Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On multiway cut parameterized above lower bounds

We introduce a concept of parameterizing a problem above the optimum solution of its natural linear programming relaxation and prove that the <i>node multiway cut</i> problem is fixed-parameter tractable (FPT) in this setting. As a consequence we prove that node multiway cut is FPT, when parameterized above the maximum separating cut, resolving an open problem of Razgon. Our results imply <i>O</i><sup>*</sup>(4<i><sup>k</sup></i>) algorithms for vertex cover above maximum matching and almost 2-SAT as well as an <i>O</i><sup>*</sup>(2<i><sup>k</sup></i>) algorithm for node multiway cut with a standard parameterization by the solution size, improving previous bounds for these problems.
Speed adaptation in a powered transtibial prosthesis controlled with a neuromuscular model

Control schemes for powered ankle–foot prostheses would benefit greatly from a means to make them inherently adaptive to different walking speeds. Towards this goal, one may attempt to emulate the intact human ankle, as it is capable of seamless adaptation. Human locomotion is governed by the interplay among legged dynamics, morphology and neural control including spinal reflexes. It has been suggested that reflexes contribute to the changes in ankle joint dynamics that correspond to walking at different speeds. Here, we use a data-driven muscle–tendon model that produces estimates of the activation, force, length and velocity of the major muscles spanning the ankle to derive local feedback loops that may be critical in the control of those muscles during walking. This purely reflexive approach ignores sources of non-reflexive neural drive and does not necessarily reflect the biological control scheme, yet can still closely reproduce the muscle dynamics estimated from biological data. The resulting neuromuscular model was applied to control a powered ankle–foot prosthesis and tested by an amputee walking at three speeds. The controller produced speed-adaptive behaviour; net ankle work increased with walking speed, highlighting the benefits of applying neuromuscular principles in the control of adaptive prosthetic limbs.
Multicast beamforming with antenna selection

Multicast beamforming exploits subscriber channel state information at the base station to form multiple beams that steer radiated power towards users of interest, while minimizing leakage to other users and systems. Such functionality has been provisioned in the long-term evolution (LTE) enhanced multimedia broadcast multicast service (EMBMS). In this context, the present paper deals with joint multicast beamforming and antenna selection. Whereas this problem (and even plain multicast beamforming) is NP-hard, it is shown that using ℓ1-norm squared (instead of ℓ1-norm) as a surrogate for the ℓ0-norm yields a natural semidefinite programming relaxation - something not obvious with the ℓ1-norm. Simulations indicate that the proposed algorithm significantly reduces the number of antennas required to meet prescribed service levels, at a relatively small cost of excess transmission power. Furthermore, its performance is close to that attained by exhaustive search, at far lower complexity.
Differential Allocation to Photosynthetic and Non-Photosynthetic Nitrogen Fractions among Native and Invasive Species

Invasive species are expected to cluster on the “high-return” end of the leaf economic spectrum, displaying leaf traits consistent with higher carbon assimilation relative to native species. Intra-leaf nitrogen (N) allocation should support these physiological differences; however, N biochemistry has not been examined in more than a few invasive species. We measured 34 leaf traits including seven leaf N pools for five native and five invasive species from Hawaii under low irradiance to mimic the forest understory environment. We found several trait differences between native and invasive species. In particular, invasive species showed preferential N allocation to metabolism (amino acids) rather than photosynthetic light reactions (membrane-bound protein) by comparison with native species. The soluble protein concentration did not vary between groups. Under these low irradiance conditions, native species had higher light-saturated photosynthetic rates, possibly as a consequence of a greater investment in membrane-bound protein. Invasive species may succeed by employing a wide range of N allocation mechanisms, including higher amino acid production for fast growth under high irradiance or storage of N in leaves as soluble protein or amino acids.
Outpatient laparoscopic cholecystectomy: home visit versus telephone follow-up.

OBJECTIVES To investigate the post-discharge follow-up required for patients who have undergone laparoscopic cholecystectomy on an outpatient basis and to determine if there was a significant difference in mean concern scores and satisfaction level of patients followed up by a home visit versus a telephone call. DESIGN Prospective 2-group comparison. SETTING A 221-bed acute care community hospital in western Canada. PATIENTS One hundred and forty-nine patients who had undergone laparoscopic cholecystectomy and agreed to be discharged on the day of operation. INTERVENTIONS Subjects were systematically allocated to receive either a home visit (HV, n = 72) or a telephone call (TC, n = 77) from a registered nurse on the evening of operation. During the follow-up, patient concerns were self-rated, interventions provided by the nurse were recorded, and nurses' perceptions of the need for the home visit were reported. A 48-hour telephone survey was used to determine patient satisfaction. OUTCOME MEASURES Patient concern scores, patient satisfaction with follow-up, readmission rates and use of emergency room services within 30 days of operation. RESULTS Subjects in the TC group had a significantly lower mean concern score (p < 0.001) and were significantly more satisfied with their follow-up (p = 0.034) than those in the HV group. Nurses perceived that 75% of the home visits were not necessary. Readmission rate was less than 1% (1 HV) and use of emergency room services was 6% (3 HV, 6 TC). CONCLUSIONS Telephone contact is an acceptable method of follow-up for patients who have undergone outpatient laparoscopic cholecystectomy. The call should be made later in the evening on the day of operation or the next morning.
Dexamethasone, cyclophosphamide, idarubicin and etoposide (DC‐IE): a novel, intensive induction chemotherapy regimen for patients with high‐risk multiple myeloma

We evaluated toxicities and responses to a novel, dose intensive and time sequenced, chemotherapy programme (DC‐IE) in 45 patients with high‐risk myeloma. DC‐IE consisted of: dexamethasone (days 1–4); cyclophosphamide (day 5); idarubicin and etoposide (days 8–10). Complete response (CR) was achieved in four patients, six patients achieved near complete responses (nCR) and 21 patients achieved a partial remission (PR). Overall response rate was 76% (CI 56–94%) for newly diagnosed patients (n =21) and 62% (CI 36–81%) for relapsed/refractory patients (n =24). Toxicities were limited to myelosupression; two patients died of sepsis during neutropenia (4%). DC‐IE is active and tolerable for high‐risk multiple myeloma, including patients with relapsed or refractory disease to anthracycline containing regimens.
Mining team characteristics to predict Wikipedia article quality

In this study, we were interested in studying which characteristics of virtual teams are good predictors for the quality of their production. The experiment involved obtaining the Spanish Wikipedia database dump and applying different data mining techniques suitable for large data sets to label the whole set of articles according to their quality (comparing them with the Featured/Good Articles, or FA/GA). Then we created the attributes that describe the characteristics of the team who produced the articles and using decision tree methods, we obtained the most relevant characteristics of the teams that produced FA/GA. The team's maximum efficiency and the total length of contribution are the most important predictors. This article contributes to the literature on virtual team organization.
Some Effects of Additives on Rolling Contact Fatigue

To study the influence of lubricant physical and chemical properties on rolling contact fatigue, a variety of base stocks and additives were evaluated with a 4-ball type fatigue machine. The effect of viscosity was found to depend on the means by which a given viscosity was achieved. Although some commonly used EP and antiwear additives had a pronounced effect on fatigue life, the direction and magnitude of the additive effect depended on the particular additive and its concentration in the blend. In addition, it was observed that the additive effect depended on the choice of base oil and ball steel. These results indicate that the chemical properties as well as the physical properties of the lubricant, can be important in rolling contact fatigue. Presented as an American Society of Lubrication Engineers paper at the Lubrication Conference held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, October 18–20, 1966.
Reliable and Sample Saving Gene Expression Analysis Approach for Diagnostic Tool Development

Abstract This work answers the question of whether it is necessary to hybridize individual instead of pooled RNA samples on microarrays for screening gene targets suitable as diagnostic tools for radiation exposure scenarios, while at the same time meeting comparable microarray quality criteria. For developing new clinical diagnostic tools, a two-stage study design was employed in five projects. At first, pooled and not individual RNA samples were hybridized on microarrays for screening purposes. Potential gene candidates were selected based on their fold-change only. This was followed by a validation/quantification step using individual RNA samples and quantitative RT-PCR. Quality criteria from the screening approach with pooled RNA samples were compared with published data from the MicroArray Quality Control (MAQC) consortium that hybridized each reference RNA sample separately and established quality criteria for microarrays. When comparing both approaches, only insignificant differences for quality criteria such as false positives, sensitivity, specificity, and overall agreement were found. However, material, costs, and time were drastically reduced when hybridizing pooled RNA and gene targets applicable for clinical diagnostic purposes could be successfully selected. In search of new diagnostic tools for radiation exposure scenarios, the two stage study design using either pooled or individual RNA samples on microarrays shows comparable quality criteria, but the RNA pooling approach saves unique material, costs, and efforts and successfully selects gene targets that can be used for the desired diagnostic purposes. Health Phys. 103(2):159Y168; 2012
A new characterization of chord-arc domains

The first author was partially supported by NSF RTG grant 0838212. The second author was supported by NSF grants DMS-1101244 and DMS-1361701. The third author was supported in part by MINECO Grant MTM2010-16518, ICMAT Severo Ochoa project SEV-2011-0087. He also acknowledges that the research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ ERC agreement no. 615112 HAPDEGMT. The fourth author was partly supported by the Swedish research council VR. The last author was partially supported by the Robert R. & Elaine F. Phelps Professorship in Mathematics.
Ursolic-Acid-Enriched Herba Cynomorii Extract Protects against Oxidant Injury in H9c2 Cells and Rat Myocardium by Increasing Mitochondrial ATP Generation Capacity and Enhancing Cellular Glutathione Redox Cycling, Possibly through Mitochondrial Uncoupling

Mitochondrial decay is considered to be a major contributor to aging-related diseases, including neurodegenerative diseases, cardiovascular disorders, and certain metabolic diseases. Therefore, the maintenance of mitochondrial functional capacity and antioxidant status should play an essential role in preventive health. Herba Cynomorii, which is one of the most potent “Yang-invigorating” Chinese tonic herbs, was found to increase mitochondrial ATP generation capacity (ATP-GC) in rat hearts ex vivo. In the present study, we demonstrated that HCY2, an active fraction of Herba Cynomorii, and its major ingredient ursolic acid (UA) could protect against hypoxia/reoxygenation-induced cell apoptosis in H9c2 cells in vitro and also against ischemia/reperfusion-induced injury in rat hearts ex vivo. The cardioprotection was associated with an increase in ATP-GC and an enhancement of glutathione redox cycling. The results suggest that UA may be one of the active ingredients responsible for the cardioprotection afforded by Herba Cynomorii, and this effect may be mediated, at least in part, by enhancement of mitochondrial functional capacity and antioxidant status, possibly through the induction of mitochondrial uncoupling.
Improving basic math skills through integrated dynamic representation strategies.

BACKGROUND In this paper, we analyze the effectiveness of the Integrated Dynamic Representation strategy (IDR) to develop basic math skills. METHOD The study involved 72 students, aged between 6 and 8 years. We compared the development of informal basic skills (numbers, comparison, informal calculation, and informal concepts) and formal (conventionalisms, number facts, formal calculus, and formal concepts) in an experimental group (n = 35) where we applied the IDR strategy and in a Control group (n = 37) in order to identify the impact of the procedure. RESULTS The experimental group improved significantly in all variables except for number facts and formal calculus. CONCLUSIONS It can therefore be concluded that IDR favors the development of the skills more closely related to applied mathematics than those related to automatic mathematics and mental arithmetic.
Retrospective and Trends in Requirements Engineering for Embedded Systems: A Systematic Literature Review

In the embedded systems (ES) area, more than 50% of problems occur at system delivery and are related to misconceptions in capturing requirements. Also, requirements engineering (RE) is crucial to meet time, cost, and quality goals. An important step to improve the RE approaches for ES is to gain a detailed understanding of the retrospective and trends presented by the literature. We have conducted a systematic literature review to gain an in-depth understanding of trends and needs concerning RE research. We report on the main results of our study related to three research questions: what requirements should be considered during ES development? what are the RE contributions for ES? and what challenges/problems are identiﬁed in the research literature to RE for ES? Based on the results of the study, we draw conclusions for future RE research.
Formalin removal from archival tissue by critical point drying.

The extraction of high-quality nucleic acid may be problematic in formalin-fixed tissues because of cross-linking between proteins and DNA. Old fixed tissue specimens do produce fragmented DNA (<1.2 kb), which is only used for PCR amplification. Here we show that high molecular weight DNA (>194 kb) can be successfully extracted from fixed tissue samples (16-70 years old) by gradual dehydration and critical point drying. The reliability of extracted DNA was measured by its ability to serve as a template for the amplification of mtDNA fragments (403 and 1198 bp) and an nDNA fragment (1844 bp). In addition, fingerprinting analysis was performed using DNA from fixed human tissue to ensure the ability of extracted DNA to hybridize with the DNA probe. DNA derived by this method can be subject to amplification, complete digestion by restriction endonuclease, and hybridization.
Factors Affecting the Formation, Severity and Location of White Spot Lesions during Orthodontic Treatment with Fixed Appliances

ABSTRACT Objectives The purpose of the present study was to investigate factors affecting the formation, severity and location of white spot lesions in patients completing fixed appliance therapy. Material and Methods A total of 45 patients (19 males and 26 females, mean age 15.81 years, standard deviation 2.89 years) attending consecutively Aberdeen Dental Hospital (ADH) between January and June 2013 to have their fixed appliances removed were given a questionnaire to elicit information regarding their dental care and diet. They were then examined clinically as well as their pre-treatment photographs to record treatment data and white spot lesion (WSL) location and severity using a modified version of Universal Visual Scale for Smooth Surfaces (UniViSS Smooth). Absolute risk (AR) and risk ratios (RR) were also calculated. Results The incidence of at least one WSL observed in patients was 42%, with males displaying a higher incidence than females. The highest incidence of WSLs was recorded on the maxillary canines and lateral incisors, and on the maxillary and mandibular premolars and first molars. The gingival areas of the maxillary and mandibular teeth were the most affected surfaces. Significant (P < 0.05) relationships were found between the presence of WSLs and the following factors: poor oral hygiene (OH), males, increased treatment length, lack of use of fluoride supplements, use of carbonated soft drinks and/or fruit juices and the use of sugary foods. Poor OH posed the highest risk of developing WSL (RR = 8.55). Conclusions 42% of patients have developed white spot lesions during fixed appliance therapy. Various contributing risk factors were identified with the greatest risk posed by a poor oral hygiene.
The angiogenesis inhibitor tnp-470 effectively inhibits human neuroblastoma xenograft growth, especially in the setting of subclinical disease.

Tumor vascularity is highly correlated with disease outcome in neuroblastoma. Thus, novel therapeutics that target the vascular endothelium are candidates for incorporation into clinical trials. We therefore examined the effect of TNP-470 on human neuroblastoma growth in mouse models reflecting both clinically evident and minimal disease. Mice were inoculated s.c. or by tail vein injection with 10(7) human neuroblastoma-derived CHP-134 cells and treated with TNP-470 (100 mg/kg/dose s.c. three times a week or by continuous infusion) or saline. Treatment was given as a single agent in established xenografts, 10 days after 450 mg/kg of cyclophosphamide, or 12 h after tumor inoculation. Tumor growth rate was markedly inhibited in mice receiving TNP-470 administered alone both s.c. and by continuous infusion with a treatment to control ratio (T:C) at day 16 of 0.3 (P < 0.001) and a T:C at day 30 of 0.4 (P = 0.029) for each dosing method, respectively. TNP-470 also significantly inhibited tumor growth when administered following cyclophosphamide (T:C at day 30 = 0.2, P < 0.001) and inhibited disease establishment when given shortly after xenograft inoculation (T:C at day 30 = 0.1, P < 0.001) or tail vein injection. TNP-470 was shown to directly inhibit angiogenesis by Matrigel assay (P =.010) and to increase the apoptotic index in treated tumors. These data show that TNP-470 is a potent inhibitor of human neuroblastoma growth rate and tumorigenicity. We speculate that TNP-470 may be a useful adjuvant therapy for high-risk neuroblastoma patients, particularly when used in settings of minimal disease status.
Navigation and analysis of the energy landscape of small proteins using the activation–relaxation technique

The resolution of the protein folding problem has been tied to the development of a detailed understanding of the configurational energy or of the free energy landscape associated with these molecules. Using the activation–relaxation technique and a simplified energy model, we present here a detailed analysis of the energy landscape of 16-residue peptide that folds into a β-hairpin. Our results support the concept of an energy landscape with an effective topology consistent with a scale-free network.
Diuretic uptitration with half dose combined ACEI + ARB better decreases proteinuria than combined ACEI + ARB uptitration.

BACKGROUND Residual proteinuria is a strong modifiable risk factor for renal failure progression. We previously showed that the antiproteinuric effect of combined half doses of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (ACEI) and angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) is increased by raising diuretic dosage. Methods. We tested whether uptitration of loop diuretics on top of combined half doses of ACEI and ARB would better decrease proteinuria than uptitration to combined full doses of ACEI and ARB in a randomized, crossover, three periods of 6-week controlled study. Eighteen patients with stable proteinuria over 1 g/day with combined ramipril at 5 mg/day and valsartan at 80 mg/day in addition to conventional antihypertensive treatments were randomized to receive combined ramipril at 5 mg/day and valsartan at 80 mg/day, or combined ramipril at 10 mg/day and valsartan at 160 mg/day, or combined ramipril at 5 mg/day, valsartan at 80 mg/day and increased furosemide dosage in random order. The primary end point was the mean urinary protein/creatinine ratio in two 24-hour urine collections at the end of the three treatment periods. Secondary end points included mean 24-hour proteinuria, home systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), mean arterial blood pressure (MAP) and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) levels. RESULTS The geometric mean urinary protein/creatinine ratio was lower with combined ramipril at 5 mg/day, valsartan at 80 mg/day and increased furosemide dosage compared to combined ramipril at 5 mg/day and valsartan at 80 mg/day, but also to combined ramipril at 10 mg/day and valsartan at 160 mg/day. These differences remained significant after adjustment for SBP, DBP or MAP and 24-hour natriuresis but not after adjustment on eGFR. Diuretic dosage uptitration did not increase the number of home systolic blood pressure measurements below 100 mmHg, but led to a statistically significant increase in the number of symptomatic hypotension episodes. CONCLUSIONS A cautious uptitration of loop diuretic dosage in addition to combined half doses of ACEI and ARB better decrease proteinuria in patients with CKD and high residual proteinuria than uptitration to full dose of combined ACEI and ARB. This antiproteinuric effect of diuretics was partly explained by an eGFR decrease, suggesting the contribution of haemodynamic modifications, whose safety on the long term still need to be addressed.