Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Vegetarian supplemented low-protein diets. A safe option for pregnant CKD patients: report of 12 pregnancies in 11 patients.

BACKGROUND Pregnancy in CKD is an increasing challenge, considering also the paucity of therapeutic tools available in pregnant women. While theoretically interesting, the experience with low protein diets in pregnancy is limited. Aim of this feasibility study is to review our experience with supplemented vegetarian low protein diets in pregnancy, as a "rescue treatment" for severe CKD and/or proteinuria. METHODS Data were gathered prospectively. Diet schema: proteins: 0.6-0.7 g/Kg/day, amino and chetoacid supplementation, 1-3 free meals/week. Compliance, side effects, biochemical data recorded at each visit (at least twice monthly). RESULTS Between January 2000 and February 2010, out of 168 pregnancies referred, 12 were managed by the diet (11 patients; median age 33, range 20-38). One pregnancy was terminated (patient's choice); the other 10 patients delivered 11 healthy babies. At referral, 2 patients were in stage 4 CKD, 4 in stage 3, 4 had nephrotic proteinuria (3.6-6.3 g/day). One patient doubled serum creatinine; none needed renal replacement therapy within 6 months from delivery. No patient complained of side effects, nor developed hyperkalemia or hypercalcaemia. Two babies from mothers in CKD stage 4 were small for gestational age; 9/11 were delivered by caesarean section (median gestational age 33 weeks: range 28-37; birth weight 935-2620 g) within a policy of delivery in the presence of foetal growth impairment and/or worsening of proteinuria, GFR, hypertension or foetal conditions. All babies are well, 1 month, 7.5 years from delivery. CONCLUSION Our report suggests considering vegetarian diets as an additional tool in the management of pregnant CKD patients.
The Chemical Inhomogeneity of Faint M13 Stars: Carbon and Nitrogen Abundances

Building upon earlier observations that demonstrate substantial star-to-star differences in the carbon abundances of M13 subgiants, we present new Keck LRIS spectra reaching more that 1.5 mag below the M13 main-sequence turnoff (to V ≈ 20). Our analysis reveals a distribution of C abundances similar to that found among the subgiants, implying little change in the compositions of the M13 stars at least through the main-sequence turnoff. We presume these differences to be the result of some process operating early in the cluster history. Additional spectra of previously studied bright M13 giants have been obtained with the 5 m Hale Telescope. A comparison of C abundances derived using the present methods and those from the literature yield a mean difference of 0.03 ± 0.14 dex for four stars in common with the 1996 study by Smith et al. and 0.14 ± 0.07 dex for stars also observed in Suntzeff's 1981 survey (if one extreme case is removed). We conclude that the lower surface C abundances of these luminous giants as compared with the subgiants and main-sequence stars are likely the result of mixing rather than a difference in our abundance scales. NH band strengths have also been measured for a handful of the most luminous M13 turnoff stars. While molecular band formation in such stars is weak, significant star-to-star NH band strength differences are present. Moreover, for the stars with both C and N measurements, differences between stars in these two elements appear to be anticorrelated. Finally, the most recent C and N abundances for main-sequence, main-sequence turnoff, and subgiant stars in 47 Tuc, M71, M5, and the present M13 data are compared.
Synchronization in multi-agent systems with switching topologies and non-homogeneous communication delays

We study the synchronization problem for n single state agents with linear continuous time dynamics. The agent states are required to synchronize and travel at a desired common speed. This problem arises naturally in the design of coordinated path-following algorithms problem [9] and in studies on the synchronization of Kuramoto oscillator networks [17]. When the desired speed is zero or there are no time delays, it has been shown in the literature that a so-called neighboring control rule makes the states synchronize asymptotically under some connectivity conditions on the union of the underlying communication graphs. We will show that when both the desired speed and the communication delay are non-zero, the behavior of the synchronization system changes significantly. We start by considering asymmetric networks and switching topologies with homogeneous time delays. We then address some issues related to the behavior of the synchronization system in the presence of heterogeneous time delays. We provide connectivity conditions under which the synchronization problem is solved and introduce synchronization laws that compensates for the effect of non-zero speed and time delays. Simulations illustrate the synchronization of three agents.
Martingale models for quantum state reduction

Stochastic models for quantum state reduction give rise to statistical laws that are in most respects in agreement with those of quantum measurement theory. Here we examine the correspondence of the two theories in detail, making a systematic use of the methods of martingale theory. An analysis is carried out to determine the magnitude of the fluctuations experienced by the expectation of the observable during the course of the reduction process and an upper bound is established for the ensemble average of the greatest fluctuations incurred. We consider the general projection postulate of L¨ uders applicable in the case of a possibly degenerate eigenvalue spectrum, and derive this result rigorously from the underlying stochastic dynamics for state reduction in the case of both a pure and a mixed initial state. We also analyse the associated Lindblad equation for the evolution of the density matrix, and obtain an exact time-dependent solution for the state reduction that explicitly exhibits the transition from a general initial density matrix to the L¨ uders density matrix. Finally, we apply Girsanov’s theorem to derive a set of simple formulae for the dynamics of the state in terms of a family of geometric Brownian motions, thereby constructing an explicit unravelling of the Lindblad equation.
Teacher perceptions and management of challenging student behaviours in primary school classrooms

i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii LIST OF TABLES iv LIST OF FIGURES v CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Introduction 1 Background Information 1 Rationale 2 Research Aims, Questions and Setting 5 Thesis Organisation 6 CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW Introduction 9 Part One: Understanding challenging behaviours and teacher perceptions 9 Part Two: Limitations in defining behaviour 12 Part Three: Challenging behaviours in context 15 Part Four: Teacher perceptions regarding challenging behaviours 22 Part Five: Role of the teacher and effective strategies in promoting teaching and managing student behaviour 27 Part Six: Issues, importance of teacher student relationships and its effect on behaviour 28 Part Seven: Diversity in learning preferences 39
Interplay between PKCδ and Sp1 on Histone Deacetylase Inhibitor-Mediated Epstein-Barr Virus Reactivation

ABSTRACT Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) undergoes latent and lytic replication cycles, and its reactivation from latency to lytic replication is initiated by expression of the two viral immediate-early transactivators, Zta and Rta. In vitro, reactivation of EBV can be induced by anti-immunoglobulin, tetradecanoyl phorbol acetate, and histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDACi). We have discovered that protein kinase C delta (PKCδ) is required specifically for EBV reactivation by HDACi. Overexpression of PKCδ is sufficient to induce the activity of the Zta promoter (Zp) but not of the Rta promoter (Rp). Deletion analysis revealed that the ZID element of Zp is important for PKCδ activation. Moreover, the Sp1 putative sequence on ZID is essential for PKCδ-induced Zp activity, and the physiological binding of Sp1 on ZID has been confirmed. After HDACi treatment, activated PKCδ can phosphorylate Sp1 at serine residues and might result in dissociation of the HDAC2 repressor from ZID. HDACi-mediated HDAC2-Sp1 dissociation can be inhibited by the PKCδ inhibitor, Rotterlin. Furthermore, overexpression of HDAC2 can suppress the HDACi-induced Zp activity. Consequently, we hypothesize that HDACi induces PKCδ activation, causing phosphorylation of Sp1, and that the interplay between PKCδ and Sp1 results in the release of HDAC2 repressor from Zp and initiation of Zta expression.
Affect and Cognition in Attitude Formation toward Familiar and Unfamiliar Attitude Objects

At large attitudes are built on earlier experience with the attitude object. If earlier experiences are not available, as is the case for unfamiliar attitude objects such as new technologies, no stored evaluations exist. Yet, people are still somehow able to construct attitudes on the spot. Depending on the familiarity of the attitude object, attitudes may find their basis more in affect or cognition. The current paper investigates differences in reliance on affect or cognition in attitude formation toward familiar and unfamiliar realistic attitude objects. In addition, individual differences in reliance on affect (high faith in intuition) or cognition (high need for cognition) are taken into account. In an experimental survey among Dutch consumers (N = 1870), we show that, for unfamiliar realistic attitude objects, people rely more on affect than cognition. For familiar attitude objects where both affective and cognitive evaluations are available, high need for cognition leads to more reliance on cognition, and high faith in intuition leads to more reliance on affect, reflecting the influence of individually preferred thinking style. For people with high need for cognition, cognition has a higher influence on overall attitude for both familiar and unfamiliar realistic attitude objects. On the other hand, affect is important for people with high faith in intuition for both familiar and unfamiliar attitude objects and for people with low faith in intuition for unfamiliar attitude objects; this shows that preferred thinking style is less influential for unfamiliar objects. By comparing attitude formation for familiar and unfamiliar realistic attitude objects, this research contributes to understanding situations in which affect or cognition is the better predictor of overall attitudes.
Functional drug screening reveals anticonvulsants as enhancers of mTOR-independent autophagic killing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis through inositol depletion

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) remains a major challenge to global health made worse by the spread of multidrug resistance. We therefore examined whether stimulating intracellular killing of mycobacteria through pharmacological enhancement of macroautophagy might provide a novel therapeutic strategy. Despite the resistance of MTB to killing by basal autophagy, cell‐based screening of FDA‐approved drugs revealed two anticonvulsants, carbamazepine and valproic acid, that were able to stimulate autophagic killing of intracellular M. tuberculosis within primary human macrophages at concentrations achievable in humans. Using a zebrafish model, we show that carbamazepine can stimulate autophagy in vivo and enhance clearance of M. marinum, while in mice infected with a highly virulent multidrug‐resistant MTB strain, carbamazepine treatment reduced bacterial burden, improved lung pathology and stimulated adaptive immunity. We show that carbamazepine induces antimicrobial autophagy through a novel, evolutionarily conserved, mTOR‐independent pathway controlled by cellular depletion of myo‐inositol. While strain‐specific differences in susceptibility to in vivo carbamazepine treatment may exist, autophagy enhancement by repurposed drugs provides an easily implementable potential therapy for the treatment of multidrug‐resistant mycobacterial infection.
An EM algorithm for the estimation of parametric and nonparametric hierarchical nonlinear models

It is shown how to implement an EM algorithm for maximum likelihood estimation of hierarchical nonlinear models for data sets consisting of more than two levels of nesting. This upward–downward algorithm makes use of the conditional independence assumptions implied by the hierarchical model. It cannot only be used for the estimation of models with a parametric specification of the random effects, but also to extend the two‐level nonparametric approach – sometimes referred to as latent class regression – to three or more levels. The proposed approach is illustrated with an empirical application.
Healthcare Information Privacy Research: Iusses, Gaps and What Next?

The proliferation of e-health holds great promises in sharing medical data, improving healthcare quality, saving patient lives and reducing costs. However, these potential benefits also bring much attention to the issues of information privacy. Given that medical data disclosure is the second highest reported breaches, it is imperative to understand both information privacy and its context in healthcare. Just as lack of appropriate privacy measures might cause economic harm or denied service from insurance or employers, tight privacy can prevent care providers from accessing patient information in time to save lives. This paper takes an integrated look into the area of healthcare information privacy from both MIS and health informatics perspectives. Based on the literature review and our personal communication with health informatics experts, we identified and presented four major themes: 1) scope and definition of privacy and electronic health records, 2) the information privacy issues and threats, 3) the countermeasures used to address and manage information privacy and 4) why privacy responses matter. This paper provides a unique perspective to privacy in the context of healthcare by focusing on the issues, the matching countermeasures and the drivers behind organizational behaviors into how they manage these threats.
Stochastic Master Equations in Thermal Environment

We derive stochastic master equations which describe the evolution of open quantum systems in contact with a heat bath and undergoing indirect measurements. These equations are obtained as a limit of a quantum repeated measurement model where we consider a small system in contact with an infinite chain at positive temperature. It is well-known that at zero temperature one obtains stochastic differential equations of jump-diffusion type. We show that only pure diffusion type equations are relevant at strictly positive temperatures.
Says Who…? Identification of Expert versus Layman Critics’ Reviews of Documentary Films

We extend classic review mining work by building a binary classifier that predicts whether a review of a documentary film was written by an expert or a layman with 90.70% accuracy (F1 score), and compare the characteristics of the predicted classes. A variety of standard lexical and syntactic features was used for this supervised learning task. Our results suggest that experts write comparatively lengthier and more detailed reviews that feature more complex grammar and a higher diversity in their vocabulary. Layman reviews are more subjective and contextualized in peoples’ everyday lives. Our error analysis shows that laymen are about twice as likely to be mistaken as experts than vice versa. We argue that the type of author might be a useful new feature for improving the accuracy of predicting the rating, helpfulness and authenticity of reviews. Finally, the outcomes of this work might help researchers and practitioners in the field of impact assessment to gain a more fine-grained understanding of the perception of different types of media consumers and reviewers of a topic, genre or information product.
New approaches to routing for large-scale data networks

This thesis develops new routing methods for large-scale, packet-switched data networks such as the Internet. The methods developed increase network performance by considering routing approaches that take advantage of more available network resources than do current methods. Two approaches are explored: dynamic metric and multipath routing. Dynamic metric routing provides paths that change dynamically in response to network traffic and congestion, thereby increasing network performance because data travel less congested paths. The second approach, multipath routing, provides multiple paths between nodes and allows nodes to use these paths to best increase their network performance. Nodes in this environment achieve increased performance through aggregating the resources of multiple paths. This thesis implements and analyzes algorithms for these two routing approaches. The first approach develops hybrid-Scout, a dynamic metric routing algorithm that calculates independent and selective dynamic metric paths. These two calculation properties are key to reducing routing costs and avoiding routing instabilities, two difficulties commonly experienced in traditional dynamic metric routing. For the second approach, multipath routing, this thesis develops a complete multipath network that includes the following components: routing algorithms that compute multiple paths, a multipath forwarding method to ensure that data travel their specified paths, and an end-host protocol that effectively uses multiple paths. Simulations of these two routing approaches and their components demonstrate significant improvement over traditional routing strategies. The hybrid-Scout algorithm requires 3–4 times to 1–2 orders of magnitude less routing cost compared to traditional dynamic metric routing algorithms while delivering comparable network performance. For multipath routing, nodes using the multipath protocol fully exploit the offered paths and increase performance linearly in the additional resources provided by the multipath network. The performance improvements validate the multipath routing algorithms and the effectiveness of the proposed end-host protocol. Furthermore, this new multipath forwarding method allows multipath networks to be supported at low routing costs. This thesis demonstrates that the proposed methods to implement dynamic metric and multipath routing are efficient and deliver significant performance improvements.
Fortuitous FISH diagnosis of an interstitial microdeletion (5)(q31.1q31.2) in a girl suspected to present a cri‐du‐chat syndrome

Constitutional interstitial deletions of 5q are relatively rare and most are poorly characterized cytogenetically. Consequently a definite karyotype–phenotype correlation is difficult to establish. We report on a new case of a girl presenting with an abnormal cry, upslanting palpebral fissures, hypertelorism, anteverted nostrils, microretrognathia, growth retardation, and an adenoid cyst at the base of the tongue. The first suspected diagnosis was cri‐du‐chat syndrome because of the mewing cry. Standard cytogenetic analyses were interpreted as normal, but FISH studies using the probe of cri‐du‐chat syndrome with the control probe EGR1 (5q31.2)/D5S23 (Abbott) revealed a 5q31.2 microdeletion which was then confirmed by CGH‐array (Abbott). FISH studies using PACs and BACs clones (Rocchi, Italia) enabled us to characterize the breakpoints of the deleted region. Cytogenetic analysis with FISH studies revealed a normal karyotype with normal 5q31 region in both parents. This case is compared with the other cases reported in the literature. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Intransitivity in Theory and in the Real World

This work considers reasons for and implications of discarding the assumption of transitivity, which (transitivity) is the fundamental postulate in the utility theory of Von Neumann and Morgenstern, the adiabatic accessibility principle of Caratheodory and most other theories related to preferences or competition. The examples of intransitivity are drawn from different fields, such as law, biology, game theory, economics and competitive evolutionary dynamic. This work is intended as a common platform that allows us to discuss intransitivity in the context of different disciplines. The basic concepts and terms that are needed for consistent treatment of intransitivity in various applications are presented and analysed in a unified manner. The analysis points out conditions that necessitate appearance of intransitivity, such as multiplicity of preference criteria and imperfect (i.e. approximate) discrimination of different cases. The present work observes that with increasing presence and strength of intransitivity, thermodynamics gradually fades away leaving space for more general kinetic considerations. Intransitivity in competitive systems is linked to complex phenomena that would be difficult or impossible to explain on the basis of transitive assumptions. Human preferences that seem irrational from the perspective of the conventional utility theory, become perfectly logical in the intransitive and relativistic framework suggested here. The example of competitive simulations for the risk/benefit dilemma demonstrates the significance of intransitivity in cyclic behaviour and abrupt changes in the system. The evolutionary intransitivity parameter, which is introduced in the Appendix, is a general measure of intransitivity, which is particularly useful in evolving competitive systems. Quantum preferences are also considered in the Appendix.
Maternal Low-Level Lead Exposure and Fetal Growth

Background Limited epidemiologic studies have examined the association between maternal low-level lead exposure [blood lead (PbB) < 10 μg/dL] and fetal growth. Objective We examined whether maternal low-level lead exposure is associated with decreased fetal growth. Methods We linked New York State Heavy Metals Registry records of women who had PbB measurements with birth certificates to identify 43,288 mother–infant pairs in upstate New York in a retrospective cohort study from 2003 through 2005. We used multiple linear regression with fractional polynomials and logistic regression to relate birth weight, preterm delivery, and small for gestational age to PbB levels, adjusting for potential confounders. We used a closed-test procedure to identify the best fractional polynomials for PbB among 44 combinations. Results We found a statistically significant association between PbB (square root transformed) and birth weight. Relative to 0 μg/dL, PbBs of 5 and 10 μg/dL were associated with an average of 61-g and 87-g decrease in birth weight, respectively. The adjusted odds ratio for PbBs between 3.1 and 9.9 μg/dL (highest quartile) was 1.04 [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.89–1.22] for preterm delivery and 1.07 (95% CI, 0.93–1.23) for small for gestational age, relative to PbBs ≤ 1 μg/dL (lowest quartile). No clear dose–response trends were evident when all of the quartiles were assessed. Conclusions Low-level PbB was associated with a small risk of decreased birth weight with a supralinear dose–response relationship, but was not related to preterm birth or small for gestational age. The results have important implications regarding maternal PbB.