Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
New asymptotic bounds for self-dual codes and lattices

We give an independent proof of the Krasikov-Litsyn bound d/n/spl lsim/(1-5/sup -1/4/)/2 on doubly-even self-dual binary codes. The technique used (a refinement of the Mallows-Odlyzko-Sloane approach) extends easily to other families of self-dual codes, modular lattices, and quantum codes; in particular, we show that the Krasikov-Litsyn bound applies to singly-even binary codes, and obtain an analogous bound for unimodular lattices. We also show that in each case, our bound differs from the true optimum by an amount growing faster than O(/spl radic/n).
Obstructive Sleep Apnea Impairs Postexercise Sympathovagal Balance in Patients with Metabolic Syndrome.

STUDY OBJECTIVES The attenuation of heart rate recovery after maximal exercise (ΔHRR) is independently impaired by obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and metabolic syndrome (MetS). Therefore, we tested the hypotheses: (1) MetS + OSA restrains ΔHRR; and (2) Sympathetic hyperactivation is involved in this impairment. DESIGN Cross-sectional study. PARTICIPANTS We studied 60 outpatients in whom MetS had been newly diagnosed (ATP III), divided according to apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) ≥ 15 events/h in MetS + OSA (n = 30, 49 ± 1.7 y) and AHI < 15 events/h in MetS - OSA (n = 30, 46 ± 1.4 y). Normal age-matched healthy control subjects (C) without MetS and OSA were also enrolled (n = 16, 46 ± 1.7 y). INTERVENTIONS Polysomnography, microneurography, cardiopulmonary exercise test. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS We evaluated OSA (AHI - polysomnography), muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA - microneurography) and cardiac autonomic activity (LF = low frequency, HF = high frequency, LF/HF = sympathovagal balance) based on spectral analysis of heart rate (HR) variability. ΔHRR was calculated (peak HR minus HR at first, second, and fourth minute of recovery) after cardiopulmonary exercise test. MetS + OSA had higher MSNA and LF, and lower HF than MetS - OSA and C. Similar impairment occurred in MetS - OSA versus C (interaction, P < 0.01). MetS + OSA had attenuated ΔHRR at first, second, and at fourth minute than did C, and attenuated ΔHRR at fourth minute than did MetS - OSA (interaction, P < 0.001). Compared with C, MetS - OSA had attenuated ΔHRR at second and fourth min (interaction, P < 0.001). Further analysis showed association of the ΔHRR (first, second, and fourth minute) and AHI, MSNA, LF and HF components (P < 0.05 for all associations). CONCLUSIONS The attenuation of heart rate recovery after maximal exercise is impaired to a greater degree where metabolic syndrome (MetS) is associated with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) than by MetS with no or mild or no OSA. This is at least partly explained by sympathetic hyperactivity.
A Master Equation Formalism for Macroscopic Modeling of Asynchronous Irregular Activity States

Many efforts have been devoted to modeling asynchronous irregular (AI) activity states, which resemble the complex activity states seen in the cerebral cortex of awake animals. Most of models have considered balanced networks of excitatory and inhibitory spiking neurons in which AI states are sustained through recurrent sparse connectivity, with or without external input. In this letter we propose a mesoscopic description of such AI states. Using master equation formalism, we derive a second-order mean-field set of ordinary differential equations describing the temporal evolution of randomly connected balanced networks. This formalism takes into account finite size effects and is applicable to any neuron model as long as its transfer function can be characterized. We compare the predictions of this approach with numerical simulations for different network configurations and parameter spaces. Considering the randomly connected network as a unit, this approach could be used to build large-scale networks of such connected units, with an aim to model activity states constrained by macroscopic measurements, such as voltage-sensitive dye imaging.
One-way quantum computing with arbitrarily large time-frequency continuous-variable cluster states from a single optical parametric oscillator

One-way quantum computing is experimentally appealing because it requires only local measurements on an entangled resource called a cluster state. Record-size, but nonuniversal, continuous-variable cluster states were recently demonstrated separately in the time and frequency domains. We propose to combine these approaches into a scalable architecture in which a single optical parametric oscillator and simple interferometer entangle up to (3×103 frequencies) × (unlimited number of temporal modes) into a computationally universal continuous-variable cluster state. We introduce a generalized measurement protocol to enable improved computational performance on this entanglement resource.
The relationship between utterance type and F0 contour in German

In this study we investigate the intonational characteristics of the four utterance types statement, wh-question, yes/no-question and declarative question. Readings of two German scripted dialogues were examined to ascertain characteristic features of the F0 contour for each utterance type. Final boundary tone, nuclear pitch accent, F0 offset, F0 onset, F0 range, and the slopes of a topline and a bottomline were determined for each utterance and compared for the four utterance types. Results show that for an average speaker, the final boundary tone, the F0 range, and the slope of the topline can be used to distinguish between the four utterance types. However, speakers may deviate from this pattern and exploit other intonational means to distinguish certain utterance types or choose not to mark a syntactic difference at all.
Spatial Weighting for Bag-of-Features

This paper presents an extension to category classification with bag-of-features, which represents an image as an orderless distribution of features. We propose a method to exploit spatial relations between features by utilizing object boundaries provided during supervised training. We boost the weights of features that agree on the position and shape of the object and suppress the weights of background features, hence the name of our method - "spatial weighting". The proposed representation is thus richer and more robust to background clutter. Experimental results show that our approach improves the results of one of the best current image classification techniques. Furthermore, we propose to apply the spatial model to object localization. Initial results are promising.
PROSTAGLANDIN INDUCTION OF LUTEOLYSIS

The prostaglandins produce many physiological and pharmacological effects,but whether the pharmacological activities reflect any physiological role of the prostaglandins remains unclear. Probably the best documented is a potential obligatory role of prostaglandins in luteinizing hormone(LH) stimulation of ovarian steroidogenesis(Pharriss,l97Oa). There is one inconsistency in this theory,however,prostaglandins have a negative effect in vivo on luteal activity in animals in a stage of active luteal metabolism and progesterone secretion(Pharriss & Wyngarden,l969). Specifically it has been shown that PGF2,,PGFl, and PGE2 can cause rapid irreversible destruction of the progesterone synthesizing mechanism of luteal tissue of pregnant rabbits and rats (Gutknecht et al,l970a),hamsters(Gutknecht et alIl970c)and rhesus monkeys(Kirton et alIl970),pseudopregnant rabbits and rats(Pharriss & WyngardenIl969)and cycling guinea pigs (Blatchley & Donovan,l969). This paper will discuss the possible mechanisms whereby prostaglandins are luteolytic, the role of luteolysis in pregnancy and the functionality of this information for design of a monthly antifertility preparation for human fertility control. A recent discussion of the pharmacological role of prostaglandins in obstetrics and gynecology has been published and gives a current review of the clinical data pertaining to this area (Pharriss, 1970~) .
Testosterone Increases Susceptibility to Amebic Liver Abscess in Mice and Mediates Inhibition of IFNγ Secretion in Natural Killer T Cells

Amebic liver abscess (ALA), a parasitic disease due to infection with the protozoan Entamoeba histolytica, occurs age and gender dependent with strong preferences for adult males. Using a mouse model for ALA with a similar male bias for the disease, we have investigated the role of female and male sexual hormones and provide evidence for a strong contribution of testosterone. Removal of testosterone by orchiectomy significantly reduced sizes of abscesses in male mice, while substitution of testosterone increased development of ALA in female mice. Activation of natural killer T (NKT) cells, which are known to be important for the control of ALA, is influenced by testosterone. Specifically activated NKT cells isolated from female mice produce more IFNγ compared to NKT cells derived from male mice. This high level production of IFNγ in female derived NKT cells was inhibited by testosterone substitution, while the IFNγ production in male derived NKT cells was increased by orchiectomy. Gender dependent differences were not a result of differences in the total number of NKT cells, but a result of a higher activation potential for the CD4− NKT cell subpopulation in female mice. Taken together, we conclude that the hormone status of the host, in particular the testosterone level, determines susceptibility to ALA at least in a mouse model of the disease.
The diagnostic performance evaluation of the SD BIOLINE HIV/syphilis Duo rapid test in southern Ethiopia: a cross-sectional study

Objective To determine the diagnostic performance of the SD BIOLINE HIV/syphilis Duo rapid test. Design A hospital-based cross-sectional study. Setting This evaluation was conducted at one of the largest hospitals in southern Ethiopia. Participants Serum samples obtained from clients attending the antiretroviral therapy and voluntary counselling and testing centres were used. Sera were originally collected for the purpose of investigating syphilis epidemiology. The performance of the test to detect HIV was evaluated using 400 sera (200 HIV positives and 200 HIV negatives). Also, its performance to detect syphilis was evaluated using 85 syphilis positive and 100 syphilis negative serum samples. Individuals <15 years of age or syphilis treated or those with ≤50 cells/µL CD4 cell count were originally excluded. Outcome measures HIV screening was carried out according to the national rapid diagnostic testing (RDT) algorithm: Shenghai Kehua Bioengineering (KHB) test kit as a screening test, followed by the HIV1/2 STAT-PAK assay if positive. Where the result of the STAT-PAK is discordant with KHB, Unigold HIV is used as a tiebreaker to determine the result. We also used ELISA to resolve discordant HIV results. Syphilis serostatus was determined using the Treponema pallidum haemagglutination assay (TPHA). Results The respective sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of the SD BIOLINE HIV/syphilis Duo test were 100, 99.5, 99.5 and 100% for HIV and 97.6, 96, 95.4 and 98% for syphilis testing, respectively. In reference to TPHA, the test kit reported 4 false positives and 2 false negative results for syphilis. The κ values were 0.99 for HIV testing and 0.94 for syphilis testing. Conclusions The excellent performance of the SD BIOLINE HIV/syphilis Duo test to detect HIV as well as syphilis facilitates the integration of syphilis testing and treatment to the already established HIV prevention programme, ultimately contributing to the dual HIV and syphilis elimination goal.
Continuous vs. intermittent administration of antimicrobial agents: tissue penetration and efficacy in vivo.

Two experimental models, fibrin clot and pyelonephritis, were used to study the influence of continuous and intermittent administration of antimicrobial agents on penetration of drug into tissues and efficacy in vivo. In the fibrin-clot model, clots infected with Streptococcus faecalis were inserted subcutaneously into rabbits; in the pyelonephritis model, Escherichia coli was injected into the left kidneys of rats. In the experiments with rabbits, the bactericidal activity of the serum against S. faecalis was two to eight times greater after bolus injections of a combination of penicillin G and gentamicin than after continuous infusion of a similar dose of either drug alone. Synergism in vivo, as determined by counts of live bacteria in the clots, was demonstrated after bolus injections of these two drugs, but constant infusion of the combination was not synergistic. In the experiments with rats, two types of pyelonephritis were produced: a severe infection induced by direct inoculation of E. coli into the left kidney and a less severe infection caused by reflux of infected urine into the right ureter and right kidney. Treatment with gentamicin or ampicillin alone or in combination, or with the combination trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, was started 24 hr after inoculation. Injections of gentamicin (10 mg/kg) every 12 hr for seven days resulted in continuous levels of drug in the medulla that persisted above the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) for the infecting strain of E. coli throughout a period > 32 days. Eighty percent of the left and right kidneys and urine were found to be sterile on the 25th day after cessation of therapy. Ampicillin (100 mg/kg), which was administered every 6 hr for seven days, was found in high concentrations in the urine and papilla but had a very short half-life in the medulla. Ampicillin sterilized only 22o7 of the left kidneys, but the cure rate for the right kidneys was 75Wo. Even though seven days of treatment with the combination of trimethoprim (10 mg/kg every 12 hr) and sulfamethoxazole (50 mg/kg every 12 hr) induced peak drug concentrations in the medulla and papilla that were up to 500 times higher than the MIC, none of the left kidneys and only 33% of the right kidneys were sterile 25 days after cessation of therapy. Gentamicin (10 mg/kg every 8 hr) given for three days in association with ampicillin (100 mg/kg every 6 hr) for seven days was the most effective treatment. The greater effectiveness of this combination might have been the result of what we call "anatomic synergy. " Concentrations of drug in serum and urine were poor predictors of both the intrarenal distribution of drugs and the outcome of pyelonephritis. On the other hand, the level of drug in the renal tissue was not always a reliable indicator of efficacy in vivo.
Grasping Unknown Objects with a Humanoid Robot

This paper combines the authors’ previous work on a self-calibrated, position based visual servoing framework for a humanoid robot, with a robust laser stripe scanner that can capture registered colour/range measurements of arbitrary objects in ambient indoor light. Using stereo measurements for validation, the laser scanner is robust against sensor noise, spurious reflections and cross talk from other robots. Range data is processed to identify objects of interest in the workspace, which are modelled using simple geometric primitives. The resulting textured 3D models can be used for recognition, tracking and grasp planning. Finally, we present a simple grasp planner that guides visual servoing in the task of grasping a modelled object. The fusion of these components allows the humanoid robot to locate and grasp a class of a priori unknown objects in its workspace. The effectiveness of these techniques are demonstrated on an experimental humanoid platform.
Anthropometric growth and utilization of enteral feeding support in pediatric heart transplant recipients

Bannister L, Manlhiot C, Pollock‐BarZiv S, Stone T, McCrindle BW, Dipchand AI. Anthropometric growth and utilization of enteral feeding support in pediatric heart transplant recipients. Pediatr Transplantation 2010: 14:879–886. © 2010 John Wiley & Sons A/S.
Automated pressure-controlled discography with constant injection speed and real-time pressure measurement.

OBJECTIVE This study was designed to investigate automated pressure-controlled discography (APCD) findings, to calculate the elastance of intervertebral discs, and to assess the relationship between the calculated elastance and disc degeneration. METHODS APCD was performed in 19 patients. There were a total of 49 intervertebral discs treated. Following intradiscal puncture, a dye was constantly injected and the intradiscal pressure was continuously measured. The elastance of the intervertebral disc was defined as unit change in intradiscal pressure per fractional change in injected dye volume. Disc degeneration was graded using a modified Dallas discogram scale. RESULTS The mean elastance was 43.0 +/- 9.6 psi/mL in Grade 0, 39.5 +/- 8.3 psi/mL in Grade 1, 30.5 +/- 22.3 psi/mL in Grade 2, 30.5 +/- 22.3 psi/mL in Grade 3, 13.2 +/- 8.3 psi/mL in Grade 4 and 6.9 +/- 3.8 psi/mL in Grade 5. The elastance showed significant negative correlation with the degree of degeneration (R(2) = 0.529, p = 0.000). CONCLUSION APCD liberates the examiner from the data acquisition process during discography. This will likely improve the quality of data and the reliability of discography. Elastance could be used as an indicator of disc degeneration.
Many Parents Think Their Child Is Dying when Having à First Febrile Convulsion

Fifty parents of 36 consecutive children admitted to hospital with their first febrile convulsion were interviewed shortly after the event. Very few parents voluntarily said that they had thought their child was dying, but when asked specifically the majority said they had thought the child was dying or likely to die. This common fear should be kept in mind when discussing febrile convulsions with parents, who are unlikely to volunteer the information.
Learning Entailment Relations by Global Graph Structure Optimization

Identifying entailment relations between predicates is an important part of applied semantic inference. In this article we propose a global inference algorithm that learns such entailment rules. First, we define a graph structure over predicates that represents entailment relations as directed edges. Then, we use a global transitivity constraint on the graph to learn the optimal set of edges, formulating the optimization problem as an Integer Linear Program. The algorithm is applied in a setting where, given a target concept, the algorithm learns on the fly all entailment rules between predicates that co-occur with this concept. Results show that our global algorithm improves performance over baseline algorithms by more than 10%.
Simplification of Training Data for Cross-Project Defect Prediction

Cross-project defect prediction (CPDP) plays an important role in estimating the most likely defect-prone software components, especially for new or inactive projects. To the best of our knowledge, few prior studies provide explicit guidelines on how to select suitable training data of quality from a large number of public software repositories. In this paper, we have proposed a training data simplification method for practical CPDP in consideration of multiple levels of granularity and filtering strategies for data sets. In addition, we have also provided quantitative evidence on the selection of a suitable filter in terms of defect-proneness ratio. Based on an empirical study on 34 releases of 10 open-source projects, we have elaborately compared the prediction performance of different defect predictors built with five well-known classifiers using training data simplified at different levels of granularity and with two popular filters. The results indicate that when using the multi-granularity simplification method with an appropriate filter, the prediction models based on Naive Bayes can achieve fairly good performance and outperform the benchmark method.
Modelling single nucleotide effects in phosphoglucose isomerase on dispersal in the Glanville fritillary butterfly: coupling of ecological and evolutionary dynamics

Dispersal comprises a complex life-history syndrome that influences the demographic dynamics of especially those species that live in fragmented landscapes, the structure of which may in turn be expected to impose selection on dispersal. We have constructed an individual-based evolutionary sexual model of dispersal for species occurring as metapopulations in habitat patch networks. The model assumes correlated random walk dispersal with edge-mediated behaviour (habitat selection) and spatially correlated stochastic local dynamics. The model is parametrized with extensive data for the Glanville fritillary butterfly. Based on empirical results for a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the phosphoglucose isomerase (Pgi) gene, we assume that dispersal rate in the landscape matrix, fecundity and survival are affected by a locus with two alleles, A and C, individuals with the C allele being more mobile. The model was successfully tested with two independent empirical datasets on spatial variation in Pgi allele frequency. First, at the level of local populations, the frequency of the C allele is the highest in newly established isolated populations and the lowest in old isolated populations. Second, at the level of sub-networks with dissimilar numbers and connectivities of patches, the frequency of C increases with decreasing network size and hence with decreasing average metapopulation size. The frequency of C is the highest in landscapes where local extinction risk is high and where there are abundant opportunities to establish new populations. Our results indicate that the strength of the coupling of the ecological and evolutionary dynamics depends on the spatial scale and is asymmetric, demographic dynamics having a greater immediate impact on genetic dynamics than vice versa.
Ejaculate fractioning effect on llama sperm head morphometry as assessed by the ISAS(®) CASA system.

South American camelid sperm characteristics are poorly known compared with those of other domestic animals. The long-term duration of ejaculation makes difficult to gather all the seminal fluid, implying possible ejaculation portion losses. Thus, the aim of this research was to evaluate the characteristics of the morphology and morphometry of the spermatozoa change during ejaculation. The morphometric characterization was tested on nine specimens of the Lanuda breed, using a special artificial vagina. In five of the animals, a fractioning of the ejaculate was performed by taking samples every 5 min. for a total of 20 min. Air-dried seminal smears were stained with Hemacolor and mounted permanently with Eukitt. Morphometric analysis was carried out with the morphometry module of the ISAS(®) CASA system. Almost 350 cells were analysed per sample, with a total number of 3207 spermatozoa. Mean values were given as follows: length: 5.51 μm; width: 3.38 μm; area: 17.75 μm(2) ; perimeter: 14.8 μm; ellipticity: 0.24; elongation: 0.56; rugosity: 0.87; regularity: 1.07; and shape factor: 1.41. Different animals showed differences in their morphometric values. When we compared the values from different fractions, only two samples showed differences in morphometric parameter values and four samples showed differences in shape parameters. Multivariate analysis allowed the size classification of the cells into three classes and five classes of shapes. The distribution of classes among fractions showed no differences. Despite the individual morphometric differences observed in some fractions, the characteristics of the sperm head morphometry can be considered constant along the ejaculatory period in the llama.