Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Absolute stability of analytic neural networks: an approach based on finite trajectory length

A neural network (NN) is said to be convergent (or completely stable) when each trajectory tends to an equilibrium point (a stationary state). A stronger property is that of absolute stability, which means that convergence holds for any choice of the neural network parameters, and any choice of the nonlinear functions, within specified and well characterized sets. In particular, the property of absolute stability requires that the NN be convergent also when, for some parameter values, it possesses nonisolated equilibrium points (e.g., a manifold of equilibria). Such a property, which is really well suited for solving several classes of signal processing tasks in real time, cannot be in general established via the classical LaSalle approach, due to its inherent limitations to study convergence in situations where the NN has nonisolated equilibrium points. A method to address absolute stability is developed, based on proving that the total length of the NN trajectories is finite. A fundamental result on absolute stability is given, under the hypothesis that the NN possesses a Lyapunov function, and the nonlinearities involved (neuron activations, inhibitions, etc.) are modeled by analytic functions. At the core of the proof of finiteness of trajectory length is the use of some basic inequalities for analytic functions due to Lojasiewicz. The result is applicable to a large class of neural networks, which includes the networks proposed by Vidyasagar, the Hopfield neural networks, and the standard cellular NN introduced by Chua and Yang.
Effect of Music Tempo on Task Performance

Two studies were conducted to evaluate the effect of music tempo on task performance. In Study 1, 44 undergraduate business students were asked to be “workers” in a stock market project by collecting closing stock prices and calculating the percentage of change in the price from week to week. Subjects were randomly divided into groups such that they either listened to fast-paced music while they worked, to slow-paced music, or to no music. Analyses of variance and covariance were conducted on both the quantity and quality of the subjects' work, using music listening habits as a covariate. There were no differences in either the quantity or quality of the work produced by the groups. There were some methodological concerns regarding Study 1, so a second study was conducted. The 70 undergraduate business students in Study 2 completed the same task under the same music conditions as in Study 1. Analyses of variance indicated women performed significantly better than men, performance was significantly higher in the rock condition than in the heartbeat condition, and subjects in the rock condition had a significantly higher perceived level of distraction by the music.
Oxygen isotopic ratios in galactic clouds along the line of sight towards Sagittarius B2

As an independent check on previous measurements of the isotopic abundance of oxygen through the Galaxy, we present a detailed analysis of the ground state rotational lines of 16 OH and 18 OH in absorption towards the giant molecular cloud complex, Sagittarius B2. We have modelled the line shapes to separate the contribution of several galactic clouds along the line of sight and calculate 16 OH/ 18 OH ratios for each of these features. The best fitting values are in the range 320-540, consistent with the previous measurements in the Galactic Disk but slightly higher than the standard ratio in the Galactic Centre. They do not show clear evidence for a gradient in the isotopic ratio with galactocentric distance. The individual 16 OH column densities relative to water give ratios of [H 2 O/OH] = 0.6-1.2, similar in magnitude to galactic clouds in the sight lines towards W51 and W49. A comparison with CH indicates [OH/CH] ratios higher than has been previously observed in diffuse clouds. We estimate OH abundances of I 0 -7 -10 -6 in the line of sight features.
Efficiency and productivity change in Central Bank of Malaysia: Evidence from stochastic frontiers and brownian motion

This study evaluated the efficiency of Central Bank of Malaysia and forecasted the productivity change with Brownian motion using both the output oriented Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Malmquist DEA methods. It considered Net Profit and Loan and Advances as outputs and Deposit, Reserve and Fund from International Monetary Fund as inputs of the Central Bank of Malaysia over the time period from 2000 to 2012. The minimum efficiency (0.77) was observed for net profit and Loan and Advances of the central Bank of Malaysia in the year 2004. During the time period, the mean efficiency of the central Bank of Malaysia was found to be 0.926. The result showed that productivity change of output variables was decreased for the Central Bank of Malaysia in most of the years. The increasing productivity change was recorded in the years of 2000, 2001, 2009 and 2010. Gold and Foreign exchange were found to be positive and have significant impact on productivity of Central Bank of Malaysia. Finally, the productivity change of central Bank of Malaysia was forecasted using Brownian motion and observed increasing over time.
Optimization of Clonazepam Therapy Adjusted to Patient’s CYP3A Status and NAT2 Genotype

Background: The shortcomings of clonazepam therapy include tolerance, withdrawal symptoms, and adverse effects such as drowsiness, dizziness, and confusion leading to increased risk of falls. Inter-individual variability in the incidence of adverse events in patients partly originates from the differences in clonazepam metabolism due to genetic and nongenetic factors. Methods: Since the prominent role in clonazepam nitro-reduction and acetylation of 7-amino-clonazepam is assigned to CYP3A and N-acetyl transferase 2 enzymes, respectively, the association between the patients’ CYP3A status (CYP3A5 genotype, CYP3A4 expression) or N-acetyl transferase 2 acetylator phenotype and clonazepam metabolism (plasma concentrations of clonazepam and 7-amino-clonazepam) was evaluated in 98 psychiatric patients suffering from schizophrenia or bipolar disorders. Results: The patients’ CYP3A4 expression was found to be the major determinant of clonazepam plasma concentrations normalized by the dose and bodyweight (1263.5±482.9 and 558.5±202.4ng/mL per mg/kg bodyweight in low and normal expressers, respectively, P<.0001). Consequently, the dose requirement for the therapeutic concentration of clonazepam was substantially lower in low-CYP3A4 expresser patients than in normal expressers (0.029±0.011 vs 0.058±0.024mg/kg bodyweight, P<.0001). Furthermore, significantly higher (about 2-fold) plasma concentration ratio of 7-amino-clonazepam and clonazepam was observed in the patients displaying normal CYP3A4 expression and slower N-acetylation than all the others. Conclusion: Prospective assaying of CYP3A4 expression and N-acetyl transferase 2 acetylator phenotype can better identify the patients with higher risk of adverse reactions and can facilitate the improvement of personalized clonazepam therapy and withdrawal regimen.
Spirulina Supplements Improved the Nutritional Status of Undernourished Children Quickly and Significantly: Experience from Kisantu, the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Aim. Despite high levels of malnutrition, there is still very little information on the nutritional benefits of Spirulina, a natural alga that provides essential amino acids, rare essential lipids, and numerous minerals and vitamins, to undernourished children in the world. Methods. We carried out a prospective study of 50 children aged between six and 60 months. The intervention group consisted of 16 children who received 10 g of Spirulina daily, as well as the local diet administered by the nutritional centre, and the control group of 34 children who just received the local diet. Both groups of children were assessed on day zero, day 15, and day 30. Results. After treatment, the weight-for-age Z scores and weight-for-height Z scores increased significantly in the intervention group. At day 15, there was a statistically significant difference between the mean corpuscular volume, total proteins, and albumin (p < 0.05) in both groups, in favour of the intervention group, and at day 30, this difference extended to all of the studied parameters (p < 0.05). Conclusion. This study found that the nutritional status of undernourished children who received Spirulina supplements as well as the local diet administered by the nutritional centre improved quickly and significantly.
How Do Children Behave Regarding Their Birth Order in Dental Setting?

Statement of the Problem Prediction of child cooperation level in dental setting is an important issue for a dentist to select the proper behavior management method. Many psychological studies have emphasized the effect of birth order on patient behavior and personality; however, only a few researches evaluated the effect of birth order on child’s behavior in dental setting. Purpose This study was designed to evaluate the influence of children ordinal position on their behavior in dental setting. Materials and Method A total of 158 children with at least one primary mandibular molar needing class I restoration were selected. Children were classified based on the ordinal position; first, middle, or last child as well as single child. A blinded examiner recorded the pain perception of children during injection based on Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and Sound, Eye and Movement (SEM) scale. To assess the child's anxiety, the questionnaire known as “Dental Subscale of the Children's Fear Survey Schedule” (CFSS-DS) was employed. Results The results showed that single children were significantly less cooperative and more anxious than the other children (p<0.001). The middle children were significantly more cooperative in comparison with the other child's position (p< 0.001). Conclusion Single child may behave less cooperatively in dental setting. The order of child birth must also be considered in prediction of child’s behavior for behavioral management.
Pork meat increases iron absorption from a 5-day fully controlled diet when compared to a vegetarian diet with similar vitamin C and phytic acid content

Meat increases absorption of non-haem iron in single-meal studies. The aim of the present study was to investigate, over a 5 d period, the potential increasing effect of consumption of pork meat in a whole diet on the fractional absorption of non-haem iron and the total absorption of iron, when compared to a vegetarian diet. A randomised cross-over design with 3×5 d whole-diet periods with diets containing Danish-produced meat, Polish-produced meat or a vegetarian diet was conducted. Nineteen healthy female subjects completed the study. All main meals in the meat diets contained 60 g of pork meat and all diets had high phytic acid content (1250 μmol/d). All main meals were extrinsically labelled with the radioactive isotope 59Fe and absorption of iron was measured in a whole body counter. The non-haem iron absorption from the Danish meat diet was significantly higher compared to the vegetarian diet (P=0·031). The mean fractional absorption of non-haem iron was 7·9 (se1·1), 6·8 (se 1·0) and 5·3 (se 0·6) % for the Danish and Polish meat diets and vegetarian diet, respectively. Total absorption of iron was higher for both meat diets compared to the vegetarian diet (Danish meat diet: P=0·006, Polish meat diet: P=0·003). The absorption ratios of the present study were well in accordance with absorption ratios estimated using algorithms on iron bioavailability. Neither the meat diets nor the vegetarian diets fulfilled the estimated daily requirements of absorbed iron in spite of a meat intake of 180 g/d in the meat diets.
PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN

Individuals sometimes try to convey different identities to different people simultaneously or to convey certain information to one individual while simultaneously concealing it from another. How successfully can people solve these multiple audience problems and how successfully do they think they can? The research presented here corroborates previous findings that people are rather adept at such tasks. In Study 1, participants who adopted different identities in preliminary interactions with two other participants (acting the part of a studious nerd with one and a fun-loving party animal with the other) were able to preserve these identities when they interacted subsequently with both individuals at the same time. In Study 2, participants were able to communicate a secret word to one audience while simultaneously concealing it from another. Despite their skill at these tasks, however, participants in both studies were overconfident in their abilities, believing that they were better able to solve these multiple audience problems than they actually were.
Consumer demand and the life-cycle allocation of household expenditures

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the parameters of household preferences that determine the allocation of goods within the period and over the life cycle, using micro data. In doing so we are able to identify important effects of demographics, labour market status and other household characteristics on the intertemporal allocation of expenditure. We test the validity of the life-cycle model using excess sensitivity tests and find that controlling for demographics and labour market status variables can largely explain the excess sensitivity of consumption to anticipated changes in income.
Measurement and Determination of Rules of Origin in Preferential Trade Agreements (PTA's)

This dissertation explores the measurement and determinants of product-specific rules of origin (PSRO) in preferential trade agreements (PTAs). In order to study PSRO empirically it is necessary to be able to measure them in some objective way. We analyze in great detail the mechanisms for specifying PSRO in PTAs, propose a methodology for measuring their relative restrictiveness, and demonstrate that accounting for several previously overlooked factors can have important empirical implications. We then employ the proposed measurement methodology to analyze the determinants of restrictiveness in a panel dataset of five recent PTAs in the Western Hemisphere. Exploring four alternative hypotheses we find that, except in a few particular sectors, governments tend to negotiate less restrictive rules so as to assure market access rather than more restrictive rules that would serve as hidden protection. Preface This dissertation explores the measurement and determinants of product-specific rules of origin (PSRO) in preferential trade agreements (PTAs). Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the subject and reviews the pertinent theoretical and empirical
First-Pass Large Vocabulary Continuous Speech Recognition using Bi-Directional Recurrent DNNs

We present a method to perform first-pass large vocabulary co ntinuous speech recognition using only a neural network and language model. Deep neural network acoustic models are now commonplace in HMM-based speech recognition systems, but building such systems is a complex, domain-specific task. Recent work demonstrated the feasibility of discarding the HMM sequence modeling framework by directly predicting transcript text from audio. This paper extends this approach in two ways. First, we demonstrate that a straightforward recurrent neural network architecture can achieve a high level of accuracy. Second, we propose and evaluate a modified prefix-search decoding algorith m. This approach to decoding enables first-pass speech recognition with a langu age model, completely unaided by the cumbersome infrastructure of HMM-based systems. Experiments on the Wall Street Journal corpus demonstrate fairly competitive word error rates, and the importance of bi-directional network recurrence.
Anemia and infection: a complex relationship

We read with great interest the article published in this issue of the Revista Brasileira de Hematologia e Hemoterapia (Journal of Hematology and Hemotherapy), (1) as the relationship between anemia and infection is a complex one. Preliminarily, we must distinguish acute from chronic infection. When it comes to chronic infection, associated anemia is part of a more general chapter of the association between anemia and chronic conditions. Supposedly there is a common pathophysiological basis for the occurrence of anemia and several chronic diseases, whether infectious, inflammatory or neoplastic. Although the anemia related to malignancy may also have this common basis, it is clear that there are other mechanisms by which anemia occurs. Such is the case of leukemia that, by definition, originates in the bone marrow, gradually leading to anemia both because of the progressive occupation of the tissue that produces the red blood cells and due to their normal senescence. The degree of anemia and the speed in the drop of hemoglobin concentrations depend on the different subtypes of leukemia. A similar mechanism can also be invoked in other neoplasms that secondarily involve the bone marrow. Of course there may be other mechanisms that contribute to the onset of anemia, such as blood loss, nutritional deficiencies, side effects of medications and elevations of certain cytokines that are responsible, in most cases of chronic diseases, for the association with anemia. In advanced renal failure, although other mechanisms are at work, the main reason for severe anemia is a deficiency in the production of erythropoietin by the damaged kidney tissue. The management of the hematopoietic factor, generally involving intravenous iron, raises the level of hemoglobin, even without changes in other aspects of patient care. Let us see what is the current understanding for the most frequent cases in which anemia is associated with chronic infections or inflammatory diseases. In these cases anemia is linked to reticuloendothelial siderosis, and is usually mild or moderate. It is characterized by decreased serum iron with a decrease in the total iron binding capacity and percentage of transferrin saturation. Serum ferritin may be normal or increased. The differences in the laboratory tests for iron deficiency anemia are that, in the latter, the transferrin binding capacity rises, the ferritin is low and marrow iron is missing. Although other mechanisms may be operating concurrently, depending on the underlying disease, the main one is impairment in the release of …
Comparative study of viral encephalopathy and retinopathy in juvenile sea bass Dicentrarchus labrax infected in different ways.

The transmission of viral encephalopathy and retinopathy (VER) was investigated in juvenile sea bass (3 g) Dicentrarchus labrax by using cell culture supernatant (SSN-1 cell line) containing nodavirus. Five methods of infection were tested: intramuscular injection (IM), intraperitoneal injection (IP), oral infection, bath exposure and cohabitation of healthy fish with infected fish. Some differences were observed in time of disease onset and severity of symptoms depending on the mode of infection used. Clinical symptoms such as whirling swimming and lethargic or hyperactive behaviour were generally reproduced, except for fish infected via oral and IP infection. First mortalities occurred 3 d after IM and IP infection and 6 d after for the other modes of infection. Cumulative mortalities were also variable: 100% after IM infection, 10% after IP infection, 32% for bath exposure, 43% after cohabitation and 24% via oral infection. Histopathologically, vacuolation was observed in the central nervous tissues and in the retina. The observed lesions were more or less severe depending on the mode of infection, the sampling time and the organs: lesions on the surviving fish (42 days post infection, d p.i.) seemed to be generally more conspicuous in the retina than in the brain of the same fish. In most cases, the presence of nodavirus was confirmed in the same samples of brain and retina by immunohistochemistry and reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The virus was not detected in other organs examined. The present results suggest that 2 forms of VER can be induced: IM injection leads to an acute form (severe nervous disorders with high and fast mortality) whereas oral infection, bath exposure and cohabitation induce a subacute form (less severe disorders and weak daily mortality). This experiment demonstrates experimentally induced horizontal transmission of VER in sea bass for the first time.
Computational Fluid Dynamics Modeling of Symptomatic Intracranial Atherosclerosis May Predict Risk of Stroke Recurrence

Background Patients with symptomatic intracranial atherosclerosis (ICAS) of ≥70% luminal stenosis are at high risk of stroke recurrence. We aimed to evaluate the relationships between hemodynamics of ICAS revealed by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models and risk of stroke recurrence in this patient subset. Methods Patients with a symptomatic ICAS lesion of 70–99% luminal stenosis were screened and enrolled in this study. CFD models were reconstructed based on baseline computed tomographic angiography (CTA) source images, to reveal hemodynamics of the qualifying symptomatic ICAS lesions. Change of pressures across a lesion was represented by the ratio of post- and pre-stenotic pressures. Change of shear strain rates (SSR) across a lesion was represented by the ratio of SSRs at the stenotic throat and proximal normal vessel segment, similar for the change of flow velocities. Patients were followed up for 1 year. Results Overall, 32 patients (median age 65; 59.4% males) were recruited. The median pressure, SSR and velocity ratios for the ICAS lesions were 0.40 (−2.46–0.79), 4.5 (2.2–20.6), and 7.4 (5.2–12.5), respectively. SSR ratio (hazard ratio [HR] 1.027; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.004–1.051; P = 0.023) and velocity ratio (HR 1.029; 95% CI, 1.002–1.056; P = 0.035) were significantly related to recurrent territorial ischemic stroke within 1 year by univariate Cox regression, respectively with the c-statistics of 0.776 (95% CI, 0.594–0.903; P = 0.014) and 0.776 (95% CI, 0.594–0.903; P = 0.002) in receiver operating characteristic analysis. Conclusions Hemodynamics of ICAS on CFD models reconstructed from routinely obtained CTA images may predict subsequent stroke recurrence in patients with a symptomatic ICAS lesion of 70–99% luminal stenosis.
Comprehensive Proteome Analysis of an Apc Mouse Model Uncovers Proteins Associated with Intestinal Tumorigenesis

Tumor-derived proteins may occur in the circulation as a result of secretion, shedding from the cell surface, or cell turnover. We have applied an in-depth comprehensive proteomic strategy to plasma from intestinal tumor–bearing Apc mutant mice to identify proteins associated with tumor development. We used quantitative tandem mass spectrometry of fractionated mouse plasma to identify differentially expressed proteins in plasma from intestinal tumor–bearing Apc mutant mice relative to matched controls. Up-regulated proteins were assessed for the expression of corresponding genes in tumor tissue. A subset of proteins implicated in colorectal cancer were selected for further analysis at the tissue level using antibody microarrays, Western blotting, tumor immunohistochemistry, and novel fluorescent imaging. We identified 51 proteins that were elevated in plasma with concordant up-regulation at the RNA level in tumor tissue. The list included multiple proteins involved in colon cancer pathogenesis: cathepsin B and cathepsin D, cullin 1, Parkinson disease 7, muscle pyruvate kinase, and Ran. Of these, Parkinson disease 7, muscle pyruvate kinase, and Ran were also found to be up-regulated in human colon adenoma samples. We have identified proteins with direct relevance to colorectal carcinogenesis that are present both in plasma and in tumor tissue in intestinal tumor–bearing mice. Our results show that integrated analysis of the plasma proteome and tumor transcriptome of genetically engineered mouse models is a powerful approach for the identification of tumor-related plasma proteins.