Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Statins Are Associated With Better Outcomes After Carotid Endarterectomy in Symptomatic Patients

Background and Purpose— Statins have been associated with a reduction in mortality from noncardiac surgery. This study aimed to determine whether statin use on admission to hospital for carotid endarterectomy was associated with a reduction of in-hospital adverse outcomes. Methods— Data describing patient characteristics, surgical indication, statin treatment, and in-hospital outcomes of death, ischemic stroke or death and cardiac outcomes were collected from a chart review of all patients (3360) undergoing carotid endarterectomy in Western Canada from January 2000 to December 2001. Outcomes of patients on statins versus those not on statins were compared using logistic regression to account for differences in patient characteristics, and propensity score methods to account for factors influencing patient allocation to statins. Results— Eight hundred and fifteen of 2031 symptomatic patients and 665 of 1252 asymptomatic patients were on a statin at the time of hospital admission. Statin use by symptomatic patients was associated with reduced in-hospital mortality and in-hospital ischemic stroke or death, but not in-hospital cardiac outcomes (adjusted odds ratio 0.25 [CI, 0.07 to 0.90], 0.55 [CI, 0.32 to 0.95], 0.87 [CI, 0.49 to 1.54], respectively). The improvement in outcomes was robust when tested using propensity score matching. This association was not seen in asymptomatic patients on statins (adjusted odds ratio, in-hospital mortality 0.54 [CI, 0.13 to 2.24]; in-hospital ischemic stroke or death 1.34 [CI, 0.61 to 2.93]; in-hospital cardiac outcomes 1.37 [CI, 0.73 to 2.58]). Conclusions— These findings are suggestive of a protective effect of statin therapy in symptomatic patients pre-treated at the time of carotid endarterectomy, though this needs confirmation in a randomized controlled trial.
Bronchial airway deposition and retention of particles in inhaled boluses: effect of anatomic dead space.

The fractional deposition of particles in boluses delivered to shallow lung depths and their subsequent retention in the airways may depend on the relative volume and size of an individual's airways. To evaluate the effect of variable anatomic dead space (ADS) on aerosol bolus delivery we had healthy subjects inhale radiolabeled, monodisperse aerosol (99mTc-iron oxide, 3.5 micron mean mondispersed aerosol diameter) boluses (40 ml) to a volumetric front depth of 70 ml into the lung at a lung volume of 70% total lung capacity end inhalation. By using filter techniques, aerosol photometry, and gamma camera analysis, we estimated the fraction of the inhaled boluses deposited in intrathoracic airways (IDF). ADS by single-breath N2 washout was also measured from 70% total lung capacity. Results showed that among all subjects IDF was variable (range = 0.04-0.43, coefficient of variation = 0.54) and increased with decreasing ADS (r = -0.76, P = 0.001, n = 16). We found significantly greater deposition in the left (L) vs. right (R) lungs; mean L/R (ratio of deposition in L lung to R lung, normalized to ratio of L-to-R lung volume) was 1.58 +/- 0.42 (SD; P < 0.001 for comparison with 1.0). Retention of deposited particles at 2 h was independent of ADS or IDF. There was significant retention of particles at 24 h postdeposition (0.27 +/- 0.05) and slow clearance of these particles continued through 48 h postdeposition. Finally, analysis of central-to-peripheral ratios of initial deposition and 24-h-retention gamma-camera images suggest significant retention of insoluble particles in large bronchial airways at 24 h postdeposition (i.e., 24 h central-to-peripheral ratio = 1.40 +/- 0. 44 and 1.82 +/- 0.54 in the R and L lung, respectively; P < 0.02 for comparison with 1.0). These data may prove useful for 1) designing aerosol delivery techniques to target bronchial airways and 2) understanding airway retention of inhaled particles.
The sense of rotation of subhaloes in cosmological dark matter haloes

We present a detailed analysis of the velocity distribution and orientation of orbits of subhaloes in high-resolution cosmological simulations of dark matter haloes. We find a trend for substructure to preferentially revolve in the same direction as the sense of rotation of the host halo: there is an excess of prograde satellite haloes. Throughout our suite of nine host haloes (eight cluster-sized objects and one galactic halo), there are on average 59 per cent of the satellites corotating with the host. Even when including subhaloes out to five virial radii of the host, the signal still remains pointing out the relation of the signal to the infall pattern of subhaloes. However, the fraction of prograde satellites weakens to about 53 per cent when observing the data along a (random) line of sight and deriving the distributions in a way an observer would infer them. This decrease in the observed prograde fraction has its origin in the technique used by the observer to determine the sense of rotation, which results in a possible misclassification of non-circular orbits. We conclude that the existence of subhaloes on corotating orbits is another prediction of the cold dark matter structure formation scenario, although there will be difficulties to verify it observationally. Since the galactic halo simulation gave the same result as the cluster-sized simulations, we assume that the fraction of prograde orbits is independent of the scale of the system, though more galactic simulations would be necessary to confirm this.
Evaluation of tectonic structure of Gelibolu (Turkey) using steerable filters 1

Steerable filters are oriented filters generally used in vision and image processing tasks, such as texture analysis, edge detection, image data compression, motion analysis, and image enhancement. Steerable filters with oriented property can be examined as a function of both orientation and phase. In the case of correct filter set and interpolation rules, it is possible to determine the response of a filter of arbitrary orientation without applying that filter directly. In this paper, we have first applied steerable filters to synthetic examples and after satisfactory results are obtained; we have evaluated the tectonic setting of the Gelibolu Peninsula in the western region of Turkey using potential fields. The gravity and magnetic anomaly maps of Gelibolu used which was obtained from Turkish Petroleum Research Institute (TPAO). A parallel fault branch on the North-West of Anafartalar fault was detected. Also other tectonic structures of area were modelled. The results are confirmed by the TPAO seismic data. Further it is shown that steerable filters can be considered as a compromising approach in the evaluation of geophysical data. In particular, they can be used to delineate the strike of faults and to locate roughly ruins of foundation walls.
Acquisition of a Complex Basketball-Dribbling Task in School Children as a Function of Bilateral Practice Order

Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate order-of-practice effects for the acquisition of a complex basketball skill in a bilateral transfer paradigm. The task required participants to dribble as fast as possible in slalom-like movements across six javelins and return to the initial position. Fifty-two right-handed school children (M age = 11.7 years) practiced this skill in eight sessions over 4 weeks under one of two training schedules: (a) with the dominant hand, before changing to their nondominant hand (D-ND group), or (b) with the nondominant hand, before changing to the dominant hand (ND-D group). All tests were conducted with the right hand or the left hand only, and a transfer test was given with both hands alternating. The results of a retention test yielded significantly larger learning gains for the ND-D group as compared to the D-ND group. It is interesting that this performance advantage was independent of the respective hand tested. The same pattern of result was found in the transfer test, with significantly shorter movement times for the ND-D group with both hands alternating. Such order-of-practice effects for the acquisition of complex skills can be explained with hemispheric brain asymmetries for the processing of specific task requirements.
Family size and achievement.

When school performance and test results of children from different size families were compared it was found that those who had many siblin gs made on the average lower test scores than those who had few siblin gs. There was no change in the relative test performance of children from large and small families between ages 8 and 11 but at age 15 the children from small families had an advantage. The main effects seem to occur during the preschool years. The differences are smallest in the nonverbal test of intelligence and largest in the attainment tests particularly in vocabulary tests. It is suggested that insufficient attention may be paid to the lack of verbal stimulation resulting when a child learning to speak spends a large amount of time with children his own age. Not all test scores decline regularly with each increase in family size; in the middle classes the mathematics scores of 15-year-old boys show little decline from a 1- to 3-child family but they do show that decline in girls. Children from small families are more successful in the General Certificate examinations and in families with over 2 children there is a considerable decrease in length of school life.
Supporting Information of Direct emission of I 2 molecule and IO radical from the heterogeneous reactions of gaseous ozone with aqueous potassium iodide solution

SI text Experimental details The cavity ring-down mirrors (Research Electro-Optics, 7.8 mm dia. and 1 m curvature) had a specified maximum reflectivity of 0.9994 and were mounted 1.04 m apart. Light leaking from the end mirror was detected by a photomultiplier tube (Hamamatsu Photonics, R212UH) through a band pass filter. The ring-down signal of the light intensity was recorded in a personal computer. The decay of the light intensity is represented by equation (I) 1 ;
The effect of explanations on perceived control and behaviors in intelligent systems

Intelligent systems often violate fundamental usability principles, such as control and transparency. Explanations have been shown to have a positive effect on transparency in such systems but little research exists as to how it may affect control. We set out to investigate how explanations may impact upon users' perceptions of control in an intelligent system. We conducted an empirical study in which 15 participants carried out a qualitative data analysis task using an intelligent system. Participants were divided into two groups: with and without explanations. Participants could indicate agreement or correct the system. Our results show that participants without explanations display more control-exerting behaviors but that there is no difference between conditions in participants' perception of control. We discuss our findings and implications for future work.
Offline and Online Incentive Mechanism Design for Smart-phone Crowd-sourcing

In this paper, we consider the problem of incentive mechanism design for smart-phone crowd-sourcing. Each user participating in crowd-sourcing submits a set of tasks it can accomplish and its corresponding bid. The platform then selects the users and their payments to maximize its utility while ensuring truthfulness, individual rationality, profitability, and polynomial algorithm complexity. Both the offline and the online scenarios are considered, where in the offline case, all users submit their profiles simultaneously, while in the online case they do it sequentially, and the decision whether to accept or reject each user is done instantaneously with no revocation. The proposed algorithms for both the offline and the online case are shown to satisfy all the four desired properties of an efficient auction. Through extensive simulation, the performance of the offline and the online algorithm is also compared.
Criticism of recent calculations of common envelope ejection

We re-examine a recent claim made by Han et al. that the ionization energy in the envelope has to be included in the ejection criterion of common envelopes. In particular, we argue that: (i) they include a mass-loss rate prior to the onset of the common envelope that is too low; (ii) they do not include the energy radiated by the accreting white dwarf companion, as well as that emitted by the core of the giant star; and (iii) as argued by one of us previously, the opacity in the envelope is too low for the efficient usage of the ionization energy.
Evaluation of a computer-based caries risk assessment program in an elderly group of individuals

The aim of this study was to evaluate a caries risk assessment computer program, the Cariogram, by comparing the risk assessment of the program with the actual caries increment in a group of elderly individuals over a period of 5 years. The participants were examined and interviewed at baseline about their general health and dietary habits. Data on oral hygiene and use of fluoride were obtained and saliva analyses included mutans streptococci, lactobacilli, buffering capacity, and secretion rate. Based on the baseline recordings, the individuals were divided into 4 risk groups according to the Cariogram. Where the program predicted 0%-20% (high risk), 21%-40%, 41%-60%, and 61%-100% (low/rather low risk) "chance of avoiding caries", 13, 32, 23, and 48% respectively, had no new DFS over 5 years and 18, 40, 72, and 84%, respectively, had no new lesions at the 5th year. The mean DMFS increment over 5 years was 12.8 in the high/rather high risk group (0%-40% "chance of avoiding caries"), which included 43% of the individuals. In the low/rather low risk group (61%-100% "chance of avoiding caries"), the corresponding value was 5.2%, and 21% of the participants were sorted to this group. The mean DMFS increment for the whole group of elderly individuals was 9.5. In this particular study the Cariogram was able to sort the elderly individuals into risk groups that reflected the actual caries outcome.
GroupLens: applying collaborative filtering to Usenet news

newsgroups carry a wide enough spread of messages to make most individuals consider Usenet news to be a high noise information resource. Furthermore, each user values a different set of messages. Both taste and prior knowledge are major factors in evaluating news articles. For example, readers of the rec.humor newsgroup, a group designed for jokes and other humorous postings, value articles based on whether they perceive them to be funny. Readers of technical groups, such as comp.lang. c11 value articles based on interest and usefulness to them—introductory questions and answers may be uninteresting to an expert C11 programmer just as debates over subtle and advanced language features may be useless to the novice. The combination of high volume and personal taste made Usenet news a promising candidate for collaborative filtering. More formally, we determined the potential predictive utility for Usenet news was very high. The GroupLens project started in 1992 and completed a pilot study at two sites to establish the feasibility of using collaborative filtering for Usenet news [8]. Several critical design decisions were made as part of that pilot study, including:
Characterization of SURF interest point distribution for visual processing in sensor networks

We study the statistical characteristics of SURF interest points and descriptors, with the aim of supporting the design of distributed processing across sensor nodes in a resource constrained visual sensor network. We consider a sensor network with a single camera node and four schemes of delegating processing tasks to the sensor nodes. We discuss the potential and the challenges of the different schemes in light of the results of the statistical analysis. Our results show that the distribution of the number of interest points per image exhibits a heavy tail. The interest point locations are almost uniformly distributed along the axes of the images, but their X and Y coordinates are slightly correlated. Most interest points are found in the lowest octave layers, and the number of interest points decreases exponentially with scale. Our analysis suggests that for a wireless broadcast channel delegating subareas of images to processing nodes would lead to a more even allocation than delegating by octave layers. For directional wireless channels the efficiency can be significantly improved by performing some of the feature extraction tasks at the camera node.
Long Run Properties of Technical Efficiency in the U.S. Airline Industry

This paper takes an innovative approach to test the relationship between technical efficiency and the market structure hypothesis which states that competitive pressure enhances relative efficiency. DEA and FDH time series of technical efficiency scores, for a panel of 11 US airlines observed quarterly during 1970-1990, are examined for cointegration and convergence. For almost all firm pairs (>90% for both efficiency measures), the null hypothesis of cointegration cannot be rejected; meanwhile, the null of no cointegration is rejected for approximately one-third of the firm pairs. Furthermore, convergence tests document less dispersion in firm performance over time. These results indicate that the scores move together and, in fact, the firms are becoming more alike one another in terms of efficiency. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG - (Langfristige Eigenschaften der technischen Effizienz in der US-Luftfahrtindustrie) In diesem Beitrag wird ein innovativer Ansatz entwickelt, um die Beziehung zwischen technischer Effizienz und der Marktstrukturhypothese zu uberprufen, die besagt, das Wettbewerbsdruck die relative Effizienz erhoht. Die DEA- und FDH-Zeitreihen der technischen Effizienz fur ein Panel-Datensatz von 11 US-Fluggesellschaften, die wahrend der Periode 1970 bis 1990 beobachtet wurden, werden im Hinblick auf Kointegration und Konvergenz analysiert. Fur nahezu alle Unternehmenspaare (mehr als 90% bei beiden Effizienzmasen) kann die Nullhypothese der Kointegration nicht zuruckgewiesen werden, wo hingegen die Nullhypothese, das keine Kointegration vorliegt, fur etwa ein Drittel der Unternehmenspaare zuruckgewiesen wird. Auserdem zeigt der Konvergenztest, das die Streuung des Unternehmenserfolgs im Zeitablauf abnimmt. Die Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, das die Effizienzwerte sich auf einander zu bewegen und das in der Tat, die Unternehmen im Hinblick auf Effizienz sich immer ahnlicher werden.
ADSNARK: Nearly Practical and Privacy-Preserving Proofs on Authenticated Data

We study the problem of privacy-preserving proofs on authenticated data, where a party receives data from a trusted source and is requested to prove computations over the data to third parties in a correct and private way, i.e., The third party learns no information on the data but is still assured that the claimed proof is valid. Our work particularly focuses on the challenging requirement that the third party should be able to verify the validity with respect to the specific data authenticated by the source -- even without having access to that source. This problem is motivated by various scenarios emerging from several application areas such as wearable computing, smart metering, or general business-to-business interactions. Furthermore, these applications also demand any meaningful solution to satisfy additional properties related to usability and scalability. In this paper, we formalize the above three-party model, discuss concrete application scenarios, and then we design, build, and evaluate ADSNARK, a nearly practical system for proving arbitrary computations over authenticated data in a privacy-preserving manner. ADSNARK improves significantly over state-of-the-art solutions for this model. For instance, compared to corresponding solutions based on Pinocchio (Oakland'13), ADSNARK achieves up to 25x improvement in proof-computation time and a 20x reduction in prover storage space.
Separating Selection and Incentive Effects in Health Insurance

This paper provides an analysis of the health insurance and health care consumption. A structural microeconomic model of joint demand for health insurance and health care is developed and estimated using full maximum likelihood method using Swiss insurance claims data for over 60 000 adult individuals. The estimation strategy relies on the institutional features of the Swiss system, in which each individual chooses among the same menu of contracts, ranked by the size of their deductible. The empirical analysis shows strong and robust evidence of selection effects. Nevertheless, once selection effects are controlled for, an important incentive effect ("ex-post moral hazard") remains. A decrease in the copayment rate from 100% to 10% increases the marginal demand for health care by about 90% and from 100% to 0% by about 150%. The correlation between insurance coverage and health care expenditures may be decomposed into the two effects: 75% may be attributed to selection, and 25 % to incentive effects.
Metformin influence on hormone levels at birth, in PCOS mothers and their newborns.

BACKGROUND Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) tends to run in families and excess intrauterine androgen exposure has been suggested as one possible cause of PCOS. We wanted to study the relationship between maternal and offspring sex hormone levels and the possible effects of metformin treatment in PCOS pregnancies. METHODS We performed a post hoc analysis of a trial in which 40 pregnant women with PCOS were randomized in the first trimester, to use either metformin 850 mg twice daily or placebo until delivery. Maternal venous blood and umbilical arterial and venous blood samples were collected at delivery. Outcome measures were levels of androgens, estrogens and sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG). RESULTS (i) In newborns, SHBG levels were higher in the metformin group. All other hormones, both in mothers and offspring, were unaffected by metformin treatment. (ii) Mothers, who gave birth to boys, had higher estrone and estradiol levels compared with those who gave birth to girls. (iii) Male newborns had higher levels of testosterone, androstanediol glucuronide and estradiol compared with females. (iv) Positive correlations were found between maternal and newborn levels of androstenedione, dihydrotestosterone and estradiol. CONCLUSIONS Intrauterine metformin exposure seems to result in elevated SHBG levels in newborns. However, at birth, maternal and newborn androgen and estrogen levels are unaffected by metformin use in pregnancy. Although androgen and estrogen levels are higher in male newborns compared with females, maternal and newborn androgen and estrogen levels are highly correlated at birth.
Statistical characterisation of MP3 encoders for steganalysis

This paper outlines a strategy to discriminate different ISO/MPEG 1 Audio Layer-3 (MP3) encoding programs by statistical particularities of the compressed audio streams. We use Bayesian logic to deduce the most probable encoder on the basis of a feature vector that can be extracted from arbitrary MP3 files. All appropriate features used for the classification are discussed and example results for sets of test data from 20 different codecs are given. Possible applications include advances in information hiding, increases in the reliability of steganographic attacks, and inferences about the origin of MP3 files for forensic purpose. We demonstrate that a pre-classification of MP3 encoders reduces the false alarm rate for a steganographic detection method. Implications for the generalisability of the proposed scheme to other file formats are addressed.