Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quantized Consensus by the ADMM: Probabilistic Versus Deterministic Quantizers

This paper develops efficient algorithms for distributed average consensus with quantized communication using the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). We first study the effects of probabilistic and deterministic quantizations on a distributed ADMM algorithm. With probabilistic quantization, this algorithm yields linear convergence to the desired average in the mean sense with a bounded variance. When deterministic quantization is employed, the distributed ADMM converges to a consensus within 3+⌈log1+δΩ⌉ iterations where δ > 0 depends on the network topology and Ω is a polynomial fraction depending on the quantization resolution, the agents' data, and the network topology. A tight upper bound on the consensus error is also obtained, which depends only on the quantization resolution and the average degree of the graph. This bound is much preferred in large scale networks over existing algorithms whose consensus errors are increasing in the range of agents' data, the quantization resolution, and the number of agents. We finally propose our algorithm which combines both probabilistic and deterministic quantizations. Simulations show that the consensus error of our algorithm is typically less than one quantization resolution for all connected networks where agents' data can be of arbitrary magnitudes.
Whole transcriptome sequencing identifies crucial genes associated with colon cancer and elucidation of their possible mechanisms of action

Purpose This study aimed to investigate the key long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) associated with colon cancer and elucidate their possible mechanisms of action. Patients and methods Eight early-stage (ES) colon tumor tissues, eight late-stage (LS) colon tumor tissues, and eight normal tissues were collected, and they were subjected to high-throughput RNA sequencing. Subsequently, comprehensive bioinformatics analyses, including the identification of differentially expressed mRNAs and lncRNAs, functional enrichment analysis, and construction of a protein–protein interaction network and an miRNA–lncRNA–mRNA regulatory network were performed. Additionally, the expression of key lncRNAs was verified using real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR). Results In total, 549 common differentially expressed mRNAs and 30 common differentially expressed lncRNAs were identified in both the ES and LS colon cancer samples upon comparison with the normal samples. Functional enrichment analysis showed that KIAA0125 was significantly enriched in the PI3K-Akt signaling pathway and that MSTRG.35002. 1 was markedly enriched in BMP signaling-related functions. Moreover, key miRNA–lncRNA–mRNA relationships, such as hsa-miR-29b-3p-KIAA0125-BCL2 and hsa-miR-29b-3p-MSTRG.35002. 1-MMP2, were identified. Notably, the qPCR assay confirmed that KIAA0125 and MSTRG.35002. 1 were significantly downregulated in both ES and LS colon tumor tissues compared with normal colon tissues. Conclusion Our findings indicate that key lncRNAs, including KIAA0125 and MSTRG.35002. 1, may be involved in colorectal cancer (CRC) development. Downregulation of KIAA0125 may contribute to CRC development via sponging of hsa-miR-29b-3p to regulate BCL2 expression or regulating the PI3K-Akt signaling pathway. Downregulation of MSTRG.35002. 1 may promote CRC development via sponging of hsa-miR-29b-3p to regulate MMP2 expression or regulating the BMP signaling pathway.
Reappraisal of the Motor Role of Basal Ganglia: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Image Study

The importance of the basal ganglia in controlling motor function is well known. However, neuroimaging studies have failed to show either movement-rate dependence or different activation patterns caused by self-initiated (SI) and externally triggered (ET) movements in the basal ganglia–thalamo-motor loop. We herein report the functional magnetic resonance image (fMRI) mapping of sequential left-hand finger movements at five different rates under SI and ET conditions. Significant movement-rate dependence was found in the whole right basal ganglia–thalamo-motor loop only during the SI task. Network analysis also showed strong interactions within this loop during SI movement, whereas interactions were present only from the premotor cortex to the putamen via the sensorimotor cortex during the ET task. Furthermore, psychophysiological interaction analysis confirmed the different modulation between the two tasks in the putamen. fMRI provides evidence that the basal ganglia–thalamo-motor loop plays a key role in controlling the rate of sequential finger movements in SI movement but not in ET movement.
Effect of Aluminium on the Levels of Some Essential Elements in Occupationally Exposed Workers

Effect of Aluminium on the Levels of Some Essential Elements in Occupationally Exposed Workers The mechanism of aluminium-induced cytotoxicity has not yet been defined. This study investigated possible changes in essential elements in workers occupationally exposed to Al fumes. It included 60 exposed workers and a matching control group of 60 employees not occupationally exposed to Al. Mean serum copper, calcium, zinc and iron were significantly lower in the exposed group than in controls. In addition, mean plasma and urine levels of Al were significantly higher in the exposed employees than in the controls. A statistically significant negative correlation was found between plasma and urinary Al and the studied essential elements. These findings corroborate the hypothesis that Al exposure has an adverse effect on essential elements in humans, with subsequent impact on the cellular enzymatic and metabolic processes. Interakcija Aluminija s Esencijalnim Elementima u Profesionalno Izloženih Radnika Dosada nije razjašnjen mehanizam citotoksičnoga djelovanja aluminija. U ovome ispitivanju pokušalo se ustanoviti dolazi li do promjena u sadržaju esencijalnih elemenata u skupini radnika koji su bili profesionalno izloženi aluminijskim parama. Ispitivanje je obuhvatilo 60 izloženih radnika i odgovarajuću kontrolnu skupinu od 60 zaposlenika koji nisu bili profesionalno izloženi aluminijskim parama. Rezultati su pokazali značajno niže srednje razina bakra, kalcija, cinka i željeza u serumu izloženih radnika u odnosu na kontrolu. Usto su iskazali značajno više razine Al u plazmi i mokraći. Utvrđena je statistički značajna negativna korelacija između Al u plazmi/mokraći i ispitanih esencijalnih elemenata. Ovi rezultati upućuju na pretpostavku da izloženost aluminiju nepovoljno djeluje na razine esencijalnih elemenata u ljudi, a time i na lučenje enzima i stanični metabolizam.
Effective Educational Techniques for Primary Care Providers: Application to the Management of Psychiatric Disorders

It is with great pleasure that the Journal presents this special issue devoted to successful educational techniques for application to mental health in primary care. The articles in this issue are based on presentations at a conference that took place June 27 to 29, 1997, at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. The conference was in honor of the 200th anniversary of the founding of Dartmouth Medical School and was sponsored by an unrestricted educational grant from Solvay Pharmaceuticals. Dartmouth Medical School is the nation's fourth oldest medical school and the first in a rural setting. Seeking to improve medical care in northern New England, Dr. Nathan Smith, a young physician from Cornish, New Hampshire, persuaded the Dartmouth Trustees to let him develop a medical school. Dr. Smith persevered, gave his first lecture on November 22, 1797, and comprised the entire faculty for ten years. He was a gifted teacher, ahead of his time in medical theory and practice. He subsequently contributed to founding medical schools at Yale, Bowdoin, and the University of Vermont [l]. Today, Dartmouth Medical School continues to follow the path set by Nathan Smith, with a renewed attention to the importance of teaching primary care, excellent science, and compassionate concern for patients and the community. The conference was planned jointly by the Editor, James Barrett, and Barbara Wagner to bring together educational leaders in medical education, primary care, and psychiatry. In addition to the participants who prepared these articles, three
High-Dose Estradiol-Replacement Therapy Enhances the Renal Vascular Response to Angiotensin II via an AT2-Receptor Dependent Mechanism

Physiological levels of estrogen appear to enhance angiotensin type 2 receptor- (AT2R-) mediated vasodilatation. However, the effects of supraphysiological levels of estrogen, analogous to those achieved with high-dose estrogen replacement therapy in postmenopausal women, remain unknown. Therefore, we pretreated ovariectomized rats with a relatively high dose of estrogen (0.5 mg/kg/week) for two weeks. Subsequently, renal hemodynamic responses to intravenous angiotensin II (Ang II, 30–300 ng/kg/min) were tested under anesthesia, while renal perfusion pressure was held constant. The role of AT2R was examined by pretreating groups of rats with PD123319 or its vehicle. Renal blood flow (RBF) decreased in a dose-related manner in response to Ang II. Responses to Ang II were enhanced by pretreatment with estradiol. For example, at 300 ng kg−1 min−1, Ang II reduced RBF by 45.7 ± 1.9% in estradiol-treated rats but only by 27.3 ± 5.1% in vehicle-treated rats. Pretreatment with PD123319 blunted the response of RBF to Ang II in estradiol-treated rats, so that reductions in RBF were similar to those in rats not treated with estradiol. We conclude that supraphysiological levels of estrogen promote AT2R-mediated renal vasoconstriction. This mechanism could potentially contribute to the increased risk of cardiovascular disease associated with hormone replacement therapy using high-dose estrogen.
Does the Village Model Help to Foster Age-Friendly Communities?

This article explores the potential role of the Village model, a social initiative that emphasizes member involvement and service access, in helping communities to become more age-friendly. A survey of 86.3% of operational Villages examined activities designed to help members access a variety of supports and services consistent with the World Health Organization's (WHO) Global Network of Age-Friendly Cities and Communities program model, as well as other potential contributions to community age friendliness. Analysis revealed that 85.5% of Villages provided assistance with at least six of the eight WHO domains, but only 10.1% implemented features of all eight; more than one-third were engaged in direct or indirect efforts to improve community physical or social infrastructures or improve community attitudes toward older persons. These findings suggest that Villages and other social organizations may have untapped potential for enhancing their members’ ability to age in place consistent with the goals of age-friendly initiatives while also promoting constructive changes in the overall community.
Designing a face detection CAPTCHA

DESIGNING A FACE DETECTION CAPTCHA Adam C. Day Completely Automated Tests for Telling Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHAs) are quickly becoming a standard for security in every online interface that could be the subject to spam or other exploitation. The majority of today's CAPTCHA technologies rely on text-based images, which present the user with a string of distorted characters and asks the user to type out the characters. The problem with CAPTCHAs is that they are often difficult to solve and can generally be successfully defeated using techniques such as segmentation and optical character recognition. We introduce an image face recognition based CAPTCHA which presents the user with a series of distorted images and the question of deciding which of these images contain a human face. The user is required to click on all presented face images in order to successfully pass the CAPTCHA. The concept relies on the strength of the human ability to detect a face even amongst heavy distortion as well as the inaccuracies and short-comings of face recognition software. The CAPTCHA application was designed with a web interface and deployed on West Virginia University's Computer Science 101 attendance website. To test the success of the CAPTCHA, data for human success rates was compared alongside facial recognition software which attempted to solve the CAPTCHA. The results of the data gathered during testing not only prove the feasibility of face recognition based CAPTCHAs in general, but also provide valuable data regarding human versus computer recognition rates under varying types of image distortion.
ORANGE: a Method for Evaluating Automatic Evaluation Metrics for Machine Translation

Comparisons of automatic evaluation metrics for machine translation are usually conducted on corpus level using correlation statistics such as Pearson's product moment correlation coefficient or Spearman's rank order correlation coefficient between human scores and automatic scores. However, such comparisons rely on human judgments of translation qualities such as adequacy and fluency. Unfortunately, these judgments are often inconsistent and very expensive to acquire. In this paper, we introduce a new evaluation method, Orange, for evaluating automatic machine translation evaluation metrics automatically without extra human involvement other than using a set of reference translations. We also show the results of comparing several existing automatic metrics and three new automatic metrics using Orange.
The Effect of Three Compositional Structures on the Compositional and Instructional Self-efficacy of Pre-service Music Teachers

The purpose of this study was two-fold: 1) to compare the effects of three different composition tasks with varying degrees of structure on pre-service music teachers’ creative self-efficacy as composers and their instructional self-efficacy as pedagogues of composition; and 2) to describe through pre-service music teachers’ talk perceptions of composition and their experiences completing the three composition tasks. Participants (N = 29) were music education majors from three different sized universities in the northern-central region of the United States. At the beginning of the study, the participants answered a researcher-design self-efficacy questionnaire that measured (a) their self-efficacy as composers and (b) their self-efficacy as teachers of composition. Next, they composed three compositions of various task structures (unstructured, poem, and rhythm). Immediately after completing each task they again completed the self-efficacy questionnaire. Statistically significant mean differences between the pre-task administration of the measuring instrument and all three composition tasks were found for the pre-service teachers’ compositional self-efficacy. Statistically significant mean differences were also found between the unstructured task and the rhythm task, but not between the rhythm and poem tasks or the unstructured and poem tasks. For the pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy as pedagogues of composition question, the results were also statistically significant between the pre-task administration of the measuring instrument and all three composition tasks. Statistically significant mean differences were also found between the unstructured task and the rhythm task as well as the poem and rhythm tasks, but not between the unstructured and poem tasks. Additional data were gathered through semi-structured one-on-one interviews. Through their talk the pre-service music teachers commented that they enjoyed the overall composition process. This experience also seemed to challenge the participants’ assumptions about composition and appeared to make creative experiences more tenable and relevant to their future classroom experiences. The results of this study suggest that incorporating composition activities regardless of structure within a music teacher’s pre-service training might impact their self-efficacy beliefs not only as composers, but also as pedagogues of composition. This study suggested that teacher educators might want to consider using a rhythmic structure as the first task to help provide an initial framework to guide and initiate their composition. Pre-service teachers engaged in similar compositional activities might also gain further insights about what it means to be a composer and into the pedagogy of composition.
A rare splice donor mutation in the haptoglobin gene associates with blood lipid levels and coronary artery disease

Common sequence variants at the haptoglobin gene (HP) have been associated with blood lipid levels. Through whole-genome sequencing of 8,453 Icelanders, we discovered a splice donor founder mutation in HP (NM_001126102.1:c.190 + 1G > C, minor allele frequency = 0.56%). This mutation occurs on the HP1 allele of the common copy number variant in HP and leads to a loss of function of HP1. It associates with lower levels of haptoglobin (P = 2.1 × 10-54), higher levels of non-high density lipoprotein cholesterol (β = 0.26 mmol/l, P = 2.6 × 10-9) and greater risk of coronary artery disease (odds ratio = 1.30, 95% confidence interval: 1.10-1.54, P = 0.0024). Through haplotype analysis and with RNA sequencing, we provide evidence of a causal relationship between one of the two haptoglobin isoforms, namely Hp1, and lower levels of non-HDL cholesterol. Furthermore, we show that the HP1 allele associates with various other quantitative biological traits.
Stochastic Dynamic Programming in the Real-World Control of Hybrid Electric Vehicles

Stochastic dynamic programming (SDP) is applied to the optimal control of a hybrid electric vehicle in a concerted attempt to deploy and evaluate such a controller in the real world. Practical considerations for robust implementation of the SDP algorithm are addressed, such as the choice of discount factor used and how charge sustaining characteristics of the SDP controller can be examined and adjusted. A novel cost function is used incorporating the square of battery charge (C-rate) as an indicator of electrical powertrain stress, with the aim of lessening the affliction of real-world concerns such as battery health and motor temperature, while allowing short spells of operation toward the system peak power limits where advantageous. This paper presents the simulation and chassis dynamometer results over the LA92 drive cycle, as well as the results of testing on open roads. The hybrid system is operated at several levels of aggressivity, allowing the tradeoff between fuel savings and electrical powertrain stress to be evaluated. In dynamometer testing, this approach yielded a 13% reduction in electrical powertrain stress without sacrificing any fuel savings, compared with a controller that does not consider aggressivity in its optimization.
Audio Segmentation by Singular Value Clustering

This paper presents a statistical approach to sound texture modeling based on a singular value analysis of spectral features or an eigenvector analysis of their similarity matrix. Using dimension reduction techniques we perform grouping of the signal into similar sounding audio segments that are recurrent in time. The method allows an automatic segmentation of audio signal into larger groups of similar sounding audio objects and can be used for visualization purposes, audio texture synthesis and creative audio manipulations. We present a principled approach that brings methods such as audio similarity analysis and spectral audio basis representations into one framework.
Relation between Body Fat and Liver Fat Accumulation and Cytokine Pattern in Non-Alcoholic Patients with Chronic HCV Infection

Background: Liver steatosis in chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is multifactorial. Therefore, there is not necessarily a relation between obesity and liver fat.On the other hand, body fat secretes cytokines, and cytokines and oxidative damage play important roles on progression of liver disease. Methods: We analyzed the relationships between liver fat (assessed by histomorphometry) and trunk and subcutaneous fat (waist perimeter, triceps skinfold, BMI); the relationships between liver and body fat and cytokines (IL-6, TNF-α, IL-8, IFN-γ, IL-4), adipokines (adiponectin and TIMP-1), and serum malondiladehyde and antioxidants (glutathione peroxidase and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activities); and the relationships of these data with histological changes in 40 HCV-infected non-alcoholic patients. Results: Significant correlations were found between liver fat and waist perimeter and BMI, and between serum TIMP-1 and liver fat. Serum TIMP-1 was significantly related to body fat stores; serum IL-6 and IFN-γ were related to histological inflammation. Patients with waist perimeter >102 cm (men) or 88 cm (women) showed increased liver fat. In 38.8% of non-obese patients, liver fat accumulation was intense. Conclusions: There is a relationship between visceral fat, serum TIMP-1 and liver steatosis. However, at least in some patients, factors different from mere adiposity play a role in liver steatosis.
Programmed death-1 gene polymorphism (PD-1.5 C/T) is associated with gastric cancer

Aim This study aimed to determine the association between PD-1.5C/T (rs2227981, +7785) and the risk of gastric cancer (GC) in an Iranian population. Background Gastric cancer is the fourth most common cancer in the world. The programmed death 1 (PD-1) is a member of the CD28 super family. PD-1 is a negative regulator of T-cell effector mechanisms which decrease immune responses against cancer. Patients and methods we conducted case- control study to investigate the association of PD-1.5 C/T polymorphism in 122 GC patients and 166 control individuals. DNA was extracted from blood specimens. Genotypes were analyzed using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) assay. Results The frequency of CC, CT and TT genotypes was 53.6%, 42.2% and 4.2% in control group and 41%, 54.1% and 4.9% in gastric cancer patients respectively. CC genotype was more frequent in control individuals than in patients but we found no statically significant association. The frequencies of PD-1.5CT genotypes were significantly higher in GC patient compared with control individuals (OR= 1.77, 95% CI= 1.077-2.931; P=0.026). Allele distribution was similar in patients and healthy individuals (p = 0.061). Frequency of C and T alleles was 74.7%, 25.3% in control individuals and 68.03% and 31.97% in gastric cancer patients respectively. Conclusion These results suggest that PD-1.5 C/T polymorphism may affect the GC risk and prognosis in an Iranian population.