Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mycoplasma Pneumoniae and Chlamydia Pneumoniae Seropositivity in Patients With Age-Related Macular Degeneration

Background To determine a possible relation between Mycoplasma pneumoniae (MP) or Chlamidia pneumoniae (CP) seropositivity and age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Methods Sixty patients (20 wet AMD, 20 dry AMD and 20 non-AMD controls) were included in the study. Serum samples were collected for analysis of IgM and IgG antibody seropositivity for CP and MP by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Comparison of the distribution of seropositivity of these antibodies among patients with wet and dry AMD, and controls was performed. A prospective comparative clinical trial was applied. Results There was no major difference in the distribution of IgM and IgG seropositivity to CP and MP in patients with wet and dry AMD, and in controls (p > 0.05). Conclusions We found no significant association between MP as well as CP antibody titers and AMD. It seems that MP or CP infection is not a risk factor for AMD. Keywords Mycoplasma pneumoniae; Chlamydia pneumoniae; Age-related macular degeneration; Serology
Revisiting a combinatorial approach toward measuring anonymity

Recently, Edman et al. proposed the system's anonymity level [10], a combinatorial approach to measure the amount of additional information needed to reveal the communication pattern in a mix-based anonymous communication system as a whole. The metric is based on the number of possible bijective mappings between the inputs and the outputs of the mix. In this work we show that Edman et al.'s approach fails to capture the anonymity loss caused by subjects sending or receiving more than one message. We generalize the system's anonymity level in scenarios where user relations can be modeled as yes/no relations to cases where subjects send and receive an arbitrary number of messages. Further, we describe an algorithm to compute the redefined metric.
The Power of Depth for Feedforward Neural Networks

We show that there is a simple (approximately radial) function on $\reals^d$, expressible by a small 3-layer feedforward neural networks, which cannot be approximated by any 2-layer network, to more than a certain constant accuracy, unless its width is exponential in the dimension. The result holds for virtually all known activation functions, including rectified linear units, sigmoids and thresholds, and formally demonstrates that depth -- even if increased by 1 -- can be exponentially more valuable than width for standard feedforward neural networks. Moreover, compared to related results in the context of Boolean functions, our result requires fewer assumptions, and the proof techniques and construction are very different.
Computational Model for Armor Penetration

Abstract : Results are reported from the second year of a three-year BRL/AMMRC/ SRI program to develop a computational capability for predicting the behind-the- armor fragment environment for spaced armor attacked by long-rod penetrators. The baseline materials chosen were rolled homogenous steel armor (RHA) and depleted uranium (DU) for the penetrator. Phenomenological studies involving both quarter and full-scale ballistics tests at velocities up to 1.5 km/s and obliquities from 0 to 70 clearly revealed shear banding to be the principal phenomenon controlling both penetrator erosion and armor failure. A detailed, phenomenological scenario for oblique armor penetration is given . Contained fragmenting cylinder (CFC) experiments were performed to characterize the resistance of RHA to shear banding; a significant anisotropy was observed. The SHEAR3 computational model for shear banding was refined and calibrated with respect to previously obtained data from CFC experiments using 4340 steel (Rc40) .
Determinants of left ventricular mass in aortic stenosis.

BACKGROUND AND AIM OF THE STUDY There are many possible determinants of left ventricular (LV) mass, including the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) genotype, which have rarely been compared in aortic stenosis (AS). The study aim was to investigate these determinants in patients with all grades of AS. METHODS Transthoracic echocardiography and an analysis of ACE genotype was performed in 91 patients with aortic valve thickening and a peak aortic velocity >2.0 m/s. RESULTS Univariate relationships were identified between LV mass index and effective orifice area (R = 0.22), and peak transaortic pressure difference (R = 0.36). LV mass index was similar for the ACE-II (152+/-37 g/m2), ACE-ID (145+/-46 g/m2) and ACE-DD (161+/-56 g/m2) genotypes. LV mass index was significantly greater in males (162+/-52 gm/m2) than in females (137+/-38 gm/m2; p = 0.014). The multivariate determinants varied according to the grade of AS: diastolic blood pressure (p = 0.028) in mild stenosis; peak transaortic pressure difference (p = 0.03) in moderate stenosis; and peak transaortic pressure difference (p <0.0001) and gender (p = 0.02) in severe stenosis. LV hypertrophy was present in 15 of 24 patients (63%) with mild AS, in 21 of 27 (78%) with moderate AS, and 32 of 40 (80%) with severe AS. CONCLUSION LV hypertrophy is common, even in mild AS, when it is independently related only to the systemic blood pressure. This suggests that antihypertensive agents should be considered early in the natural history of AS.
The compressive strength and planting properties of cemented sand and gravel material compacted by the Hilti vibrating method

This study was performed to evaluate the compressive strength of cemented sand and gravel (CSG) material with the Hilti vibrating compaction method and the effects of variables such as curing age and to investigate the planting properties of these CSG blocks when seeded with herbaceous plants and cool-season grasses. Four types of CSG mix designs and cement contents were evaluated by a compressive strength test, and two types of CSG mix designs were tested as planting blocks. To analyze the growth properties of plants in the CSG blocks, the initial germination ratio and period, visual cover and plant height were measured at 4 to 12 weeks after seeding. The results showed that the compressive strength of the CSG material increased as the cement content and curing age was increased. The initial germination started within 5 to 8 days after seeding regardless of the kind of plant or type of CSG block, and the germination ratios were in the range of 55 to 60%. The visual estimation of the cover of the different kinds of plants appeared over eight points for all blocks at eight weeks after planting.
A proposal for revisiting coverage testing metrics

Test coverage information can be very useful for guiding testers in enhancing their test suites to exercise possible uncovered entities and in deciding when to stop testing. Since the concept of test criterion was born, several contributions have been made by both academia and industry in the definition and adaptation of adequacy criteria aiming at ensuring the discovery of more failures. Numerous contributions have also been done in the development of coverage tools. However, for complex applications that are reused in different contexts and for emerging paradigms (e.g., component-based development, service-oriented architecture, and cloud computing), traditional coverage metrics may no longer provide meaningful information to help testers on these tasks. Inspired by the idea of relative coverage this research focuses on the introduction of meaningful coverage metrics to cope with the challenges imposed by the current programming paradigms as well as on the definition of a theoretical framework for the development of relative coverage metrics.
Properties of glycerin-thermally modified wood flour/polypropylene composites

This study aimed to investigate the combination effect of glycerin treatment and thermal modification of wood flour on the physical, mechanical, thermal dynamic mechanical properties of wood flour/polypropylene (PP) composite. The morphological aspect was also investigated. The wood flour was first impregnated in the aqueous solution of glycerin, followed by heat treatment at 200°C for 1 h. Then the unmodified or modified wood flour was blended with PP at a weight ratio of 4:6 to prepare composites. Moisture adsorption experiment and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis of wood flour demonstrated that the hygroscopicity and the free surface hydroxyl groups of wood flour decreased after glycerin-thermal modification. Thickness swelling of the 10% wt glycerin-thermally modified wood flour/PP composite was reduced by 42.8% after 96 h immersion as compared to unmodified control. Evaluation of mechanical properties in impact and flexure modes indicated that glycerin treatment alone had no significant effect, but the combination of glycerin and thermal treatment slightly decreased the strength, with the exception of 10% glycerin and heat modified sample. Dynamic mechanical analysis and scanning electron microscope illustrated the improved interfacial bonding between PP and wood flour modified by 10% glycerin and heat treatment. POLYM. COMPOS. , 35:201–207, 2014. © 2013 Society of Plastics Engineers
Paradoxical effects of interferon on reactivation of oral infection with herpes simplex virus after microvascular decompression for trigeminal neuralgia.

Fifty-five patients undergoing microvascular decompression for trigeminal neuralgia were divided into three groups in a two-stage placebo-controlled study. All groups received two injections a day for five days beginning the day before surgery. Twenty-one patients received 10 placebo injections, 11 in the presurgical treatment group received three injections of 3.5 X 10(4) units of leukocyte interferon/kg before surgery, and 23 in the postsurgical treatment group received seven injections after surgery. The remaining injections in the two treatment groups were placebos. In the first stage, with 30 patients, 91% of the presurgical treatment group had reactivated oral herpesvirus infections (manifested by herpetic lesions and/or oral viral shedding) significantly more often than did concurrent controls (P less than .05). In the second stage, only the postsurgical treatment and placebo groups were studied, with no difference in reactivation of herpesvirus infection between the postsurgical treatment and placebo groups. Thus presurgical treatment with interferon alone may actually precipitate and accentuate herpesvirus infection.
Widespread signatures of positive selection in common risk alleles associated to autism spectrum disorder

The human brain is the outcome of innumerable evolutionary processes; the systems genetics of psychiatric disorders could bear their signatures. On this basis, we analyzed five psychiatric disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, and schizophrenia (SCZ), using GWAS summary statistics from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium. Machine learning-derived scores were used to investigate two natural-selection scenarios: complete selection (loci where a selected allele reached fixation) and incomplete selection (loci where a selected allele has not yet reached fixation). ASD GWAS results positively correlated with incomplete-selection (p = 3.53*10−4). Variants with ASD GWAS p<0.1 were shown to have a 19%-increased probability to be in the top-5% for incomplete-selection score (OR = 1.19, 95%CI = 1.11–1.8, p = 9.56*10−7). Investigating the effect directions of minor alleles, we observed an enrichment for positive associations in SNPs with ASD GWAS p<0.1 and top-5% incomplete-selection score (permutation p<10−4). Considering the set of these ASD-positive-associated variants, we observed gene-expression enrichments for brain and pituitary tissues (p = 2.3*10−5 and p = 3*10−5, respectively) and 53 gene ontology (GO) enrichments, such as nervous system development (GO:0007399, p = 7.57*10−12), synapse organization (GO:0050808, p = 8.29*10−7), and axon guidance (GO:0007411, p = 1.81*10−7). Previous genetic studies demonstrated that ASD positively correlates with childhood intelligence, college completion, and years of schooling. Accordingly, we hypothesize that certain ASD risk alleles were under positive selection during human evolution due to their involvement in neurogenesis and cognitive ability.
Electromagnetic Waves in Stratified Media

This book [1] was written at an important point in the development of applications of electromagnetic (radio) waves to communications, navigation, and remote sensing. Such applications require accurate propagation predictions for a variety of path conditions, and this book provides the theoretical basis for such predictions. The book is based on fundamental research in electromagnetic wave propagation that James R. Wait performed in the Central Radio Propagation Laboratory (CRPL) of NBS from 1956 to 1962. The mathematical theory in the book is very general, and the “stratified media” models are applicable to the earth crust, the troposphere, and the ionosphere. The frequencies of the communication, navigation, and remote sensing applications treated in this book range all the way from extremely low frequencies (ELF) to microwaves. The mathematical theory of electromagnetic wave propagation is based on Maxwell’s equations [2], formulated by James Clerk Maxwell in the 1860s. Experimental propagation studies in free space [3] and over the earth [4] also go back over 100 years. Research in radio science, standards, and measurements began in NBS in the early 1900s, and the long history of radio in NBS has been thoroughly covered by Snyder and Bragaw [5]. CRPL was moved to Boulder in 1954, and Wait joined the organization in 1955. The mathematics of electromagnetic wave propagation in stratified (layered) media is very complicated, and progress in propagation theory in the early 1900s was fairly slow. Wait’s book [1] included the most useful theory (much of which he developed) and practical applications that were available in 1962. A hallmark
Does single embryo transfer improve the obstetric and neonatal outcome of singleton pregnancy?

Singleton pregnancies following in vitro fertilization (IVF) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) are associated with increased risks of abnormal placentation, pre‐eclampsia and preterm birth. These risks might partly be a consequence of the number of transferred embryos. In this commentary we summarize the results of three observational studies and one randomized study with 1052 pregnancies following single embryo transfer (SET).
Densitometric evaluation of skull and jaw bones after administration of thyroid hormones in rats.

OBJECTIVES An investigation was performed by use of optical densitometry to observe the effects of different doses of thyroid hormone on bone density of skull and jaw bones and to evaluate the relationship between T3, T4, thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) serum levels and bone density. METHODS 40 Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into four groups with 10 rats in each (a control group that received 10 ml kg(-1) i.p. per day normal saline and three levothyroxine groups that received 5, 10, or 20 microg kg(-1) i.p. per day levothyroxine, respectively). Radiographs were taken of their skulls on days 3 and 16. At the end of the experimental period blood was drawn by intracardiac puncture and serum was analysed for thyroid hormones (T3 and T4) and TSH level. After that, optical density measurements were made on the radiographs of four selected points on the skull and jaw with a digital densitometer. Density measurements were analysed using the student's t-test, one way analysis of variance, Spearman correlation analysis and regression analysis. RESULTS Levothyroxine administration reduced bone density (P < or = 0.05) and increasing the dose of thyroid hormone produced a significant decrease of bone density (P < or = 0.05). The mandible was more susceptible to density changes compared with hard palate, skull and alveolar bone (P < or = 0.05). CONCLUSIONS Radiographs of the mandible can be utilized to characterize loss of bone density elsewhere. In addition this investigation indicated that optical densitometry is an inexpensive and low risk method for studying bone density.
Differences in Sexual Health, Risk Behaviors, and Substance Use Among Women by Sexual Identity: Chicago, 2009–2011

Background Lesbian women may perceive themselves to be at lower risk for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and use reproductive health care at lower rates compared with heterosexual women. Therefore, STIs in sexual minority women may go undetected. The prevalence and risk factors of urogenital STIs in women of different sexual orientations were investigated. Methods This is a cross-sectional study of women attending the STI clinic of Howard Brown Health Center in Chicago, Illinois. Women were eligible for inclusion in this study if they reported a sexual identity and were screened for urogenital gonorrhea (GC)/chlamydia (CT) in the clinic between January 2008 and December 2011. Results Among the 669 women studied, the urogenital prevalence of GC was 1.5% and that of CT was 5.2%. Gonorrhea and CT were only diagnosed in women with recent male sex partners, but sexual identity was not necessarily consistent with sexual partner sex, and women of all sexual orientations were diagnosed as having STIs. Bisexual and heterosexual women had similar diagnosis and STI history rates, whereas lesbian women had a significantly lower history of STIs. Bisexual women had more sex partners than heterosexual or lesbian women, and their partners were less likely to be monogamous. Compared with heterosexual women, sexual minority women had twice the odds of drug use in the last year. Conclusions Chlamydia and GC were diagnosed in sexual minority women, and several cases would have been missed if lesbian women were not tested for STIs. High rates of substance use among sexual minority women highlight the need for targeted interventions.
Mesenchymal stem cells derived from breast cancer tissue promote the proliferation and migration of the MCF-7 cell line in vitro

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are critical in promoting cancer progression, including tumor growth and metastasis. MSCs, as a subpopulation of cells found in the tumor microenvironment, have been isolated from several tumor tissues, but have not been isolated from breast cancer tissue to date. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to isolate MSCs from primary human breast cancer tissue, and to study the effect of breast cancer MSCs (BC-MSCs) on the proliferation and migration of the MCF-7 cell line in vitro. MSCs were isolated and identified from primary breast cancer tissue obtained from 9 patients. The MCF-7 cell line was treated with 10 and 20% breast cancer-associated MSC (BC-MSC)-conditioned medium (CM) for 10–48 h, and changes in proliferation and migration were observed. Furthermore, we investigated the migration of 10 and 20% CM concentrations on MCF-7 through a scratch wound assay and a transwell migration assay. We successfully isolated and identified MSCs from primary breast cancer tissues. BC-MSCs showed characteristics similar to those of bone marrow MSCs, and possessed the capability of multipotential differentiation into osteoblasts and adipocytes. The results of the 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay showed that 10 and 20% CM concentrations increased the proliferation of MCF-7 cells to different levels. The results also revealed a greater increase in different levels compared with the control group. In conclusion, MSCs were confirmed to exist in human breast cancer tissues, and BC-MSCs may promote the proliferation and migration of breast cancer cells.
Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress Gene Induction and Protection From Ischemia/Reperfusion Injury in the Hearts of Transgenic Mice With a Tamoxifen-Regulated Form of ATF6

Ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) affects the integrity of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), the site of synthesis and folding of numerous proteins. Therefore, I/R may activate the unfolded protein response (UPR), resulting in the induction of a collection of ER stress proteins, many of which are protective and function to resolve the ER stress. In this study, we showed that when mouse hearts were subjected to ex vivo I/R, the levels of 2 ER stress-inducible markers of the UPR, the ER-targeted cytoprotective chaperones glucose-regulated proteins 78 and 94 (GRP78 and GRP94), were increased, consistent with I/R-mediated UPR activation in the heart. The UPR-mediated activation of ATF6 (Activation of Transcription Factor 6) induces cytoprotective ER stress proteins, including GRP78 and GRP94. To examine whether ATF6 protects the myocardium from I/R injury in the heart, we generated transgenic (TG) mice featuring cardiac-restricted expression of a novel tamoxifen-activated form of ATF6, ATF6-MER. When NTG and ATF6-MER TG mice were treated with or without tamoxifen for 5 days, only the hearts from the tamoxifen-treated TG mice exhibited increased levels of many ER stress–inducible mRNAs and proteins; for example, GRP78 and GRP94 transcript levels were increased by 8- and 15-fold, respectively. The tamoxifen-treated TG mouse hearts also exhibited better functional recovery from ex vivo I/R, as well as significantly reduced necrosis and apoptosis. These results suggest that the UPR is activated in the heart during I/R and that, as a result, the ATF6 branch of the UPR may induce expression of proteins that can function to reduce I/R injury.
Design model for shear capacity of RC beams strengthened with two-side CFRP wraps based on effective FRP strain concept

A simple design model based on effective strain of fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) to predict shear capacity of reinforced concrete (RC) beams strengthened with two-side FRP wraps is proposed. Five two-side carbon FRP wrapped and five control unstrengthened RC beam specimens were tested, and the obtained results in addition to the experimental results of 32 two-side wrapped RC beams selected from the literature were used to calibrate the model. Performance of the proposed model was compared with fib Bulletin 14 and ACI 440.2R design models. It was shown that fib Bulletin 14 and ACI 440.2R mostly overestimate the FRP contribution to the shear capacity of two-side wrapped RC beams, while ACI 440.2R model is incapable of predicting effective FRP strain for shear-strengthened shallow beams. Results of 20 independent tests on RC beams strengthened in shear with two-side wraps verified that the proposed model fairly estimates the shear capacity of the strengthened RC beams. It was justified and concluded that since the simple proposed model provides more accurate and safe predictions compared with existing guideline models, it may be capable to be used for design purposes.
Look, Listen and Learn - A Multimodal LSTM for Speaker Identification

Speaker identification refers to the task of localizing the face of a person who has the same identity as the ongoing voice in a video. This task not only requires collective perception over both visual and auditory signals, the robustness to handle severe quality degradations and unconstrained content variations are also indispensable. In this paper, we describe a novel multimodal Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) architecture which seamlessly unifies both visual and auditory modalities from the beginning of each sequence input. The key idea is to extend the conventional LSTM by not only sharing weights across time steps, but also sharing weights across modalities. We show that modeling the temporal dependency across face and voice can significantly improve the robustness to content quality degradations and variations. We also found that our multimodal LSTM is robustness to distractors, namely the non-speaking identities. We applied our multimodal LSTM to The Big Bang Theory dataset and showed that our system outperforms the state-of-the-art systems in speaker identification with lower false alarm rate and higher recognition accuracy.