Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Discontinuation of low-dose acetylsalicylic acid therapy in UK primary care: incidence and predictors in patients with cardiovascular disease

Background Discontinuation of low-dose acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) leads to an increased risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events in patients taking low-dose ASA for secondary cardiovascular prevention. However, little is known about the rate of discontinuation in everyday clinical practice. Objectives To assess the rate of low-dose ASA discontinuation in primary care, and identify factors that predict discontinuation. Methods The Health Improvement Network, a large UK primary care database, was used to identify patients aged 50–84 years who received at least two consecutive prescriptions for low-dose ASA for secondary cardiovascular or cerebrovascular prevention in 2000–2007 (n = 35,639). Discontinuation was defined as a period of at least 90 days after completion of the last prescribed course of ASA during which no repeat prescription was issued. Results During the study, 11,729 patients (32.9%) discontinued ASA therapy (mean follow-up 2.5 years). The discontinuation rate was lower in patients with ASA indicated for myocardial infarction than for other indications. The diagnosis of gastrointestinal disorders during the study (overall odds ratio: 1.74; 95% confidence interval: 1.61–1.88) was associated with increased rates of ASA discontinuation, whereas co-prescription of a proton pump inhibitor from the start of ASA therapy was associated with a decreased rate of discontinuation (odds ratio: 0.80; 95% confidence interval: 0.75–0.86). Co-prescription of several other cardioprotective medications was also associated with a reduced risk of discontinuation, as were increasing age, prior hospitalization and overall number of co-medications. Conclusion Continuous co-prescription of a PPI with low-dose ASA may improve adherence and outcomes, particularly in patients at both cardiovascular and gastrointestinal risk.
XMill: an efficient compressor for XML data

We describe a tool for compressing XML data, with applications in data exchange and archiving, which usually achieves about twice the compression ratio of gzip at roughly the same speed. The compressor, called XMill, incorporates and combines existing compressors in order to apply them to heterogeneous XML data: it uses zlib, the library function for gzip, a collection of datatype specific compressors for simple data types, and, possibly, user defined compressors for application specific data types.
Solutions of fully nonlinear elliptic equations with patches of zero gradient: Existence, regularity and convexity of level curves

In this paper, we first construct viscosity solutions (in the Crandall-Lions sense) of fully nonlinear elliptic equations of the form F(D 2 u, x) = g(x, u) on {|⊇u| ¬= 0} In fact, viscosity solutions are surprisingly weak. Since candidates for solutions are just continuous, we only require that the test polynomials P (those tangent from above or below to the graph of u at a point x 0 ) satisfy the correct inequality only if |⊇P(x 0 )| ¬= 0. That is, we simply disregard those test polynomials for which |⊇P(x 0 )| = 0. Nevertheless, this is enough, by an appropriate use of the Alexandroff-Bakelman technique, to prove existence, regularity and, in two dimensions, for F = Δ, g = cu (c > 0) and constant boundary conditions on a convex domains, to prove that there is only one convex patch.
Homocysteine and folate in pregnancy.

The importance of folate during pregnancy was addressed 40 years ago by Bryan Hibbard (1) in his study of folate status in 1484 low-income obstetric patients from Liverpool. He assessed folate status as urinary excretion of formiminoglutamic acid. Abnormal formiminoglutamic acid excretion was related not only to placental abruption and spontaneous abortion but also to adverse outcomes in previous pregnancies, including prematurity, congenital defects, and perinatal mortality. Shortly thereafter, Hibbard and Smithells (2) suggested that folate deficiency in pregnancy may be related to central nervous system malformations, and Smithells started a series of observational and intervention studies demonstrating that adequate folate status reduced the risk of neural tube defects (NTDs), observations that eventually in the early 1990s were confirmed in large, randomized intervention trials (3)(4). It is now established that periconceptional folate supplementation reduces the occurrence and recurrence of NTDs (3)(4). The results obtained in many observational studies suggest that low folate intake or low circulating folate increases the risk of preterm delivery and low birth weight (5). However, a recent Dutch study on several B vitamins measured before and during pregnancy in healthy, well-nourished women demonstrated no association between the vitamin concentrations and birth weight or risk of early pregnancy loss (6). The results from randomized intervention trials with folic acid have been equivocal (5). Thus, the link between maternal folate status and birth weight is uncertain. The conclusions of the observational studies on vitamins and adverse pregnancy outcomes have been questioned because of methodologic weaknesses. These include inaccurate assessment of vitamin intake, measurement errors attributable to variable plasma-volume expansion during pregnancy, and confounders such as drug use and stress, intake of other micronutrients, …
Obatoclax Mesylate, a Pan–Bcl-2 Inhibitor, in Combination with Docetaxel in a Phase 1/2 Trial in Relapsed Non–Small-Cell Lung Cancer

Introduction: The proapoptotic small-molecule pan–Bcl-2 inhibitor obatoclax mesylate (GX15-070) may enhance the cytotoxicity of chemotherapy in relapsed/refractory non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods: Obatoclax was administered with docetaxel in patients with relapsed or refractory NSCLC— docetaxel as a 1-hour infusion on day 1 and obatoclax as a 24-hour infusion on days 1 and 2—every 3 weeks for up to eight cycles. Four dose levels were evaluated in phase 1 (level 1: docetaxel 55 mg/m2 × 1 and obatoclax 30 mg × 2; levels 2–4: docetaxel 75 mg/m2 and obatoclax 30 mg, 45 mg, or 60 mg × 2) to identify dose-limiting toxicity and a phase 2 dose. In phase 2, response and tolerability were evaluated. Results: Eighteen patients were included in phase 1. Two dose-limiting toxicities occurred during cycle 1: one febrile neutropenia each at dose levels 3 and 4. Maximum tolerated dose was not reached; 32 patients (including 3 from phase 1) were treated in phase 2 with docetaxel 75 mg/m2 and obatoclax 60 mg (median 2 cycles). Three patients (11%) had partial responses in phase 2; two demonstrated stable disease lasting 12 weeks or more. Median duration of response was 4.8 months. Overall, median progression-free survival was 1.4 months. Neutropenia (31%), febrile neutropenia (16%), and dyspnea (19%) were the most common grade 3/4 adverse events observed. Conclusions: Combined obatoclax mesylate plus docetaxel is tolerable in patients with NSCLC, but response was minimal and neutropenia was a common adverse event.
Above- and belowground herbivory jointly impact defense and seed dispersal traits in Taraxacum officinale

Plants are able to cope with herbivores by inducing defensive traits or growth responses that allow them to reduce or avoid the impact of herbivores. Since above- and belowground herbivores differ substantially in life-history traits, for example feeding types, and their spatial distribution, it is likely that they induce different responses in plants. Moreover, strong interactive effects on defense and plant growth are expected when above- and belowground herbivores are jointly present. The strengths and directions of these responses have been scarcely addressed in the literature. Using Taraxacum officinale, the root-feeding nematode Meloidogyne hapla and the locust Schistocerca gregaria as a model species, we examined to what degree above- and belowground herbivory affect (1) plant growth responses, (2) the induction of plant defensive traits, that is, leaf trichomes, and (3) changes in dispersal-related seed traits and seed germination. We compared the performance of plants originating from different populations to address whether plant responses are conserved across putative different genotypes. Overall, aboveground herbivory resulted in increased plant biomass. Root herbivory had no effect on plant growth. Plants exposed to the two herbivores showed fewer leaf trichomes than plants challenged only by one herbivore and consequently experienced greater aboveground herbivory. In addition, herbivory had effects that reached beyond the individual plant by modifying seed morphology, producing seeds with longer pappus, and germination success.
A Practical Guide to Randomized Matrix Computations with MATLAB Implementations

Matrix operations such as matrix inversion, eigenvalue decomposition, singular value decomposition are ubiquitous in real-world applications. Unfortunately, many of these matrix operations so time and memory expensive that they are prohibitive when the scale of data is large. In real-world applications, since the data themselves are noisy, machine-precision matrix operations are not necessary at all, and one can sacrice a reasonable amount of accuracy for
Cross-Country Differences in Productivity: The Role of Allocation and Selection

This paper combines different strands of the productivity literature to investigate the effect of idiosyncratic (firm-level) policy distortions on aggregate outcomes. On the one hand, a growing body of empirical research has been relating cross-country differences in key economic outcomes, such as productivity or output per capita, to differences in policies and institutions that shape the business environment. On the other hand, a branch of empirical research has attempted to shed light on the determinants of productivity at the firm level and the evolution of the distribution of productivity across firms within each industry. In this paper, we exploit a rich source of data with harmonized statistics on firm level variation within industries for a number of countries. Our key empirical finding is that there is substantial variation in the within-industry covariance between size and productivity across countries, but this covariance varies significantly across countries and is affected by the presence of idiosyncratic distortions. We develop a model in which heterogeneous firms face adjustment frictions (overhead labor and quasi-fixed capital) and idiosyncratic distortions. We show that the model can be readily calibrated to match the observed cross-country patterns of the within-industry covariance between productivity and size and thus help to explain the observed differences in aggregate performance.
General risk measures for robust machine learning

A wide array of machine learning problems are formulated as the minimization of the expectation of a convex loss function on some parameter space. Since the probability distribution of the data of interest is usually unknown, it is is often estimated from training sets, which may lead to poor out-of-sample performance. In this work, we bring new insights in this problem by using the framework which has been developed in quantitative finance for risk measures. We show that the original min-max problem can be recast as a convex minimization problem under suitable assumptions. We discuss several important examples of robust formulations, in particular by defining ambiguity sets based on $\varphi$-divergences and the Wasserstein metric.We also propose an efficient algorithm for solving the corresponding convex optimization problems involving complex convex constraints. Through simulation examples, we demonstrate that this algorithm scales well on real data sets.
Breakdown Voltage Characteristics of Castor Oil as Alternative to Transformer Insulation Oil

Suitability of non-edible oil as a replacement for mineral oil in power transformer has been a major research concern in product analysis and development. However, there is paucity of information in literature on the suitability of castor oil as alternative transformer insulation oil. This study examined the suitability of castor oil as alternative transformer insulation oil. Four castor oil samples were collected from University of Agriculture, Abeokuta and five experimental tests on alternating current (a.c.) breakdown voltage were carried out on each of the castor oil samples. Temperature range of between 27C and 37C was adopted for the study that was carried out in both rainy (July) and dry (December) seasons. A Baur DPA75 was used to measure the a.c. breakdown voltage. The results of a.c. breakdown voltage measurements of castor oil for July at temperatures of 27C and 32C were 23.8 kV and 24.2 kV respectively and similar values for December at 30C and 37C were 23.9 kV and 24.1 kV respectively. The average breakdown voltage for the two months was 24.0475 kV which is less than 25 kV the minimum standard value for both 11/0.415 kV and 33/0.415 kV transformer insulation oil. This study showed that raw castor oil is not suitable for both 11/0.415 kV and 33/0.415 kV transformer insulation oil.
Nosocomial imipenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii infections: Epidemiology and risk factors

Abstract The incidence, clinical characteristics, risk factors, antimicrobial susceptibility, and outcomes of nosocomial imipenem-resistant A. baumannii (IRAB) infections during a 5-y period (2003–2007) were retrospectively analyzed. A total of 720 patients with 925 episodes of A. baumannii infection were included in the study. A. baumannii infections were seen mostly in intensive care units. The incidence was 6.2 per 1000 admissions. The most common infections were pneumonias and bloodstream infections. Imipenem resistance among Acinetobacter strains increased significantly each y of the study (from 43.3% to 72.9%). Mortality was related to the presence of imipenem resistance, stay in intensive care unit, female gender, old age, and pneumonia. Haemodialysis, malignancy, and mechanical ventilation were significant risk factors for IRAB infections. Imipenem resistance was higher in strains isolated from patients with pneumonia. IRAB strains showed higher resistance rates to other antibiotics than imipenem-susceptible strains. The most active antimicrobial agents against A. baumannii were cefoperazone–sulbactam and netilmicin. The incidence of A. baumannii infections and imipenem resistance increased during the study period. IRAB infections should be considered in patients on mechanical ventilation and haemodialysis and in patients with malignancies.
The Outer Rim Simulation: A Path to Many-core Supercomputers

We describe the Outer Rim cosmological simulation, one of the largest high-resolution N-body simulations performed to date, aimed at promoting science to be carried out with large-scale structure surveys. The simulation covers a volume of (4.225 Gpc)3 and evolves more than one trillion particles. It was executed on Mira, a BlueGene/Q system at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility. We discuss some of the computational challenges posed by a system such as Mira, a many-core supercomputer, and how the simulation code, Hardware/Hybrid Accelerated Cosmology Code, has been designed to overcome these challenges. We have carried out a large range of analyses on the simulation data and we report on the results as well as the data products that have been generated. The full data set generated by the simulation totals more than 5 PB of data, making curation and handling of the data a large challenge in itself. The simulation results have been used to generate synthetic catalogs for large-scale structure surveys, including Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument and eBOSS, as well as experiments on the cosmic microwave background. A detailed catalog for the data challenges of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope Dark Energy Science Collaboration has been created as well. We publicly release some of the Outer Rim halo catalogs, downsampled particle information, and lightcone data.
Individual Blade Pitch Control of a Spar-Buoy Floating Wind Turbine

The spar-buoy floating wind turbine is one of the three main floating wind turbine concepts and one of the first to proceed to a full-scale prototype stage. Multiobjective linear state feedback controllers are implemented on the spar-buoy floating wind turbine with individual blade pitching (IBP). The spar-buoy's deep draft results in a low platform pitch and roll natural frequencies. The low-frequency pitch and roll modes interact with other low-frequency modes of the system (i.e., surge and sway, respectively). Therefore, the linear state-space model used for control design must include the surge and sway degrees of freedom. Furthermore, a low platform pitch natural frequency limits the effectiveness of IBP at regulating the platform pitch around the first tower fore-aft (FA) resonant frequency. Simulations using a high-fidelity model are carried out according to design load case 1.2 of the IEC-61400-3 standard for fatigue load testing under normal operating conditions. Simulation results relative to a gain-scheduled proportional-integral controller show that a multiobjective state feedback controller is able to reduce tower FA and side-side bending fatigue loads by an average of 9%. This improvement is mainly due to IBP despite its limited effectiveness around the first tower FA resonant frequency.
a Bit More to It: Scholarly Communication Forums as Socio-technical Interaction Networks

In this article, we examine the conceptual models that help us understand the development and sustainability of scholarly and professional communication forums on the Internet, such as conferences, pre-print servers, field-wide data sets, and collaboratories. We first present and document the information processing model that is implicitly advanced in most discussions about scholarly communications-the "Standard Model. " Then we present an alternative model, one that considers information technologies as Socio-Technical Interaction Networks (STINs). STIN models provide a richer understanding of human behavior with online scholarly communications forums. They also help to further a more complete understanding of the conditions and activities that support the sustainability of these forums within a field than does the Standard Model. We illustrate the significance of STIN models with examples of scholarly communication forums drawn from the fields of high-energy physics, molecular biology, and information systems. The article also includes a method for modeling electronic forums as STINs.
Trapping dipolar exciton fluids in GaN/(AlGa)N nanostructures.

Dipolar excitons offer a rich playground for both design of novel optoelectronic devices and fundamental many-body physics. Wide GaN/(AlGa)N quantum wells host a new and promising realization of dipolar excitons. We demonstrate the in- plane confinement and cooling of these excitons, when trapped in the electrostatic potential created by semitransparent electrodes of various shapes deposited on the sample surface. This result is a prerequisite for the electrical control of the exciton densities and fluxes, as well for studies of the complex phase diagram of these dipolar bosons at low temperature.
Identification and Classification of Proper Nouns in Chinese Texts

Various strategies are proposed to identify and classify three types of proper nouns in Chinese texts. Clues from character, sentence and paragraph levels are employed to resolve Chinese personal names. Character, Syllable and Frequency Conditions are presented to treat transliterated personal names. To deal with organization names, keywords, prefix, word association and parts-of-speech are applied. For fair evaluation, large scale test data are selected from six sections of a newspaper. The precision and the recall for these three types are (88.04%, 92.56%), (50.62%, 71.93%) and (61.79%, 54.50%), respectively. When the former two types are regarded as a category, the performance becomes (81.46%, 91.22%). Compared with other approaches, our approach has better performance and our classification is automatic.
Glial Cells and Chronic Pain

Over the past few years, the control of pain exerted by glial cells has emerged as a promising target against pathological pain. Indeed, changes in glial phenotypes have been reported throughout the entire nociceptive pathway, from peripheral nerves to higher integrative brain regions, and pharmacological inhibition of such glial reactions reduces the manifestation of pain in animal models. This complex interplay between glia and neurons relies on various mechanisms depending both on glial cell types considered (astrocytes, microglia, satellite cells, or Schwann cells), the anatomical location of the regulatory process (peripheral nerve, spinal cord, or brain), and the nature of the chronic pain paradigm. Intracellularly, recent advances have pointed to the activation of specific cascades, such as mitogen-associated protein kinases (MAPKs) in the underlying processes behind glial activation. In addition, given the large number of functions accomplished by glial cells, various mechanisms might sensitize nociceptive neurons including a release of pronociceptive cytokines and neurotrophins or changes in neurotransmitter-scavenging capacity. The authors review the conceptual advances made in the recent years about the implication of central and peripheral glia in animal models of chronic pain and discuss the possibility to translate it into human therapies in the future.
On Synchronization Errors in Networked Feedback Systems

This paper addresses the problem of synchronization errors and their effects on feedback loops that are closed over communication networks. It is assumed that the feedback loop consists of two discrete-time systems, the clock frequency ratio of which has a special rational form, and is close to one. A Toeplitz matrix approach is taken to model the input/output relationship of the arising feedback systems. Based on this representation, the effect of synchronization errors on stability of the feedback systems is analyzed. It is shown that stability of the synchronized feedback loop can not guarantee stability of the loop in the presence of synchronization errors. Necessary and sufficient stability conditions are derived
[The analysis of CFTR mutations in men with azoospermia, oligozoospermia and asthenozoospermia].

UNLABELLED Mutations in cystic fibrosis transductance regulator gene (CFTR) are known to result in some forms of male infertility. An association between CFTR gene mutations and obstructive azoospermia in cystic fibrosis (CF) and in congenital unilateral and bilateral absence of vas deferens (CUAVD, CBAVD) has been proven. However, the role of CFTR gene mutations in the etiology of non-obstructive azoospermia, as well as in the regulation of spermatogenesis remains unsolved. OBJECTIVES The aim of the study was to evaluate the frequency of CFTR mutations in patients diagnosed with different forms of spermatogenesis impairment MATERIAL The molecular analyses were performed in the group of 93 infertile men, diagnosed with either azoospermia, oligospermia or asthenoteratozoospermia. RESULTS The results of the study revealed the presence of F508del and IVS8-T in 5.4% of analyzed cases. No difference in CFTR gene mutations frequencies among patients with azoospermia, oligospermia and asthenoteratozoospermia has been observed. CONCLUSION The CFTR gene mutations frequency in men with nonobstructive azoospermia, oligozoospermia and asthenozoospermia is similar to those observed in general population.