Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Convex Computation of the Region of Attraction of Polynomial Control Systems

We address the long-standing problem of computing the region of attraction (ROA) of a target set (e.g., a neighborhood of an equilibrium point) of a controlled nonlinear system with polynomial dynamics and semialgebraic state and input constraints. We show that the ROA can be computed by solving an infinite-dimensional convex linear programming (LP) problem over the space of measures. In turn, this problem can be solved approximately via a classical converging hierarchy of convex finite-dimensional linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Our approach is genuinely primal in the sense that convexity of the problem of computing the ROA is an outcome of optimizing directly over system trajectories. The dual infinite-dimensional LP on nonnegative continuous functions (approximated by polynomial sum-of-squares) allows us to generate a hierarchy of semialgebraic outer approximations of the ROA at the price of solving a sequence of LMI problems with asymptotically vanishing conservatism. This sharply contrasts with the existing literature which follows an exclusively dual Lyapunov approach yielding either nonconvex bilinear matrix inequalities or conservative LMI conditions. The approach is simple and readily applicable as the outer approximations are the outcome of a single semidefinite program with no additional data required besides the problem description. The approach is demonstrated on several numerical examples.
In Vitro Activity of Gentamicin-Loaded Bioabsorbable Beads against Different Microorganisms

Osteomyelitis is responsible for high treatment costs, long hospital stays, and results in substantial morbidity. Treatment with surgical debridement and antibiotic-impregnated Polymethylmetacrylate (PMMA) beads is the standard of care, providing high local but low serum antibiotic concentrations, thereby avoiding systemic toxicity. However, for several reasons, the beads require surgical removal. Alternative antibiotic delivery systems should improve the treatment of bone infection, actively encourage bone healing and require no additional surgery for removal. We investigated the activity of gentamicin-loaded bioabsorbable beads against different microorganisms (Staphylococcus epidermidis, S. aureus, Escherichia coli, Enterococcus faecalis, Candida albicans) commonly causing surgical site bone infection, by microcalorimetry. Calcium sulphate beads containing gentamicin were incubated in microcalorimetry ampoules containing different concentrations of the corresponding microorganism. Growth medium with each germ and unloaded beads was used as positive control, growth medium with loaded beads alone as negative control. Bacterial growth-related heat production at 37 °C was measured for 24 h. Cultures without gentamicin-loaded beads produced heat-flow peaks corresponding to the exponential growth of the corresponding microorganisms in nutrient-rich medium. In contrast, cultures with gentamicin-loaded beads completely suppressed heat production during 24 h, demonstrating their antibiotic activity. Gentamicin-loaded beads effectively inhibited growth of susceptible microorganisms, under the described in vitro conditions.
Lynch syndrome (hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer) and endometrial carcinoma

Women with hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC)/Lynch syndrome have a high risk for endometrial cancer (EC) and frequently present with a gynaecological cancer as their first or sentinel malignancy. Identification of these patients is important given their personal and family risk for synchronous and metachronous tumours. Modalities to detect ECs for the possibility of HNPCC include microsatellite instability assay, immunohistochemistry for DNA mismatch repair proteins, MLH1 promoter hypermethylation assay and mutational analysis of DNA mismatch repair genes. The revised Bethesda guidelines provide screening criteria for HNPCC in colorectal cancers (CRCs). However, there are currently no such screening recommendations for women with endometrial carcinoma. While age and family history are useful screening criteria, their sensitivity has been shown to be low for detection of HNPCC in EC. Expansion of these criteria to include tumour morphology (presence of tumour infiltrating lymphocytes and tumour heterogeneity including dedifferentiated/undifferentiated ECs) and topography (lower uterine segment localisation) as well as presence of synchronous ovarian clear cell carcinomas may significantly enhance the detection of patients with EC at risk for HNPCC. Consideration should be given to incorporating these screening criteria into a revision of the Bethesda guidelines for detecting EC patients at highest risk for HNPCC.
The Effects of School-wide Positive Behavior Support on Middle School Climate and Student Outcomes

Abstract This study investigated the effects of school-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS) on middle school climate and student outcomes. Data consisted of more than 300 teacher responses and 10,000 student responses in two middle schools in the western United States. This study used a quasi-experimental (non-equivalent two-group, pretest-posttest) design. One school implemented a SWPBS intervention over a period of four years, while the other served as a control. The SWPBS intervention included school-wide teaching of social skills, praise notes from teachers to students, posting of school rules, proactive screening for students at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders, and referrals of at-risk students for targeted interventions. The treatment school showed statistically significant improvements in teacher ratings of school climate, while the control school tended to stay the same or worsen. Statistically significant decreases were also evident in students’ tardiness, unexcused absences, and office discipline referrals when compared to the control school. Implications and limitations of this study are addressed.
Cerebellar contributions to visuomotor adaptation and motor sequence learning: an ALE meta-analysis

Cerebellar contributions to motor learning are well-documented. For example, under some conditions, patients with cerebellar damage are impaired at visuomotor adaptation and at acquiring new action sequences. Moreover, cerebellar activation has been observed in functional MRI (fMRI) investigations of various motor learning tasks. The early phases of motor learning are cognitively demanding, relying on processes such as working memory, which have been linked to the cerebellum as well. Here, we investigated cerebellar contributions to motor learning using activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis. This allowed us to determine, across studies and tasks, whether or not the location of cerebellar activation is constant across differing motor learning tasks, and whether or not cerebellar activation in early learning overlaps with that observed for working memory. We found that different regions of the anterior cerebellum are engaged for implicit and explicit sequence learning and visuomotor adaptation, providing additional evidence for the modularity of cerebellar function. Furthermore, we found that lobule VI of the cerebellum, which has been implicated in working memory, is activated during the early stages of explicit motor sequence learning. This provides evidence for a potential role for the cerebellum in the cognitive processing associated with motor learning. However, though lobule VI was activated across both early explicit sequence learning and working memory studies, there was no spatial overlap between these two regions. Together, our results support the idea of modularity in the formation of internal representations of new motor tasks in the cerebellum, and highlight the cognitive processing relied upon during the early phases of motor skill learning.
On the Complexity of Sphere Decoding for MSDD

We consider multiple-symbol differential detection (MSDD) for multiple-input multiple-output Rayleigh-fading channels. MSDD, which jointly processes blocks of N received symbols to detect N - 1 data symbols, allows for power-efficient transmission without requiring channel state information at the receiver. In previous work, we showed that computationally efficient sphere decoding algorithms can be used to accomplish MSDD. In this paper, we analyze the computational complexity of this sphere-decoding based MSDD. In particular, we prove by means of a lower bound that the complexity of the Fincke-Pohst multiple-symbol differential sphere decoder (FP-MSDSD), while being very low over wide ranges of N and signal-to-noise ratios, is exponential in N in principle. We further derive expressions for the exact complete of FP-MSDSD, which allow for quick assessment of ranges of useful window sizes N
Specialized enteral nutrition therapy in Crohn’s disease patients on maintenance infliximab therapy: a meta-analysis

Objectives: Many patients with Crohn’s disease on infliximab maintenance therapy have recurrent symptoms despite an initial clinical response. Therefore, concomitant therapies have been studied. We conducted a meta-analysis to assess the effect of specialized enteral nutrition therapy with infliximab versus infliximab monotherapy in patients with Crohn’s disease. Methods: A comprehensive search of multiple databases was performed. All studies of adult patients with Crohn’s disease comparing specialized enteral nutrition therapy (elemental or polymeric diet with low-fat or regular diet) with infliximab versus infliximab monotherapy without dietary restrictions were included. Meta-analysis was performed using the Mantel–Haenszel (fixed effect) model with odds ratio (OR) to assess for clinical remission. Results: Four studies (n = 342) met inclusion criteria. Specialized enteral nutrition therapy with infliximab resulted in 109 of 157 (69.4%) patients reaching clinical remission compared with 84 of 185 (45.4%) with infliximab monotherapy [OR 2.73; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.73–4.31, p < 0.01]. Similarly, 79 of 106 (74.5%) patients receiving enteral nutrition therapy and infliximab remained in clinical remission after one year compared with 62 of 126 (49.2%) patients receiving infliximab monotherapy (OR 2.93; 95% CI: 1.66–5.17, p < 0.01). No publication bias or heterogeneity was noted for either outcome. Conclusions: The use of specialized enteral nutrition therapy in combination with infliximab appears to be more effective at inducing and maintaining clinical remission among patients with Crohn’s disease than infliximab monotherapy.
Software defect prediction using machine learning on test and source code metrics

Context. Software testing is the process of finding faults in software while executing it. The results of the testing are used to find and correct faults. Software defect prediction estimates where faults are likely to occur in source code. The results from the defect prediction can be used to opti- mize testing and ultimately improve software quality. Machine learning, that concerns computer programs learning from data, is used to build pre- diction models which then can be used to classify data. Objectives. In this study we, in collaboration with Ericsson, investigated whether software metrics from source code files combined with metrics from their respective tests predicts faults with better prediction perfor- mance compared to using only metrics from the source code files. Methods. A literature review was conducted to identify inputs for an ex- periment. The experiment was applied on one repository from Ericsson to identify the best performing set of metrics. Results. The prediction performance results of three metric sets are pre- sented and compared with each other. Wilcoxon’s signed rank tests are performed on four different performance measures for each metric set and each machine learning algorithm to demonstrate significant differences of the results. Conclusions. We conclude that metrics from tests can be used to predict faults. However, the combination of source code metrics and test metrics do not outperform using only source code metrics. Moreover, we conclude that models built with metrics from the test metric set with minimal infor- mation of the source code can in fact predict faults in the source code.
Author's Personal Copy Computational Statistics and Data Analysis Independent Component Analysis for the Objective Classification of Globular Clusters of the Galaxy Ngc 5128

In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: a b s t r a c t Independent Component Analysis (ICA) is closely related to Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and factor analysis. Whereas ICA finds a set of source data that are mutually independent, PCA finds a set of data that are mutually uncorrelated. The assumption that data from different physical processes are uncorrelated does not always imply the reverse case that uncorrelated data are coming from different physical processes. This is because lack of correlation is a weaker property than independence. In the present case an objective classification of the globular clusters (GCs) of NGC 5128 has been carried out. Components responsible for significant variation have been obtained through both Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Independent Component Analysis (ICA) and the classification has been done by K-means clustering. The set of observable parameters includes structural parameters, spectroscopically determined Lick indices and radial velocities from the literature. We propose that GCs of NGC 5128 consist of two groups. One group originated in the original cluster formation event that coincided with the formation of the elliptical galaxy and the other group emerged from an accreted spiral galaxy. This is unlike the previous result (Chattopadhyay et al., 2009) which accounts for a third group originating from the accretion of tidally stripped dwarf galaxies.
Assessment of the Cerebral Vasomotor Reactivity in Internal Carotid Artery Occlusion Using a Transcranial Doppler Sonography and Functional MRI

Several methods are being used to assess cerebral vasomotor reactivity (CVR), including transcranial Doppler (TCD) sonography and blood oxygenation level‐dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The aim was to assess the correlation of TCD and fMRI in the CVR assessment.
Accumulation of abdominal fat in relation to selected proinflammatory cytokines concentrations in non-obese Wrocław inhabitants.

INTRODUCTION Metabolically obese normal weight (MONW) subjects, despite their normal BMI, present metabolic disturbances characteristic of abdominal obesity. One of the reasons might be subclinical inflammation caused by the fat tissue excess. The aim of this study was to assess the association between the accumulation of fat (especially abdominal) and the concentration of selected proinflammatory cytokines - interleukins (IL-6, IL-18) and C-reactive protein (CRP). MATERIAL AND METHODS The study population consisted of 342 subjects (218 women, 124 men; age 20-40 years, BMI < 27 kg/m2) recruited from a community centre in Wroclaw. The group was divided based on the homeostasis assessment insulin resistance index (HOMA) value: 90 MONW subjects with HOMA > 1.69 and 252 subjects as control group. Anthropometric parameters, serum IL-6, IL-18, CRP, glucose, insulin concentrations and insulin sensitivity/resistance indexes were evaluated. RESULTS CRP levels were significantly higher (3.26 vs. 1.97, p = 0.03) in MONW women than in the control group. Serum IL-6, IL-18 levels in males and females did not differ in both groups. IL-6 showed a significant correlation with the abdominal to gynoidal fat tissue deposit ratio in women. There were correlations between the CRP and BMI, WHR, waist circumference, total fat, abdominal fat deposit, and abdominal to gynoidal fat deposit ratio in both sexes. In women, positive correlations between CRP and HOMA, FIRI and negative with QUICKI index were present. CONCLUSIONS Increased accumulation of abdominal adipose tissue in non-obese, young and healthy subjects is related to increased CRP levels.
Cu8GeSe6-based thermoelectric materials with an argyrodite structure

Recently, liquid-like superionic thermoelectric materials have attracted great attention due to their extremely low lattice thermal conductivity and high thermoelectric figure of merit (ZT). Argyrodite-type compounds are typical superionic semiconductors with two independent structural units that can be used to separately tune electrical and thermal transport properties. In this work, we report that Cu8GeSe6 with an argyrodite structure is a new class of thermoelectric materials with extremely low lattice thermal conductivity. The presence of two independent structural units in Cu8GeSe6 provides the possibility of greatly improving its electrical transport properties while maintaining ultralow lattice thermal conductivity. By alloying Ag and Te in Cu8GeSe6, the ZT values are significantly improved to above unity at 800 K in Cu7.6Ag0. 4GeSe5.1Te0. 9, comparable with the best superionic liquid-like thermoelectric materials. The ultralow thermal conductivity is mainly attributed to the weak chemical bonding between Cu atoms and the rigid [GeSe6] sublattice.
Pregnancy Complications and Short‐Term Follow‐Up of Infants Born After in Vitro Fertilization and Embryo Transfer (IVF/ET)

Two hundred and six pregnancies occurring after in vitro fertilization (IVF) and embryo transfer (ET) during a 7‐year period in Goteborg were analysed with respect to pregnancy outcome. The clinical abortion rate was 26%, the rate of ectopic pregnancy was 10%, the rate of ongoing pregnancies beyond 24 weeks was 15%, and the rate of deliveries was 49% (n = 100). The hospital records of 98 women with the 100 deliveries resulting in 131 infants were studied. Multiple pregnancy occurred in 27%, including one quadruplet and two triplet pregnancies. Preterm birth occurred in 30% of all pregnancies and in 20% of singleton pregnancies. Thirty‐four percent of the infants had a birth weight of less than 2500 g. The perinatal mortality was 46/1000, as estimated from the 24th week of pregnancy. The incidence of major malformation, 2.3%, was similar to that reported from studies in the general population. The first 100 infants born were followed up for 18 months to 8 years. Long‐term sequelae were associated with immaturity and low birth weight. No problems during follow‐up were disclosed in children who had had an uneventful neonatal period. It is concluded that IVF pregnancies are an obstetric risk group requiring special attention
Investigation of Cortical Thickness Abnormalities in Lithium-free Adults with Bipolar I Disorder Using Cortical Pattern Matching

included patients being treated with lithium, a medication associated with increases in cortical and subcortical gray matter volumes (14–16). Most studies have also included patients in various mood states at the time of scanning, despite recent evidence demonstrating volume reductions in depressed compared with euthymic bipolar patients (8, 17). A majority of studies additionally have not controlled for the wide variations in gyral patterning that naturally exist between individuals and may cause errors in registration and subsequent morphometric analyses (18). Given these issues, we sought to examine cortical thickness abnormalities using surface-based brain mapping methods in a sample of euthymic, lithium-free bipolar I patients. We used a specialized registration procedure known as cortical pattern matching, which improves on traditional registration approaches by aligning structural or functional MR images across subjects using sulcal features. Through explicit identification of sulcal landmarks and use of these landmarks as anchors in a warping process, cortical pattern matching achieves an overlapping sulcal alignment across subjects. This matching of sulcal anatomy eliminates much of the confounding Bi polar disorder affects 1.5%–3% of the population (1), yet the neurophysiologic basis for the disorder remains unknown. Structural neuroimaging studies using region-of-interest-based techniques have reported that bipolar patients exhibit volumetric reductions in gray matter sub-regions of the frontal lobe, including the left subgenual (2, 3), the left dorsomedial (4), the left and right inferior and middle prefrontal (4, 5), and the left and right anterior cingulate cortices (6). However, other region-of-interest-based studies of bipolar disorder have reported greater volumes (7) or no difference (8) in these regions relative to healthy volunteers. Studies using methods that compare gray matter on a point-by-point basis, such as voxel-based morphometry, have found similar gray matter deficits in the left subgenual (9), the left middle (9) and the left and right inferior prefrontal (10), and the left anterior cingulate cortices (10). Yet other voxel-based morphometry studies have found either no difference in frontal regions (11, 12) or a greater volume of gray matter in patients relative to healthy volunteers (13). Among the possible causes for these inconsistencies is the heterogeneity of patient samples. Most studies have Objective: Although several lines of evidence implicate gray matter abnormalities in the prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex in patients with bipolar disorder, findings have been largely inconsistent across studies. D ifferences in patients' medication status or mood state or the application of traditional volumet-ric methods that are …
Dose-Dependent Inhibition of Tobacco Smoke Carcinogen–Induced Lung Tumorigenesis in A/J Mice by Indole-3-Carbinol

Recently, we reported inhibition of 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone (NNK) plus benzo(a)pyrene (BaP)–induced lung tumorigenesis in A/J mice by indole-3-carbinol (I3C; 112 μmol/g diet) administered beginning at 50% in the carcinogen treatment phase. In this study, we examined the dose-dependent and postcarcinogen tumor-inhibitory activities of I3C. A mixture of NNK plus BaP (2 μmol each) administered by gavage as eight biweekly doses caused 21.1 ± 5.2 lung tumors per mouse. Carcinogen-treated mice given diets containing I3C at 1, 10, 30, 71, and 112 μmol/g, beginning at 50% in the carcinogen treatment phase, had 17.9 ± 6.1, 10.4 ± 3.7, 9.8 ± 5.1, 5.2 ± 4.0, and 2.5 ± 2.4 lung tumors per mouse, corresponding to reductions by 15%, 51%, 53%, 75%, and 88%, respectively. All reductions, except at the lowest dose level (1 μmol I3C/g diet), were significant (P < 0.001). Similarly, administration of I3C (112 μmol/g diet) beginning 1 week after the last dose of the carcinogen significantly reduced NNK plus BaP-induced lung tumor multiplicity to 5.6 ± 3.5, corresponding to a reduction by 74%. Analyses of cell proliferation and apoptosis markers revealed that I3C reduced the number of Ki-67–positive cells and expression of proliferating cell nuclear antigen, phospho-Akt, and phospho-BAD and increased cleavage of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase, suggesting that the lung tumor inhibitory effects of I3C were mediated, at least partly, through inhibition of cell proliferation and induction of apoptosis. These results clearly show the efficacy of I3C in the prevention of tobacco carcinogen–induced lung tumorigenesis in A/J mice and provide a basis for future evaluation of this compound in clinical trials as a chemopreventive agent for current and former smokers.