Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Patient Compliance with Once-Daily and Twice-daily Oral Formulations of 5-Isosorbide Mononitrate: A Comparative Study

This study compares patient compliance with once- and twice-daily formulations of 5-isosorbide mononitrate. A total of 31 patients (20 men and 11 women) with stable angina pectoris were randomized to receive either 60 mg 5-isosorbide mononitrate in a controlled release formulation once daily, or 20 mg 5-isosorbide mononitrate twice daily. The results indicated that compliance assessed using the electronic Medication Event Monitoring System (MEMS®) was better with the once-daily than with the twice-daily formulation; patients on the once-daily regimen performed better with respect to the total number of bottle openings, the number of openings per day, the timing of openings and the intervals between openings. The apparently superior compliance with the once-daily regimen appeared to be reflected in better efficacy; patients on the once-daily regimen experienced fewer angina attacks (a mean of 1.7 per 7 days, compared with 3.3 per 7 days for patients on the twice-daily regimen) and used fewer nitroglycerin tablets than those on the twice-daily regimen.
A Theoretical Model for Understanding the Dynamics of Online Social Networks Decay

Online social networks represent a main source of communication and information exchange in today's life. They facilitate exquisitely news sharing, knowledge elicitation, and forming groups of same interests. Researchers in the last two decades studied the growth dynamics of the online social networks extensively questing a clear understanding of the behavior of humans in online social networks that helps in many directions, like engineering better recommendation systems and attracting new members. However, not all of social networks achieved the desired growth, for example, online social networks like MySpace, Orkut, and Friendster are out of service today. In this work, we present a probabilistic theoretical model that captures the dynamics of the social decay due to the inactivity of the members of a social network. The model is proved to have some interesting mathematical properties, namely \textit{submodularity}, which imply achieving the model optimization in a reasonable performance. That means the maximization problem can be approximated within a factor of $(1-1/e)$ and the minimization problem can be achieved in polynomial time.
Faster generation of random spanning trees by Aleksander M 4 dry

In this thesis, we set forth a new algorithm for generating approximately uniformly random spanning trees in undirected graphs. We show how to sample from a distribution that is within a multiplicative (1+6) of uniform in expected time O(mjn log 1/6). This improves the sparse graph case of the best previously known worst-case bound of O(min{mn, n2. 376}), which has stood for twenty years. To achieve this goal, we exploit the connection between random walks on graphs and electrical networks to introduce a new approach to the problem that integrates discrete random walk-based techniques with continuous linear algebraic methods. We believe that our use of electrical networks and sparse linear system solvers in conjunction with random walks and combinatorial partitioning techniques is a useful paradigm that will find further applications in algorithmic graph theory. This work was done in collaboration with Jonathan Kelner. Thesis Supervisor: Jonathan A. Kelner Title: Assistant Professor
Mass estimates in short-period compact binaries

ABSTRA C T Using stellar models we investigate the relation between mass and the spectral type of the secondary star in low-mass short-period compact binaries such as cataclysmic variables and soft X-ray transients. Allowing for different mass transfer rates and different system ages prior to mass transfer we find that the secondaries should populate a band in the spectral type versus mass plane. The mass Mms of a zero-age main-sequence star with the same spectral type as the donor is effectively an upper limit to the donor mass. The lower mass limit for a given spectral type depends on the mixing length parameter. If this is large, there is no lower limit if the spectral type is later than K6. The width of the band decreases from 0.4 M( at K6 to less than 0.2 M( at K0. If the mixing length parameter is small, there is no lower mass limit if the spectral type is later than M2, and the width of the band decreases from 0.2 M( at M2 to less than 0.1 M( for types earlier than K0. We also point out an error in the method suggested by Beekman et al. to estimate the primary mass in a soft X-ray transient.
Prevalence and socio-demographic risk factors associated with psychoactive substance use in psychiatric out-patients of a tertiary hospital in Nigeria

Background: The co-morbidity of psychoactive substance use and other mental disorders is a major challenge to the management of both conditions in several parts of the world. There is relative dearth of information on co-morbidity and its predictors in Nigeria. This study determined the prevalence and socio-demographic risk factors associated with psychoactive substance use in the psychiatric out-patients of a tertiary hospital in Nigeria. Study Design: A cross-sectional study. Materials and Methods: From routine clinic visits over a 4-month period, each consecutive 4th adult patients (>18 years) who had previously attended the clinic at least for 1 year, completed a socio-demographic and semi-structured drug use questionnaires and interview with the Schedule for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry (SCAN) to generate substance use diagnosis. Data was analysed using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS), version 16. Level of significance was set at P < 0.05. Results: The lifetime prevalence for the use of substance was 29.3%, while that for multiple substances was 17.7%. The most commonly used substances were alcohol, cannabis and tobacco and they were also the ones mostly used in combination with one or the other. A total of 10.1% of the patients had a psychoactive substance use disorder. Being male, married with at least primary education and unemployed were significant risk factors for substance use. Conclusion: Psychoactive substance is common among the psychiatric outpatients of the hospital with males, those with formal education, the married and unemployed being at high risk of substance use.
Activation of the locus coeruleus noradrenergic system by intracoerulear microinfusion of corticotropin-releasing factor: effects on discharge rate, cortical norepinephrine levels and cortical electroencephalographic activity.

Corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) administered intracerebroventricularly (i.c.v.) activates noradrenergic locus coeruleus (LC) neurons of halothane-anesthetized and unanesthetized rats. This study used a technique for microinfusing CRF into the LC from calibrated micropipettes to characterize and quantify the effects of locally administered CRF on LC discharge in halothane-anesthetized rats. CRF (3-100 ng) microinfusion into the LC increased discharge rate in a dose-dependent manner from 28 +/- 8 to 105 +/- 26% above preinfusion discharge rates. The CRF dose-response curve generated by local microinfusion was parallel to, and shifted approximately 200-fold to the left, of that generated by i.c. v. administration. Intracoerulear microinfusion of the CRF antagonist, [DPhe12,Nle(21,38),CalphaMeLeu37]r/hCRF(12-41), greatly attenuated LC activation produced by a maximally effective dose of i.c. v. administered CRF, suggesting that these effects are primarily due to actions within the LC. In rats in which both LC discharge rate and norepinephrine levels in prefrontal cortex were measured by in vivo microdialysis, CRF microinfused into the LC increased both endpoints. Finally, LC activation produced by CRF (60 ng) microinfusion into the LC was associated with cortical electroencephalographic activation. Taken together with previous anatomical and electrophysiological evidence for endogenous CRF interactions in the LC, our results support the hypothesis that CRF serves as an excitatory neurotransmitter in the LC, and suggest that its actions on LC neurons are translated to enhanced norepinephrine release and an impact on cortical targets.
Temporal Aspects of Reading Aloud and Speaking: Three Experiments

Three different experiments on the effects of linguistic development or proficiency on temporal aspects of reading aloud and speaking assessed the frequency, length, and location of unfilled pauses, speech rate, and phrase length. In general, proficiency decreased the frequency and length of those pauses and increased speech rate and phrase length when the subjects were reading, whereas it only increased speech rate and phrase length, and produced a sensitivity to semantic variations, when they were retelling a story. These findings, the exceptions to them, and the effect of the specific location of the pauses on their length suggest a pretheoretical distinction between the pauses' linguistic and cognitive functions. The present research had its origin in the conviction that an approach to oral reading and speech production through their temporal properties can yield lawful psycholinguistic results. Generically, the research tradition can be traced back to Maclay and Osgood (1959), particularly with regard to their specification of unfilled pauses, filled pauses, repeats, and false starts as relevant categories of speech behavior, and to GoldmanEisler (1968), for the basic hypothesis that temporal aspects of speech behavior can serve as indicants of underlying cognitive processes. In previous research, O'Connell, Kowal, and Hormann (1969) and O'Connell and Kowal (1972) emphasized the semantic determinants of unfilled pauses in the reading and retelling of short narrative paragraphs. For groups of American and German adolescents and adults tested in their native languages, an unusual turn of events in a paragraph was found literally to give people pause. The unusual version consistently yielded more frequent and longer unfilled pauses, and thus supported the hypothesis of the cognitive function of such pauses. Nonetheless, as both Boomer (1970) and Fillenbaum (1971) have pointed out, the research remains largely atheoretical, or at best, prototheoretical. The purpose of
Integrating obstacles in goal-driven requirements engineering

Requirements engineering is concerned with the elicitation of high-level goals to be achieved by the system envisioned, the refinement of such goals and their operationalization into services and constraints, and the assignment of responsibilities for the resulting requirements to agents such as humans, devices and software. Requirements engineering processes may often result in requirements and assumptions about agent behaviour that are too ideal; some of them are likely to be violated from time to time in the running system due to unexpected agent behaviour. The lack of anticipation of exceptional behaviors results in unrealistic, unachievable and/or incomplete requirements. As a consequence, the software developed from those requirements will inevitably result in poor performance, sometimes with critical consequences on the environment. This paper proposes systematic techniques for reasoning about obstacles to the satisfaction of goals, requirements, and assumptions elaborated in the requirements engineering process. These techniques are integrated into an existing method for goal-driven requirements elaboration with the aim of deriving more complete and realistic requirements. The concept of obstacle is first defined precisely. Formal techniques and domain-independent heuristics are then proposed for identifying obstacles from goal/assumption formulations and domain properties. The paper then discusses techniques for resolving obstacles by transformation of the goals, requirements and assumptions elaborated so far in the process, or by introduction of new ones. Numerous examples are given throughout the paper to suggest how the techniques can be usefully applied in practice.
Semi-blind channel estimation for OFDM systems via an EM-Block algorithm

In this paper, we propose a semi-blind channel estimation method based on an Expectation-Maximization Block algorithm (EM-Block). In the OFDM communication context, such an algorithm still have a linear arithmetical complexity. However, it yields to an SNR improvement going up to 3 dB compared to classical training sequences based channel estimation method in the context of 5 GHz OFDM WLANs. The new algorithm performs better than already existing recursive algorithms and use much less prior information on the channel coefficients.
On-The-Fly Interface Trap Measurement and Its Impact on the Understanding of NBTI Mechanism for p-MOSFETs with SiON Gate Dielectric

For the first time, we developed an on-the-fly method OFIT to measure the interface trap density N<sub>IT</sub> without recovery during measurement. The OFIT produces the most reliable experimental data of the interface trap generation dynamics under stress and therefore provides a solid ground to check various modeling work. The slope n of t<sup>n</sup> time evolution of DeltaN<sub>IT</sub> under stress is temperature dependent, supporting dispersive Hydrogen transport in the oxide. Comparing OFIT data with the data measured by ultra-fast pulsed V<sub>th</sub> measurement, we successfully decompose the NBTI DeltaV<sub>TH</sub> into interface trap component DeltaV<sub>TH</sub> <sup>IT</sup> and oxide charge component DeltaV<sub>TH</sub> <sup>OX</sup> quantitatively for the p-MOSFETs with SiON gate dielectric.
Use of PGMY Primers in L1 Consensus PCR Improves Detection of Human Papillomavirus DNA in Genital Samples

ABSTRACT The novel PGMY L1 consensus primer pair is more sensitive than the MY09 and MY11 primer mix for detection and typing with PCR of human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA in genital specimens. We assessed the diagnostic yield of PGMY primers for the detection and typing of HPV by comparing the results obtained with PGMY09/PGMY11 and MY09/MY11/HMB01 on 299 genital samples. Amplicons generated with PGMY primers were typed with the line blot assay (PGMY-line blot), while HPV amplicons obtained with the degenerate primer pool MY09/MY11/HMB01 were detected with type-specific radiolabeled probes in a dot blot assay (standard consensus PCR test). Cervicovaginal lavage samples (N = 272) and cervical scrape samples (N = 27) were tested in parallel with both PCR tests. The PGMY-line blot test detected the presence of HPV DNA more frequently than the standard consensus PCR assay. The concordance for HPV typing between the two assays was 84.3% (214 of 255 samples), for a good kappa value of 0.69. Of the 177 samples containing HPV DNA by at least one method, 40 samples contained at least one HPV type detected only with PGMY-line blot, whereas positivity exclusively with the standard consensus PCR test was found for only 7 samples (P < 0.001). HPV types 45 and 52 were especially more frequently detected with PGMY than MY primers. However, most HPV types were better amplified with PGMY primers, including HPV-16. Samples with discordant results between the two PCR assays more frequently contained multiple HPV types. Studies using PGMY instead of MY primers have the potential to report higher detection rates of HPV infection not only for newer HPV types but also for well-known genital types.
The validity of physical aggression in predicting adolescent academic performance.

BACKGROUND Aggression has a long history in academic research as both a criterion and a predictor variable and it is well documented that aggression is related to a variety of poor academic outcomes such as: lowered academic performance, absenteeism and lower graduation rates. However, recent research has implicated physical aggression as being predictive of lower academic performance. AIMS The purpose of this study was to examine the role of the 'Big Five' personality traits of agreeableness, openness to experience, conscientiousness, neuroticism and extraversion and physical aggression in predicting the grade point averages (GPA) of adolescent students and to investigate whether or not there were differences in these relationships between male and female students. SAMPLE A sample of 992 students in grades 9 to 12 from a high school in south-eastern USA as part of a larger study examining the students' preparation for entry into the workforce. METHOD The study was correlational in nature: students completed a personality inventory developed by the second author with the GPA information supplied by the school. RESULTS Results indicated that physical aggression accounts for 16% of variance in GPA and it adds 7% to the prediction of GPA beyond the Big Five. The Big Five traits added only 1.5% to the prediction of GPA after controlling for physical aggression. Interestingly, a significantly larger amount of variance in GPA was predicted by physical aggression for females than for males. CONCLUSIONS Aggression accounts for significantly more variance in the GPA of females than for males, even when controlling for the Big Five personality factors. Future research should examine the differences in the expression of aggression in males and females, as well as how this is affecting interactions between peers and between students and their teachers.
The Functional Domain of GCS1-Based Gamete Fusion Resides in the Amino Terminus in Plant and Parasite Species

Fertilization is one of the most important processes in all organisms utilizing sexual reproduction. In a previous study, we succeeded in identifying a novel male gametic transmembrane protein GCS1 (GENERATIVE CELL SPECIFIC 1), also called HAP2 (HAPLESS 2) in the male-sterile Arabidopsis thaliana mutants, as a factor critical to gamete fusion in flowering plants. Interestingly, GCS1 is highly conserved among various eukaryotes covering plants, protists and invertebrates. Of these organisms, Chlamydomonas (green alga) and Plasmodium (malaria parasite) GCS1s similarly show male gametic expression and gamete fusion function. Since it is generally believed that protein factors controlling gamete fusion have rapidly evolved and different organisms utilize species-specific gamete fusion factors, GCS1 may be an ancient fertilization factor derived from the common ancestor of those organisms above. And therefore, its molecular structure and function are important to understanding the common molecular mechanics of eukaryotic fertilization. In this study, we tried to detect the central functional domain(s) of GCS1, using complementation assay of ArabidopsisGCS1 mutant lines expressing modified GCS1. As a result, the positively-charged C-terminal sequence of this protein is dispensable for gamete fusion, while the highly conserved N-terminal domain is critical to GCS1 function. In addition, in vitro fertilization assay of Plasmodium berghei (mouse malaria parasite) knock-in lines expressing partly truncated GCS1 showed similar results. Those findings above indicate that the extracellular N-terminus alone is sufficient for GCS1-based gamete fusion.
Multiculturalism and Interculturalism

Both interculturalism and multiculturalism address the question of how states should forge unity from ethnic, cultural and religious diversity. But what are the dividing lines between interculturalism and multiculturalism? This volume brings together some of the most prominent scholars in the field to address these two different approaches. With a Foreword by Charles Taylor and an Afterword by Bhikhu Parekh, this collection spans European, North-American and Latin-American debates.
Evidence for nitric oxide synthase inhibitor-sensitive and insensitive hippocampal synaptic potentiation.

1. Nitric oxide (NO) has been proposed as a retrograde messenger, mediating the postsynaptic to presynaptic transfer of the effects of conditioning stimulation, responsible for the initiation of hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP). To further test this hypothesis, we inhibited nitric oxide synthase (NOS) to determine whether synaptic potentiation produced by different conditioning stimulus patterns and intensities was differentially affected by reduction of stimulation-dependent NO production. 2. Synaptic potentiation was produced in hippocampal slices from young F-344 rats by two different conditioning stimulation protocols. Conditioning stimuli were delivered to the Schaffer-collateral commissural system, and moderate levels of potentiation of the population excitatory postsynaptic potential (EPSP) in area CA1 were produced by a single 100 Hz, 1-s conditioning train delivered at half-maximal stimulus intensity. Higher levels of potentiation of the population EPSP were obtained by delivering two 100 Hz, 1-s conditioning stimulus trains, with a 60-s intertrain interval, at high stimulus currents. 3. Application of the nitric oxide synthase inhibitors NG-nitro-L-arginine (NOARG; 0.1-200 microM) and NG-monomethyl-L-arginine (NMMA; 100 microM) produced no significant direct effects on synaptic responses. 4. In slices that received a single conditioning stimulus train, both NOARG and NMMA were ineffective in blocking or reducing potentiation at concentrations between 0.1 and 200 microM. In slices receiving the more intense pair of conditioning stimulus trains, levels of potentiation in control slices were higher, and there was a very significant reduction by both NOARG (50 and 100 microM) and NMMA (100 microM). (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
The global burden of neck pain: estimates from the Global Burden of Disease 2010 study

Objective To estimate the global burden of neck pain. Methods Neck pain was defined as pain in the neck with or without pain referred into one or both upper limbs that lasts for at least 1 day. Systematic reviews were performed of the prevalence, incidence, remission, duration and mortality risk of neck pain. Four levels of severity were identified for neck pain with and without arm pain, each with their own disability weights. A Bayesian meta-regression method was used to pool prevalence and derive missing age/sex/region/year values. The disability weights were applied to prevalence values to derive the overall disability of neck pain expressed as years lived with disability (YLDs). YLDs have the same value as disability-adjusted life years as there is no evidence of mortality associated with neck pain. Results The global point prevalence of neck pain was 4.9% (95% CI 4.6 to 5.3). Disability-adjusted life years increased from 23.9 million (95% CI 16.5 to 33.1) in 1990 to 33.6 million (95% CI 23.5 to 46.5) in 2010. Out of all 291 conditions studied in the Global Burden of Disease 2010 Study, neck pain ranked 4th highest in terms of disability as measured by YLDs, and 21st in terms of overall burden. Conclusions Neck pain is a common condition that causes substantial disability. With aging global populations, further research is urgently needed to better understand the predictors and clinical course of neck pain, as well as the ways in which neck pain can be prevented and better managed.