Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Graph2Seq: Scalable Learning Dynamics for Graphs

Neural networks are increasingly used as a general purpose approach to learning algorithms over graph structured data. However, techniques for representing graphs as real-valued vectors are still in their infancy. Recent works have proposed several approaches (e.g., graph convolutional networks), but as we show in this paper, these methods have difficulty generalizing to large graphs. In this paper we propose Graph2Seq, an embedding framework that represents graphs as an infinite time-series. By not limiting the representation to a fixed dimension, Graph2Seq naturally scales to graphs of arbitrary size. Moreover, through analysis of a formal computational model we show that an unbounded sequence is necessary for scalability. Graph2Seq is also reversible, allowing full recovery of the graph structure from the sequence. Experimental evaluations of Graph2Seq on a variety of combinatorial optimization problems show strong generalization and strict improvement over state of the art.
Fully Balanced Fluids do not Improve Microvascular Oxygenation, Acidosis and Renal Function in a Rat Model of Endotoxemia

ABSTRACT The expectation of fluid therapy in patients with septic shock is that it corrects hypovolemia, with the aim of restoring tissue perfusion and oxygenation and organ function. This study investigated whether different types of resuscitation fluids were effective in improving renal microcirculatory oxygenation, acidosis, oxidative stress, and renal function in a rat model of endotoxemic shock. Five groups of rats were used: a sham group, a lipopolysaccharide (LPS) group, and three LPS groups that received 30 mL/kg/h of 0.9% sodium chloride (0.9% NaCl), a new bicarbonate buffered crystalloid solution closely resembling the composition of plasma (FB-Cxt) or a hydroxyethyl starch-ringer acetate solution. Systemic hemodynamic variables, renal blood flow, microvascular oxygenation, oxidative/nitrosative stress, and renal function were measured. LPS-induced shock was only partially resolved by fluid administration. Animals became arterially hypotensive despite adequate central venous pressure. Hydroxyethyl starch-ringer acetate was more effective at improving arterial pressures and renal blood flow than 0.9% NaCl or FB-Cxt. Fluids had marginal effects on pH and HCO3− levels irrespective of the buffer, or on renal &mgr;PO2 and dysfunction. Colloids increased the markers of renal oxidative stress (P < 0.001), whereas unbalanced crystalloids increased the markers of nitrosative stress during sepsis (P < 0.01). Endotoxemia-induced acidosis and decreases in renal &mgr;PO2 or renal injury were not corrected solely by fluid resuscitation, irrespective of the buffer of the fluid. Our study supported the idea that fluids must be supplemented by other compounds that specifically correct renal inflammation and oxygenation to be effective in resolving septic shock-induced renal failure.
The effect of feed denial in starter diets on the performance of broiler chickens.

A total of 2000 commercial chickens (1000 males and 1000 females) were used in an exploratory experiment designed to estimate the effect of two daily feed denial treatments (8 and 12 hr) extended from either 8 to 21 days or 15 to 28 days of age. Mortality was unaffected by these treatments. Body weight at 28 days was reduced, and feed conversion was improved by the feed denial treatments. The length of the daily feed denial period showed a greater impact than age of imposition, and the 12-hr daily denial time diminished the growth performance. At 49 days body weight and monetary returns were higher for the chickens exposed to the 8-hr daily feed denial treatment extending from 8 to 21 days compared with the control group (P less than .10).
Seeking Consensus in Networks of Linear Agents: Communication Noises and Markovian Switching Topologies

The stochastic consensus problem of linear multi-input multi-output (MIMO) multi-agent systems (MASs) with communication noises and Markovian switching topologies is studied in this technical note. The agent's full state is first estimated by the state observer, and then the estimated state is exchanged with neighbor agents through a noisy communication environment. The communication topology is randomly switching and the switching law is described by a continuous-time Markovian chain. Then a consensus protocol is proposed for this MAS, and some sufficient conditions are obtained for ensuring the mean square and almost sure consensus. In addition, if the communication topology is fixed, some necessary and sufficient conditions for the mean square consensus can be obtained according to whether or not each agent in the system has parents.
Effect of vitamin D, and calcium on the reproductive characteristics of the turkey hen.

Abstract Nine groups of 12 Small-type White turkey hens each were used to study dietary vitamin D3 and calcium and their effect on egg production, eggshell quality, and hatchability. The 3 × 3 factorial arrangement of treatments consisted of three levels of calcium (1.16, 2.25, and 3.34%) and three levels of vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) at 900, 6,900, and 12,900 International Units per kg. of diet. Increasing dietary calcium to 2.25% significantly improved body weight, egg production and feed efficiency (feed/kg. eggs). The 3.34% level of calcium stimulated an increase in percentage hatchability of fertile eggs and produced the lowest percentage of 28-day embryonic mortalitites. Dietary vitamin D3 in excess of established requirements had no statistically significant effects on any of the parameters studied. Positive correlations were noted between beta-backscatter counts, shell weight, shell thickness and percentage calcium content of the egg. Percentage hatchability of fertile eggs was negatively associated with percentage moisture loss during the first seven days of incubation. The data presented in this paper show no beneficial action in the turkey hen from vitamin D3 fed in excess of recommendations, but dietary calcium in excess (3.34%) promoted an increase in hatchability and a decrease in embryonic mortality.
MicroTalk: Using Argumentation to Improve Crowdsourcing Accuracy

Crowd workers are human and thus sometimes make mistakes. In order to ensure the highest quality output, requesters often issue redundant jobs with gold test questions and sophisticated aggregation mechanisms based on expectation maximization (EM). While these methods yield accurate results in many cases, they fail on extremely difficult problems with local minima, such as situations where the majority of workers get the answer wrong. Indeed, this has caused some researchers to conclude that on some tasks crowdsourcing can never achieve high accuracies, no matter how many workers are involved. This paper presents a new quality-control workflow, called MicroTalk, that requires some workers to Justify their reasoning and asks others to Reconsider their decisions after reading counter-arguments from workers with opposing views. Experiments on a challenging NLP annotation task with workers from Amazon Mechanical Turk show that (1) argumentation improves the accuracy of individual workers by 20%, (2) restricting consideration to workers with complex explanations improves accuracy even more, and (3) our complete MicroTalk aggregation workflow produces much higher accuracy than simpler voting approaches for a range of budgets.
Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities and Threats of Blended Learning: Students’ Perceptions

Background: Blended learning (BL) in a cell biology course of the premedical program at the Kasturba Medical College International Centre, Manipal, India, commenced in 2006. The program provides training in basic sciences to students, especially from the United States and Canada. The approach to the study was phenomenographic, with a qualitative study design using an open-ended questionnaire, focused interviews and empirical observations. Aim: The aim of this study was to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) of BL in a premedical class. Subjects and Methods: It was a cross-sectional study. Ninety six students in a premedical cell biology class participated in the study. SWOT analysis of students′ perceptions was conducted manually. Statistical analysis included content analysis of qualitative data to classify data and aligning them into the SWOT analysis matrix. Results: The outcomes of the study revealed student perceptions in terms of SWOT of BL and the potential uses of this strategy. Conclusions: The study provides background for educators and curriculum experts to plan their modules while incorporating a BL approach.
Comparative Impact of Chronic Consumption of Burukutu and Beer on Liver Biomarkers in Male Volunteers in Akwanga Lga Narasawa State

Background/Aim: Alcohol is implicated as one of the major risk factor in the development of liver diseases. Its consumption has a long time history in human existence. The comparative impact of burukutu, a sorghum-based alcoholic beverage and commercial beer on the liver biomarkers of consumers was investigated. Method and Design: Eighty (80) volunteer male subjects in Akanga LGA, Nasarawa state, between the ages of 20-60 yrs, were recruited for the study. Thirty (30) subjects were chronic burukutu consumers, another thirty (30) were chronic beer consumers and the remaining twenty (20) were control subjects who neither consume burukutu nor beer or any other alcoholic drink. All the subjects were apparently healthy and free from liver disease. The liver function status (LFT) was determined by analyzing the liver function biomarkers with chemistry auto analyzer (CHEMWELL 2910) using 5ml of blood sample collected from each subject. Results: Results showed a statistically significant increase in ALP level (p 10 yrs respectively when data was compared with 1-5 yrs group according to period of exposure to chronic burukutu consumption. Albumin also had a statistically significant decreased level (P 10 yrs of exposure to chronic drinking when compared with 1-5 yrs. AST/ALT ratio in chronic burukutu consumers was suggestive of alcohol abuse. Other liver biomarkers such as total protein (TP), total bilirubin (TB), direct bilirubin (DB) as well as ALT showed slight increase in levels, but the increase were however not significant (P>0.05) in both chronic burukutu or beer consumers when compared with control subjects. Conclusion: Burukutu seems to have more statistically significant impact on the liver biomarkers than commercial beer perhaps, due to its relatively high alcoholic content obtained by local and unstandardized brewing process.
Prevalence and predictors of low serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels in rural Canadian children.

Objectives Studies in Canada have reported varying prevalences of low serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) levels, but none have been conducted in rural paediatric populations. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence and predictors of low vitamin D levels in rural communities. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional study of children aged 3 to 15 living in Canadian Hutterite communities. Serum 25(OH)D levels were measured between October 2008 and April 2009 using a chemiluminescence assay. Predictors of vitamin D levels were evaluated using multivariable linear regression. A multilevel model was used to evaluate the impact of individual, household and colony factors on the variation in vitamin D levels. Results Serum 25(OH)D levels were available on 743 children/adolescents. The median was 62.0 nmol/L (interquartile range 51.0, 74.0). Levels lower than 50 nmol/L and 75 nmol/L were found in 152 (20.5%) and 565 (76%) children, respectively. Adolescents were at highest risk for levels <75 nmol/L (odds ratio 3.38, 95% confidence interval 2.00, 5.80). Age and latitude were negatively correlated with serum 25(OH)D level. In the multilevel model, most of the variation in levels was associated with individual children. Conclusion Low vitamin D levels are a significant problem in rural Hutterite communities in Canada. Adolescents were at greatest risk for low levels and represent an important target group for supplementation. Variation in serum 25(OH)D levels was explained mostly at the individual level. Additional studies are needed to explore factors associated with individuals (e.g., genetics) leading to lower 25(OH)D levels.
Endocan is markedly overexpressed in severe erectile dysfunction

This study aimed to measure the serum endocan level of patients with erectile dysfunction (ED) and to investigate the possible association between this and vasculogenic severe ED. We performed a prospective analysis of 86 consecutive patients affected by ED. Patients were divided into severe ED (IIEF‐5 score < 7) and mild or moderate ED (IIEF‐5 score > 7). A strong negative correlation was found between serum endocan levels and peak systolic velocity (p < .001 and r = −.665) in men with severe ED. Univariate logistic regression analysis demonstrated that tobacco consumption (p < .05), serum total 25‐hydroxyvitamin D (p < .01), serum endocan levels (p < .01), peak systolic velocity (p < .01), hypertension (p < .001), dyslipidaemia (p < .001), metabolic syndrome (p = .026) and a history of a cardiovascular event (p < .001) significantly increase the risk of severe ED. In the multivariate logistic regression model, we also found that age, hypertension, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular events and higher serum endocan levels were independently associated with severe ED. Circulating endocan may be used in daily practice as a new marker that correlates with cardiovascular risks and the severity of ED disease.
Flow-based benchmark data sets for intrusion detection

: Anomaly based intrusion detection systems suffer from a lack of appropriate evaluation data sets. Often, existing data sets may not be published due to privacy concerns or do not reflect actual and current attack scenarios. In order to overcome these problems, we identify characteristics of good data sets and develop an appropriate concept for the generation of labelled flow-based data sets that satisfy these criteria. The concept is implemented based on OpenStack, thus demonstrating the suitability of virtual environments. Virtual environments offer advantages compared to static data sets by easily creating up-to-date data sets with recent trends in user behaviour and new attack scenarios. In
Advanced Development and Characterization of DEA Amine-Polysulfone/Polyvinylacetate Blend Membranes

Membrane technology effectively separates CO 2 from CH 4 and has been practiced for many years but requires membranes with high selectivity and permeability. Different approaches are employed to improve membrane performance and it is soon possible to develop a blended polymeric membrane that separates high pressure gas streams at the point of processing pressure. However, glassy polymers suffer a lack of permeability causing their performance to drop as an upper bound trade-off but highly selective and rubbery polymers have high permeability with low selectivity. As an amine solution is capable of purifying naturally acidic gas, blending glassy, rubbery polymers with amines-specifically, polysulfone and polyvinyl acetate with diethanol amine in dimethyl acetamide as solvent-we developed flat sheet membranes with desirable properties. As it is now possible to acquire amine-polymer blends with more desirable properties by mixing with a miscible polymer, it is essential to observe factors that affect the polymer's miscibility with amines. Hence, we also analyzed the effects of blend ratios on different properties. Blended membranes of different ratios were synthesized and their functional groups were characterized by Fourier Transformed Infra-Red spectroscopy (FTIR). We then employed Thermal Gravimetric Analysis (TGA) to describe weight loss and Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM) to determine respective morphologies.
Factors affecting electrical tree testing

In an attempt to produce definitive experimental procedures for the assessment of treeing properties of polyester and epoxy resins, the influence of a variety of mechanical, electrical and geometrical conditions are investigated. The investigations are performed using point-plane specimens and the influence of the frequency of the applied voltage, the method of specimen preparation and the needle tip radius were examined. Consideration must be given to the correct preparation of the insulating resin and to the needle geometry in standard pin-plane assemblies. The cure and post-cure of the resin must be optimised to produce the most stable and reproducible specimens. Both undercured and overcured resin specimens have a lower resistance to electrical treeing. The presence of high internal mechanical strain in a specimen reduces the electrical tree initiation and growth times. Acceleration of 50 Hz treeing tests by the application of 1 kHz voltages should not be undertaken. Residual trapped charge in previously formed channels causes the mechanism of tree development at 1 kHz to be different to that at 50 Hz. Interpretation of such accelerated ageing procedures is unlikely to be of practical use.
Leukocyte Counts Based on DNA Methylation at Individual Cytosines.

BACKGROUND White blood cell counts are routinely measured with automated hematology analyzers, by flow cytometry, or by manual counting. Here, we introduce an alternative approach based on DNA methylation (DNAm) at individual CG dinucleotides (CpGs). METHODS We identified candidate CpGs that were nonmethylated in specific leukocyte subsets. DNAm levels (ranging from 0% to 100%) were analyzed by pyrosequencing and implemented into deconvolution algorithms to determine the relative composition of leukocytes. For absolute quantification of cell numbers, samples were supplemented with a nonmethylated reference DNA. RESULTS Conventional blood counts correlated with DNAm at individual CpGs for granulocytes (r = -0.91), lymphocytes (r = -0.91), monocytes (r = -0.74), natural killer (NK) cells (r = -0.30), T cells (r = -0.73), CD4+ T cells (r = -0.41), CD8+ T cells (r = -0.88), and B cells (r = -0.66). Combination of these DNAm measurements into the "Epi-Blood-Count" provided similar precision as conventional methods in various independent validation sets. The method was also applicable to blood samples that were stored at 4 °C for 7 days or at -20 °C for 3 months. Furthermore, absolute cell numbers could be determined in frozen blood samples upon addition of a reference DNA, and the results correlated with measurements of automated analyzers in fresh aliquots (r = 0.84). CONCLUSIONS White blood cell counts can be reliably determined by site-specific DNAm analysis. This approach is applicable to very small blood volumes and frozen samples, and it allows for more standardized and cost-effective analysis in clinical application.
Psychometric Properties of the Snaith–Hamilton Pleasure Scale and a Facet-Level Analysis of the Relationship Between Anhedonia and Extraversion in a Nonclinical Sample

The aim of this study is to investigate the psychometric properties of the Snaith–Hamilton Pleasure Scale (SHAPS) and look at facets of extraversion as predictors of anhedonia. SHAPS is hypothesized to be multidimensional, stable over time in a nonclinical sample, and related to extraversion on both dimension and facet level. Data collection was conducted at baseline (N = 362) and at a 10-week follow-up (N = 94). The structural properties of SHAPS were analyzed using principal component analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. Multiple regression explored facets of extraversion as predictors of anhedonia. The results show that SHAPS is stable across time (r = .71, p < .001), with high internal consistency (α = .89). In the principal component analysis, a two-factor model emerged (Social and Physical anhedonia). The confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the two-factor model consisting of Physical anhedonia (α = .81) and Social anhedonia (α = .87) had a better fit than the one-factor model. Higher scores on Gregariousness and Positive emotions at baseline predicted higher scores on the SHAPS total and Social and Physical anhedonia (p < .05). Lower scores on Assertiveness predicted higher scores on Social anhedonia (p < .05). These results support the view of anhedonia as a multidimensional concept that should be regarded as a trait, rather than a state or mere bypassing symptom. The relationship between anhedonia and extroversion is best understood by applying a multidimensional approach to anhedonia and by focusing on the facet level of extroversion.
Associations between periodontal disease and risk for atherosclerosis, cardiovascular disease, and stroke. A systematic review.

BACKGROUND Recent studies implicate exposure to systemic conditions involving chronic inflammation, including chronic periodontitis, in the etiology of atherosclerosis. RATIONALE A systematic review of the literature was conducted to assess the association between chronic inflammatory periodontal disease and atherosclerosis. FOCUSED QUESTION Does periodontal disease influence the initiation/progression of atherosclerosis and, therefore, cardiovascular disease (CVD), stroke, and peripheral vascular disease (PVD)? SEARCH PROTOCOL MEDLINE, pre-MEDLINE, MEDLINE Daily Update, and the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register were searched to identify human studies that related variables associated with atherosclerosis to periodontal disease. Searches were made for papers published from 1966 through March 2002. INCLUSION CRITERIA Published randomized controlled clinical trials (RCTs), longitudinal, cohort, and case-control studies were included. Study participants included those with atherosclerosis, myocardial infarction (MI), stroke, or PVD. Oral conditions included periodontal disease. EXCLUSION CRITERIA Only studies on humans were included. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS Because the studies used different oral assessment measures, it was not possible to perform a meta-analysis of the data reported. Weighted mean differences, relative risks, or odds ratios were compared for cohort studies. MAIN RESULTS 1. Of the initial 1,526 studies identified, 31 (including 8 case-control and 18 cross-sectional reports) were included in the analysis. Taken together, most of the literature supports a modest association between periodontal disease and atherosclerosis. However, data reported in several studies do not show this association. 2. The absence of a standard definition and measures for periodontal disease complicates interpretation of results, as do potential confounding risk factors common to both conditions. REVIEWERS' CONCLUSIONS 1. Periodontal disease may be modestly associated with atherosclerosis, MI, and CVD. 2. Additional large-scale longitudinal epidemiologic and intervention studies are necessary to validate this association and to determine causality.