Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A longer interval without GH replacement and female gender are associated with lower bone mineral density in adults with childhood-onset GH deficiency: a KIMS database analysis.

OBJECTIVE Childhood-onset GH deficiency (COGHD) is associated with low bone mineral density (BMD). Adults with persistent COGHD may be at risk for insufficient bone accrual or bone loss during adulthood. The purpose of this study was to identify BMD predictors and to characterize the effects of GH replacement on BMD in COGHD adults with persistent GHD. DESIGN Retrospective analysis of the KIMS database. METHODS Variables predicting standardized BMD (sBMD) were identified. The effect of GH replacement (3 years) on BMD was examined. RESULTS Three hundred and fourteen COGHD adults (148 women, 166 men; 62 non-naïve, 178 semi-naïve, and 74 true naïve, depending on length and timing of previous GH replacement), who had BMD measured in lumbar spine (LS) and femoral neck (FN) at study entry. In semi-naïve subjects, a longer gap in GH replacement between childhood and adulthood was predictive of lower sBMD in the FN (r=-0.18, P=0.038). TSH deficiency predicted lower sBMD in the LS (r=-0.16, P=0.052). In true naïve patients, a longer gap between onset of pituitary disease and study entry (r=-0.35, P=0.012), and female gender (r=-0.27, P=0.043) independently predicted lower sBMD in the FN. There were no differences in BMD increases between non-naïve, semi-naïve, and true naïve subjects on GH replacement. CONCLUSIONS In semi-naïve subjects a longer interval off GH replacement was associated with lower sBMD in the FN. Among true naïve patients, a longer gap between the onset of pituitary disease and GH replacement, and female gender predicted lower sBMD in the FN.
Downscaling precipitation to river basin in India for IPCC SRES scenarios using support vector machine

This paper presents a methodology to downscale monthly precipitation to river basin scale in Indian context for special report of emission scenarios (SRES) using Support Vector Machine (SVM). In the methodology presented, probable predictor variables are extracted from (1) the National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) reanalysis data set for the period 1971–2000 and (2) the simulations from the third generation Canadian general circulation model (CGCM3) for SRES emission scenarios A1B, A2, B1 and COMMIT for the period 1971–2100. These variables include both the thermodynamic and dynamic parameters and those which have a physically meaningful relationship with the precipitation. The NCEP variables which are realistically simulated by CGCM3 are chosen as potential predictors for seasonal stratification. The seasonal stratification involves identification of (1) the past wet and dry seasons through classification of the NCEP data on potential predictors into two clusters by the use of K‐means clustering algorithm and (2) the future wet and dry seasons through classification of the CGCM3 data on potential predictors into two clusters by the use of nearest neighbour rule. Subsequently, a separate downscaling model is developed for each season to capture the relationship between the predictor variables and the predictand. For downscaling precipitation, the predictand is chosen as monthly Thiessen weighted precipitation for the river basin, whereas potential predictors are chosen as the NCEP variables which are correlated to the precipitation and are also realistically simulated by CGCM3. Implementation of the methodology presented is demonstrated by application to Malaprabha reservoir catchment in India which is considered to be a climatically sensitive region. The CGCM3 simulations are run through the calibrated and validated SVM downscaling model to obtain future projections of predictand for each of the four emission scenarios considered. The results show that the precipitation is projected to increase in future for almost all the scenarios considered. The projected increase in precipitation is high for A2 scenario, whereas it is least for COMMIT scenario. Copyright © 2007 Royal Meteorological Society
Communication, Opponents, and Clan Performance in Online Games: A Social Network Approach

Online gamers form clans voluntarily to play together and to discuss their real and virtual lives. Although these clans have diverse goals, they seek to increase their rank in the game community by winning more battles. Communications among clan members and battles with other clans may influence the performance of a clan. In this study, we compared the effects of communication structure inside a clan, and battle networks among clans, with the performance of the clans. We collected battle histories, posts, and comments on clan pages from a Korean online game, and measured social network indices for communication and battle networks. Communication structures in terms of density and group degree centralization index had no significant association with clan performance. However, the centrality of clans in the battle network was positively related to the performance of the clan. If a clan had many battle opponents, the performance of the clan improved.
The Importance of a Properly Represented Stratosphere for Northern Hemisphere Surface Variability in the Atmosphere and the Ocean

Major sudden stratospheric warmings (SSWs) are extreme events during boreal winter, which not only impact tropospheric weather up to three months but also can influence oceanic variability through wind stress and heat flux anomalies. In the North Atlantic region, SSWs have the potential to modulate deep convection in the Labrador Sea and thereby the strength of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. The impact of SSWs on the Northern Hemisphere surface climate is investigated in two coupled climate models: a stratosphere-resolving (high top) and a non-stratosphere-resolving (low top) model. In both configurations, a robust link between SSWs and a negative NAO is detected, which leads to shallower-than-normal North Atlantic mixed layer depth. The frequency of SSWs and the persistence of this link is better captured in the high-top model. Significant differences occur over the Pacific region, where an unrealistically persistent Aleutian low is observed in the low-top configuration. An overrepresentation of SSWs during El Niño conditions in the low-top model is the main cause for this artifact. Our results underline the importance of a proper representation of the stratosphere in a coupled climate model for a consistent surface response in both the atmosphere and the ocean, which, among others, may have implications for oceanic deep convection in the subpolar North Atlantic.
Optical Imaging of Drug-Induced Metabolism Changes in Murine and Human Pancreatic Cancer Organoids Reveals Heterogeneous Drug Response

Objectives Three-dimensional organoids derived from primary pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas are an attractive platform for testing potential anticancer drugs on patient-specific tissue. Optical metabolic imaging (OMI) is a novel tool used to assess drug-induced changes in cellular metabolism, and its quantitative end point, the OMI index, is evaluated as a biomarker of drug response in pancreatic cancer organoids. Methods Optical metabolic imaging is used to assess both malignant cell and fibroblast drug response within primary murine and human pancreatic cancer organoids. Results Anticancer drugs induce significant reductions in the OMI index of murine and human pancreatic cancer organoids. Subpopulation analysis of OMI data revealed heterogeneous drug response and elucidated responding and nonresponding cell populations for a 7-day time course. Optical metabolic imaging index significantly correlates with immunofluorescence detection of cell proliferation and cell death. Conclusions Optical metabolic imaging of primary pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma organoids is highly sensitive to drug-induced metabolic changes, provides a nondestructive method for monitoring dynamic drug response, and presents a novel platform for patient-specific drug testing and drug development.
Technology as traitor: emergent SAP infrastructure in a global organization

This paper discusses IT infrastructure development and use in the European fertilizer division of Norsk Hydro. The main element of the infrastructure discussed is a new SAP-based solution for this division. However, this solution is not an isolated artifact. Its important aspects are emerging as it is becoming an integrated part of a larger infrastructure. This infrastructure is designed and controlled by managers and IT personnel, but also an actor shaping its environment as well as its own future. Like any actor, the technology builds alliances with others. However, the alliances might change over time. In the case reported here, SAP was first allied with top management, playing the role as a powerful change agent. Later on, SAP was allied with local managers and users, helping them bringing the change process under their influence and to the speed they preferred. Currently, SAP is changing its role as it is installed and integrated into a larger corporate infrastructure. As such, it becomes everybody’s enemy by resisting all organizational change
Effects of maternal dietary exposure to cadmium during pregnancy on mammary cancer risk among female offspring

Background: Since heavy metal cadmium is an endocrine disrupting chemical, we investigated whether maternal exposure to cadmium during the pregnancy alters mammary tumorigenesis among female offspring. Methods: From gestation day 10 to day 19, pregnant rat dams were fed modified American Institute of Nutrition (AIN93G) diet containing 39% energy from fat (baseline diet), or the baseline diet containing moderate (75 μg/kg of feed) or high (150 μg/kg) cadmium levels. Some dams were injected with 10 μg 17β-estradiol (E2) daily between gestation days 10 and 19. Results: Rats exposed to a moderate cadmium dose in utero were heavier and exhibited accelerated puberty onset. Both moderate and high cadmium dose led to increased circulating testosterone levels and reduced the expression of androgen receptor in the mammary gland. The moderate cadmium dose mimicked the effects of in utero E2 exposure on mammary gland morphology and increased both the number of terminal end buds and pre-malignant hyperplastic alveolar nodules (HANs), but in contrast to the E2, it did not increase 7, 12-dimethylbenz (a) anthracene-induced mammary tumorigenesis. Conclusions: The effects of in utero cadmium exposure were dependent on the dose given to pregnant dams: Moderate, but not high, cadmium dose mimicked some of the effects seen in the in utero E2 exposed rats, such as increased HANs in the mammary gland.
Comparison and incident angle dependency for the relation between σ0 and biomass derived from PALSAR

PALSAR data acquired with 34.3° and 23.1° are used to derive regression models between σ0 and above ground biomass. Field data were taken in Tomakomai national forest located in northern Japan. Dynamic range of 4dB are observed for 34.3°, and this is larger than that of 3dB for 23.1°. The correlation coefficient for 23.1° is higher than that for 34.3° in both HH and HV polarization, which may be explained by the larger contribution of double bounce scattering from well aligned planted forest. Regression models derived from other L-band SAR data are also plotted to compare our data. Except for one data, the models are moderately matched with each other.
Physical activity of moderate intensity in leisure time and the risk of all cause mortality

Background: There are conflicting data about the health benefits of moderately intense physical activity. Objectives: To examine the effect of such activity on all cause mortality in a German sample of men and women. Methods: Physical activity during leisure time of 3742 men and 3445 women aged 30 to 69 was assessed in a baseline questionnaire from 1984 to 1986. The participants were observed during the follow up period until 1998 when a mortality follow up was conducted. Results: During the follow up period, 300 women and 643 men had died. The multivariate rate ratios (RR) for the volume of lifestyle activities of moderate intensity (for example, gardening, walking, cycling) compared with sedentary lifestyle showed a clearly protective dose–response relation (p for trend <0.001) in women but not in men (p for trend 0.20). Following the recommendation for health enhancing physical activity a second analysis was conducted; 2.5 hours per week taking part in physical activity of moderate intensity decreased the relative risk of overall mortality (0.65 (95% confidence interval, 0.51 to 0.82) and 0.90 (0.77 to 1.01) for women and men, respectively). Conclusions: The volume of lifestyle activities of moderate intensity in leisure time was inversely associated with all cause mortality in women but not in men. With regard to the health enhancing physical activity recommendation as a threshold, there were favourable findings only in women.
Rosuvastatin Increases Extracellular Adenosine Formation in Humans In Vivo: A New Perspective on Cardiovascular Protection

Objective—Statins may increase extracellular adenosine formation from adenosine monophosphate by enhancing ecto-5′-nucleotidase activity. This theory was tested in humans using dipyridamole-induced vasodilation as a read-out for local adenosine formation. Dipyridamole inhibits the transport of extracellular adenosine into the cytosol resulting in increased extracellular adenosine and subsequent vasodilation. In addition, we studied the effect of statin therapy in a forearm model of ischemia-reperfusion injury. Methods and Results—Volunteers randomly received rosuvastatin or placebo in a double-blind parallel design (n=21). The forearm vasodilator response to intraarterial dipyridamole was determined in the absence and presence of the adenosine antagonist caffeine. During a separate visit the vasodilator response to nitroprusside and adenosine was established. In addition, healthy men were randomly divided in 3 groups to receive either placebo (n=10), rosuvastatin (n=22), or rosuvastatin combined with intravenous caffeine (n=12). Subsequently, volunteers performed forearm ischemic exercise. At reperfusion, Tc-99m–labeled annexin A5 was infused intravenously and scintigraphic images were acquired, providing an early marker of cell injury. Rosuvastatin treatment significantly increased the vasodilator response to dipyridamole, which was prevented by caffeine. Rosuvastatin did not influence the response to either sodium nitroprusside or adenosine indicating a specific interaction between rosuvastatin and dipyridamole, which does not result from an effect of rosuvastatin on adenosine clearance nor adenosine-receptor affinity or efficacy. Rosuvastatin increased tolerance to ischemia-reperfusion injury, which was attenuated by caffeine. Conclusions—Rosuvastatin increases extracellular adenosine formation, which provides protection against ischemia-reperfusion injury in humans in vivo. Therefore, statins and dipyridamole may interact synergistically.
Modelling Reciprocating Relationships with Hawkes Processes

We present a Bayesian nonparametric model that discovers implicit social structure from interaction time-series data. Social groups are often formed implicitly, through actions among members of groups. Yet many models of social networks use explicitly declared relationships to infer social structure. We consider a particular class of Hawkes processes, a doubly stochastic point process, that is able to model reciprocity between groups of individuals. We then extend the Infinite Relational Model by using these reciprocating Hawkes processes to parameterise its edges, making events associated with edges co-dependent through time. Our model outperforms general, unstructured Hawkes processes as well as structured Poisson process-based models at predicting verbal and email turn-taking, and military conflicts among nations.
HM-Mesh: Energy Efficient Hybrid Multiple Network-on-Chip

With the development of multiple processors SoC (system on chip), there are more and more challenges to the design of NoC (network-on-chip), one of which is to design energy-efficient NoC architecture, due to its large power consumption. Multi-NoC (multiple network-on-chip) has been proposed to save leakage power for its advantages in power gating network components. In this paper, we propose a hybrid Multi-NoC design, called HM-Mesh. HM-Mesh adopts a hybrid CMesh and Mesh architecture, and leverages CMesh network to respect its power efficiency at low network utilization. HMMesh is able to adaptively schedule packets to different subnets according to the network load, and smartly perform power gating to achieve good energy efficiency. The experimental results show that HMMesh delivers an average of 4.87% higher performance than Catnap, the state of the art power efficient Multi-NoC design. More importantly, HM-Mesh consumes an average of 29.2% less power than that of Catnap.
Educational & Teaching Material Review Article Drug Hypersensitivity in Human Immunodeficien- Cy Virus-infected Patient: Challenging Diagnosis and Management

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients present complex immunological alterations. Multiple drugs that usually prescribed for prevention or treatment of opportunistic infections and antiretroviral pose these patients a higher risk of developing drug hypersensitivity. All antiretroviral agents and drugs to treat opportunistic infections have been reported to cause drug hypersensitivity reactions. Allergic reactions with antiretroviral are not restricted to older agents, although newer drugs usually more tolerated. Cutaneous adverse drug reactions are the most common manifestation of drug hypersensitivity in HIV, typically manifesting as maculopapular rash with or without systemic symptoms in the presence or absence of internal organ involvement. The onset of an allergic reaction is usually delayed. Severe drug hypersensitity reactions as erythema multiforme, Stevens Johnson syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis develop more often in HIV-infected patients compared to other populations. Mild to moderate rash without systemic symptom or organ involvement usually do not need drug discontinuation. Appropriate diagnosis and management of drug hypersensitivity reactions are essential, especially in patients with very low CD4+ T-cell count and multiple opportunistic infections. Clinicians should aware of different half-life of each drug when decided to stop the drug. Knowledge of the metabolism, recognition of the risk factors, and the ability to suggest the probability of particular drug as causative are also important points. A step wise rechallenge test or desensitization with the offending drug might be a preferable action and more commonly used in managing drug hypersensitivity in HIV-infected patients. Desensitization protocols have been successfully done for several antiretroviral and opportunistic infection drugs. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution. Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
The Johnson-Lindenstrauss Lemma Meets Compressed Sensing

We show how two fundamental results in analysis related to n-widths and Compressed Sensing are intimately related to the Johnson-Lindenstrauss lemma. Our elementary approach is based on the same concentration inequalities for random inner products that have recently provided simple proofs of the Johnson-Lindenstrauss lemma. We show how these ideas lead to simple proofs of Kashin’s theorems on widths of finite balls in Euclidean space (and their improvements due to Gluskin) as well as the existence of optimal Compressed Sensing measurement matrices. In the process we also prove that these measurement matrices are universal with respect to the sparsity-inducing basis.
Immunohistochemical expression of metallothionein in normal human colorectal mucosa, in adenomas and in adenocarcinomas and their associated metastases

The immunohistochemial distribution pattern of metallothionein, a low molecular weight protein with strong affinity for divalent heavy metal ions, has been investigated in normal and neoplastic conditions of the large bowel. Utilizing a monoclonal mouse antibody the following formalin‐fixed paraffin‐embedded surgical or biopsy samples were studied: tubulo‐villous adenomas (8 cases); adenocarcinomas with various degree of differentiation (85), nine of which were mucinous‐type; synchronous tubular or tubulo‐villous adenomas separate from carcinomas (30); transitional mucosa (45); metastases in lymph nodes (43); and distant metastases (45). Twenty biopsies from the right and left colon of 10 patients affected by irritable bowel syndrome were also analyzed. Normal colonic mucosa as well as transitional mucosa showed metallothionein immunopositivity in enterocytes at the luminal surface and crypts. Evident nuclear and cytoplasmic staining was encountered in tubulo‐villous adenomas; the same reactivity was noted in the basal glandular component of colorectal carcinomas‐synchronous adenomas, while less intense staining was noted in the apical villous portions. A variable metallothionein immunostaining was observed in adenocarcinomas (62.3%), in lymph node (55.8%) and distant hepatic (17.2%) and omental (43.8%) metastases, although it was not always concordant with that reported in the corresponding primary tumour. Whether the metallothionein positivity observed in normal and neoplastic cells is the result of expression of a stable form of the protein or an accumulation in the nucleus and cytoplasm remains to be clarified.
The influence of target discriminability on the time course of attentional selection

A wealth of neurophysiological data has demonstrated that visual attention can selectively enhance target representations early in the visual processing pathway. In conjunction, behavioural evidence tells us that the extent to which irrelevant items interfere with target processing depends on their featural similarity to the target. In this context, how does target discriminability influence temporal selection? We present results from an electrophysiology study that addresses this question by investigating the time course of the neural processes involved in target selection as target distinctiveness is varied. The results suggest that, in line with previous findings, making discrimination harder reduces the accuracy of target identification. We find that there are significant differences in the perceptual processing of the target in the two conditions, as indexed by early visual ERPs and the P3 ERP. We ground this and previous empirical evidence within a theoretical framework for understanding the mechanism of attentional selection represented in the ST2 model, a neural network model of temporal attention and working memory. By simulating both experimental conditions, we show that the model provides a convincing explanation of the pattern of experimental results, in addition to informing questions about the nature and time course of attentional selection.