Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pronunciation error detection method based on error rule clustering using a decision tree

We are developing a CALL system to train English pronunciation for Japanese native speakers. However, the precision of the error detection was not very high because the threshold for the detection was not optimum. To improve the detection accuracy, we propose a new method to optimize the thresholds of error detection. The proposed method makes several clusters of the pronunciation error rules, and the thresholds are determined for each cluster. An experiment was carried out to investigate the performance of the proposed method. As a result, about 90% of detection rate was obtained, which is a remarkable improvement from the conventional method.
Group exercise to improve quality of life among substance use disorder patients

Background: Quality of life (QoL) is a well-established outcome within clinical practice. Despite the adverse effects of substance use disorders on a wide range of patients’ functionality and the multidimensional composition of QoL, the treatment field does not yet systematically assess QoL among patients. Exercise has established positive effects on the QoL of healthy and numerous clinical populations. The potential to integrate exercise within treatment, in order to improve QoL has not been satisfactorily explored. Aims: To measure changes in QoL after group exercise among residential substance use disorder patients and to explore the feasibility of the program within a treatment setting. Methods: We enrolled 35 patients in four long-term residential substance use disorder treatment facilities in Oslo, into a 10-week group exercise program. We analyzed the 24 participants who exercised as completers, while the 11 participants who did not were analyzed as non-completers. We measured QoL, mental distress, somatic health burden and addiction severity at the beginning and end of the program. Results: The program was feasible for participants and the completion rate was 69%. Completers’ physical health domain and psychological health domain of QoL improved significantly. The program engaged the most physically and mentally vulnerable participants, and flexibility and motivational factors were important elements. Conclusions: This study provided promising evidence that low doses of group exercise can yield appreciable benefits, even to patients with more severe health problems.
Multiuser Constrained Water-Pouring for Continuous-Time Overloaded Gaussian Multiple-Access Channels

In this paper, signature waveforms and signal powers are jointly optimized for multiuser communications over strictly bandlimited, continuous-time, overloaded channels corrupted by additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN). The total signal power is minimized subject to general asymmetric signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) constraints at the output of linear minimum mean-squared error (LMMSE) receivers. Using vectorized Fourier transform (VFT) technique, the optimal solutions as well as a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a feasible solution are derived in the frequency domain. It turns out that every optimal solution performs the same as the optimal frequency-division multiple-access (FDMA) system. A geometric procedure called multiuser constrained water-pouring is developed to construct every possible optimal solution, of which profiles of signal power and equivalent bandwidth are, respectively, the same as those of signal power and physical bandwidth of the optimal FDMA system. It is shown that orthogonal signature waveforms are assigned to oversized users and continuous-time equivalents of generalized Welch bound equality (CTE-GWBE) sequences are assigned to non-oversized users.
Analysis of subcarrier pairing in a cellular OFDMA relay link

We consider a cellular OFDMA relay link consisting of a base station (BS), an infrastructure-based amplify-and-forward relay node (RN) and N active mobile user equipments (UEs). We study how to optimally pair the BS-RN subcarriers with the RN-UE subcarriers when the K subcarriers in the RN-UE channel are assigned for the UEs using round robin scheduling. The main contribution is to analyze the performance of the system by deriving closed-form expressions for average end-to-end SNR and capacity. The calculated measures facilitate performance evaluation that illustrates the benefit of channel-adaptive subcarrier pairing over fixed pairing.
The Relationship between Endogenous Androgens and Body Fat Distribution in Early and Late Postmenopausal Women

Objectives To investigate the relationship between endogenous androgens and body fat distribution in early and late postmenopausal women. Materials and Methods We enrolled postmenopausal women consisting of an early group (≤5 years since menopause, n = 105) and a late group (≥10 years since menopause, n = 107). Each group was subdivided into normal weight (BMI <24 kg/m2) group, overweight and obese (BMI ≥24 kg/m2) group. Fasting total testosterone (T), dehydroepiandrosterone-sulfate (DHEA-S) and sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) levels were measured. Body fat distribution was evaluated by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA). Results Late postmenopausal women had a higher proportion of body fat than early postmenopausal women. The body fat of the overweight and obese women had a greater tendency to accumulate in the abdomen compared with the normal weight women both in early and late postmenopausal groups. The overweight and obese women had a higher free testosterone (FT) than the normal weight women in early postmenopausal women (P<0.05). In late postmenopausal women, the overweight and obese women had higher DHEA-S levels than normal weight women (P<0.05). No direct relationship was observed between the T levels and body fat distribution both in early and late postmenopausal groups (P>0.05). The FT in early postmenopausal women and the DHEA-S levels in late postmenopausal women correlated positively with the trunk/leg fat ratio (T/L) and the proportion of android fat whereas correlated negatively with the proportion of gynoid fat in the partial correlation and multiple linear regression analyses (all P<0.05). Conclusions Serum T levels do not correlate directly with body fat distribution, the FT in early postmenopausal women and DHEA-S levels in late postmenopausal women correlate positively with abdominal fat accumulation.
Search for the Factors Determining the Photodegradation in High Efficiency a-Si:H Solar Cells: Final Subcontract Report, 28 January 1998 - 15 August 2001

This report describes continuing studies on photoluminescence (PL), electroluminescence (EL), Raman, and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) by the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill during the three years and the extension period. Systematic studies on the transition materials and their solar cells and a review of the photo-induced structural changes in correlation to the electronic degradation have led to better understanding of the factors determining the photodegradation in a-Si:H solar cells. NHR established significant differences, as in the bonding of hydrogen in the hot-wire- and plasma-deposited amorphous silicon.
RTTM: real-time transactional memory

Hardware transactional memory is a promising synchronization technology for chip-multiprocessors. It simplifies programming of concurrent applications and allows for higher concurrency than lock based synchronization. Standard transactional memory is optimized for average case throughput, but for real-time systems we are interested in worst-case execution times. We propose real-time transactional memory (RTTM) as a time-predictable synchronization solution for chip-multiprocessors in real-time systems. We define the hardware for time-predictable transactions and provide a bound for the maximum transaction retries. The proposed RTTM is evaluated with a simulation of a Java chip-multiprocessor.
Three Novel Lantibiotics, Ticins A1, A3, and A4, Have Extremely Stable Properties and Are Promising Food Biopreservatives

ABSTRACT Lantibiotics are antimicrobial peptides with potential applications as the next generation of antimicrobials in the food industry and/or the pharmaceutical industry. Nisin has successfully been used as a food preservative for over 40 years, but its major drawback is its limited stability under neutral and alkaline pH conditions. To identify alternatives with better biochemical properties, we screened more than 100 strains of the Bacillus cereus group. Three novel lantibiotics, ticins A1 (4,062.98 Da), A3 (4,048.96 Da), and A4 (4,063.02 Da), which were highly thermostable (121°C for 30 min) and extremely pH tolerant (pH 2.0 to 9.0), were identified in Bacillus thuringiensis BMB3201. They all showed potent antimicrobial activities against all tested Gram-positive bacteria and greater activities than those of nisin A against Bacillus cereus and Listeria monocytogenes, two important foodborne pathogens. These three novel lantibiotics, with their extremely stable properties and potent antimicrobial activities, have the potential for use as biopreservatives.
Selection of entomopathogenic nematodes for enhanced responsiveness to a volatile root signal helps to control a major root pest

SUMMARY The efficacy of natural enemies as biological control agents against insect pests can theoretically be enhanced by artificial selection for high responsiveness to foraging cues. The recent discovery that maize roots damaged by the western corn rootworm (WCR) emit a key attractant for insect-killing nematodes has opened the way to explore whether a selection strategy can improve the control of root pests. The compound in question, (E)-β-caryophyllene, is only weakly attractive to Heterorhabditis bacteriophora, one of the most infectious nematodes against WCR. To overcome this drawback, we used a six-arm below-ground olfactometer to select for a strain of H. bacteriophora that is more readily attracted to (E)-β-caryophyllene. After six generations of selection, the selected strain responded considerably better and moved twice as rapidly towards a (E)-β-caryophyllene source than the original strain. There was a minor trade-off between this enhanced responsiveness and nematode infectiveness. Yet, in subsequent field tests, the selected strain was significantly more effective than the original strain in reducing WCR populations in plots with a maize variety that releases (E)-β-caryophyllene, but not in plots with a maize variety that does not emit this root signal. These results illustrate the great potential of manipulating natural enemies of herbivores to improve biological pest control.
Progressive impairment of regional myocardial perfusion after initial restoration of postischemic blood flow.

The "no-reflow" phenomenon, the occurrence of areas with very low flow in hearts reperfused after ischemia, is thought to be largely established at the time of reperfusion as a result of microvascular damage induced by ischemia. In the present study we sought to determine whether additional impairment of tissue perfusion might also occur during the course of reperfusion. Open-chest dogs were subjected to 90 minutes of left circumflex coronary artery occlusion and reperfused for 2 minutes (n = 7) or 3.5 hours (n = 8). Myocardial perfusion was visualized in left ventricular slices following in vivo injection of the fluorescent dye thioflavin-S just before killing. The area of impaired perfusion (absent thioflavin) averaged 9.5 +/- 3.0% of the risk region in dogs reperfused for 2 minutes, whereas it was nearly three times as large in dogs reperfused for 3.5 hours (25.9 +/- 8.2% of the risk region, p less than 0.05). Serial measurements of flow by microspheres during reperfusion demonstrated zones within the postischemic myocardium that were hyperemic 2 minutes after reperfusion, with adequate flow still present at 30 minutes, but with a subsequent marked fall in perfusion. After 3.5 hours these areas showed negligible flow (0.13 +/- 0.3 ml/min/g) and no thioflavin uptake. Tissue samples showing postischemic impairment in perfusion has received virtually no collateral flow during ischemia (less than 0.01 ml/min/g), whereas collateral flow was significantly higher in adjacent thioflavin-positive zones (0.04 +/- 0.01 ml/min/g in endocardial samples and 0.07 +/- 0.02 ml/min/g in samples from the midmyocardium, p less than 0.001 vs. thioflavin-negative areas). Areas that showed late impairment of flow invariably demonstrated contraction band necrosis, which contrasted with the pattern of coagulation necrosis observed in areas of "true" (i.e., immediate) no-reflow. Intracapillary erythrocyte stasis and marked intravascular neutrophil accumulation (to levels greater than 20-fold that found after 2 minutes reperfusion) were typically observed in areas of delayed impairment to flow. Obstruction to flow at the capillary level was confirmed in additional dogs in which the heart was injected postmortem with silicone rubber to delineate the microvascular filling pattern. Areas of absent capillary filling were much more extensive after 3.5 hours than after 2 minutes reperfusion. Thus, this study shows that the occurrence of areas of markedly impaired perfusion in postischemic myocardium is related only in part to an inability to reperfuse certain areas on reflow. A more important factor is represented by a delayed, progressive fall in flow to areas that initially received adequate reperfusion. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Favorable Outcomes after Implantation of Biodegradable Polymer Coated Sirolimus-Eluting Stents in Diabetic Population: Results from INDOLIMUS-G Diabetic Registry

Objective. The main aim is to evaluate safety, efficacy, and clinical performance of the Indolimus (Sahajanand Medical Technologies Pvt. Ltd., Surat, India) sirolimus-eluting stent in high-risk diabetic population with complex lesions. Methods. It was a multicentre, retrospective, non-randomized, single-arm study, which enrolled 372 diabetic patients treated with Indolimus. The primary endpoint of the study was major adverse cardiac events (MACE), which is a composite of cardiac death, target lesion revascularization (TLR), target vessel revascularization (TVR), myocardial infarction (MI), and stent thrombosis (ST). The clinical follow-ups were scheduled at 30 days, 6 months, and 9 months. Results. The mean age of the enrolled patients was 53.4 ± 10.2 years. A total of 437 lesions were intervened successfully with 483 stents (1.1 ± 0.3 per lesion). There were 256 (68.8%) male patients. Hypertension and totally occluded lesions were found in 202 (54.3%) and 45 (10.3%) patients, respectively. The incidence of MACE at 30 days, 6 months and 9 months was 0 (0%), 6 (1.6%), and 8 (2.2%), respectively. The event-free survival at 9-month follow-up by Kaplan Meier method was found to be 97.8%. Conclusion. The use of biodegradable polymer coated sirolimus-eluting stent is associated with favorable outcomes. The results demonstrated in our study depict its safety and efficacy in diabetic population.
High density lipoprotein cholesterol levels are an independent predictor of the progression of chronic kidney disease

Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) often present with reduced plasma HDL cholesterol (HDL‐C) levels. Whether this reduction in an epiphenomenon or is involved in disease progression is unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the relation between HDL‐C levels/function and CKD progression in patients with different degrees of disease.
An Experimental Study on Software Aging and Rejuvenation in Web Servers

Several studies have been conducted in order to understand the 'software aging' phenomenon. This paper presents the results of an experimental research work, which evaluated the software aging effects on a Web server as well as the performance of a rejuvenation agent. Its main contribution is the identification and analytical validation of the factors that contribute for the Web server aging. We adopted the design of experiment technique (DOE) to characterize the aging phenomenon. The results showed evidence that the 'page type' and 'page size' factors were responsible for over 99% of memory size variation in httpd processes. A 'rejuvenation agent' was implemented and integrated into the server environment to mitigate the aging effects. As a result, the size of the httpd processes could be kept under control and a higher availability and performance of the Web server could be provided, as compared to the scenario without rejuvenation
Thiopurine Drugs Azathioprine and 6-Mercaptopurine Inhibit Mycobacterium paratuberculosis Growth In Vitro

ABSTRACT The in vitro susceptibility of human- and bovine-origin Mycobacterium paratuberculosis to the thioupurine drugs 6-mercaptopurine (6-MP) and azathioprine (AZA) was established using conventional plate counting methods and the MGIT 960 ParaTB culture system. Both 6-MP and AZA had antibacterial activity against M. paratuberculosis; isolates from Crohn's disease patients tended to be more susceptible than were bovine-origin isolates. Isolates of Mycobacterium avium, used as controls, were generally resistant to both AZA and 6-MP, even at high concentrations (≥64.0 μg/ml). Among rapidly growing mycobacteria, Mycobacterium phlei was susceptible to 6-MP and AZA whereas Mycobacterium smegmatis strains were not. AZA and 6-MP limited the growth of, but did not kill, M. paratuberculosis in a dose-dependent manner. Anti-inflammatory drugs in the sulfonamide family (sulfapyridine, sulfasalazine, and 5-aminosalycilic acid [mesalamine]) had little or no antibacterial activity against M. paratuberculosis. The conventional antibiotics azithromycin and ciprofloxacin, used as control drugs, were bactericidal for M. paratuberculosis, exerting their killing effects on the organism relatively quickly. Simultaneous exposure of M. paratuberculosis to 6-MP and ciprofloxacin resulted in significantly higher CFU than use of ciprofloxacin alone. These data may partially explain the paradoxical response of Crohn's disease patients infected with M. paratuberculosis to treatment with immunosuppressive thiopurine drugs, i.e., they do not worsen with anti-inflammatory treatment as would be expected with a microbiological etiologic pathogen. These findings also should influence the design of therapeutic trials to evaluate antibiotic treatments of Crohn's disease: AZA drugs may confound interpretation of data on therapeutic responses for both antibiotic-treated and control groups.
Secular birth weight changes in liveborn infants before, during, and after 1991-1995 homeland war in Croatia.

AIM To assess secular trends in birth weights of liveborn infants in Croatia from 1983 to 2003. METHODS Of a total of 959,591 liveborn infants in the study period, 384,367 were born in the prewar (1983-1989), 226,226 during the war (1991-1995), and 348 998 in the postwar (1996-2003) period. The birth weight of liveborn infants was assessed by 500 g weight groups on the basis of data provided by the Croatian National Institute of Public Health. RESULTS The gradual and significant increase in the share of infants with birth weight > or =3500 g (<0.001) was paralleled by a reduction in the share of infants with birth weights 2500-3449 g (P<0.001) and <2500 g (P<0.05) in the study period. There was a positive trend in the proportion of 4000-4499 g, > or =4500 g (P<0.001 for both), and 500-999 g (P=0.002) birth weight groups and negative trend in 1000-1499 g, 2500-2999 g, and 3000-3499 g weight groups (P<0.001 for all). During the war period, the proportion of liveborn infants in the 2500-3499 g weight group decreased in comparison with prewar proportion; this trend continued in the postwar period (P<0.001 for both). In the war period, the proportion of liveborn infants with birth weights of 2000-2499 g was significantly larger (P<0.001) and that of > or =4500 g significantly smaller in comparison with the prewar and postwar proportions (P<0.001 for both). CONCLUSION Positive secular changes in infant birth weights observed in the prewar and postwar period contrasted negative changes during the war period in Croatia. This finding may suggest the association between war suffering and stress and changes in birth weights of newborns.
Physicochemical Properties Influencing Presence of Burkholderia pseudomallei in Soil from Small Ruminant Farms in Peninsular Malaysia

Soil is considered to be a major reservoir of Burkholderia pseudomallei in the environment. This paper investigates soil physicochemical properties that may influence presence of B. pseudomallei in soil samples from small ruminant farms in Peninsular Malaysia. Soil samples were collected from the farms and cultured for B. pseudomallei. The texture, organic matter and water contents, pH, elemental contents, cation exchange capacities, carbon, sulfur and nitrogen contents were determined. Analysis of soil samples that were positive and negative for B. pseudomallei using multivariable logistic regression found that the odds of bacterial isolation from soil was significantly higher for samples with higher contents of iron (OR = 1.01, 95%CI = 1.00–1.02, p = 0.03), water (OR = 1.28, 95%CI = 1.05–1.55, p = 0.01) and clay (OR = 1.54, 95%CI = 1.15–2.06, p = 0.004) compared to the odds of isolation in samples with lower contents of the above variables. These three factors may have favored the survival of B. pseudomallei because iron regulates expression of respiratory enzymes, while water is essential for soil ecology and agent’s biological processes and clay retains water and nutrients.
Detection of Theileria lestoquardi (hirci) in Ticks, Sheep, and Goats Using the Polymerase Chain Reaction a

ABSTRACT: Theileria lestoquardi (=T. hirci) is a protozoan parasite of sheep and goats that is morphologically and biologically similar to T. annulata, the causative agent of bovine tropical theileriosis. Both parasites are transmitted by ixodid ticks of the genus Hyalomma. However, because of their morphological similarity, they cannot be distinguished in the salivary glands of infected ticks by traditional staining methods such as Feulgen or Methyl green‐pyronin. Thus a need has arisen for sensitive and specific diagnostic tests that will distinguish between the two species in the vector tick, allowing the epidemiology of both diseases to be clearly defined. A contribution to this has been the development of a polymerase chain reaction using specific primers which amplify, only in T. lestoquardi‐infected ticks, a 785 bp fragment of the gene that codes for a 30 kD merozoite surface protein. The sensitivity of this test and its application to the detection of T. lestoquardi in infected H. anatolicum anatolicum ticks, in the blood of three species of domestic ruminants and in cell cultures established in mononuclear cells of sheep and goats is also discussed.
Pharmacokinetic study of methylnaltrexone after single and multiple subcutaneous administrations in healthy Chinese subjects

Abstract 1. Pharmacokinetics of methylnaltrexone (MNTX) were evaluated after subcutaneous administrations (s.c.) in healthy Chinese subjects. 2. In a cross-over single dose study, 12 subjects were given 0.075, 0.15, and 0.3 mg/kg of MNTX bromide injection. In a multiple doses study, another 12 subjects subcutaneously received 0.15 mg/kg of MNTX bromide injection every 48 h, in total five administrations. The concentrations of MNTX in plasma were quantified by LC–MS/MS. 3. After single s.c. administrations of 0.075, 0.15, and 0.3 mg/kg of MNTX bromide, Cmax values of MNTX were 93.5 ± 28.6, 191 ± 37, and 364 ± 54 ng/mL, respectively, and AUC0–∞ were 88.8 ± 8.8, 181 ± 16, and 357 ± 34 ng⋅h/mL, respectively. The t1/2 of MNTX was about 7.7 h. After multiple doses administration, the Cmax, Cav, AUCss, and MRT0–∞ values were 191 ± 50, 3.79 ± 0.40 ng/mL, 182 ± 19 ng⋅h/mL, and 3.56 ± 1.17 h, respectively. 4. Methylnaltrexone bromide displayed dose-proportional pharmacokinetics in the dose range of 0.075–0.3 mg/kg. After multiple doses administration, t1/2 was slightly prolonged, with the cumulative factor of 1.02. This study provides a pharmacokinetic reference after a single dose and multiple doses of MNTX bromide in Chinese subjects.