice loss in Greenland. The glacial history of GICs is not well constrained, however, and little is known about how they reacted to Holocene climate changes. Specifically, in North Greenland, there is limited knowledge about past GIC fluctuations and whether they survived the Holocene Thermal Maximum (HTM, ~8 to 5 ka). In this study, we use proglacial lake records to constrain the ice‐marginal fluctuations of three local ice caps in North Greenland including Flade Isblink, the largest ice cap in Greenland. Additionally, we have radiocarbon dated reworked marine molluscs in Little Ice Age (LIA) moraines adjacent to the Flade Isblink, which reveal when the ice cap was smaller than present. We found that outlet glaciers from Flade Isblink retreated inland of their present extent from ~9.4 to 0.2 cal. ka BP. The proglacial lake records, however, demonstrate that the lakes continued to receive glacial meltwater throughout the entire Holocene. This implies that GICs in Finderup Land survived the HTM. Our results are consistent with other observations from North Greenland but differ from locations in southern Greenland where all records show that the local ice caps at low and intermediate elevations disappeared completely during the HTM. We explain the north–south gradient in glacier response as a result of sensitivity to increased temperature and precipitation. While the increased temperatures during the HTM led to a complete melting of GICs in southern Greenland, GICs remained in North Greenland probably because the melting was counterbalanced by increased precipitation due to a reduction in Arctic sea‐ice extent and/or increased poleward moisture transport.
Multi-objective optimal control of stochastic hybrid systems

We present a dynamic programming based solution to a stochastic optimal control problem for a controlled discrete-time stochastic hybrid system. A general summultiplicative cost function is introduced along with a corresponding dynamic recursion that quantifies the weighted costs of achieving multiple (possibly competing) objectives relevant to the theory of stochastic verification and stochastic model predictive control. It is shown that a valuable collection of multi-objective stochastic optimal control problems can be expressed in the form of the presented general sum-multiplicative cost function. A case study in the early retirement problem (equivalently the reinsurance problem) is presented.
A New Delay Analysis for IEEE 802.11 PCF

The contention-free protocols can provide strict quality of service and have been receiving growing attention. The IEEE point coordination function (PCF) protocol is a very basic and important contention-free protocol. However, its existing performance analysis method is tedious and complicated. This paper proposes applying the classic M/G/1 vacation model to analyze the delay performance of the PCF in a straightforward manner, thereby avoiding reconstructing a new analysis model as done in previous research. Compared with related work, our method is simpler and more scalable and our results are more general. Simulations show that our analytical results are very accurate for both homogeneous and heterogeneous traffic.
On the power of autobiographical memories: from threat and challenge appraisals to actual behaviour

ABSTRACT Autobiographical memories are a major feature of mental life in humans. However, research on the influence of autobiographical recall on actual behaviour is scarce. We predicted and found that general memories of failure and specific memories of success resulted in worse performance than general memories of success and specific memories of failure. This performance pattern was mediated by task appraisal, suggesting that autobiographical memories (of failure and success) impact performance by shaping the perception of the upcoming task. Combined with the fact that these effects occurred even when the content of autobiographical memories was unrelated to the upcoming task, the present research represents an important step forward in understanding how autobiographical recall influences actual behaviour.
Optimized Product Quantization for Approximate Nearest Neighbor Search

Product quantization is an effective vector quantization approach to compactly encode high-dimensional vectors for fast approximate nearest neighbor (ANN) search. The essence of product quantization is to decompose the original high-dimensional space into the Cartesian product of a finite number of low-dimensional subspaces that are then quantized separately. Optimal space decomposition is important for the performance of ANN search, but still remains unaddressed. In this paper, we optimize product quantization by minimizing quantization distortions w.r. t. the space decomposition and the quantization codebooks. We present two novel methods for optimization: a non-parametric method that alternatively solves two smaller sub-problems, and a parametric method that is guaranteed to achieve the optimal solution if the input data follows some Gaussian distribution. We show by experiments that our optimized approach substantially improves the accuracy of product quantization for ANN search.
Roget's thesaurus and semantic similarity

We have implemented a system that measures semantic similarity using a computerized 1987 Roget's Thesaurus, and evaluated it by performing a few typical tests. We compare the results of these tests with those produced by WordNet-based similarity measures. One of the benchmarks is Miller and Charles' list of 30 noun pairs to which human judges had assigned similarity measures. We correlate these measures with those computed by several NLP systems. The 30 pairs can be traced back to Rubenstein and Goodenough's 65 pairs, which we have also studied. Our Roget's-based system gets correlations of . 878 for the smaller and . 818 for the larger list of noun pairs; this is quite close to the . 885 that Resnik obtained when he employed humans to replicate the Miller and Charles experiment. We further evaluate our measure by using Roget's and WordNet to answer 80 TOEFL, 50 ESL and 300 Reader's Digest questions: the correct synonym must be selected amongst a group of four words. Our system gets 78.75%, 82.00% and 74.33% of the questions respectively.
Die Landschnecke Discus ruderatus im Postglazial Süddeutschlands

Das Auftreten der Landschnecke Discus ruderatus an 51 Vorkommen post­ glazialer Ablagerungen, Kalktuffen, Höhlensedimenten, Niederterrassenschottern u. a. , wird von mehreren Arten recht unterschiedlicher Standortsansprüche be­ gleitet, von Bewohnern kühlen Waldes bis zu solchen warmer, trockener Gras­ hänge. Dies wirft ein Licht auf die klimatischen Verhältnisse zur Postglazialzeit, für die insbesondere ein Sommermaximum der Niederschläge charakteristisch sein dürfte.
The ponticulus posticus: implications for screw insertion into the first cervical lateral mass.

BACKGROUND The arcuate foramen is an important osseous anomaly of the first cervical vertebra (the atlas) that must be taken into consideration during placement of lateral mass screws into the atlas. METHODS The prevalence of this anomaly in our patient population was determined through a retrospective review of 464 lateral radiographs of the neck. The anatomy of the arcuate foramen was identified in a study of cadavers. RESULTS Seventy-two arcuate foramina, complete or incomplete, were identified on the 464 lateral radiographs of the neck; thus, the prevalence was 15.5% in our patient population. CONCLUSIONS Although the arcuate foramen is a common anomaly, it is often not recognized. Proper identification of this anomaly on preoperative lateral radiographs should alert the surgeon to avoid using the ponticulus posticus as a starting point for a lateral mass screw in order to not injure the vertebral artery.
Detection of Phytoplankton Blooms in the Upper Gulf of Thailand Using Sentinel-3A OLCI Imagery

This study aims to use Sentinel-3A Ocean and Land Color Instrument (OLCI) imagery for detecting phytoplankton blooms in the Upper Gulf of Thailand by using the Maximum Chlorophyll Index (MCI). The results showed that the MCI was able to detect phytoplankton blooms in the study area. The areas with intense phytoplankton blooms showed high MCI values. The radiance spectrum (with a reflectance peak at wavelength 708.75 nm) and the difference between baseline wavelengths 708.75 nm and 681.25 nm were quite high. High MCI values corresponded well with locations of phytoplankton blooms seen on RGB False-Color Composite images. Thus, time series analysis of MCIs obtained from Sentinel-3A OLCI images could be used in detecting, tracking, and delineating phytoplankton blooms.