Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intraocular minocycline for the treatment of ocular pythiosis.

PURPOSE A case of ocular pythiosis successfully treated with surgery and intraocular and oral minocycline is reported. SUMMARY A 30-year-old man who wore corrective contact lenses traveled to Brazil and Colombia where he swam in salt and fresh waters while wearing contact lenses. He sought treatment at an emergency department after 2 weeks of suffering with a painful corneal ulcer, redness, and loss of vision in his right eye that had been treated at other centers with ophthalmic moxifloxacin for 10 days and with fortified topical antibiotics (amikacin and vancomycin) for 2 days. Examination using a slit lamp revealed a deep central corneal ulcer with surrounding white infiltrate, endothelial plaque, and hypopyon. Due to infection severity, the patient was admitted and received empirical antibiotic therapy and i.v. and topical antifungals. During the first corneal transplantation, the patient's original infection relapsed and was treated with voriconazole and liposomal amphotericin B intraocular injections. A subsequent infection developed, and a second keratoplasty was performed. One month after hospital admission, the patient was diagnosed with ocular pythiosis and therapy with oral minocycline was initiated. After severe infection relapse in the anterior chamber, the patient underwent a third penetrating keratoplasty, where minocycline intraocular injection was administered. After this intervention, complete infection control was achieved, and the patient was discharged 45 days after admission with oral minocycline and 1% cyclosporine and 0.3% ofloxacin eye drops. CONCLUSION A patient with ocular pythiosis was successfully treated with penetrating keratoplasty and 2 months of treatment with intracameral and oral minocycline.
A Negative Imaginary Lemma and the Stability of Interconnections of Linear Negative Imaginary Systems

The note is concerned with linear negative imaginary systems. First, a previously established Negative Imaginary Lemma is shown to remain true even if the system transfer function matrix has poles on the imaginary axis. This result is achieved by suitably extending the definition of negative imaginary transfer function matrices. Secondly, a necessary and sufficient condition is established for the internal stability of the positive feedback interconnections of negative imaginary systems. Meanwhile, some properties of linear negative imaginary systems are developed. Finally, an undamped flexible structure example is presented to illustrate the theory.
Morphosyntactic Tagging of Slovene Legal Language

Part-of-speech tagging or, more accurately, morphosyntactic tagging, is a procedure that assigns to each word token appearing in a text its morphosyntactic description, e.g. “masculine singular common noun in the genitive case”. Morphosyntactic tagging is an important component of many language technology applications, such as machine translation, speech synthesis, or information extraction. In the paper we report on an experiment on morphosyntactic tagging of Slovene, on a sample of Slovene legal language. We evaluate the accuracy of the TnT tagger, which had been trained on the MULTEXT-East language resources for Slovene. The test data come from the freely available parallel English-Slovene corpus SVEZ-IJS, which contains the Slovene translation European Union legal acts. Presented are the details of the manually corrected test corpus and an analysis of the tagging errors. The paper also discusses a simple transformation-based program that fixes some of the more common errors, and concludes with some directions for future work. Povzetek: V prispevku je opisan poskus oblikoslovnega oznacevanja na vzorcu slovenskih pravnih besedil.
Frameshift Mutations (Deletion at Codon 1309 and Codon 849) in the APC Gene in Iranian FAP Patients: a Case Series and Review of the Literature

Familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) is responsible for <1% of colorectal cancer (CRC) cases and is inherited an autosomal dominant trait. Patients generally present hundreds to thousands of adenomas and develop colorectal cancer by age 35- 40 if left untreated. Here we report four patients with germline frameshift mutation (small deletion) at exon 15 of adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) tumor suppressor gene. Peripheral blood samples were collected from patients and Exon 15 of the APC gene was studied by direct sequencing after genomic DNA extraction. Four frameshift mutations were detected. Two patients had 5 bp deletion, c. 3927_3931delAAAGA and two siblings presented deletion at codon 849 (c.2547_2548delTA p.Asp849fsX62). This study was the first report of genetic screening in Iranian FAP patients. In contrast to other studies we revealed that one patient with mutation at codon 1309 had an attenuated phenotype.
Dynamics of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Replication in Vertically Infected Infants

ABSTRACT Plasma human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) turnover and kinetics were studied in children aged 15 days to 2 years following the initiation of a triple antiretroviral drug regimen consisting of zidovudine, lamivudine, and nevirapine. HIV-1 turnover was at least as rapid as that previously described in adults; turnover rates were more rapid in infants and children aged 3 months to 2 years than in infants less than 3 months of age. These data confirm the central role of HIV-1 replication in the pathogenesis of vertical HIV-1 infection and reinforce the importance of early, potent combination therapies for the long-term control of HIV-1 replication.
Effect of salt stress on the growth of Lippia gracilis Schauer and on the quality of its essential oil

This study evaluated the effect of salt stress on the growth of Lippia gracilis Schauer, a species native to the caatinga (shrublands) of Brazil and rich in essential oils, as well as on the quality of its oil. We exposed individuals of L. gracilis to NaCl, in the following concentrations, for a period of 40 days: 25 mM; 50 mM; 75 mM; and 100 mM. An additional group of plants was not exposed to NaCl (controls). Data were collected on days 20 and 40. We evaluated relative growth rate; shoot and root dry weight; relative water content; proline concentration in leaves; and chemical composition of the essential oil. At all concentrations, NaCl reduced the relative growth rate in comparison with that observed for the controls. No significant difference in relative water content was observed among treatments. In all treatments, the proline concentration in leaves was highest on day 40. Salt stress did not affect the yield or the concentrations of the constituents of the essential oil of L. gracilis, carvacrol and thymol showing the highest concentrations in all treatments.
System-Level Dynamic Thermal Management for High-Performance Microprocessors

Thermal issues are fast becoming major design constraints in high-performance systems. Temperature variations adversely affect system reliability and prompt worst-case design. In recent history, researchers have proposed dynamic thermal-management (DTM) techniques targeting average-case design and tackling the temperature issue at runtime. While past work on DTM has focused on different techniques in isolation, it fails to consider a system-level approach which uses both hardware and software support in a synergistic fashion and hence leads to a significant execution-time overhead. In this paper, we propose HybDTM, a system-level framework for doing fine-grained coordinated thermal management using a hybrid of hardware techniques (like clock gating) and software techniques (like thermal-aware process scheduling), leveraging the advantages of both approaches in a synergistic fashion. We show that while hardware techniques can be used reactively to manage the overall temperature in case of thermal emergencies, proactive use of software techniques can build on top of it to balance the overall thermal profile with minimal overhead using the operating system (OS) support. In order to evaluate our proposed hybrid-DTM policy, we develop a novel regression-based thermal model, providing fast and accurate temperature estimates to do runtime thermal characterization of all applications running on the system, using hardware performance counters available in modern high-performance processors alongside thermal sensors for training the model at runtime. Our model is validated against actual temperature measurements from online thermal sensors, with the average estimation error found to be less than 5%. We also study system-level DTM issues, jointly considering both the processor and memory, and show how a unified DTM approach can benefit from global knowledge of individual system components. We evaluate our proposed methodology on a desktop system with an Intel Pentium-4 processor and a modified Linux OS, running a number of SPEC2000 benchmarks, in both uniprocessor and simultaneous multithreaded environments and show that our proposed technique is able to successfully manage the overall temperature with an average execution-time overhead of only 10.4% (20.1% maximum) compared to the case without any DTM, as opposed to 23.9% (46% maximum) overhead for purely hardware-based DTM. Our system, including the thermal-aware OS, built-in runtime thermal-characterization model, and interface to the underlying hardware using the Pentium-4 processor, is ready for release.
Tumor necrosis factor‐α mediates RANK ligand stimulation of osteoclast differentiation by an autocrine mechanism †

Osteoblasts or bone marrow stromal cells are required as supporting cells for the in vitro differentiation of osteoclasts from their progenitor cells. Soluble receptor activator of nuclear factor‐κB ligand (RANKL) in the presence of macrophage colony‐stimulating factor (M‐CSF) is capable of replacing the supporting cells in promoting osteoclastogenesis. In the present study, using Balb/c‐derived cultures, osteoclast formation in both systems—osteoblast/bone‐marrow cell co‐cultures and in RANKL‐induced osteoclastogenesis—was inhibited by antibody to tumor necrosis factor‐α (TNF‐α), and was enhanced by the addition of this cytokine. TNF‐α itself promoted osteoclastogenesis in the presence of M‐CSF. However, even at high concentrations of TNF‐α the efficiency of this activity was much lower than the osteoclastogenic activity of RANKL. RANKL increased the level of TNF‐α mRNA and induced TNF‐α release from osteoclast progenitors. Furthermore, antibody to p55 TNF‐α receptors (TNF receptors‐1) (but not to p75 TNF‐α receptors (TNF receptors‐2) inhibited effectively RANKL‐ (and TNF‐α() induced osteoclastogenesis. Anti‐TNF receptors‐1 antibody failed to inhibit osteoclastogenesis in C57BL/6‐derived cultures. Taken together, our data support the hypothesis that in Balb/c, but not in C57BL/6 (strains known to differ in inflammatory responses and cytokine modulation), TNF‐α is an autocrine factor in osteoclasts, promoting their differentiation, and mediates, at least in part, RANKL's induction of osteoclastogenesis. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Influence of Sintering Temperature on the Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of In Situ Reinforced Titanium Composites by Inductive Hot Pressing

This research is focused on the influence of processing temperature on titanium matrix composites reinforced through Ti, Al, and B4C reactions. In order to investigate the effect of Ti-Al based intermetallic compounds on the properties of the composites, aluminum powder was incorporated into the starting materials. In this way, in situ TixAly were expected to form as well as TiB and TiC. The specimens were fabricated by the powder metallurgy technique known as inductive hot pressing (iHP), using a temperature range between 900 °C and 1400 °C, at 40 MPa for 5 min. Raising the inductive hot pressing temperature may affect the microstructure and properties of the composites. Consequently, the variations of the reinforcing phases were investigated. X-ray diffraction, microstructural analysis, and mechanical properties (Young’s modulus and hardness) of the specimens were carried out to evaluate and determine the significant influence of the processing temperature on the behavior of the composites.
The Relationship between the Amount of Saturated Fat Intake and Semen Quality in Men

Introduction: Infertility in men is one of the current problems of human society. Some studies suggest that the metabolic status of a man, including cholesterol intake, closely correlates with sperm function. The aim of this study was to evaluate the correlation between saturated fat intake and semen quality among men referring to the Isfahan Fertility and Infertility Center, Iran. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on all men who referred to the Isfahan Fertility and Infertility Center. The study population consisted of 120 men selected through simple random sampling. The data collection tool consisted of a two-part questionnaire including a demographic and anthropometric characteristics form and the Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ). The FFQ consists of 168 items that assess food and nutrient intake for 3 months. The reliability and validity of the instruments were confirmed in previous studies. Semen analysis was performed using computer-aided semen analysis (CASA) method. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression test were used to analyze the data. Results: Results showed that the chances of having semen volume of higher than 1.5 ml (normal volume) increased by 27.5% for every 1 g increase in total fat (CI: 1.11–1.46) (P = 0.001) and reduced 38% for every 1 g increase in saturated fat (CI: 0.42–0.90, P = 0.010). No association was found between semen quality and intake of dietary fats. Conclusions: Based on the findings of this study and the prevalence of infertility in recent decades, changes in diet and saturated fatty acids intake may improve semen quality.
Analysis of the short-time unbiased spectrum estimation algorithm

The short-time unbiased spectrum estimation (STUSE) algorithm is analyzed and expressions for the mean and variance of the spectrum estimates are derived. The STUSE algorithm deliberately adds biased spectrum estimates in order to yield unbiased estimates and at the same time have excellent spectral leakage suppression capabilities. Computer simulations are presented, verifying the theoretical results and also comparing the STUSE algorithm with the conventional weighted, overlapped, segment averaging (WOSA) method.
Complex zero decreasing sequences

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the real sequences γ0, γ1, γ2, . with the property that if p(x) = ∑n k=0 akx k is any real polynomial, then ∑n k=0 γkakx k has no more nonreal zeros than p(x). In particular, the authors establish a converse to a classical theorem of Laguerre.
Categorizing and measuring social ties

As said, the increased significance of online social networks has increased both the academic and the business interest to understand these new methods of communication. This may be due to easier access to social networking data, as the online environment and databases do not require significant surveying or observing people – as previous methods usually did. The easiness of systematic data gathering allows research to examine larger samples and frees resources to detailed examination. Secondly, with information collected via online services or other means of data logging and mining, it is easy to argue that the reliability has increased: human errors and other classical problems of data collection are not present in the digital environment. Naturally, data collection in digital environment may bring up its own reliability issues, for instance problems due to intended and unintended use of services.
Cognitive Ability at Kindergarten Entry and Socioeconomic Status

OBJECTIVE: To examine how gradients in socioeconomic status (SES) impact US children’s reading and math ability at kindergarten entry and determine the contributions of family background, health, home learning, parenting, and early education factors to those gradients. METHODS: Analysis of 6600 children with cognitive assessments at kindergarten entry from the US Early Childhood Longitudinal Birth Cohort Study. A composite SES measure based on parent’s occupation, education, and income was divided into quintiles. Wald F tests assessed bivariate associations between SES and child’s cognitive ability and candidate explanatory variables. A decomposition methodology examined mediators of early cognitive gradients. RESULTS: Average reading percentile rankings increased from 34 to 67 across SES quintiles and math from 33 to 70. Children in lower SES quintiles had younger mothers, less frequent parent reading, less home computer use (27%–84%), and fewer books at home (26–114). Parent’s supportive interactions, expectations for their child to earn a college degree (57%–96%), and child’s preschool attendance (64%–89%) increased across quintiles. Candidate explanatory factors explained just over half the gradients, with family background factors explaining 8% to 13%, health factors 4% to 6%, home learning environment 18%, parenting style/beliefs 14% to 15%, and early education 6% to 7% of the gaps between the lowest versus highest quintiles in reading and math. CONCLUSIONS: Steep social gradients in cognitive outcomes at kindergarten are due to many factors. Findings suggest policies targeting levels of socioeconomic inequality and a range of early childhood interventions are needed to address these disparities.
The Predictive Diagnostic Value of Serial Daily Bedside Ultrasonography for Severe Dengue in Indonesian Adults

Background Identification of dengue patients at risk for progressing to severe disease is difficult. Significant plasma leakage is a hallmark of severe dengue infection which can suddenly lead to hypovolemic shock around the time of defervescence. We hypothesized that the detection of subclinical plasma leakage may identify those at risk for severe dengue. The aim of the study was to determine the predictive diagnostic value of serial ultrasonography for severe dengue. Methodology/Principal Findings Daily bedside ultrasounds were performed with a handheld ultrasound device in a prospective cohort of adult Indonesians with dengue. Timing, localization and relation to dengue severity of the ultrasonography findings were determined, as well as the relation with serial hematocrit and albumin values. The severity of dengue was retrospectively determined by WHO 2009 criteria. A total of 66 patients with proven dengue infection were included in the study of whom 11 developed severe dengue. Presence of subclinical plasma leakage at enrollment had a positive predictive value of 35% and a negative predictive value of 90% for severe dengue. At enrollment, 55% of severe dengue cases already had subclinical plasma leakage, which increased to 91% during the subsequent days. Gallbladder wall edema was more pronounced in severe than in non-severe dengue patients and often preceded ascites/pleural effusion. Serial hematocrit and albumin measurements failed to identify plasma leakage and patients at risk for severe dengue. Conclusions/Significance Serial ultrasonography, in contrast to existing markers such as hematocrit, may better identify patients at risk for development of severe dengue. Patients with evidence of subclinical plasma leakage and/or an edematous gallbladder wall by ultrasonography merit intensive monitoring for development of complications.
A novel wideband and reconfigurable high average efficiency power amplifier

This work presents theory and measurements of a new power amplifier based on the Doherty topology. It is theoretically shown that, by using a new set of design parameters with a Doherty power amplifier topology, the proposed amplifier can provide high efficiency, both at full output power and at power back-off, over a much improved bandwidth compared to the conventional Doherty power amplifier configuration. It is also shown that the proposed amplifier allows for simple reconfiguration of the efficiency in power back-off. A demonstrator circuit using individually controlled main and peak amplifier input signals is designed to validate the theoretical findings. Measurements show state-of-the art efficiency bandwidth at both full output power and at power back-off, as well as reconfigurable efficiency, thus validating the theory and demonstrating the potential of the proposed PA for use in future wireless transmitter applications.
Non-Canonical Folding of Dynkin Diagrams and Reduction of Affine Toda Theories

The equation of motion of affine Toda field theory is a coupled equation for r fields, r is the rank of the underlying Lie algebra. Most of the theories admit reduction, in which the equation is satisfied by fewer than r fields. The reductions in the existing literature are achieved by identifying (folding) the points in the Dynkin diagrams which are connected by symmetry (automorphism). In this paper we present many new reductions. In other words, the symmetry of affine Dynkin diagrams could be extended and it leads to non-canonical foldings. We investigate these reductions in detail and formulate general rules for possible reductions. We will show that eventually most of the theories end up in a~~ that is the theory cannot have a further dimension m reduction where m< n.
Do Hiring Subsidies Reduce Unemployment Among the Elderly? Evidence from Two Natural Experiments

We estimate the effects of hiring subsidies for older workers on transitions from unemployment to employment in Germany. Using a natural experiment, our first set of estimates is based on a legal change extending the group of eligible unemployed persons. A subsequent legal change in the opposite direction is used to validate these results. Our data cover the population of unemployed jobseekers in Germany and was specifically made available for our purposes from administrative data. Consistent support for an employment effect of hiring subsidies can only be found for women in East Germany. Concerning other population groups, firms' hiring behavior is hardly influenced by the program and hiring subsidies mainly lead to deadweight effects.
Quantitative analysis of six heterocyclic aromatic amines in mainstream cigarette smoke condensate using isotope dilution liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry.

INTRODUCTION Heterocyclic aromatic amines (HAAs) represent an important class of carcinogens in mainstream cigarette smoke. Accurate HAA quantification is challenging because of their relative low abundances and numerous chemical interferences that arise naturally from thousands of the constituents present in cigarette smoke. We have developed and validated a straightforward high-throughput method to quantify HAA levels in mainstream cigarette smoke and demonstrated the applicability by analyzing select research and domestic cigarette brands. METHODS Machine-smoked cigarette condensate collected under both standard and intensive smoking regimens was examined. Mainstream smoke particulate from individual cigarettes trapped on a glass fiber filter pad was spiked with an appropriate internal standard solution and subsequently solvent extracted. The extract was quantitatively analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry. RESULTS Method validation data showed excellent accuracy, reproducibility and high throughput; it is suitable for the routine analysis of HAAs in cigarette smoke condensate delivered under a wide of differing smoking conditions. The smoking machine deliveries of HAAs are strongly influenced by cigarettes' physical design, filler blend, and smoking regimen. CONCLUSIONS A quick and accurate method has been developed for the analysis of 6 HAAs in mainstream cigarette smoke condensate. Results provided a good mean to access the ranges of HAAs in commercial products and evaluate the relative contribution of cigarette design, filler blend, and smoking regimen on delivery. Such data are vital in helping provide exposure ranges for potential human exposure estimates.