Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Early age at menarche associated with cardiovascular disease and mortality.

CONTEXT The relationship between age at menarche and cardiovascular disease remains unclear. Two recent studies found an inverse association between age at menarche and all-cause mortality. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between age at menarche and cardiovascular disease risk factors, events, and mortality. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS A population-based prospective study involving 15,807 women, aged 40-79 yr in 1993-1997 and followed up to March 2007 for cardiovascular disease events (median follow-up 10.6 yr) and February 2008 for mortality (median follow-up 12.0 yr) was used. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Odds ratios for cardiovascular disease risk factors and hazard ratios for incident cardiovascular disease and mortality were calculated. RESULTS There were 3888 incident cardiovascular disease events (1323 coronary heart disease, 602 stroke, and 1963 other) and 1903 deaths (640 cardiovascular disease, 782 cancer, and 481 other) during follow-up. Compared with other women, those who had early menarche (<12 yr) had higher risks of hypertension [1.13 (1.02-1.24)], incident cardiovascular disease [1.17 (1.07-1.27)], incident coronary heart disease [1.23 (1.06-1.43)], all-cause mortality [1.22 (1.07-1.39)], cardiovascular disease mortality [1.28 (1.02-1.62)], and cancer mortality [1.25 (1.03-1.51)], adjusted for age, physical activity, smoking, alcohol, educational level, occupational social class, oral contraceptive use, hormone replacement therapy, parity, body mass index, and waist circumference. CONCLUSIONS Early age at menarche (before age 12 yr) was associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease events, cardiovascular disease mortality, and overall mortality in women, and this association appeared to be only partly mediated by increased adiposity.
Radiotherapy for Oligometastatic Lung Cancer

Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) typically presents at an advanced stage, which is often felt to be incurable, and such patients are usually treated with a palliative approach. Accumulating retrospective and prospective clinical evidence, including a recently completed randomized trial, support the existence of an oligometastatic disease state wherein select individuals with advanced NSCLC may experience historically unprecedented prolonged survival with aggressive local treatments, consisting of radiotherapy and/or surgery, to limited sites of metastatic disease. This is reflected in the most recent AJCC staging subcategorizing metastatic disease into intra-thoracic (M1a), a single extra thoracic site (M1b), and more diffuse metastases (M1c). In the field of radiation oncology, recent technological advances have allowed for the delivery of very high, potentially ablative, doses of radiotherapy to both intra- and extra-cranial disease sites, referred to as stereotactic radiosurgery and stereotactic body radiotherapy (or SABR), in much shorter time periods compared to conventional radiation and with minimal associated toxicity. At the same time, significant improvements in systemic therapy, including platinum-based doublet chemotherapy, molecular agents targeting oncogene-addicted NSCLC, and immunotherapy in the form of checkpoint inhibitors, have led to improved control of micro-metastatic disease and extended survival sparking newfound interest in combining these agents with ablative local therapies to provide additive, and in the case of radiation and immunotherapy, potentially synergistic, effects in order to further improve progression-free and overall survival. Currently, despite the tantalizing potential associated with aggressive local therapy in the setting of oligometastatic NSCLC, well-designed prospective randomized controlled trials sufficiently powered to detect and measure the possible added benefit afforded by this approach are desperately needed.
A Control of Modified Optical Scanning and Tracking Head to Detection and Tracking Air Targets

The dissertation presents the method of controlling the designed scanning and tracking head (optical target seeker) [ which is used for detecting and tracking air targets emitting their own radiation, e.g. infrared radiation. The control algorithm consists in using the phase trajectories of control deviations. Digital simulations of the proposed solution have been conducted. The results of those simulations have been presented in a graphical form.
On the representation of droplet coalescence and autoconversion: Evaluation using ambient cloud droplet size distributions

In this study, we evaluate eight autoconversion parameterizations against integration of the Kinetic Collection Equation (KCE) for cloud size distributions measured during the NASA CRYSTAL‐FACE and CSTRIPE campaigns. KCE calculations are done using both the observed data and fits of these data to a gamma distribution function; it is found that the fitted distributions provide a good approximation for calculations of total coalescence but not for autoconversion because of fitting errors near the drop‐drizzle separation size. Parameterizations that explicitly compute autoconversion tend to be in better agreement with KCE but are subject to substantial uncertainty, about an order of magnitude in autoconversion rate. Including turbulence effects on droplet collection increases autoconversion by a factor of 1.82 and 1.24 for CRYSTAL‐FACE and CSTRIPE clouds, respectively; this enhancement never exceeds a factor of 3, even under the most aggressive collection conditions. Shifting the droplet‐drizzle separation radius from 20 to 25 μm results in about a twofold uncertainty in autoconversion rate. The polynomial approximation to the gravitation collection kernel used to develop parameterizations provides computation of autoconversion that agree to within 30%. Collectively, these uncertainties have an important impact on autoconversion but are all within the factor of 10 uncertainty of autoconversion parameterizations. Incorporating KCE calculations in GCM simulations of aerosol‐cloud interactions studies is computationally feasible by using precalculated collection kernel tables and can quantify the autoconversion uncertainty associated with application of parameterizations.
Impact of the emitter polysilicon thickness on the performance of high-linearity mixers with horizontal current bipolar transistors

The impact of the emitter polysilicon etching in Tetramethyl Ammonium Hydroxide (TMAH) on the characteristics of high-linearity mixers fabricated with the low-cost Horizontal Current Bipolar Transistor (HCBT) is analyzed. During emitter formation, the thick layer of α-Si is deposited over the whole wafer, which is then etched-back in the TMAH. The emitter thickness depends on the TMAH etching time and impacts the HCBT's electrical characteristics. Active down-converting mixers with open-collector topology based on Gilbert cell are fabricated with two types of HCBTs with different TMAH etching time using the lowest-cost HCBT technology with CMOS n-well region for n-collector. Measurements of mixers' characteristics are done on-wafer by using the multi-contact probes. The mixers achieve maximum IIP3 of 20.2 dBm and conversion gain of 4 dB. Differences in performance characteristics between two mixer types are small indicating that HCBT's circuit performance sensitivity on the emitter thickness variations is relatively small.
Reliability-Constrained Optimal Sizing of Energy Storage System in a Microgrid

This paper presents a model for calculating the optimal size of an energy storage system (ESS) in a microgrid considering reliability criterion. A larger ESS requires higher investment costs while reduces the microgrid operating cost. The optimal ESS sizing problem is proposed which minimizes the investment cost of the ESS, as well as expected microgrid operating cost. Utilizing the ESS, generation shortage due to outage of conventional units and intermittency of renewable units is handled; hence microgrid reliability criterion is satisfied. A practical model for ESS is utilized. Mixed-integer programming (MIP) is utilized to formulate the problem. Illustrative examples show the efficiency of the proposed model.
The Impact of Demand Aggregation Through Delayed Component Allocation in an Assemble-to-Order System

We consider an assemble-to-order system in which multiple products are assembled from a common component and a set of product-dedicated components. Component capacities are chosen prior to a finite-horizon selling season, and the common component is allocated to the products based on observed demands. We propose a collection of allocation mechanisms involving varying degrees of demand aggregation, ranging from a scheme under which all demands are observed prior to making the allocation decision to allocations made for each arriving demand. In this context, we explore the impact of the allocation scheme on sales, profits, and capacity decisions, including the degree of capacity imbalance. We find that the benefit from increased demand aggregation is closely linked to the degree of capacity imbalance: profit gains from delayed allocation tend to be higher in systems in which the optimal capacity portfolio is highly unbalanced when the allocation decision is made after observing all demands. We develop insights into what detailed system parameters lead to the largest gains from demand aggregation and also explore the trade-offs associated with the choice of an allocation scheme when customers exhibit impatience if the allocation scheme forces them to wait to be served. This paper was accepted by Ananth Iyer, operations and supply chain management.
Angiitis of the central nervous system after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation?

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE There is only limited information about late neurological complications after bone marrow transplantation (BMT). The purpose of this study is to describe a cerebral angiitis-like syndrome after allogeneic BMT. METHODS Clinical and diagnostic findings of 5 BMT patients with chronic graft versus host disease and neuropathological data of 1 patient were reported. RESULTS In the described patients, focal neurological signs and neuropsychological abnormalities occurred years after BMT. MRI revealed periventricular white matter lesions, lacunar or territorial infarctions, leukoencephalopathy, and hemorrhages. Angiitis of the central nervous system was confirmed in 1 patient at autopsy, and an angiitis-like syndrome was suspected in the other patients because of the clinical course and response to treatment. Three patients received cyclophosphamide and steroids (2 improved, 1 died), 1 patient improved after steroids alone, and 1 patient without immunosuppressive therapy deteriorated further. CONCLUSIONS We propose that an angiitis-like syndrome of the central nervous system can be a neurological manifestation of graft versus host disease, which should be considered a possible cause of cerebral ischemic episodes and pathological MRI scans in BMT patients with graft versus host disease.
Influence of text line segmentation in Handwritten Text Recognition

Text line segmentation is the process by which text lines in a document image are localized and extracted. It is an important step in off-line Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) given that the input of these systems is the line image of the text to be transcribed. A myriad of solutions to the text line segmentation problem have been proposed in the literature. Although these solutions may differ greatly on what is actually applied to perform the segmentation, they can be classified by the level of precision and detail in the final extracted lines. In this paper we study the influence and real needs of different levels of precision and detail in the segmentation solutions in a real HTR task. We test three technics of text line segmentation whose output range from a simple rectangle for each line to a perfect fitted polygon surrounding the detected lines. Experiments have been carried out with a historical collection and results show that good HTR accuracy can be obtained with simple extraction algorithms.
Structure of well-defined deformation bands and formation of recrystallization nuclei in aluminium

AbstractIn order to investigate by transmission electron microscopy the same type of deformation band before and after annealing a study was made of the microstructure of a twisted aluminium crystal. Between the mainly single slip regions, bands of multiple slip were observed, with the development of misoriented deformation bands between the single and multiple slip regions. For one of the two types of deformation band, with a local misorientation of 25° over 15–25 μm the subgrains in the section studied were found to be equiaxed with a small spread of subgrain sizes but a large spread in subgrain angles (0.5–10°). On annealing, large subgrains developed which were somewhat elongated along the band, and these subgrains, which had the orientation of the single slip region, invaded the multiple slip regions. The nucleation mechanism was equivalent to straininduced boundary migration of the artificial 25° boundary produced by the deformation. The evidence of the microstructural changes indicated that a.
Defining nodes in complex brain networks

Network science holds great promise for expanding our understanding of the human brain in health, disease, development, and aging. Network analyses are quickly becoming the method of choice for analyzing functional MRI data. However, many technical issues have yet to be confronted in order to optimize results. One particular issue that remains controversial in functional brain network analyses is the definition of a network node. In functional brain networks a node represents some predefined collection of brain tissue, and an edge measures the functional connectivity between pairs of nodes. The characteristics of a node, chosen by the researcher, vary considerably in the literature. This manuscript reviews the current state of the art based on published manuscripts and highlights the strengths and weaknesses of three main methods for defining nodes. Voxel-wise networks are constructed by assigning a node to each, equally sized brain area (voxel). The fMRI time-series recorded from each voxel is then used to create the functional network. Anatomical methods utilize atlases to define the nodes based on brain structure. The fMRI time-series from all voxels within the anatomical area are averaged and subsequently used to generate the network. Functional activation methods rely on data from traditional fMRI activation studies, often from databases, to identify network nodes. Such methods identify the peaks or centers of mass from activation maps to determine the location of the nodes. Small (~10–20 millimeter diameter) spheres located at the coordinates of the activation foci are then applied to the data being used in the network analysis. The fMRI time-series from all voxels in the sphere are then averaged, and the resultant time series is used to generate the network. We attempt to clarify the discussion and move the study of complex brain networks forward. While the “correct” method to be used remains an open, possibly unsolvable question that deserves extensive debate and research, we argue that the best method available at the current time is the voxel-wise method.
The proximal experience of gratitude

Although a great deal of research has tested the longitudinal effects of regularly practicing gratitude, much less attention has been paid to the emotional landscape directly following engagement in gratitude exercises. In three studies, we explored the array of discrete emotions people experience after being prompted to express or recall gratitude. In Studies 1 and 2, two different gratitude exercises produced not only greater feelings of gratitude relative to two positive emotion control conditions (i.e., recalling relief), but also higher levels of other socially relevant states like elevation, connectedness, and indebtedness. In a third study, conducted in both the U.S. and S. Korea, we compared a gratitude exercise to another positive emotion elicitation (i.e., recalling a kind act) and to a neutral task, and again found that the gratitude exercise prompted greater gratitude, elevation, indebtedness, and guilt, but no more embarrassment or shame, than the two comparison conditions. Additionally, in all three studies, emodiversity and cluster analyses revealed that gratitude exercises led to the simultaneous experience of both pleasant and unpleasant socially-relevant states. In sum, although it may seem obvious that gratitude exercises would evoke grateful, positive states, a meta-analysis of our three studies revealed that gratitude exercises actually elicit a mixed emotional experience—one that simultaneously leads individuals to feel uplifted and indebted.
A New Twist to a Chronic HCV Infection: Occult Hepatitis C

Background. The prevalence of occult hepatitis C infection (OCI) in the population of HCV-RNA negative but anti-HCV positive individuals is presently unknown. OCI may be responsible for clinically overt recurrent disease following an apparent sustained viral response (SVR) weeks to years later. Purpose. To review the available current literature regarding OCI, prevalence, pathogenic mechanisms, clinical characteristics, and future directions. Data Sources. Searching MEDLINE, article references, and national and international meeting abstracts for the diagnosis of OCI (1990–2014). Data Synthesis. The long-term followup of individuals with an OCI suggests that the infection can be transient with the loss of detectable HCV-RNA in PPBMCs after 12–18 months or alternatively exist intermittently and potentially long term. The ultimate outcome of HCV infection is decided by interplay between host immune responses, antiviral therapies, and the various well-identified viral evasion mechanisms as well as the presence of HCV infection within extrahepatic tissues. Conclusion. The currently widely held assumption of a HCV-cure in individuals having had “SVR” after 8–12 weeks of a course of DAA therapy as recently defined may not be entirely valid. Careful longitudinal followup utilizing highly sensitive assays and unique approaches to viral isolation are needed.
A search method using Genetic Algorithm for production reactive scheduling of manufacturing systems

The problem for scheduling the manufacturing systems production involves the modeling task and the application of a technique to solve it. There are some ways used to model such problem and some search strategies have been applied on the model to find a solution. The solution has to consider performances parameters like makespan or another. However, depending on the size and complexity of the system, the response time becomes critical, mostly when itpsilas necessary a reschedule. Researches aim to use genetic algorithms as a search method to solve the scheduling problem. This work proposes the use of genetic algorithm to solve this problem having as performance criteria the minimum makespan and the response time.
[Severe chloroquine- and hydroxychloroquine-induced retinopathy].

INTRODUCTION Antimalarial drug-induced retinopathy was first described in the 1950s. Irreversible retinal damage still occurs 50 years later, despite knowledge of the phenomenon. This raises several questions: How aware are physicians of this problem and do they inform their patients? What efficient prevention strategies should be advocated and what are the legal aspects? We present four cases of severe chloroquine- and hydroxychloroquine-induced retinopathy to try to understand what led to these situations. CASE REPORTS The fist case, a male patient born in 1956, had chloroquine therapy for lupus initiated in 1987, at a dose ranging from 3 to 6 mg/kg per day. In 1992, no toxicity was clinically or electrophysiologically noted. In 1997, macular abnormalities were diagnosed; chloroquine treatment was nevertheless continued. In 2002, the electroretinogram and central visual field examinations were abnormal. Chloroquine treatment was discontinued. In 2005, abnormalities of full-field and multifocal electroretinograms, electro-oculogram, color vision, and visual field confirmed the maculopathy. The second case, a female patient, born in 1956, had chloroquine therapy for rheumatoid arthritis beginning in 1993, at a dose of 5 mg/kg per day. In 1999, 2000, and 2001, electroretinograms were reported as normal. Clinical maculopathy occurred in 2003 and treatment was continued. In January 2004, the central visual field was found abnormal; treatment was discontinued in July 2004. The third case, a female patient born in 1931, had chloroquine therapy for malaria prevention initiated in 1975, at a dose of 1.7 mg/kg per day. No exams were performed after 1983. In 2001, she complained of a left unilateral vision loss. Bilateral maculopathy was clinically found, and confirmed by full-field and multifocal electroretinograms. The fourth case, a female patient born in 1944, had hydroxychloroquine therapy for lupus initiated in 1982 at a dose of 6.9 mg/kg per day. In 2000 and 2002, full-field electroretinograms were reported as normal despite low amplitudes. In 2004, clinical examination was normal, whereas electroretinogram, electro-oculogram, color vision, and central visual field examinations proved severe damage; the treatment was discontinued. DISCUSSION Retinal damage in these cases was caused by several factors. Treatment was not stopped despite clinically obvious maculopathy in cases 1 and 2. In case 3, no ophthalmologic examinations were performed between 1983 and 2001. In case 4, despite a high cumulative dose, therapy was not discontinued, as also seen in cases 1 and 2, in which ophthalmologic monitoring was not increased. Higher doses than the maximal recommended daily dose occurred in cases 1, 2, and 4. CONCLUSION Antimalarial drug therapy still requires intensive monitoring to avoid severe retinal damage that can lead to legal blindness. Appropriate examinations should be performed regularly in order to decide whether to taper or stop when damage is still mild, preclinical, or reversible.
Two Homologous EF-G Proteins from Pseudomonas aeruginosa Exhibit Distinct Functions

Genes encoding two proteins corresponding to elongation factor G (EF-G) were cloned from Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The proteins encoded by these genes are both members of the EFG I subfamily. The gene encoding one of the forms of EF-G is located in the str operon and the resulting protein is referred to as EF-G1A while the gene encoding the other form of EF-G is located in another part of the genome and the resulting protein is referred to as EF-G1B. These proteins were expressed and purified to 98% homogeneity. Sequence analysis indicated the two proteins are 90/84% similar/identical. In other organisms containing multiple forms of EF-G a lower degree of similarity is seen. When assayed in a poly(U)-directed poly-phenylalanine translation system, EF-G1B was 75-fold more active than EF-G1A. EF-G1A pre-incubate with ribosomes in the presence of the ribosome recycling factor (RRF) decreased polymerization of poly-phenylalanine upon addition of EF-G1B in poly(U)-directed translation suggesting a role for EF-G1A in uncoupling of the ribosome into its constituent subunits. Both forms of P. aeruginosa EF-G were active in ribosome dependent GTPase activity. The kinetic parameters (K M) for the interaction of EF-G1A and EF-G1B with GTP were 85 and 70 μM, respectively. However, EF-G1B exhibited a 5-fold greater turnover number (observed k cat) for the hydrolysis of GTP than EF-G1A; 0.2 s-1 vs. 0.04 s-1. These values resulted in specificity constants (k cat obs/K M) for EF-G1A and EF-G1B of 0.5 x 103 s-1 M-1 and 3.0 x 103 s-1 M-1, respectively. The antibiotic fusidic acid (FA) completely inhibited poly(U)-dependent protein synthesis containing P. aeruginosa EF-G1B, but the same protein synthesis system containing EF-G1A was not affected. Likewise, the activity of EF-G1B in ribosome dependent GTPase assays was completely inhibited by FA, while the activity of EF-G1A was not affected.