Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An information-based method for selecting feature types for word prediction

This paper uses an information-based approach to conduct feature types selection for language modeling in a systematic manner. We describe a quantitative analysis of the information gain and the information redundancy for various combinations of feature types inspired by both dependency structure and bigram structure through analyzing an English treebank corpus and taking word prediction as the object. The experiments yield several conclusions on the predictive value of several feature types and feature types combinations for word prediction, which are expected to provide reliable reference for feature type selection in language modeling.
A Philosophical Treatise of Universal Induction

Understanding inductive reasoning is a problem that has engaged mankind for thousands of years. This problem is relevant to a wide range of fields and is integral to the philosophy of science. It has been tackled by many great minds ranging from philosophers to scientists to mathematicians, and more recently computer scientists. In this article we argue the case for Solomonoff Induction, a formal inductive framework which combines algorithmic information theory with the Bayesian framework. Although it achieves excellent theoretical results and is based on solid philosophical foundations, the requisite technical knowledge necessary for understanding this framework has caused it to remain largely unknown and unappreciated in the wider scientific community. The main contribution of this article is to convey Solomonoff induction and its related concepts in a generally accessible form with the aim of bridging this current technical gap. In the process we examine the major historical contributions that have led to the formulation of Solomonoff Induction as well as criticisms of Solomonoff and induction in general. In particular we examine how Solomonoff induction addresses many issues that have plagued other inductive systems, such as the black ravens paradox and the confirmation problem, and compare this approach with other recent approaches.
Therapeutic Applications of Octreotide in Pediatric Patients

Background/Aim: We report our experience with the use of octreotide as primary or adjunctive therapy in children with various gastrointestinal disorders. Patients and Methods: A pharmacy database identified patients who received octreotide for gastrointestinal diseases. Indications for octreotide use, dosing, effectiveness, and adverse events were evaluated by chart review. Results: A total of 21 patients (12 males), aged 1 month to 13 years, were evaluated. Eleven received octreotide for massive gastrointestinal bleeding caused by portal hypertension-induced lesions (n=7), typhlitis (1), Meckel's diverticulum (1), and indefinite source (2). Blood transfusion requirements were reduced from 23±9 mL/kg (mean±SD) to 8±15 mL/kg (P<0.01). Four patients with pancreatic pseudocyst and/or ascites received octreotide over 14.0±5.7 days in 2 patients. In 3 children, pancreatic pseudocyst resolved in 12±2 days and pancreatic ascites resolved in 7 days in 2. Three patients with chylothorax received octreotide for 14±7 days with complete resolution in each. Two infants with chronic diarrhea received octreotide over 11±4.2 months. Stool output decreased from 85±21 mL/kg/day to 28±18 mL/kg/day, 3 months after initiation of octreotide. The child with dumping syndrome responded to octreotide in a week. Adverse events developed in 4 patients: Q-T interval prolongation and ventricular fibrillation, hyperglycemia, growth hormone deficiency, and hypertension. Conclusion: Octreotide provides a valuable addition to the therapeutic armamentum of the pediatric gastroenterologist for a wide variety of disorders. Serious adverse events may occur and patients must be closely monitored.
Fault-scalable Byzantine fault-tolerant services

A fault-scalable service can be configured to tolerate increasing numbers of faults without significant decreases in performance. The Query/Update (Q/U) protocol is a new tool that enables construction of fault-scalable Byzantine fault-tolerant services. The optimistic quorum-based nature of the Q/U protocol allows it to provide better throughput and fault-scalability than replicated state machines using agreement-based protocols. A prototype service built using the Q/U protocol outperforms the same service built using a popular replicated state machine implementation at all system sizes in experiments that permit an optimistic execution. Moreover, the performance of the Q/U protocol decreases by only 36% as the number of Byzantine faults tolerated increases from one to five, whereas the performance of the replicated state machine decreases by 83%.
Cloning of Gossypium hirsutum Sucrose Non-Fermenting 1-Related Protein Kinase 2 Gene (GhSnRK2) and Its Overexpression in Transgenic Arabidopsis Escalates Drought and Low Temperature Tolerance

The molecular mechanisms of stress tolerance and the use of modern genetics approaches for the improvement of drought stress tolerance have been major focuses of plant molecular biologists. In the present study, we cloned the Gossypium hirsutum sucrose non-fermenting 1-related protein kinase 2 (GhSnRK2) gene and investigated its functions in transgenic Arabidopsis. We further elucidated the function of this gene in transgenic cotton using virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) techniques. We hypothesized that GhSnRK2 participates in the stress signaling pathway and elucidated its role in enhancing stress tolerance in plants via various stress-related pathways and stress-responsive genes. We determined that the subcellular localization of the GhSnRK2-green fluorescent protein (GFP) was localized in the nuclei and cytoplasm. In contrast to wild-type plants, transgenic plants overexpressing GhSnRK2 exhibited increased tolerance to drought, cold, abscisic acid and salt stresses, suggesting that GhSnRK2 acts as a positive regulator in response to cold and drought stresses. Plants overexpressing GhSnRK2 displayed evidence of reduced water loss, turgor regulation, elevated relative water content, biomass, and proline accumulation. qRT-PCR analysis of GhSnRK2 expression suggested that this gene may function in diverse tissues. Under normal and stress conditions, the expression levels of stress-inducible genes, such as AtRD29A, AtRD29B, AtP5CS1, AtABI3, AtCBF1, and AtABI5, were increased in the GhSnRK2-overexpressing plants compared to the wild-type plants. GhSnRK2 gene silencing alleviated drought tolerance in cotton plants, indicating that VIGS technique can certainly be used as an effective means to examine gene function by knocking down the expression of distinctly expressed genes. The results of this study suggested that the GhSnRK2 gene, when incorporated into Arabidopsis, functions in positive responses to drought stress and in low temperature tolerance.
Tolerance to Cry 1 Ac in Populations of Helicoverpa zea and Heliothis virescens ( Lepidoptera : Noctuidae ) : Three-Year Summary

Field populations of Helicoverpa zea (Boddie) and Heliothis virescens F. from the eastern one-half of the United States cotton belt were monitored from 1996 to 1998 for tolerance to the Bacillus thuringiensis toxin Cry1Ac. Spray chamber analyses of H. zea from the Mississippi Delta revealed a slight decrease in susceptibility to Cry1Ac during the 3-year period. Areas producing the greatest change in tolerance to Cry1Ac had a greater percentage of their acreage planted in Bt cotton. In general, tolerances of H. virescens populations did not change, with the single exception being the third generation of H. virescens collected from the Mississippi Delta. The small changes in tolerance in H. zea reported herein suggested that even though populations were slightly more tolerant of Cry1Ac, they were not at a level to cause control failures in the field.
Packaging aspects of CVD diamond in high performance electronics requiring enhanced thermal management

The application of CVD diamond substrates has increased in recent years due to lower manufacturing costs of CVD diamond and an increased demand for high performance heat spreaders in thermal management. The materials and packaging aspects specific to diamond substrates and the most recent applications are discussed. Topics include thin and thick film metallization schemes, via filling, die attach, flange materials, brazing, and thermal performance. Materials processing, such as brazing and screen printing, are discussed in terms of compatibility and cost. Some metallization schemes to diamond, for example, have proven to be very robust in terms of temperature, time, and reducing gas ambient for lead attach, while screen printing reduces manufacturing costs. Optimization of die attach adhesion while minimizing thermal resistance is addressed and a comparison of BeO and CVD diamond packages in terms of thermal management is illustrated with temperature color maps.
Associations of quality of sleep with lifestyle factors and profile of studies among Lithuanian students.

UNLABELLED The objective of the study was to analyze associations among quality of sleep, profile of the studies, and lifestyle factors among the students of three different study profiles (medicine, economics, and law). MATERIAL AND METHODS A total of 405 randomly selected students from the first and fourth years of studies from 4 different universities in Lithuania answered the standardized questionnaires consisting of two parts: 1) the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) for subjective evaluation of sleep quality; 2) the questionnaire about sleep and lifestyle habits and impact of poor sleep on the quality of life developed by the researchers. RESULTS More than half (59.4%) of the students scored higher than 5 on the PSQI, which allowed suspecting sleep disorders. A significant difference in the frequency of poor sleepers was found regarding the profile of studies (P<0.05) showing the highest frequency of sleep disturbances among medical students. There was a significant correlation between quality of sleep and subjective evaluation of quality of life (P<0.01). Medical students experienced the highest impact of poor sleep on the quality of life (P=0.008). Students studying before going to sleep, spending more time studying, and having less leisure time had worse quality of sleep (P<0.01). A significant difference was found among three profiles of studies regarding the anxiety about studies (P<0.0005) and subjective estimation of success in studies (χ²=27.9, P<0.0005), showing the highest anxiety and worst satisfaction among students of medicine. CONCLUSIONS The incidence of sleep problems is high among students in Lithuania, reaching 59.4%. Medical students have worse quality of sleep and worse impact of poor sleep on the quality of life compared to students of law and economics. A significant difference was found between medical students and their peers in other profiles of studies regarding their attitudes and habits related to studies: medical students spent more time for studying, were more anxious about studies and less satisfied with the results, studied more often before going to sleep.
Accurate analytical measurements in the atomic force microscope: a microfabricated spring constant standard potentially traceable to the SI

Calibration of atomic force microscope (AFM) cantilevers is necessary for the measurement of nanonewton and piconewton forces, which are critical to analytical applications of AFM in the analysis of polymer surfaces, biological structures and organic molecules at nanoscale lateral resolution. We have developed a compact and easy-to-use reference artefact for this calibration, using a method that allows traceability to the SI (Système International). Traceability is crucial to ensure that force measurements by AFM are comparable to those made by optical tweezers and other methods. The new non-contact calibration method measures the spring constant of these artefacts, by a combination of electrical measurements and Doppler velocimetry. The device was fabricated by silicon surface micromachining. The device allows AFM cantilevers to be calibrated quite easily by the ‘cantilever-on-reference’ method, with our reference device having a spring constant uncertainty of around ± 5% at one standard deviation. A simple substitution of the analogue velocimeter used in this work with a digital model should reduce this uncertainty to around ± 2%. Both are significant improvements on current practice, and allow traceability to the SI for the first time at these nanonewton levels.
Hair Mercury Levels in U.S. Children and Women of Childbearing Age: Reference Range Data from NHANES 1999–2000

Exposure to methyl mercury, a risk factor for neurodevelopmental toxicity, was assessed in U.S. children 1–5 years of age (n = 838) and women 16–49 years of age (n = 1,726) using hair mercury analysis during the 1999–2000 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). The data are nationally representative and are based on analysis of cross-sectional data for the non-institutionalized, U.S. household population. The survey consisted of interviews conducted in participants’ homes and standardized health examinations conducted in mobile examination centers. Distributions of total hair mercury levels expressed as micrograms per gram hair Hg and the association of hair Hg levels with sociodemographic characteristics and fish consumption are reported. Geometric mean (standard error of the geometric mean) hair mercury was 0.12 μg/g (0.01 μg/g) in children, and 0.20 μg/g (0.02 μg/g) in women. Among frequent fish consumers, geometric mean hair mercury levels were 3-fold higher for women (0.38 vs. 0.11 μg/g) and 2-fold higher for children (0.16 vs. 0.08 μg/g) compared with nonconsumers. The NHANES 1999–2000 data provide population-based data on hair mercury concentrations for women and children in the United States. Hair mercury levels were associated with age and fish consumption frequency.
Peptidylgycine α‐amidating monooxygenase and copper: A gene–nutrient interaction critical to nervous system function

Peptidylgycine α‐amidating monooxygenase (PAM), a highly conserved copper‐dependent enzyme, is essential for the synthesis of all amidated neuropeptides. Biophysical studies revealed that the binding of copper to PAM affects its structure, and cell biological studies demonstrated that the endocytic trafficking of PAM was sensitive to copper. We review data indicating that genetic reduction of PAM expression and mild copper deficiency in mice cause similar alterations in several physiological functions known to be regulated by neuropeptides: thermal regulation, seizure sensitivity, and anxiety‐like behavior. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The case control studies of HIV and Intestinal parasitic infections rate in active pulmonary tuberculosis patients in Woldia General Hospital and Health Center in North Wollo, Amhara Region, Ethiopia

Tuberculosis remains a major health problem worldwide in the era of HIV/AIDS. Co-infection with intestinal parasites has been suggested to worsen the outcome of infection in addition to HIV infection. Hence, adequate information on TB patients with HIV and intestinal parasites infection is being needed to tackle the problem, undertake the integrated prevention and control program. This study was aimed to assess the prevalence of HIV and intestinal parasitic infections in active pulmonary tuberculosis patients compared with their healthy extended family of the subject as a control. A case-control study was carried out from November, 2010 to June, 2011 in Woldia General Hospital and Woldia Health Center. Stool sample were examined using direct technique and formol-ether concentration techniques. Modified acid fast stain was used to identify Oocysts of Cryptosporidium species and Isospora belli. HIV rapid tests were used to screen sero prevalence and AFB smear microscopy for screening Pulmonary TB patients. A total of 100 smear positive TB patients and 168 familial contacts were participated and the overall prevalence of intestinal parasite among TB patients was 49%; compared to 23.2% of the control. 41% of TB patients and 23.8% controls were found to be HIV infected. Double infection with both intestinal parasite and HIV was found in 61% TB patients and 52.5% of the controls. The proportions of TB patients infected with 1, 2, or more species of worms were 73.5%, 26.5% respectively; 82%, 18% were in controls and the odds of being an active TB patient is increased with the number of species of intestinal parasites the person harbors. The current study showed that a significant association between TB/HIV infection and intestinal parasite particularly Strongyloides stercoralis Cryptosporidium parvum and Isospora belli.
An elastic layer with a penny-shaped crack subjected to internal pressure

This study examines the axisymmeteric problem on an elastic layer with a penny-shaped crack situated in its middle plane. The crack surfaces are subjected to uniform pressures. The layer surfaces are free from stresses for case I while smooth-clamp conditions are prescribed on the layer surfaces for case II. By assuming series expansions for the normal displacement on the crack surfaces, both cases are reduced to analytical and exact solutions through infinite system of simultaneous equations. An expression for the stress intensity factor at the penny-shaped crack is evaluated in a simple form of a series which involves coefficients of the solutions of the simultaneous equations. Numerical results are obtained to examine the effects of the layer thickness and boundary conditions of the layer surfaces on normal stress and displacement distributions and on the stress intensity factors.
Regenerative Peripheral Nerve Interface Viability and Signal Transduction with an Implanted Electrode

Background: The regenerative peripheral nerve interface is an internal interface for signal transduction with external electronics of prosthetic limbs; it consists of an electrode and a unit of free muscle that is neurotized by a transected residual peripheral nerve. Adding a conductive polymer coating on electrodes improves electrode conductivity. This study examines regenerative peripheral nerve interface tissue viability and signal fidelity in the presence of an implanted electrode coated or uncoated with a conductive polymer. Methods: In a rat model, the extensor digitorum longus muscle was moved as a nonvascularized free tissue transfer and neurotized by the divided peroneal nerve. Either a stainless steel pad electrode (n = 8) or a pad electrode coated with poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) conductive polymer (PEDOT) (n = 8) was implanted on the muscle transfer and secured with an encircling acellular extracellular matrix. The contralateral muscle served as the control. Results: The free muscle transfers were successfully revascularized and over time reinnervated as evidenced by serial insertional needle electromyography. Compound muscle action potentials were successfully transduced through the regenerative peripheral nerve interface. The conductive polymer coating on the implanted electrode resulted in increased recorded signal amplitude that was observed throughout the course of the study. Histologic examination confirmed axonal sprouting, elongation, and synaptogenesis within regenerative peripheral nerve interface regardless of electrode type. Conclusions: The regenerative peripheral nerve interface remains viable over seven months in the presence of an implanted electrode. Electrodes with and without conductive polymer reliably transduced signals from the regenerative peripheral nerve interface. Electrodes with a conductive polymer coating resulted in recording more of the regenerative peripheral nerve interface signal.
Pilot Randomized Trial of Active Music Engagement Intervention Parent Delivery for Young Children With Cancer

Objectives To examine the feasibility/acceptability of a parent‐delivered Active Music Engagement (AME + P) intervention for young children with cancer and their parents. Secondary aim to explore changes in AME + P child emotional distress (facial affect) and parent emotional distress (mood; traumatic stress symptoms) relative to controls. Methods A pilot two‐group randomized trial was conducted with parents/children (ages 3‐8 years) receiving AME + P (n = 9) or attention control (n = 7). Feasibility of parent delivery was assessed using a delivery checklist and child engagement; acceptability through parent interviews; preliminary outcomes at baseline, postintervention, 30 days postintervention. Results Parent delivery was feasible, as they successfully delivered AME activities, but interviews indicated parent delivery was not acceptable to parents. Emotional distress was lower for AME + P children, but parents derived no benefit. Conclusion Despite child benefit, findings do not support parent delivery of AME + P.
Perception of privacy and security for acceptance of E-health technologies: Exploratory analysis for diverse user groups

The present study explores perceived relevance of security and privacy aspects in different user groups and assesses the predictive power of these attributes on acceptance of medical assistive technologies. Based on previously conducted focus groups a questionnaire was developed and quantitative data from N = 104 persons were analyzed. In a descriptive manner opinions of adults in all stages of life (age groups from young, middle-aged to older people) as well as gender - and health-related are presented and discussed with regard to those characteristics, and differences between the groups are disclosed. In multivariate regressions follows the analysis of most predictive security and privacy attributes for the acceptance (i.e. perceived usefulness) of E-health technologies. Results show that both security and privacy aspects play an important role for acceptance and usage of medical assistive technologies.
Low-velocity impact behavior of carbon fiber/epoxy multiscale hybrid nanocomposites reinforced with multiwalled carbon nanotubes and boron nitride nanoplates

In this article, the mechanical properties and dynamic response of hybrid filler-modified epoxy/carbon fiber multiscale composites were investigated. The hybrid fillers composed of multiwalled carbon nanotubes and boron nitride nanoplates were dispersed in epoxy resin and used as matrix material. The multiscale hybrid laminated composites were stacked symmetrically consisting of 10 plies of woven carbon fibers and fabricated by vacuum infusion technique. The mechanical properties of the hybrid composites were investigated by tensile tests. Impact response and energy absorption capacity were investigated by using weight drop test method and the tests were performed according to ASTM-D-7136 standard with impact energies of 5, 10, and 15 J. The impact force and displacement versus interaction time were measured. The impulsive force, energy absorption capability, and damage formation were also investigated. It is observed that when the resin is modified by nanoparticles, both strength and the % strain at fracture increase considerably. However, it is shown in the subject manuscript that the enhancement of mechanical has not fully transferred to dynamic response and energy absorption capacities of nanocomposites.
Troponin I in acute decompensated heart failure: insights from the ASCEND‐HF study

We examined the prognostic importance of cardiac troponin I (cTnI) in a cohort of patients enrolled in the ASCEND‐HF study of nesiritide in acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF). Circulating troponins are a prognostic marker in patients with ADHF. Contemporary assays with greater sensitivity require reassessment of the significance of troponin elevation in HF.