Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Different cumulative pregnancy rates in patients with repeated IVF‐ or ICSI cycles: possible influence of a male factor

The low rate of ongoing pregnancies in IVF cycles leads to a high number of repeated cycles in couples with previously failed attempts. Therefore it would be helpful to have a prediction about the chance of becoming pregnant in a repeated cycle. In a retrospective study the data of about 4246 cycles were analysed. Because the pregnancy rates in IVF‐ and ICSI cycles are generally different, these two groups were distinguished between and the outcome in patients with one, two or more attempts was anlaysed. The rate of ongoing pregnancies per patient was lower after IVF (24.9%) than after ICSI (32.9%), but was similar or even slightly increased in patients with more than one attempt. On the other hand, there was a high pregnancy rate with ICSI in the first two cycles (35.9%), but patients with more than two ICSI cycles had a significantly lower chance of becoming pregnant (20.7%). Factors that are known to influence the pregnancy rate, such as stimulation protocol, oocyte quality or number of transferred embryos, were similar in all groups. However, significantly reduced embryo quality with successive cycles was only observed in ICSI patients. There might be a negative selection of patients with poor embryo quality and previously failed attempts after ICSI, possibly due to an andrological factor. The differences between IVF‐ and ICSI patients are based on treatment indications, and andrological diseases are the predominant indication for ICSI. Although no correlation was found between changes in conventional sperm parameters and number of treated cycles, there might be a subgroup of andrological patients selected by repeatedly failed ICSI cycles. Chromosomal or genetic disturbances in spermatozoa of this subgroup could be the reason for failure.
BioText Team Report for the TREC 2003 Genomics Track

The BioText project team participated in both tasks of the TREC 2003 genomics track. Key to our approach in the primary task was the use of an organism-name recognition module, a module for recognizing gene name variants, and MeSH descriptors. Text classification improved the results slightly. In the secondary task, the key insight was casting it as a classification problem of choosing between the title and the last sentence of the abstract, although MeSH descriptors helped somewhat in this task as well. These approaches yielded results within the top three groups in both tasks.
AMPK stimulation increases LCFA but not glucose clearance in cardiac muscle in vivo.

AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) independently increases glucose and long-chain fatty acid (LCFA) utilization in isolated cardiac muscle preparations. Recent studies indicate this may be due to AMPK-induced phosphorylation and activation of nitric oxide synthase (NOS). Given this, the aim of the present study was to assess the effects of AMPK stimulation by 5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide-1-beta-D-ribofuranoside (AICAR; 10 mg.kg(-1). min(-1)) on glucose and LCFA utilization in cardiac muscle and to determine the NOS dependence of any observed effects. Catheters were chronically implanted in a carotid artery and jugular vein of Sprague-Dawley rats. After 4 days of recovery, conscious, unrestrained rats were given either water or water containing 1 mg/ml nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME) for 2.5 days. After an overnight fast, rats underwent one of four protocols: saline, AICAR, AICAR + L-NAME, or AICAR + Intralipid (20%, 0.02 ml.kg(-1). min(-1)). Glucose was clamped at approximately 6.5 mM in all groups, and an intravenous bolus of 2-deoxy-[(3)H]glucose and [(125)I]-15-(p-iodophenyl)-3-R,S-methylpentadecanoic acid was administered to obtain indexes of glucose and LCFA uptake and clearance. Despite AMPK activation, as evidenced by acetyl-CoA carboxylase (Ser(221)) and AMPK phosphorylation (Thr(172)), AICAR increased cardiac LCFA but not glucose clearance. L-NAME + AICAR established that this effect was not due to NOS activation, and AICAR + Intralipid showed that increased cardiac LCFA clearance was not LCFA-concentration dependent. These results demonstrate that, in vivo, AMPK stimulation increases LCFA but not glucose clearance by a NOS-independent mechanism.
Delay and Throughput Analysis of IEEE 802.11e EDCA with Starvation Prediction

An analytical model is proposed to describe the priority schemes of the enhanced distributed channel access (EDCA) mechanism of the IEEE 802.11e standard. EDCA provides class-based differentiated quality of service (QoS) to IEEE 802.11 WLANs. The main contribution of this paper opposed to other works is that the model predicts the full delay distribution through its z-transform. Furthermore, the mean delay, throughput and frame dropping probabilities of the different traffic classes are found in the whole range from a lightly loaded, non-saturated channel to a heavily congested, saturated medium. Moreover, the model describes differentiation based on different arbitration inter-frame space (AIFS) values, in addition to the other adjustable parameters (i.e. window-sizes, retransmission limits, transmission opportunity (TXOP) lengths etc.) also encompassed by previous models. AIFS differentiation is described by a simple equation that enables access points to predict at which traffic loads starvation of a traffic class will occur. The model is calculated numerically and validated against simulation results. We observed a good match between the analytical model and simulations
Engineering Notes Relative Computer Vision-Based Navigation for Small Inspection Spacecraft

W HEN a large spacecraft fails on orbit, the diagnostic and debugging process is challenging, time consuming, costly, and possibly dangerous. The ability to visually inspect a large spacecraft can be helpful because it provides a reliable source of independent data on the large spacecraft’s current state. Recent proposals by Henshaw et al. [1] have discussed launching large spacecraft with a small inspector satellite that is attached to the host. This inspector satellite could be deployed if an on-orbit anomaly were to occur. Henshaw et al. argued that, for this approach to be successful, the inspector spacecraft must minimize the requirements that are levied on the larger host spacecraft. Henshaw et al.’s approach implies that neither communications nor power systems should be sharedwith the host, and that a passive vision-based navigation system should be used with a single, small fiducial marker. It was also noted that it is important for the inspector to minimize the risk of colliding with the host spacecraft and causing further damage. This leads to an important design question: How should the relative state of the inspector be estimated in an accurate and reliable fashion? This Note presents a design for a relative state estimator based on a small fiducial target that is observed by a singlemonochrome camera. This design solves the exterior orientation problem [2] for four point features using a globally convergent nonlinear iterative algorithm. Note that four coplanar points are theminimum number of points that are required to solve for the relative posewithout ambiguity assuming perspective projection [3]. The relative pose is then filtered with the dynamics to estimate the 12-degrees-of-freedom relative state (i.e., three-dimensional position, orientation, and linear and angular velocity). This algorithm was tested on the Synchronized Position, Hold, Engage, and Reorient Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) system [4] with a computer vision upgrade [5], and a summary of these results are presented in this Note. This Note is an expanded version of earlier publications by the first author [6,7]. II. Literature Review
Preparation of core–shell microcapsules using nanodispersed fibroin

An elaborate control of fibroin self-assembly is critical in determining the size, structure, and release properties of a microcapsule. This report describes the preparation of microspheres in the submicron range using an aqueous fibroin solution nanoemulsified in decane with a mixed detergent solution of Tween 80 and Span 80. Nanodispersed water droplets containing fibroin molecules were dried under vacuum to facilitate the coalescence of fibroin and then transformed to suspended particles in the range of 200–1200 nm in diameter. The method was also applied to encapsulate dextran and fluorescein isothiocyanate-dextran (FITC-dextran), producing core–shell structured microcapsules as identified by scanning electron microscopy and confocal scanning laser microscopy. The microcapsule yield was in the range of 82–85% per fibroin consumed. The encapsulation efficiency was 64% for the microcapsules fabricated from a nanoemulsion containing 0.1 mg of FITC-dextran per mg fibroin. Approximately 70.5% of the core material was released within 2 weeks. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2011
Lateral Transfer of Genes and Gene Fragments in Staphylococcus Extends beyond Mobile Elements

ABSTRACT The widespread presence of antibiotic resistance and virulence among Staphylococcus isolates has been attributed in part to lateral genetic transfer (LGT), but little is known about the broader extent of LGT within this genus. Here we report the first systematic study of the modularity of genetic transfer among 13 Staphylococcus genomes covering four distinct named species. Using a topology-based phylogenetic approach, we found, among 1,354 sets of homologous genes examined, strong evidence of LGT in 368 (27.1%) gene sets, and weaker evidence in another 259 (19.1%). Within-gene and whole-gene transfer contribute almost equally to the topological discordance of these gene sets against a reference phylogeny. Comparing genetic transfer in single-copy and in multicopy gene sets, we observed a higher frequency of LGT in the latter, and a substantial functional bias in cases of whole-gene transfer (little such bias was observed in cases of fragmentary genetic transfer). We found evidence that lateral transfer, particularly of entire genes, impacts not only functions related to antibiotic, drug, and heavy-metal resistance, as well as membrane transport, but also core informational and metabolic functions not associated with mobile elements. Although patterns of sequence similarity support the cohesion of recognized species, LGT within S. aureus appears frequently to disrupt clonal complexes. Our results demonstrate that LGT and gene duplication play important parts in functional innovation in staphylococcal genomes.
The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope: BLAST

The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) is a suborbital surveying experiment designed to study the evolutionary history and processes of star formation in local galaxies (including the Milky Way) and galaxies at cosmological distances. The BLAST continuum camera, which consists of 270 detectors distributed between three arrays, observes simultaneously in broadband (30%) spectral windows at 250, 350, and 500 μm. The optical design is based on a 2 m diameter telescope, providing a diffraction-limited resolution of 30″ at 250 μm. The gondola pointing system enables raster mapping of arbitrary geometry, with a repeatable positional accuracy of ~30″; postflight pointing reconstruction to ≲5″ rms is achieved. The onboard telescope control software permits autonomous execution of a preselected set of maps, with the option of manual override. In this paper we describe the primary characteristics and measured in-flight performance of BLAST. BLAST performed a test flight in 2003 and has since made two scientifically productive long-duration balloon flights: a 100 hr flight from ESRANGE (Kiruna), Sweden to Victoria Island, northern Canada in 2005 June; and a 250 hr, circumpolar flight from McMurdo Station, Antarctica, in 2006 December.
A third-generation SELF implementation: reconciling responsiveness with performance

Programming systems should be both responsive (to support rapid development) and efficient (to complete computations quickly). Pure object-oriented languages are harder to implement efficiently since they need optimization to achieve good performance. Unfortunately, optimization conflicts with interactive responsiveness because it tends to produce long compilation pauses, leading to unresponsive programming environments. Therefore, to achieve good responsiveness, existing exploratory programming environments such as the Smalltalk-80 environment rely on interpretation or non-optimizing dynamic compilation. But such systems pay a price for their interactiveness, since they may execute programs several times slower than an optimizing system. SELF-93 reconciles high performance with responsiveness by combining a fast, non-optimizing compiler with a slower, optimizing compiler. The resulting system achieves both excellent performance (two or three times faster than existing Smalltalk systems) and good responsiveness. Except for situations requiring large applications to be (re)compiled from scratch, the system allows for pleasant interactive use with few perceptible compilation pauses. To our knowledge, SELF-93 is the first implementation of a pure object-oriented language achieving both good performance and good responsiveness. When measuring interactive pauses, it is imperative to treat multiple short pauses as one longer pause if the pauses occur in short succession, since they are perceived as one pause by the user. We propose a definition of pause clustering and show that clustering can make an order-of-magnitude difference in the pause time distribution.
Expression of Extracellular Matrix Metalloprotease Inducer in Laryngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Objectives/Hypothesis Head and neck cancer tumor cell invasion is responsible for both local destruction and distant metastasis. Invasion is largely mediated by matrix metalloproteases that are thought to be induced by tumor cell derived extracellular matrix metalloprotease inducer (EMMPRIN) in surrounding fibroblasts. We hypothesize that EMMPRIN is overexpressed in laryngeal cancer.
Single intrathecal fentanyl for combined spinal epidural anesthesia confers no advantage over hemodynamic effects in elderly patients.

BACKGROUND Neuroaxial blockade for ambulatory transurethral resection of the prostate is a well established technique. Patients in this group are often at high risk for perioperative complications from concurrent diseases. The purpose of this study was to compare the elderly patients who received intrathecal fentanyl alone or intrathecal fentanyl plus bupivacaine or epidural anesthesia for transurethral resection of prostate surgery. MATERIAL AND METHODS Ninety-nine patients were prospectively randomized to receive fentanyl 25 microg (Group F), fentanyl 25 microg plus hyperbaric bupivacaine 2.5 mg (Group BF), or epidural anesthesia adding fentanyl 50 microg (Group E) by combined spinal epidural anesthesia technique. RESULTS The amount of local anesthetics used until when the sensorial block reached the level of T10 was significantly lower in the Group BF than in the Group E and the Group F (p < 0.001). Maximum level of sensory block was significantly lower in the Group BF than in the Group E and the Group F (p = 0.01). The time elapsed until the sensory block reached T10, the regression of sensory block to L5 level were significantly lower in the Group BF than in the Group E and the Group F (p = 0.005, p < 0.001, respectively). Compared to the basal values, mean arterial pressures were significantly lower in the Group BF than in the Group E and the Group F (p < 0.05). The occurrence of hypotension was significantly lower in the Group BF (9.4%) than in the Group E (18.2%) and the Group F (24.2%). CONCLUSIONS Intrathecal hyperbaric bupivacaine 2.5 mg plus fentanyl 25 microg administration provides shorter motor block onset time, less local anesthetic usage and adequate hemodynamic stability in elderly patients.
Enhanced Radio Access Technology Selection Exploiting Path Loss Information

This paper proposes the enhancement of different radio access technology (RAT) allocation strategies in a heterogeneous scenario with CDMA and TDMA access technologies by including path loss information. Results obtained from an analytical modelling reveal that, by making use of path loss information, either by allocating low path loss users in CDMA or in TDMA, depending on the specific characteristics of each technology, significant outage reductions can be achieved.
Controlled-Release Carbamazepine Granules and Tablets Comprising Lipophilic and Hydrophilic Matrix Components

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of lipophilic (Compritol® 888 ATO) and hydrophilic components (combination of HPMC and Avicel) on the release of carbamazepine from granules and corresponding tablet. Wet granulation followed by compression was employed for preparation of granules and tablets. The matrix swelling behavior was investigated. The dissolution profiles of each formulation were compared to those of Tegretol® CR tablets and the mean dissolution time (MDT), dissolution efficiency (DE %) and similarity factor (f2 factor) were calculated. It was found that increase in the concentration of HPMC results in reduction in the release rate from granules and achievement of zero-order is difficult from the granules. The amount of HPMC plays a dominant role for the drug release. The release mechanism of CBZ from matrix tablet formulations follows non-Fickian diffusion shifting to case II by the increase of HPMC content, indicating significant contribution of erosion. Increasing in drug loading resulted in acceleration of the drug release and in anomalous controlled-release mechanism due to delayed hydration of the tablets. These results suggest that wet granulation followed by compression could be a suitable method to formulate sustained release CBZ tablets.
Change management--or change leadership?

This paper argues that, while change must be well managed, it also requires effective leadership to be successfully introduced and sustained. An integrative model of leadership for change is proposed, reflecting its cognitive, spiritual, emotional and behavioural dimensions and requirements. The model comprises vision, values, strategy, empowerment, and motivation and inspiration. The paper concludes with a brief account of the application of the model in varied strategic change situations.
Top-K Ranking from Pairwise Comparisons: When Spectral Ranking is Optimal

We explore the top-$K$ rank aggregation problem. Suppose a collection of items is compared in pairs repeatedly, and we aim to recover a consistent ordering that focuses on the top-$K$ ranked items based on partially revealed preference information. We investigate the Bradley-Terry-Luce model in which one ranks items according to their perceived utilities modeled as noisy observations of their underlying true utilities. Our main contributions are two-fold. First, in a general comparison model where item pairs to compare are given a priori, we attain an upper and lower bound on the sample size for reliable recovery of the top-$K$ ranked items. Second, more importantly, extending the result to a random comparison model where item pairs to compare are chosen independently with some probability, we show that in slightly restricted regimes, the gap between the derived bounds reduces to a constant factor, hence reveals that a spectral method can achieve the minimax optimality on the (order-wise) sample size required for top-$K$ ranking. That is to say, we demonstrate a spectral method alone to be sufficient to achieve the optimality and advantageous in terms of computational complexity, as it does not require an additional stage of maximum likelihood estimation that a state-of-the-art scheme employs to achieve the optimality. We corroborate our main results by numerical experiments.
Swarming, swirling and stasis in sequestered bristle-bots

The collective ability of organisms to move coherently in space and time is ubiquitous in any group of autonomous agents that can move and sense each other and the environment. Here, we investigate the origin of collective motion and its loss using macroscopic self-propelled bristle-bots, simple automata made from a toothbrush and powered by an onboard cell phone vibrator-motor, that can sense each other through shape-dependent local interactions, and can also sense the environment non-locally via the effects of confinement and substrate topography. We show that when bristle-bots are confined to a limited arena with a soft boundary, increasing the density drives a transition from a disordered and uncoordinated motion to organized collective motion either as a swirling cluster or a collective dynamical stasis. This transition is regulated by a single parameter, the relative magnitude of spinning and walking in a single automaton. We explain this using quantitative experiments and simulations that emphasize the role of the agent shape, environment and confinement via boundaries. Our study shows how the behavioural repertoire of these physically interacting automatons controlled by one parameter translates into the mechanical intelligence of swarms.
Toward nuclear SPICE – integrating IEC 61508, IEC 60880 and SPICE

International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission 15504 has been applied to several domains, where safety is one main characteristic for software and systems. Nuclear power industry is one of the most challenging domains, because of its extreme safety requirements. Nuclear power domain has also a long tradition in using its own standards, classifications and certification schemes.
The VP3 Factor from Viruses of Birnaviridae Family Suppresses RNA Silencing by Binding Both Long and Small RNA Duplexes

RNA silencing is directly involved in antiviral defense in a wide variety of eukaryotic organisms, including plants, fungi, invertebrates, and presumably vertebrate animals. The study of RNA silencing-mediated antiviral defences in vertebrates is hampered by the overlap with other antiviral mechanisms; thus, heterologous systems are often used to study the interplay between RNA silencing and vertebrate-infecting viruses. In this report we show that the VP3 protein of the avian birnavirus Infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV) displays, in addition to its capacity to bind long double-stranded RNA, the ability to interact with double-stranded small RNA molecules. We also demonstrate that IBDV VP3 prevents the silencing mediated degradation of a reporter mRNA, and that this silencing suppression activity depends on its RNA binding ability. Furthermore, we find that the anti-silencing activity of IBDV VP3 is shared with the homologous proteins expressed by both insect- and fish-infecting birnaviruses. Finally, we show that IBDV VP3 can functionally replace the well-characterized HCPro silencing suppressor of Plum pox virus, a potyvirus that is unable to infect plants in the absence of an active silencing suppressor. Altogether, our results support the idea that VP3 protects the viral genome from host sentinels, including those of the RNA silencing machinery.