Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
User Personalization via W-kmeans

With the rapid explosion of online news articles, predicting userbrowsing behavior using collaborative filtering techniques has gained much attention in the web personalization area. However, common collaborative filtering techniques suffer from low accuracy and performance. This research proposes a new personalized recommendation approach that integrates user and text clustering based on our developed algorithm, W-kmeans, with other information retrieval techniques, like text categorization and summarization in order to provide users with the articles that match their profiles. Our system can easily adapt over time to divertive user preferences. Furthermore, experimental results show that by aggregating multiple other information retrieval techniques like categorization, summarization and clustering, our recommender generates results that outperform the cases when clustering is not applied.
Separating galaxies from the cluster dark matter halo in Abell 611

We investigate the mass content of galaxies in the core of the galaxy cluster Abell 611. We perform a strong lensing analysis of the cluster core and use velocity dispersion measurements for individual cluster members as additional constraints. Despite the small number of multiply-imaged systems and cluster members with central velocity dispersions available in the core of A611, the addition of velocity dispersion measurements leads to tighter constraints on the mass associated with the galaxy component, and as a result, on the mass associated with the dark matter halo. Without the spectroscopic velocity dispersions, we would overestimate the mass of the galaxy component by a factor of ∼1.5, or, equivalently, we would underestimate the mass of the cluster dark halo by ∼5 per cent. We perform an additional lensing analysis using surface brightness (SB) reconstruction of the tangential giant arc. This approach improves the constraints on the mass parameters of the five galaxies close to the arc by a factor up to ∼10. The resulting parameters are in good agreement with the σ-rtr scaling relation derived in the pointlike analysis. The galaxy velocity dispersions resulting from the SB analysis are consistent at the 1σ confidence level with the spectroscopic measurements. In contrast, the truncation radii for 2–3 galaxies depart significantly from the galaxy scaling relation and suggest differences in the stripping history from galaxy to galaxy.
Efficacy of Laparoscopic Mini Gastric Bypass for Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background. Controversies on the utility of laparoscopic mini gastric bypass (LMGB) in weight loss and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) control still exist. Methods. We conducted a comprehensive literature search of PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library. Review Manager was used to perform the meta-analysis and the weighted mean difference (WMD) and/or odds ratio with 95% confidence interval (95% CI) were used to evaluate the overall size effect. Results. The literature search identified 16 studies for systematic review and 15 articles for meta-analysis. Compared with LAGB, LSG, and LRYGB, LMGB showed significant weight loss [WMD, −6.58 (95% CI, −9.37, −3.79), P < 0.01 (LAGB); 2.86 (95% CI, 1.40, 5.83), P = 0.004 (LSG); 10.33 (95% CI, 4.30, 16.36), P < 0.01 (LRYGB)] and comparable/higher T2DM remission results [86.2% versus 55.6%, P = 0.06 (LAGB); 89.1% versus 76.3%, P = 0.004 (LAGB); 93.4% versus 77.6%, P = 0.006 (LAGB)]; LMGB also had shorter learning curve and less operation time than LRYGB [WMD, −35.2 (95% CI, −46.94, −23.46)]. Conclusions. LMGB appeared to be effective in weight loss and T2DM remission and noninferior to other bariatric surgeries. However, clinical utility of LMGB needs to be further validated by future prospective randomized controlled trials.
Effects of statins on endothelial function and lipid profile in HIV infected persons receiving protease inhibitor-containing anti-retroviral combination therapy: a randomised double blind crossover trial

Introduction of anti-retroviral combination therapy has profoundly altered both the course and prognosis of the disease in HIV infected persons. Recent data, however, have raised concerns that anti-retroviral combination therapy is associated with premature manifestation of coronary artery disease.1 In particular, protease inhibitors have been linked to metabolic changes such as insulin resistance, abnormalities in lipid metabolism and lipodystrophy, and increased coronary artery calcification. While previous studies have reached conflicting conclusions about the incidence of myocardial infarction, the most substantial database recently provided by Friis-Moller and co-workers demonstrated an increased incidence in HIV infected persons receiving protease inhibitors or non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor-containing therapy.2 One of the postulated mechanisms of pro-atherogenic effects of protease inhibitors is the promotion of atherosclerotic lesion formation by an increase in CD36-dependent cholesteryl ester accumulation in macrophages. Additionally, hypercholesterolaemia promotes a CD36-dependent and endothelial nitric oxide synthase mediated endothelial dysfunction. Endothelial dysfunction is associated with future risk of adverse cardiovascular events.3 Impaired endothelial function was previously shown in HIV infected persons receiving protease inhibitor therapy.4 The effect of statins (hydroxy-methyl-glutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitors) in anti-retroviral combination therapy associated dyslipidaemia remains to be determined. As most statins are metabolised by the cytochrome P450 3A4 isoform, and thus interfere with the metabolism of many anti-retroviral drugs, resulting in increased toxicity, cytochrome P450 independent statins, such as pravastatin, may be advantageous. Hence, the present study aimed to evaluate the effects of pravastatin on endothelial function and plasma lipid profile in …
Improving the Laboratory Learning Experience: A Process to Train and Manage Teaching Assistants

This paper describes in detail a successful training program developed for sessional (part-time or nonpermanent) laboratory demonstrators employed in the Electrical Engineering Department of an Australian university. Such demonstrators play an important role in teaching practical concepts and skills in engineering. The success of the program relies on a centralized approach coordinated by a carefully selected Laboratory Manager responsible for the recruitment, allocation, training, and development of sessional teachers, and for assessing student satisfaction with them. The paper examines the overall impact of the program on these teachers': 1) introducing laboratory material; 2) preparation; 3) communication; 4) interest in student learning; 5) ability to respond to questions; and 6) overall effectiveness. Sessional teacher satisfaction with the training program is also examined, and the data were used to inform the program's further development. The results show that the training program successfully improved the demonstrators' teaching skills and thus led to greater satisfaction and hence learning experience of both students and demonstrators.
Corrigendum to: Phylogeny and biogeography of the ant subfamily Myrmeciinae (Hymenoptera : Formicidae)

We investigated phylogenetic relationships among the 'primitive' Australian ant genera Myrmecia and Nothomyrmecia (stat. rev.) and the Baltic amber fossil genus Prionomyrmex, using a combination of morphological and molecular data. Outgroups for the analysis included representatives from a variety of potential sister-groups, including five extant subfamilies of ants and one extinct group (Sphecomyrminae). Parsimony analysis of the morphological data provides strong support (~95% bootstrap proportions) for the monophyly of (1) genus Myrmecia, (2) genus Prionomyrmex, and (3) a clade containing those two genera plus Nothomyrmecia. A group comprising Nothomyrmecia and Prionomyrmex is also upheld (85% bootstrap support). Molecular sequence data (~2200 base pairs from the 18S and 28S ribosomal RNA genes) corroborate these findings for extant taxa, with Myrmecia and Nothomyrmecia appearing as sister-groups with ~100% bootstrap support under parsimony, neighbour-joining and maximum-likelihood analyses. Neither the molecular nor the morphological data set allows us to identify unambiguously the sister-group of (Myrmecia + (Nothomyrmecia + Prionomyrmex)). Rather, Myrmecia and relatives are part of an unresolved polytomy that encompasses most of the ant subfamilies. Taken as a whole, our results support the contention that many of the major lineages of ants – including a clade that later came to contain Myrmecia, Nothomyrmecia and Prionomyrmex – arose at around the same time during a bout of diversification in the middle or late Cretaceous. On the basis of Bayesian dating analysis, the estimated age of the most recent common ancestor of Myrmecia and Nothomyrmecia is 74 million years (95% confidence limits, 53–101 million years), a result consistent with the origin of the myrmeciine stem lineage in the Cretaceous. The ant subfamily Myrmeciinae is redefined to contain two tribes, Myrmeciini (genus Myrmecia) and Prionomyrmecini (Nothomyrmecia and Prionomyrmex). Phylogenetic analysis of the enigmatic Argentine fossils Ameghinoia and Polanskiella demonstrates that they are also members of the Myrmeciinae, probably more closely related to Prionomyrmecini than to Myrmeciini. Thus, the myrmeciine ants appear to be a formerly widespread group that retained many ancestral formicid characteristics and that became extinct everywhere except in the Australian region.
Asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Prevalence and Health Services Use in Ontario Métis: A Population-Based Cohort Study

Introduction Chronic respiratory diseases cause a significant health and economic burden around the world. In Canada, Aboriginal populations are at increased risk of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). There is little known, however, about these diseases in the Canadian Métis population, who have mixed Aboriginal and European ancestry. A population-based study was conducted to quantify asthma and COPD prevalence and health services use in the Métis population of Ontario, Canada’s largest province. Methods The Métis Nation of Ontario Citizenship Registry was linked to provincial health administrative databases to measure and compare burden of asthma and COPD between the Métis and non-Métis populations of Ontario between 2009 and 2012. Asthma and COPD prevalence, health services use (general physician and specialist visits, emergency department visits, hospitalizations), and mortality were measured. Results Prevalences of asthma and COPD were 30% and 70% higher, respectively, in the Métis compared to the general Ontario population (p<0.001). General physician and specialist visits were significantly lower in Métis with asthma, while general physician visits for COPD were significantly higher. Emergency department visits and hospitalizations were generally higher for Métis compared to non-Métis with either disease. All-cause mortality in Métis with COPD was 1.3 times higher compared to non-Métis with COPD (p = 0.01). Conclusion There is a high burden of asthma and COPD in Ontario Métis, with significant prevalence and acute health services use related to these diseases. Lower rates of physician visits suggest barriers in access to primary care services.
A latent class analysis of adolescent adverse life events based on a Danish national youth probability sample

The aim of this study was to determine if there are meaningful clusters of individuals with similar experiences of adverse life events in a nationally representative sample of Danish adolescents. Latent class analysis (LCA) was used to identify such clusters or latent classes. In addition, the relationships between the latent classes and living arrangements and diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were estimated. A four-class solution was found to be the best description of multiple adverse life events, and the classes were labelled “Low Risk”, “Intermediate Risk”, “Pregnancy” and “High Risk”. Compared with the Low Risk class, the other classes were found to be significantly more likely to have a diagnosis PTSD and live with only one parent. This paper demonstrated how trauma research can focus on the individual as the unit of analysis rather than traumatic events.
DHPLC Screening of ATM Gene in Italian Patients Affected by Ataxia-Telangiectasia: Fourteen Novel ATM Mutations

The gene for ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T:MIM: #208900), ATM, spans about 150 kb of genomic DNA and is composed of 62 coding exons. ATM mutations are found along the entire coding sequence of the gene, without evidence of mutational hot spots. Using DNA as the starting material, we used denaturing high performance liquid chromatography (DHPLC) technique to search for ATM gene mutations. Initially, DHPLC was validated in a retrospective study of 16 positive control samples that included 19 known mutations; 100% of mutations were detected. Subsequently, DHPLC was used to screen for mutations a cohort of 22 patients with the classical form of A-T. A total of 27 different mutations were identified on 38 of the 44 alleles, corresponding to a 86% detection rate. Fourteen of the mutations were novel. In addition, 15 different variants and polymorphisms of unknown functional significance were found. The high incidence of new and individual A-T mutations in our cohort of patients demonstrates marked mutational heterogeneity of A-T in Italy and corroborate the efficiency of DHPLC as a method for the mutation screening of A-T patients.
At the Edge of Chaos: Real-time Computations and Self-Organized Criticality in Recurrent Neural Networks

In this paper we analyze the relationship between the computational capabilities of randomly connected networks of threshold gates in the time-series domain and their dynamical properties. In particular we propose a complexity measure which we find to assume its highest values near the edge of chaos, i.e. the transition from ordered to chaotic dynamics. Furthermore we show that the proposed complexity measure predicts the computational capabilities very well: only near the edge of chaos are such networks able to perform complex computations on time series. Additionally a simple synaptic scaling rule for self-organized criticality is presented and analyzed.
Maximum Bipartite Matching Size And Application to Cuckoo Hashing

Cuckoo hashing with a stash is a robust multiple choice hashing scheme with high memory utilization that can be used in many network device applications. Unfortunately, for memory loads beyond 0.5, little is known on its performance. In this paper, we analyze its average performance over such loads. We tackle this problem by recasting the problem as an analysis of the expected maximum matching size of a given random bipartite graph. We provide exact results for any finite system, and also deduce asymptotic results as the memory size increases. We further consider other variants of this problem, and finally evaluate the performance of our models on Internet backbone traces. More generally, our results give a tight lower bound on the size of the stash needed for any multiple-choice hashing scheme.
An Introduction to Least Commitment Planning

Recent developments have clarified the process of generating partially ordered, partially specified sequences of actions whose execution will achieve an agent's goal. This article summarizes a progression of least commitment planners, starting with one that handles the simple STRIPS representation and ending with UCPOP, a planner that manages actions with disjunctive precondition, conditional effects, and universal quantification over dynamic universes. Along the way, I explain how Chapman's formulation of the modal truth criterion is misleading and why his NP-completeness result for reasoning about plans with conditional effects does not apply to UCPOP.
Different Mismatch Repair Deficiencies All Have the Same Effects on Somatic Hypermutation

Somatic hypermutation of Ig genes is probably dependent on transcription of the target gene via a mutator factor associated with the RNA polymerase (Storb, U., E.L. Klotz, J. Hackett, Jr., K. Kage, G. Bozek, and T.E. Martin. 1998. J. Exp. Med. 188:689–698). It is also probable that some form of DNA repair is involved in the mutation process. It was shown that the nucleotide excision repair proteins were not required, nor were mismatch repair (MMR) proteins. However, certain changes in mutation patterns and frequency of point mutations were observed in Msh2 (MutS homologue) and Pms2 (MutL homologue) MMR-deficient mice (for review see Kim, N., and U. Storb. 1998. J. Exp. Med. 187:1729–1733). These data were obtained from endogenous immunoglobulin (Ig) genes and were presumably influenced by selection of B cells whose Ig genes had undergone certain mutations. In this study, we have analyzed somatic hypermutation in two MutL types of MMR deficiencies, Pms2 and Mlh1. The mutation target was a nonselectable Ig-κ gene with an artificial insert in the V region. We found that both Pms2- and Mlh1-deficient mice can somatically hypermutate the Ig test gene at approximately twofold reduced frequencies. Furthermore, highly mutated sequences are almost absent. Together with the finding of genome instability in the germinal center B cells, these observations support the conclusion, previously reached for Msh2 mice, that MMR-deficient B cells undergoing somatic hypermutation have a short life span. Pms2- and Mlh1-deficient mice also resemble Msh2-deficient mice with respect to preferential targeting of G and C nucleotides. Thus, it appears that the different MMR proteins do not have unique functions with respect to somatic hypermutation. Several intrinsic characteristics of somatic hypermutation remain unaltered in the MMR-deficient mice: a preference for targeting A over T, a strand bias, mutational hot spots, and hypermutability of the artificial insert are all seen in the unselectable Ig gene. This implies that the MMR proteins are not required for and most likely are not involved in the primary step of introducing the mutations. Instead, they are recruited to repair certain somatic point mutations, presumably soon after these are created.
Different secretion patterns of matrix metalloproteinases and IL-8 and effect of corticotropin-releasing hormone in preterm and term cervical fibroblasts

The aims of the present study were to compare the levels of mRNA and protein expression of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-1, -3, -8 and -9 in human cervical tissue in preterm and term labor as well as not in labor and to determine if corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) has an effect on MMP-1, -3 and interleukin (IL)-8 secretion in both preterm and term cervical fibroblasts. Cervical biopsies were taken from 60 women: 18 at preterm labor, 7 at preterm not in labor, 18 at term labor and 17 at term not in labor. ELISA and Immulite were used for protein and real-time RT–PCR for mRNA analysis. Cervical fibroblast cultures were incubated for 18 h with different CRH concentrations (10−13–10−6 M). The mRNA expression of MMP-1, -3 and -9 was higher in laboring groups compared with term not in labor. Protein levels of MMP-8 and -9 were higher in term in labor group compared with non-laboring groups. There were no significant differences in mRNA and protein expression between the preterm and respective term control groups. CRH significantly increased secretion of IL-8 in preterm and term cervical fibroblasts compared with controls. The secretion of IL-8 and MMP-1 was significantly higher and MMP-3 secretion lower in preterm cervical fibroblasts. In conclusion, cervical ripening at preterm seems to be a similar inflammatory process as at term with CRH involved. However, preterm and term cervical fibroblasts might have different phenotypes based on different secretion patterns of IL-8, MMP-1 and MMP-3.
A New Visual Rating Scale to Assess Strategic White Matter Hyperintensities Within Cholinergic Pathways in Dementia

Background and Purpose— One possible mechanism of cognitive decline in individuals with subcortical vascular disease is disruption of cholinergic fibers by ischemic lesions, such as strategically located white matter hyperintensities (WMH). The authors applied a new MRI visual rating scale to assess WMH within cholinergic pathways in patients with Alzheimer Disease (AD) and subcortical ischemic microvascular disease. Methods— Subjects included 60 AD patients with and without WMH, matched for age, as well as 15 control subjects. A visual rating scale was developed based on published immunohistochemical tracings of the cholinergic pathways in humans. On 4 selected axial images, the severity of WMH in the cholinergic pathways was rated on a 3-point scale for ten regions, identified with major anatomical landmarks. A published, consensus-derived, general WMH scale was also applied. All subjects underwent standardized neuropsychological testing. Results— The Cholinergic Pathways HyperIntensities Scale showed reliability and was validated with volumetry of strategic WMH. After accounting for age and education in a multiple linear regression model, The Cholinergic Pathways HyperIntensities Scale ratings were associated with impaired performance on the Mattis Dementia Rating Scale (r=0.40; P=0.02) and accounted for 12% of the variance (corrected r2). A similar model was not significant for general WMH scores. Conclusions— The new MRI rating scale for WMH in cholinergic pathways is reliable and shows stronger correlations with cognitive performance than a general WMH rating scale in AD with WMH. This new rating scale provides indirect evidence that localization of WMH within neurotransmitter systems may contribute to cognitive decline.
On causality and mutual information

We provide for the first time a formulation of non-linear, nonstationary causality in terms of mutual information. We provide two fundamental mutual information identities; the first relating Granger type causality to Sims type causality. The second providing a decomposition of mutual information into a sum of Granger and Sims type terms. We also develop asymptotic relations that emerge under strict stationarity and generalise earlier work of Geweke. We relate our work in general with earlier developments.