Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Incidence and prevalence of lupus in Buenos Aires, Argentina: a 11-year health management organisation-based study

Objectives Studies regarding the epidemiology of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) are lacking in Argentina. Our purpose was to estimate the incidence and prevalence of SLE in a university hospital-based health management organisation in Buenos Aires (HIMCP). Methods For incidence calculation, the population at risk included all adult members of the HIMCP, with continuous affiliation for at least 1 year from January 1998 to January 2009. Each person was followed until he/she voluntarily left the HIMCP, death or finalisation of the study. Multiple methods for case finding were used to ensure complete ascertainment: (a) patients with problem SLE, undifferentiated autoimmune disease or mixed connective tissue disease in the Computer-based Patient Record System, (b) patients with positive antinuclear antibody test, anti-Sm antibodies and/or anti-dsDNA antibodies in the laboratory database and (c) patients who consumed hydroxichloroquine, chloroquine, azathioprine, cyclophosphamide, mycophenolate, cyclosporine or rituximab, from the administrative HIMCP drugs database. Medical records of all patients found were reviewed, and only patients fulfilling ACR criteria for SLE were included. Global and gender incidence rate (IR) was calculated. Prevalence was estimated on 1 January 2009, and the denominator population was the number of active members >18 years at that date (n=127 959). Results In the study period, 68 patients developed SLE. The observed IR (per 100 000 person-years, (CI 95%)) was 6.3 (4.9 to 7.7) for total population; 8.9 (CI 6.6 to 11.2) for women and 2.6 (1.2 to 3.9) for men. On 1 January 2009, 75 prevalent cases were identified. Prevalence rates (cases per 100 000 habitants, (CI 95%)) were 58.6 (46.1 to 73.5) for total population; 83.2 (63.9 to 106.4) for women and 23 (CI 11.9 to 40.1) for men. Conclusions SLE incidence and prevalence rates in Argentina are in agreement with those of other studies from different parts of the world.
Confidence and Competence in Writing: The Role of Self -Efficacy, Outcome Expectancy, and Apprehension

This study investigated the relationships among self-confidence about writing, expected outcomes, writing apprehension, general self-confidence, and writing performance in 30 undergraduate preservice teachers over one semester. Results supported social cognitive theory and prior findings reporting a relationship between confidence in one's writing abilities and subsequent writing performance. A regression model consisting of the variables noted above and a pre-performance measure accounted for 68% of the variance in writing performance. Students' beliefs about their own composition skills and the pre-performance measure were the only significant predictors. Writing apprehension was negatively correlated with writing self-confidence but was not predictive of writing performance. General self-confidence was correlated with writing self-confidence, expected outcomes, apprehension, and performance but was not predictive of writing performance in the regression model. Results and implications are discussed, especially as they relate to the need for context-specific assessments of confidence in one's own capabilities and to pedagogical obligations. In Social Foundations of Thought and Action, Bandura (1986) argued that the beliefs people hold about their abilities and about the outcome of their efforts powerfully influence the ways in which they will behave. Of all beliefs, self -efficacy, "people's judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performances" (p. 391), is regarded by Bandura's social cognitive theory as the most influential arbiter in human agency and helps explain why people's behavior may differ markedly even when they have similar knowledge and skills. That is, what people do is often better predicted by their beliefs about their capabilities than by measures of what they are actually capable of accomplishing.
A systematic Review of Neuroimaging Data During Visceral Stimulation

OBJECTIVES:The application of functional imaging to study visceral sensation has generated considerable interest regarding insight into the function of the brain-gut axis, but also some contradictory and confusing results that require appraisal.METHODS:Published studies of visceral sensation were grouped according to stimulus region and study population. The results of each study were tabulated and the center of reported activations plotted onto the lateral and medial surface of a representative brain.RESULTS:Esophageal distension predominantly activated primary sensory and motor cortices and the midsection of the medial surface. Lower GI distension predominantly activated bilateral prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortices and more anterior and ventral regions of the medial surface.CONCLUSIONS:Activation sites are reasonably well clustered within stimulus modality, implying consistent brain response to visceral sensation. The differences in reported activation during esophageal and lower GI sensation imply altered motor, autonomic, and affect response during distension at opposite ends of the GI tract that may be explored in future studies.
Assessing specific cognitive deficits associated with dementia in older adults with Down's syndrome: a London based study

Background: Dementia in older adults with Down’s syndrome is common. People with Down’s syndrome often have specific cognitive deficits, affecting prefrontal, hippocampal and cerebellar regions. A cognitive assessment battery has been developed (called the Arizona Cognitive Test Battery, ACTB), which assesses cognitive function in these areas. These tests have not yet been validated in older adults with Down’s syndrome. Methods: This study aimed to assess the use of the ACTB in older adults with Down’s syndrome and establish its validity in testing for dementia. Participants with Down’s syndrome aged 45 and over were assessed. Participants took part in a 2-3 hour assessment which included tests on a touchscreen computer tablet as well as standard table-top tests. Results: 50 participants with Down’s syndrome were recruited. Of these, 19 had a diagnosis of dementia or possible dementia. Most participants were able to attempt most of the tasks, although some tasks had a large number of participants at floor. There were significant differences between the dementia and no dementia groups on CANTAB Simple Reaction Time, Verbal Fluency and Object Memory tasks. Conclusions: In general, most of the tasks in the ACTB can be used in older adults with Down’s syndrome and have mild to moderate concurrent validity when compared to tabletop tests and carer ratings, although this varies on a test by test basis. Although the ACTB can be used in older adults with Down’s syndrome, it has not been shown to clearly detect differences between people with Down’s syndrome who have early stage dementia and those who do not have dementia. Suggestions are made regarding which of the tests assessed in this study are most useful when assessing cognitive skills in older people with Down’s syndrome. It is hoped that this research will help in the development of appropriate cognitive tests for older adults with Down’s syndrome.
High Throughput Characterization of Combinatorial Histone Codes*

We present a novel method utilizing “saltless” pH gradient weak cation exchange-hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography directly coupled to electron transfer dissociation (ETD) mass spectrometry for the automated on-line high throughput characterization of hypermodified combinatorial histone codes. This technique, performed on a low resolution mass spectrometer, displays an improvement over existing methods with an ∼100-fold reduction in sample requirements and analysis time. The scheme presented is capable of identifying all of the major combinatorial histone codes present in a sample in a 2-h analysis. The large N-terminal histone peptides are eluted by the pH and organic solvent weak cation exchange-hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography gradient and directly introduced via nanoelectrospray ionization into a benchtop linear quadrupole ion trap mass spectrometer equipped with ETD. Each polypeptide is sequenced, and the modification sites are identified by ETD fragmentation. The isobaric trimethyl and acetyl modifications are resolved chromatographically and confidently distinguished by the synthesis of mass spectrometric and chromatographic information. We demonstrate the utility of the method by complete characterization of human histone H3.2 and histone H4 from butyrate-treated cells, but it is generally applicable to the analysis of highly modified peptides. We find this methodology very useful for chromatographic separation of isomeric species that cannot be separated well by any other chromatographic means, leading to less complicated tandem mass spectra. The improved separation and increased sensitivity generated novel information about much less abundant forms. In this method demonstration we report over 200 H3.2 forms and 70 H4 forms, including forms not yet detected in human cells, such as the remarkably highly modified histone H3.2 K4me3K9acK14acK18acK23acK27acK36me3. Such detail provided by our proteomics platform will be essential for determining how histone modifications occur and act in combination to propagate the histone code during transcriptional events and could greatly enable sequencing of the histone component of human epigenomes.
Integrative nucleophosmin mutation-associated microRNA and gene expression pattern analysis identifies novel microRNA - target gene interactions in acute myeloid leukemia

Background MicroRNAs are regulators of gene expression, which act mainly by decreasing mRNA levels of their multiple targets. Deregulated microRNA expression has been shown for acute myeloid leukemia, a disease also characterized by altered gene expression associated with distinct genomic aberrations such as nucleophosmin (NPM1) mutations. To shed further light on the role of deregulated microRNA and gene expression in cytogenetically normal acute myeloid leukemia with NPM1 mutation we performed an integrative analysis of microRNA and mRNA expression data sets. Design and Methods Both microRNA and gene expression profiles were investigated in samples from a cohort of adult cytogenetically normal acute myeloid leukemia patients (n=43; median age 46 years, range 23–60 years) with known NPM1 mutation status (n=23 mutated, n=20 wild-type) and the data were integratively analyzed. Putative microRNA-mRNA interactions were validated by quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction, western blotting and luciferase reporter assays. For selected microRNAs, sensitivity of microRNA-overexpressing cells to cytarabine treatment was tested by FACS viability and cell proliferation assays. Results Our integrative approach of analyzing both microRNA- and gene expression profiles in parallel resulted in a refined list of putative target genes affected by NPM1 mutation-associated microRNA deregulation. Of 177 putative microRNA – target mRNA interactions we identified and validated 77 novel candidates with known or potential involvement in leukemogenesis, such as IRF2-miR-20a, KIT-miR-20a and MN1-miR-15a. Furthermore, our data showed that deregulated expression of tumor suppressor microRNAs, such as miR-29a and miR-30c, might contribute to sensitivity to cytarabine, which is observed in NPM1 mutated acute myeloid leukemia. Conclusions Overall, our observations highlight that integrative data analysis approaches can improve insights into leukemia biology, and lead to the identification of novel microRNA - target gene interactions of potential relevance for acute myeloid leukemia treatment.
Momilactone B Inhibits Ketosis In Vitro by Regulating the ANGPTL3-LPL Pathway and Inhibiting HMGCS2

ABSTRACT Ketogenesis is the production of ketone bodies, which provide energy when the body lacks glucose. Under ketogenic conditions, the body switches from primarily carbohydrate to fat metabolism to maintain energy balance. However, accumulation of high levels of ketone bodies in the blood results in ketosis. Treating ketosis with natural substances is preferable, because they are unlikely to cause side-effects. Momilactone B is an active compound isolated from Korean rice. Based on previous studies, we hypothesized that momilactone B could inhibit ketosis. We constructed an in vitro ketosis model by glucose starvation. We used this model to test the anti-ketosis effects of momilactone B. A primary target for treating ketosis is angiopoietin-like-3 (ANGPTL3), which modulates lipoprotein metabolism by inhibiting lipoprotein lipase (LPL), a multifunctional enzyme that breaks down stored fat to produce triglycerides. We showed that momilactone B could regulate the ANGPTL3-LPL pathway. However, a strong anti-ketosis candidate drug should also inhibit ketogenesis. Ketogenesis can be suppressed by inhibiting the expression of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA synthase-2 (HMGCS2), a mitochondrial enzyme that converts acetyl-CoA to ketone bodies. We found that momilactone B suppressed the expression of HMGCS2 through the increased expression of STAT5b. We also elucidated the relationship of STAT5b to ANGPTL3 and LPL expression.
Characteristics of de novo structural changes in the human genome

Small insertions and deletions (indels) and large structural variations (SVs) are major contributors to human genetic diversity and disease. However, mutation rates and characteristics of de novo indels and SVs in the general population have remained largely unexplored. We report 332 validated de novo structural changes identified in whole genomes of 250 families, including complex indels, retrotransposon insertions, and interchromosomal events. These data indicate a mutation rate of 2.94 indels (1–20 bp) and 0.16 SVs (>20 bp) per generation. De novo structural changes affect on average 4.1 kbp of genomic sequence and 29 coding bases per generation, which is 91 and 52 times more nucleotides than de novo substitutions, respectively. This contrasts with the equal genomic footprint of inherited SVs and substitutions. An excess of structural changes originated on paternal haplotypes. Additionally, we observed a nonuniform distribution of de novo SVs across offspring. These results reveal the importance of different mutational mechanisms to changes in human genome structure across generations.
TRUM 2013: The Role and Importance of Trust in User Modelling

The 3 rd international workshop on Trust, Reputation and User Mod- elling (TRUM 22013) was held with the International Conference on User Modeling Adaptation and Personalization (UMAP 2013). The purpose of the workshop is : (a) to bring researchers together from the communities of trust, reputation and user modeling, and online communities where trust plays an im- portant role, (b) to provide a forum for cutting-age research possibly not yet well evaluated, and (c) to initiate and facilitate discussions on the new trends in trust, reputation and user modeling, and to move the trends forward. In this pre- face, we briefly introduce the workshop, present the summary of the papers pre- sented in the workshop and ackwledged people who have helped for the success of the workshop.
Do Carotid Surface Irregularities Correlate with the Development of Cerebrovascular Symptoms? An Analysis of the Supporting Studies, the Opposing Studies, and the Possible Pathomechanism

Carotid plaque surface morphology appears to play a controversial role in the occurrence of cerebrovascular symptoms, that is, amaurosis fugax, transient ischemic attacks, and episodes of stroke. A number of researchers favor a strong association between the morphologic abnormalities of the carotid plaque surface and the development of cerebrovascular symptoms. The supporters of this theory have demonstrated that surface contour irregularities not only are important potential sources of flow abnormalities but also contribute significantly to the development of ischemic neurologic symptoms through plaque fragmentation, microthrombi formation, and atheroembolism. However, opposers of this theory also exist. The main arguments for and against this theory, as well as the possible underlying pathomechanism linking the morphology of the carotid plaque surface with the development of cerebrovascular symptoms, are outlined. Detection of carotid surface abnormalities with the aid of angiography or color-flow duplex ultrasonography should play a major role in the early identification of patients at increased risk, this way aiding prompt correction of these usually clinically silent but potentially hazardous lesions.
Minimax risk of matrix denoising by singular value thresholding

An unknown m by n matrix X0 is to be estimated from noisy measurements Y = X0 + Z, where the noise matrix Z has i.i. d Gaussian entries. A popular matrix denoising scheme solves the nuclear norm penalization problem minXkY − Xk 2 /2 + λkXk∗, where kXk∗ denotes the nuclear norm (sum of singular values). This is the analog, for matrices, of l1 penalization in the vector case. It has been empirically observed that, if X0 has low rank, it may be recovered quite accurately from the noisy measurement Y . In a proportional growth framework where the rank rn, number of rows mn and number of columns n all tend to ∞ proportionally to each other (rn/mn → ρ, mn/n → β), we evaluate the asymptotic minimax MSE M(ρ,β) = lim mn,n→∞ inf λ sup rank(X)≤rn MSE(X, ˆ Xλ). Our formulas involve incomplete moments of the quarter- and semi-circle laws (β = 1, square case) and the Marycenko-Pastur law (β < 1, non square case). We also show that any least-favorable matrix X0 has norm “at infinity”. The nuclear norm penalization problem is solved by applying soft thresholding to the singular values of Y . We also derive the minimax threshold, namely the value λ ∗ (ρ) which is the optimal place to threshold the singular values. All these results are obtained for general (non square, non symmetric) real matrices. Comparable results are obtained for square symmetricnonnegative- definite matrices.
Artificial Intelligence and Software Engineering: Status and Future Trends

During the last decades the disciplines of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Software Engineering (SE) have developed separately without much exchange of research results. In AI we researched techniques for the computations that made it possible to perceive, reason, and act. Research in SE was concerned with supporting human beings to develop better software faster. Today, several research directions of both disciplines come closer together and are beginning to build new research areas. Software Agents play an important role as research objects in Distributed AI (DAI) as well as in agentoriented software engineering (AOSE). Knowledge-Based Systems (KBS) are being investigated for learning software organizations (LSO) as well as knowledge engineering. Ambient Intelligence (AmI) is a new research area for distributed, non-intrusive, and intelligent software systems both from the direction of how to build these systems as well as how to design the collaboration between ambient systems. Last but not least, Computational Intelligence (CI) plays an important role in research about software analysis or project management as well as knowledge discovery in databases or machine learning. Furthermore, in the last five to ten years several books, journals, and conferences have focused on the intersection between AI and SE. The international conference and associated journal Automated Software Engineering (ASE) presents research about formal and autonomic approaches to support SE [2]. Similar topics with a stronger focus on KBS and knowledge management are published in the international conference and associated journal of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (IJSEKE) [1]. In this paper, we give a short overview about the status and future trends in the intersection between AI and SE. We focus on the topics software agents, KBS, AmI, and CI as the areas covered by the contributions of this special issue. In Section 2 we describe the disciplines AI and SE. The focused topics are described in more detail in Section 3. Finally, in Section 4 we give an outlook for the next years and present new challenges for both disciplines.
A novel tree-based broadcast algorithm for wireless ad hoc networks

One designing challenge in the scheduling of broadcast in wireless ad hoc networks is to reduce broadcast redundancy and provide high reachability, simultaneously. In this paper, we propose a broadcasting algorithm in wireless ad hoc networks. The algorithm uses two-hop neighbourhood information to construct the broadcast tree, in which the information can be gathered via exchanging 'hello' messages within the neighbour nodes. The channel is allocated to the non-leaf nodes in the broadcast tree in a time-oriented way to ensure that the forwarding of the broadcasted message along the broadcast tree is collision-free. Both theoretical analysis and simulation results demonstrate that our scheme is efficient in terms of the bounded broadcast redundancy and the highest reachability.
The growth of slip surfaces in the progressive failure of over-consolidated clay

In heavily over-consolidated clays there is a marked peak in the observed relation between shear stress and shear strain. As the strain increases, the stress falls from a peak to a much smaller residual stress. Slopes made from such a clay often fail progressively many years after construction. Sliding occurs on a concentrated slip surface, and it is found that the mean resolved shear stress on that surface is markedly less than the peak shear strength. Concepts from fracture mechanics, and in particular the J-integral, are used to derive conditions for the propagation of a concentrated shear band of this kind. The results indicate the presence of a strong size effect, which has important implications for the use of models in soil mechanics. An elastic analysis makes it possible to determine the size of the end zone in which the shear stress on the shear band falls to its residual value. An attempt is made to assess the possible sources of the time-dependence governing propagation speed of the shear band. They include pore-water diffusion to the dilating tip of the band (which governs the rate at which local strength reductions can occur), viscoelastic deformation of the clay (which allows a gradual build-up of strain concentration at the tip of the band), and the weathering break-down of diagenetic bonds.
Semiotic engineering in practice: redesigning the CoScripter interface

Semiotic Engineering uses semiotic theories to characterize human-computer interaction and support research and development of interactive systems. In order to show the value of Semiotic Engineering in design, we illustrate how semiotic concepts have been used in the analysis and generation of redesign alternatives for a web browser-based program called CoScripter. We also discuss how specific perspectives and expectations about the design process can increase the benefit from Semiotic Engineering in design activities, and describe our future steps in this research.
A complexity reduction of ETSI advanced front-end for DSR

In October 2002, the advanced front-end (AFE) for distributed speech recognition (DSR) was standardized by ETSI. In order to use the AFE feature on low computational resource devices, we propose a novel approach to improve the computational efficiency. In our new algorithm, the structure of the two-stage mel-warped Wiener filtering algorithm, which is the main part of AFE, is modified. A Wiener filter is constructed and applied directly in the mel-warped filter-bank domain. The measures we take make many time-consuming operations in the original algorithm completely unnecessary, including the re-calculations of power spectrum and the time-domain convolution operations. Consequently, a large amount of computations are saved. Experiments show that the new approach can substantially reduce the computation load while preserving the excellent performance of the ETSI AFE.