Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Harvesting-resistant estimates of air pollution effects on mortality.

A number of studies have recently shown an association between particle concentrations in outdoor air and daily mortality counts in urban locations. In the public health interpretation of this evidence, a key issue is whether the increased mortality associated with higher pollution levels is restricted to very frail persons for whom life expectancy is short in the absence of pollution. This possibility has been termed the "harvesting hypothesis. " We present an approach to estimating the association between pollution and mortality from times series data that is resistant to short-term harvesting. The method is based in the concept that harvesting alone creates associations only at shorter time scales. We use frequency domain log-linear regression to decompose the information about the pollution-mortality association into distinct time scales, and we then create harvesting-resistant estimates by excluding the short-term information that is affected by harvesting. We illustrate the methods with total suspended particles and mortality counts from Philadelphia for 1974-1988. The total suspended particles-mortality association in Philadelphia is inconsistent with the harvesting-only hypothesis, and the harvesting-resistant estimates of the total suspended particles relative risk are actually larger-not smaller-than the ordinary estimates.
Polysilicon microstructures to characterize static friction

The design, fabrication process, and initial experiment results for a test microstructure for measuring static friction are described. A normal force is applied to a displaced suspended structure by an underlying electrode. The tangential force to measure the frictional force is produced by a restoring force from the displaced suspension. The spring constant is found empirically by resonating the structure. The mu for coarse-grained polysilicon-polysilicon interfaces is found to be 4.9+or-1.0. Silicon nitride-polysilicon surfaces exhibit less friction with a mu of 2.5+or-0.5. Friction is found to be independent of apparent area. Tests were conducted on a piezoelectric crystal resulting in a reduction of friction and improved reliability of data extraction. <<ETX>>
Impairments of Thalamic Nuclei in Idiopathic Generalized Epilepsy Revealed by a Study Combining Morphological and Functional Connectivity MRI

Objective Neuroimaging evidence suggested that the thalamic nuclei may play different roles in the progress of idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE). This study aimed to demonstrate the alterations in morphometry and functional connectivity in the thalamic nuclei in IGE. Methods Fifty-two patients with IGE characterized by generalized tonic-clonic seizures and 67 healthy controls were involved in the study. The three-dimensional high-resolution T1-weighted MRI data were acquired for voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analysis, and resting-state blood-oxygenation level functional MRI data were acquired for functional connectivity analysis. The thalamic nuclei of bilateral medial dorsal nucleus (MDN) and pulvinar, as detected with decreased gray matter volumes in patients with IGE through VBM analysis, were selected as seed regions for functional connectivity analysis. Results Different alteration patterns were found in functional connectivity of the thalamic nuclei with decreased gray matter volumes in IGE. Seeding at the MDN, decreased connectivity in the bilateral orbital frontal cortex, caudate nucleus, putamen and amygdala were found in the patients (P<0.05 with correction). However, seeding at the pulvinar, no significant alteration of functional connectivity was found in the patients (P<0.05 with correction). Conclusions Some specific impairment of thalamic nuclei in IGE was identified using morphological and functional connectivity MRI approaches. These findings may strongly support the different involvement of the thalamocortical networks in IGE.
Clinical application of human CD4+CD25+ regulatory Tcells for the treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases

As our understanding of the immunological and genetic basis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) grows, potential therapeutic options are being developed at a rapid pace. Nevertheless, new drugs for IBD are needed because about half of all patients with severe ulcerative colitis (UC) eventually undergo colectomy, and a significant part of Crohn’s disease (CD) patients do not respond to standard medical therapies, including immunosuppressants and TNF-α neutralising antibodies, or suffer from significant side effects. Finally, recurrence of disease activity following remission is fr-equent in both UC and CD, and there is an unmet need for effective maintenance strategies. It is well-known that immune responses in the intestine remain in a state of controlled inflammation, suggesting that not only does active suppression by regulatory T (TR) cells play an important role in the n-ormal intestinal homeo-stasis, but also its dysregulation might lead to the development of IBD. TRcells are functional subsets of T cells that downregulate adaptive immune responses by interfering with the activation of de-ndritic cells and proliferation of T cells. From experimental work it is now clear that TR cells play a c-ritical role in maintaining immune homeostasis, and several therapeutic approaches have been targeted at the induction of TRcells in order to control mucosal inflammation. Before using TR cells clinically as living immunosuppressants for the treatment of IBD, however, we have to pass many critical checkpoints, such as the invitro expansion of TRcells and the confirmation of their safety. This paper will discuss recently gained knowledge of human TR cells and the possibility of their clinical usages as a new strategy for the treatment of IBD.
Effects of the ABCB1 (1199G > A) Polymorphism on Steroid Sex Hormone-Induced P-Glycoprotein Expression, ATPase Activity, and Hormone Efflux

This study examined how the 1199G > A polymorphism in the ABCB1 gene encoding P-glycoprotein (P-gp) affects the protein’s expression, ATPase activity, and ability to pump female steroid sex hormones out of LLC-PK1 cells. The ABCB1 (1199G) or ABCB1 (1199A) allele was transfected into cells, which were incubated for 48 h with various hormone concentrations, then analyzed by Western blotting to examine expression of P-gp protein and by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) to examine expression of mRNA. Cells were also compared in terms of their transepithelial permeability to steroid sex hormones in the presence and absence of the specific P-gp inhibitor GF120918. P-gp ATPase activity induced by steroid sex hormones was also assayed. Estriol and ethynyl estradiol up-regulated levels of ABCB1 mRNA in a concentration-dependent manner, with ABCB1 (1199A) mRNA showing greater up-regulation than ABCB1 (1199G) mRNA. Estrone, estriol, and ethynyl estradiol were substrates of both types of P-gp in transepithelial permeability assays, and the ABCB1 (1199A) protein showed a significantly higher net efflux ratio for estrone (13.4 vs. 7.4, p < 0.005), estriol (5.6 vs. 3.3, p < 0.05), and ethynyl estradiol (12.7 vs. 5.3, p < 0.005). Induction of P-gp ATPase activity by ethynyl estradiol and progesterone increased with increasing hormone concentration, and the magnitude of stimulation was greater for ABCB1 (1199A) P-gp than for ABCB1 (1199G) P-gp. These results indicate that the ABCB1 (1199G > A) polymorphism influences steroid sex hormone-induced expression and function of P-gp, which may help to explain inter-patient differences in P-gp-mediated chemotherapy resistance in vivo.
Race-Based versus Issue Voting : A Natural Experiment : The 2001 City of Los Angeles Elections

The theory of racially polarized voting suggests that race is a primary determinant of vote choice in elections where a minority candidate is pitted against an Anglo candidate. The spatial model of voting suggests that voters consider the issue positions of candidates and choose the candidate closest to their own positions. The unique context of the 2001 Los Angeles city election allows us to test these two theories. In each of two races, a Latino candidate competed against an Anglo candidate. In one race the Anglo candidate was considered more liberal, while in the other race the Latino candidate was seen as more liberal. This particular ethnic and ideological composition provides us with a “natural experiment” in which to test the two competing theories. We show that voters relied on issues and ideology as the basis for their vote choice, and that conditioned on these characteristics Latino and Anglo voters did make different choices. We also examine why one Latino candidate was electorally successful, yet not the other. We use counterfactual analysis to suggest that Latino electoral success can be attributed to multi-racial coalitions, where shared ideology and issue interest form the basis for these alliances. And we demonstrate that inferences of the amount of racial voting occurring in elections in a more typical, and thus less varied, electoral context are likely to seriously overstate the amount of racial voting in the electorate. We argue that there is much to be learned from the study of sub-national elections.
Adaptive calibration for fusion-based cyber-physical systems

Many Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are composed of low-cost devices that are deeply integrated with physical environments. As a result, the performance of a CPS system is inevitably undermined by various physical uncertainties, which include stochastic noises, hardware biases, unpredictable environment changes, and dynamics of the physical process of interest. Traditional solutions to these issues (e.g., device calibration and collaborative signal processing) work in an open-loop fashion and hence often fail to adapt to the uncertainties after system deployment. In this article, we propose an adaptive system-level calibration approach for a class of CPS systems whose primary objective is to detect events or targets of interest. Through collaborative data fusion, our calibration approach features a feedback control loop that exploits system heterogeneity to mitigate the impact of aforementioned uncertainties on the system performance. In contrast to existing heuristic-based solutions, our control-theoretical calibration algorithm can ensure provable system stability and convergence. We also develop a routing algorithm for fusion-based multihop CPS systems that is robust to communication unreliability and delay. Our approach is evaluated by both experiments on a testbed of Tmotes as well as extensive simulations based on data traces gathered from a real vehicle detection experiment. The results demonstrate that our calibration algorithm enables a CPS system to maintain the optimal sensing performance in the presence of various system and environmental dynamics.
WIQ: Work-Intensive Query Scheduling for In-Memory Database Systems

We propose a novel admission control policy for database queries. Our methodology uses system measurements of CPU utilization and query backlogs to determine interference between queries in execution on the same database server. Query interference may arise due to the concurrent access of hardware and software resources and can affect performance in positive and negative ways. Specifically our admission control considers the mix of jobs in service and prioritizes the query classes consuming CPU resources more efficiently. The policy ignores I/O subsystems and is therefore highly appropriate for in-memory databases. We validate our approach in trace-driven simulation and show performance increases of query slowdowns and throughputs compared to first-come first-served and shortest expected processing time first scheduling. Simulation experiments are parameterized from system traces of a SAP HANA in-memory database installation with TPC-H type workloads.
Central and peripheral administration of kisspeptin activates gonadotropin but not somatotropin secretion in prepubertal gilts.

It is well established that kisspeptin signaling is necessary for the onset of puberty in laboratory animals. However, the role that kisspeptin may have in regulating puberty in large domestic animals is unknown. We tested the hypothesis that either central or peripheral infusion of kisspeptin would stimulate gonadotropin and GH secretion in prepubertal gilts. In experiment 1, prepubertal gilts were fitted with i.c. v. cannula and indwelling jugular catheters. Animals were randomly assigned to receive 0, 10, or 100 microg kisspeptin in saline. In experiment 2, prepubertal gilts, fitted with indwelling jugular catheters, randomly received 0, 1, 2.5, or 5 mg kisspeptin in saline intravenously. Serial blood samples were collected every 15 min for 3 h before and 5 h after infusions, and serum concentrations of LH, FSH, and GH were determined. Mean concentrations of LH and FSH remained at basal levels for control animals but were increased (P<0.001) for animals receiving i.c. v. infusion of kisspeptin. Area under the LH and FSH curves following i.c. v. infusion of kisspeptin increased (P<0.001) in a dose-dependent manner. Concentrations of GH were unaffected by i.c. v. treatment. Peripheral administration of kisspeptin increased (P<0.05) serum concentrations of LH but not FSH or GH. Thus, kisspeptin can activate gonadotropic but not somatotropic hormone secretion in prepubertal gilts. The present data support the concept that kisspeptin plays a role in the mechanism involved in initiating puberty in swine.
Federated Optimization: Distributed Machine Learning for On-Device Intelligence

We introduce a new and increasingly relevant setting for distributed optimization in machine learning, where the data defining the optimization are unevenly distributed over an extremely large number of nodes. The goal is to train a high-quality centralized model. We refer to this setting as Federated Optimization. In this setting, communication efficiency is of the utmost importance and minimizing the number of rounds of communication is the principal goal. A motivating example arises when we keep the training data locally on users' mobile devices instead of logging it to a data center for training. In federated optimziation, the devices are used as compute nodes performing computation on their local data in order to update a global model. We suppose that we have extremely large number of devices in the network --- as many as the number of users of a given service, each of which has only a tiny fraction of the total data available. In particular, we expect the number of data points available locally to be much smaller than the number of devices. Additionally, since different users generate data with different patterns, it is reasonable to assume that no device has a representative sample of the overall distribution. We show that existing algorithms are not suitable for this setting, and propose a new algorithm which shows encouraging experimental results for sparse convex problems. This work also sets a path for future research needed in the context of \federated optimization.
Inflammation reduces mechanical thresholds in a population of transient receptor potential channel A1-expressing nociceptors in the rat

Inflammatory hypersensitivity is characterized by behavioural reductions in withdrawal thresholds to noxious stimuli. Although cutaneous primary afferent neurones are known to have lowered thermal thresholds in inflammation, whether their mechanical thresholds are altered remains controversial. The transient receptor potential channel A1 (TRPA1) is a receptor localized to putative nociceptive neurones and is implicated in mechanical and thermal nociception. Herein, we examined changes in the properties of single primary afferents in normal and acutely inflamed rats and determined whether specific nociceptive properties, particularly mechanical thresholds, are altered in the subpopulation of afferents that responded to the TRPA1 agonist cinnamaldehyde (TRPA1‐positive afferents). TRPA1‐positive afferents in normal animals belonged to the mechanonociceptive populations, many of which also responded to heat or capsaicin but only a few of which responded to cold. In acute inflammation, a greater proportion of afferents responded to cinnamaldehyde and an increased proportion of dorsal root ganglion neurones expressed TRPA1 protein. Functionally, in inflammation, TRPA1‐positive afferents showed significantly reduced mechanical thresholds and enhanced activity to agonist stimulation. Inflammation altered thermal thresholds in both TRPA1‐positive and TRPA1‐negative afferents. Our data show that a subset of afferents is sensitized to mechanical stimulation by inflammation and that these afferents are defined by expression of TRPA1.
Gammaglobulin groups (Gm and Inv) of various Southern African populations.

Data are presented on the distribution of the Gm and Inv groups in approximately 3500 individuals belonging to a number of diverse Southern African populations. The indigenous peoples show the presence of the Gm alleles known to occur in Negroes (Gm1, 5, 13, 14, Gm1, 5, 6, 14 and Gm1, 5, 6) but the Bushmen possess some of them in very low frequencies and have, in addition and in appreciable frequencies the Gm1 and Gm1, 13 alleles which have not been reported as occurring in West African populations. The distribution of the Gm1, 13 allele in various Bantu-speaking tribes of the sub-continent reveals a marked cline, increasing from north to south along the eastern seaboard. The correlation between the frequency of Gm1, 13 and the Khoisan morphological, features present in a number of the tribes, and with the linguistic evidence which has been used to group them is high. The Bushmen possess a Gm1, 5 allele and may also have a Gm1, 5, 13, 14, 17, 21 allele. A Gm1, 2, 5, 13, 14, 17 allele seems to be present in the Bantu. Its presence in Eastern New Guinea would also appear to be indicated by the population data presented here.
Quality meshing with weighted Delaunay refinement

Delaunay meshes with bounded circumradius to shortest edge length ratio have been proposed in the past for quality meshing. The only poor quality tetrahedra called slivers that can occur in such a mesh can be eliminated by the sliver exudation method. This method has been shown to work for periodic point sets, but not with boundaries. Recently a randomized point-placement strategy has been proposed to remove silvers while conforming to a given boundary. In this paper we present a deterministic algorithm for generating a weighted Delaunay mesh which respects the input boundary and has no poor quality tetrahedron including silvers. This success is achieved by combining the weight pumping method for sliver exudation and the Delaunay refinement method for boundary conformation. We show that an incremental weight pumping can be mixed seamlessly with vertex insertions in our weighted Delaunay refinement paradigm.
NuSTAR J033202–2746.8: DIRECT CONSTRAINTS ON THE COMPTON REFLECTION IN A HEAVILY OBSCURED QUASAR AT z ≈ 2

We report Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) observations of NuSTAR J033202–2746.8, a heavily obscured, radio-loud quasar detected in the Extended Chandra Deep Field-South, the deepest layer of the NuSTAR extragalactic survey (∼400 ks, at its deepest). NuSTAR J033202–2746.8 is reliably detected by NuSTAR only at E > 8 keV and has a very flat spectral slope in the NuSTAR energy band ( ; 3–30 keV). Combining the NuSTAR data with extremely deep observations by Chandra and XMM-Newton (4 Ms and 3 Ms, respectively), we constrain the broad-band X-ray spectrum of NuSTAR J033202–2746.8, indicating that this source is a heavily obscured quasar ( cm−2) with luminosity L 10–40 keV ≈ 6.4 × 1044 erg s−1. Although existing optical and near-infrared (near-IR) data, as well as follow-up spectroscopy with the Keck and VLT telescopes, failed to provide a secure redshift identification for NuSTAR J033202–2746.8, we reliably constrain the redshift z = 2.00 ± 0.04 from the X-ray spectral features (primarily from the iron K edge). The NuSTAR spectrum shows a significant reflection component ( ), which was not constrained by previous analyses of Chandra and XMM-Newton data alone. The measured reflection fraction is higher than the R ∼ 0 typically observed in bright radio-loud quasars such as NuSTAR J033202–2746.8, which has L 1.4 GHz ≈ 1027 W Hz−1. Constraining the spectral shape of active galactic nuclei (AGNs), including bright quasars, is very important for understanding the AGN population, and can have a strong impact on the modeling of the X-ray background. Our results show the importance of NuSTAR in investigating the broad-band spectral properties of quasars out to high redshift.
Prevalence and Symptomatic Burden of Diagnosed Endometriosis in the United States: National Estimates from a Cross-Sectional Survey of 59,411 Women

Background/Aims: To estimate the prevalence of diagnosed endometriosis (DE) in women in the United States and assess the associated symptomatic burden. Methods: An online, cross-sectional survey of women aged 18-49 years was conducted from August 6, 2012, through November 14, 2012. Survey data (weighted by age, race, education, income, geographical distribution, and propensity score) were used to estimate the prevalence and symptomatic burden of DE in women in the United States. Weighted logistic regressions were used to assess differences in symptom burden between women with and without endometriosis. Results: The prevalence of DE was estimated at 6.1% (2,922 of 48,020 women surveyed); 52.7% of women were 18-29 years of age when they were diagnosed with endometriosis. Most (86.2%) women experienced symptoms before diagnosis. More women with (vs. without) DE had menstrual pelvic pain/cramping (52.7 vs. 45.2%), non-menstrual pelvic pain/cramping (36.7 vs. 14.3%), infertility (11.6 vs. 3.4%), and dyspareunia (29.5 vs. 13.4%). Women with endometriosis were also more likely to report severe symptoms (OR (95% CI) 2.7 (2.3-3.1) for menstrual pelvic pain/cramping, 2.2 (1.7-2.9) for non-menstrual pelvic pain/cramping, and 2.4 (1.8-3.2) for dyspareunia). Conclusion: The prevalence of DE among US women is notable, and affected women experience a substantial symptom burden.
Relative Filling Time Delay Based on CT Perfusion Source Imaging: A Simple Method to Predict Outcome in Acute Ischemic Stroke

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Collateral vessel status is strongly associated with clinical outcome in ischemic stroke but can be challenging to assess. The aim of this study was to develop a tomography perfusion source imaging–based assessment of collateral vessel status. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Consecutive patients with ischemic stroke who received intravenous thrombolysis or intra-arterial reperfusion therapy after CTP were retrospectively analyzed. In those with middle cerebral artery or internal carotid artery occlusion, CT perfusion source imaging was used to identify the relative filling time delay between the normal MCA Sylvian branches and those in the affected hemisphere. Receiver operating characteristic analysis and logistic regression were used to assess the association of the relative filling time delay with the 24-hour Alberta Stroke Program Early CT Score based on noncontrast CT and the 90-day modified Rankin Scale score. RESULTS: There were 217 patients treated in 2009–2011 who had CTP data, of whom 60 had MCA or ICA occlusion and 55 had 90-day mRS data. The intraclass correlation coefficient for relative filling time delay was 0.95. Relative filling time delay was correlated with 24-hour ASPECTS (Spearman ρ = −0.674; P < .001) and 90-day mRS score (ρ = 0.516, P < .01). Increased relative filling time delay was associated with poor radiologic outcome (ASPECTS, 0–7) (area under the curve = 0.79, P < .001) and poor functional outcome (mRS score, 3–6) (area under the curve = 0.77, P = .001). In multivariate logistic regression, the association of longer relative filling time delay with poor outcome remained significant, independent of age, sex, and baseline National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score. CONCLUSIONS: Relative filling time delay is a useful independent predictor of clinical outcome after ischemic stroke.