Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CD4 Cell Counts at HIV Diagnosis among HIV Outpatient Study Participants, 2000–2009

Background. It is unclear if CD4 cell counts at HIV diagnosis have improved over a 10-year period of expanded HIV testing in the USA. Methods. We studied HOPS participants diagnosed with HIV infection ≤6 months prior to entry into care during 2000–2009. We assessed the correlates of CD4 count <200 cells/mm3 at HIV diagnosis (late HIV diagnosis) by logistic regression. Results. Of 1,203 eligible patients, 936 (78%) had a CD4 count within 3 months after HIV diagnosis. Median CD4 count at HIV diagnosis was 299 cells/mm3 and did not significantly improve over time (P = 0.13). Comparing periods 2000-2001 versus 2008-2009, respectively, 39% and 35% of patients had a late HIV diagnosis (P = 0.34). Independent correlates of late HIV diagnosis were having an HIV risk other than being MSM, age ≥35 years at diagnosis, and being of nonwhite race/ethnicity. Conclusions. There is need for routine universal HIV testing to reduce the frequency of late HIV diagnosis and increase opportunity for patient- and potentially population-level benefits associated with early antiretroviral treatment.
Leukocyte Count Is Associated With Aortic Arch Plaque Thickness

Background and Purpose— Leukocyte count has been associated with cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease, including carotid plaque thickness, in several studies. We hypothesized that white blood cell count is associated with aortic arch plaque thickness (AAPT). Methods— Leukocyte count was measured in randomly selected stroke-free community participants undergoing transesophageal echocardiography. AAPT was measured for each subject and dichotomized into <4 and ≥4 mm (thick plaque). Multivariate linear and logistic regression was used to calculate the effect of leukocyte count on AAPT after adjustment for potential confounding factors. Mean age of the 145 participants was 68.5±8.3 years; 43.5% were women; 15.9% were white; 31.7% were black; and 49.0% were Hispanic. Results— Mean leukocyte count was 5.88±1.76×109/L. Each unit increase in leukocyte count was associated with a mean 0.28-mm increase in AAPT (P =0.0036). After adjustment for other atherosclerosis risk factors, including age, sex, hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and smoking, the relationship persisted (mean increase in AAPT, 0.24 mm;P =0.0064). Thirty-five participants (24.1%) had AAPT ≥4 mm. Mean leukocyte count among those with thick plaque was significantly higher than among those with plaque <4 mm (6.54±1.60 versus 5.65±1.76×109/L, respectively;P =0.009). Each unit increase in leukocyte count was associated with an increased risk of thick plaque (adjusted odds ratio, 1.38; 95% CI, 1.05 to 1.79). The relationships were similar for men and women and for those <70 or ≥70 years of age. Conclusions— Leukocyte count is associated with AAPT and is specifically correlated with AAPT ≥4 mm, a degree of thickening associated with increased stroke risk. These findings are consistent with current hypotheses regarding the inflammatory or infectious etiology of risk of atherosclerosis and stroke.
Cross-Sectional Relations of Arterial Stiffness, Pressure Pulsatility, Wave Reflection, and Arterial Calcification

Objective—Arterial hemodynamics and vascular calcification are associated with increased risk for cardiovascular disease, but their inter-relations remain unclear. We sought to examine the associations of arterial stiffness, pressure pulsatility, and wave reflection with arterial calcification in individuals free of prevalent cardiovascular disease. Approach and Results—Framingham Heart Study Third Generation and Offspring Cohort participants free of cardiovascular disease underwent applanation tonometry to measure arterial stiffness, pressure pulsatility, and wave reflection, including carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity, central pulse pressure, forward wave amplitude, and augmentation index. Participants in each cohort (n=1905, 45±6 years and n=1015, 65±9 years, respectively) underwent multidetector computed tomography to assess the presence and quantity of thoracic aortic calcification, abdominal aortic calcification, and coronary artery calcification. In multivariable-adjusted models, both higher carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity and central pulse pressure were associated with greater thoracic aortic calcification and abdominal aortic calcification, whereas higher augmentation index was associated with abdominal aortic calcification. Among the tonometry measures, carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity was the strongest correlate of all calcification measures in multivariable-adjusted models (odds ratio per SD for thoracic aortic calcification, 2.69 [95% confidence interval, 2.17–3.35]; abdominal aortic calcification, 1.47 [95% confidence interval, 1.26–1.73]; and coronary artery calcification, 1.48 [95% confidence interval, 1.28–1.72]; all P<0.001, respectively). We observed stronger relations of carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity, central pulse pressure, and forward wave amplitude with nearly all continuous calcification measures in the younger Third Generation Cohort as compared with the Offspring Cohort. Conclusions—In community-dwelling individuals without prevalent cardiovascular disease, abnormal central arterial hemodynamics were positively associated with vascular calcification and were observed at younger ages than previously recognized. The mechanisms of these associations may be bidirectional and deserve further study.
Quotients of anti de Sitter space

We study the quotients of n+1-dimensional anti-de Sitter space by one-parameter subgroups of its isometry group SO(2,n) for general n. We classify the different quotients up to conjugation by O(2,n). We find that the majority of the classes exist for all n \geq 2. There are two special classes which appear in higher dimensions: one for n \geq 3 and one for n \geq 4. The description of the quotient in the majority of cases is thus a simple generalisation of the AdS_3 quotients.
Fabrication of Electromagnetically-Driven Tilted Microcoil on Polyimide Capillary Surface for Potential Single-Fiber Endoscope Scanner Application

The design and fabrication of a Micro-electromechanical Systems (MEMS)-based tilted microcoil on a polyimide capillary are reported in this paper, proposed for an electromagnetically-driven single-fiber endoscope scanner application. The parameters of the tilted microcoil were optimized by simulation. It is proved that the largest driving force could be achieved when the tilt-angle, the pitch and the coil turns of the designed microcoil were 60°, 80 µm and 20, respectively. The modal simulation of the designed fiber scanner was carried out. The prototypes of the tilted microcoils were fabricated on the surface of polyimide capillary with 1 mm-diameter using our developed cylindrical projection lithography system. The dimensions of the two tilted microcoils were as follows: one was tilt-angle 45°, line width 10 ± 0.2 µm, coil pitch 78.5 ± 0.5 µm, and the other was tilt-angle 60°, line width 10 ± 0.2 µm, coil pitch 81.5 ± 0.5 µm. Finally, a direct mask-less electroplating process was employed to fabricate the copper microcoil with 15 µm thickness on the gold (Au) seed-layer, and the corresponding line width was expanded to 40 µm.
Human Cytotoxic T-Lymphocyte Repertoire to Influenza A Viruses

ABSTRACT The murine CD8+ cytotoxic-T-lymphocyte (CTL) repertoire appears to be quite limited in response to influenza A viruses. The CTL responses to influenza A virus in humans were examined to determine if the CTL repertoire is also very limited. Bulk cultures revealed that a number of virus proteins were recognized in CTL assays. CTL lines were isolated from three donors for detailed study and found to be specific for epitopes on numerous influenza A viral proteins. Eight distinct CD8+ CTL lines were isolated from donor 1. The proteins recognized by these cell lines included the nucleoprotein (NP), matrix protein (M1), nonstructural protein 1 (NS1), polymerases (PB1 and PB2), and hemagglutinin (HA). Two CD4+ cell lines, one specific for neuraminidase (NA) and the other specific for M1, were also characterized. These CTL results were confirmed by precursor frequency analysis of peptide-specific gamma interferon-producing cells detected by ELISPOT. The epitopes recognized by 6 of these 10 cell lines have not been previously described; 8 of the 10 cell lines were cross-reactive to subtype H1N1, H2N2, and H3N2 viruses, 1 cell line was cross-reactive to subtypes H1N1 and H2N2, and 1 cell line was subtype H1N1 specific. A broad CTL repertoire was detected in the two other donors, and cell lines specific for the NP, NA, HA, M1, NS1, and M2 viral proteins were isolated. These findings indicate that the human memory CTL response to influenza A virus is broadly directed to epitopes on a wide variety of proteins, unlike the limited response observed following infection of mice.
Achieving compositionality of the stable model semantics for smodels programs1

Abstract In this paper, a Gaifman–Shapiro-style module architecture is tailored to the case of smodels programs under the stable model semantics. The composition of smodels program modules is suitably limited by module conditions which ensure the compatibility of the module system with stable models. Hence the semantics of an entire smodels program depends directly on stable models assigned to its modules. This result is formalized as a module theorem which truly strengthens V. Lifschitz and H. Turner's splitting-set theorem (June 1994, Splitting a logic program. In Logic Programming: Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on Logic Programming, Santa Margherita Ligure, Italy, P. V. Hentenryck, Ed. MIT Press, 23–37) for the class of smodels programs. To streamline generalizations in the future, the module theorem is first proved for normal programs and then extended to cover smodels programs using a translation from the latter class of programs to the former class. Moreover, the respective notion of module-level equivalence, namely modular equivalence, is shown to be a proper congruence relation: it is preserved under substitutions of modules that are modularly equivalent. Principles for program decomposition are also addressed. The strongly connected components of the respective dependency graph can be exploited in order to extract a module structure when there is no explicit a priori knowledge about the modules of a program. The paper includes a practical demonstration of tools that have been developed for automated (de)composition of smodels programs.
Alveolar macrophages regulate the induction of primary cytotoxic T-lymphocyte responses during influenza virus infection

Virus-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) are thought to be responsible for the eradication of respiratory influenza virus infections by direct cytolysis of virus-infected epithelial cells. In this study, we provide evidence for a role for alveolar macrophages (AM) in the regulation of pulmonary virus-specific CTL responses. Prior to infection with influenza virus, AM were selectively eliminated in vivo with a liposome-mediated depletion technique, and virus-specific CTL activities of lung and mediastinal lymph node (MLN) cells were assayed ex vivo and compared with those for normal mice. AM depletion resulted in increased primary CTL responses and changed the kinetics of the CTL response. Flow cytometric analysis of lung and MLN cells showed that the percentage of CD8+ cells was not altered after AM depletion and that lung cells from AM-depleted mice had an increased capacity to lyse virus-infected cells. Upon restimulation in vitro, virus-specific CTL activity in lung cells of normal mice was similar to that in lung cells of AM-depleted mice. Furthermore, elimination of AM resulted in increased virus titers in the lung, but virus clearance as a function of time was not affected. Our results show that AM regulate virus-specific CTL responses during respiratory influenza virus infection by removing viral particles, by downregulating the priming and activity of CTL in MLN cells, and by inhibiting the expansion of virus-specific CTL in the lung.
A Framework for the Development of Decision Support Systems

This article proposes a framework to explore the nature, scope, and content of the evolving topic of Decision Support Systems (DSS). The first part of the framework considers (a) three levels of technology which have been designated DSS, (b) the developmental approach that is evolving for the creation of a DSS, and (c) the roles of several key types of people in the building and use of a DSS. The second part develops a descriptive model to assess the performance objectives and the capabilities of a DSS as viewed by three of the major participants in their continued development and use. The final section outlines several issues in the future growth and development of a DSS as a potentially valuable type of information system in organizations.
Frequency-Shaped Sliding Mode Control Using Output Sampled Measurements

In this paper, a method is presented for frequency-shaped sliding mode control using output feedback. A compensator is introduced in the sliding surface to attenuate the certain frequency component of the sliding mode dynamics. The output is measured at a faster rate than the control input to estimate the states of the system. The proposed output feedback frequency-shaped sliding mode controller is designed for the vibration suppression of intelligent structure. The simulation and experimental results show the efficacy of the method.
In Vitro, In Vivo Comparison of Cyclosporin A Induced Hepatic Protein Expression Profiles

To reduce the amount of laboratory animals which are used to analyze hepatotoxic properties of chemicals and drugs, the development of alternative in vitro models is necessary. Ideally these in vitro models reflect the in vivo toxicological response and cholestasis. In this study the protein expression in livers from C57BL/6 mice after cyclosporin A-induced cholestasis was analyzed. After 25 days of a daily cyclosporine A treatment the cholestatic phenotype was established. An in vitro to this in vivo study comparison was made by using the results of our previous studies with HepG2 and primary mouse hepatocytes. The in vivo proteomics data show cyclosporin Ainduced oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction was actually induced, leading to a decreased mitochondrial ATP production and an altered urea cycle. These processes were also altered by cyclosporin A in the in vitro models HepG2 and primary mouse hepatocytes. In addition, detoxification enzymes like methyl- and glutathione-Stransferases were differentially expressed after cyclosporin A treatment. Changes in these detoxification enzymes were mainly detected in vivo, though primary mouse hepatocytes show a differential expression of some of these enzymes. By means of a functional classification of differentially expressed proteins we demonstrated similarities and differences between in vitro and in vivo models in the proteome response of cyclosporin A-induced hepatotoxicity.
Rapid Reversal of the Diabetic Endothelial Dysfunction by Pharmacological Inhibition of Poly(ADP-Ribose) Polymerase

Oxygen- and nitrogen-derived free radicals and oxidants play an important role in the pathogenesis of diabetic endothelial dysfunction. Recently we proposed the importance of oxidant-induced DNA strand breakage and activation of the nuclear enzyme poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) in the pathogenesis of diabetic endothelial dysfunction. In this study, we tested whether established diabetic endothelial dysfunction is reversible by PARP inhibition. The novel PARP inhibitor PJ34 (10 mg/kg per day PO) was given at various lengths (4 weeks or 3 days) for established streptozotocin-diabetic animals. In addition, we also tested whether incubation of the aortic rings with PJ34 (3 &mgr;mol/L) or a variety of other PARP inhibitors for 1 hour affects the diabetic vascular changes. Both 4-week and 3-day PARP-inhibitor treatment of streptozotocin-diabetic mice with established endothelial dysfunction fully reversed the acetylcholine-induced endothelium-dependent relaxations in vitro. Furthermore, 1-hour in vitro incubation of aortae from streptozotocin-diabetic mice with various PARP inhibitors was able to reverse the endothelial dysfunction. ATP, NAD+, and NADPH levels were markedly reduced in diabetic animals, and PARP-inhibitor treatment was able to restore these alterations. Unexpectedly, pharmacological inhibition of PARP not only prevents the development of the endothelial dysfunction but is also able to rapidly reverse it. Thus, PARP activation and the associated metabolic compromise represent an ongoing process in diabetic blood vessels. Pharmacological inhibition of this process is able to reverse diabetic endothelial dysfunction.
The organization of the outside end of transposon Tn5

The end sequences of the IS50 insertion sequence are known as the outside end (OE) and inside end. These complex ends are related but nonidentical 19-bp sequences that serve as substrates for the activity of the Tn5 transposase. Besides providing the binding site of the transposase, the end sequences of a transposon contain additional types of information necessary for transposition. These additional properties include but are not limited to host protein interaction sites and sites that program synapsis and cleavage events. In order to delineate the properties of the IS50 ends,the base pairs involved in the transposase binding site have been defined. This has been approached through performing a variety of in vitro analyses: a ++hydroxyl radical missing-nucleoside interference experiment, a dimethyl sulfate interference experiment, and an examination of the relative binding affinities of single-site end substitutions. These approaches have led to the conclusion that the transposase binds to two nonsymmetrical regions of the OE, including positions 6 to 9 and 13 to 19. Proper binding occurs along one face of the helix, over two major and minor grooves, and appears to result in a significant bending of the DNA centered approximately 3 bp from the donor DNA-OE junction.
Improving Chinese POS Tagging with Dependency Parsing

Recent research usually models POS tagging as a sequential labeling problem, in which only local context features can be used. Due to the lack of morphological inflections, many tagging ambiguities in Chinese are difficult to handle unless consulting larger contexts. In this paper, we try to improve Chinese POS tagging by using long-distance dependencies produced by a statistical dependency parser. Experimental results show that, despite error propagation, the syntactic features can significantly improve the tagging accuracy from 93.88% to 94.41% (p < 10 −5 ). Detailed analysis shows that these features are helpful for ambiguous pairs like {NN,VV} and {DEC,DEG}. 1
Hippocampal and Thalamic Diffusion Abnormalities in Children with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

Summary: Purpose: Previous studies using diffusion MRI in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy have shown abnormal water diffusion in the hippocampus. Because thalamus and lentiform nuclei are considered important for the regulation of cortical excitability and seizure propagation, we analyzed diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) abnormalities in these subcortical structures and in hippocampus of children with partial epilepsy with and without secondary generalization.
Diamond channel with partially separated relays

We consider diamond channels with a general broadcast channel p(y, z|x), with outputs Z and Y at relays 1 and 2, respectively, and where the relays 1 and 2 have noiseless links of capacities Rz and Ry, respectively, to the decoder. For the case when Y and Z are deterministic functions of X, we establish the capacity. We next give an upper bound for the capacity of the class of diamond channels with a physically degraded broadcast channel, i.e., when X → Y → Z forms a Markov chain. We show that this upper bound is tight, if in addition to X → Y → Z, the output of relay 2, i.e., Y, is a deterministic function of X. We finally consider the diamond channel with partially separated relays, i.e., when the output of relay 2 is available at relay 1. We establish the capacity for this model in two cases, a) when the broadcast channel is physically degraded, i.e., when X → Y → Z forms a Markov chain, and b) when the broadcast channel is semi-deterministic, i.e, when Y = f(X). For both of these cases, we show that the capacity is equal to the cut-set bound. This final result shows that even partial feedback from the decoder to relays strictly increases the capacity of the diamond channel.
Difficulties in establishing common ground in multiparty groups using machine translation

When people communicate in their native languages using machine translation, they face various problems in constructing common ground. This study investigates the difficulties of constructing common ground when multiparty groups (consisting of more than two language communities) communicate using machine translation. We compose triads whose members come from three different language communities--China, Korea, and Japan--and compare their referential communication under two conditions: in their shared second language (English) and in their native languages using machine translation. Consequently, our study suggests the importance of not only grounding between speaker and addressee but also grounding between addressees in constructing effective machine-translation-mediated communication. Furthermore, to successfully build common ground between addressees, it seems important for them to be able to monitor what is going on between a speaker and other addressees.
Strengths-based practice: "not about discounting problems but offering possibilities, promises and hope"

This paper seeks to explore, understand and discuss the strength-based perspectives in social work practice. A review of the literature has suggested that there has been a shift away from the mere focus on deficits to strengths based focus in the delivery of services to clients in the last few decades. The focus on strengths and empowerment has gained considerable prominence over the last couple of decades. Drawing on from the recent literature from the field, the author directs the attention of the readers to the relevance of adopting strengths based perspective in their practice by showcasing the various fields of application. The paper further reveals that strengths based approach to practice is not about discounting problems or denying issues, rather it is an attitude and a way of working with the clients/communities and groups to help them realise their goals. Hence, it is in this context, the paper discusses the applicability of such a method in our professional practice and answers some of the questions that may confront us as we embark on this journey. It is intended towards providing a brief overview of the concept, and its application in the various fields of practice as it offers a language of "possibilities, promises and hope" both for clients and practitioners in the field.