Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Variability in D2‐dopamine receptor density and affinity: A PET study with [11C]raclopride in man

The variability of D2‐dopamine receptor binding parameters in man was determined using Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and [11C]raclopride. A saturation analysis based on five PET‐experiments was performed in each of ten men and ten women. The mean density of D2‐dopamine receptors (Bmax) was 28 ± 6.9 pmol/ml (mean ± S.D.) and the apparent affinity (Kdapp)9.1 ± 1.9 pmol/ml. The Hill coefficient was in all subjects close to unity (nH: 0.999 ± 0.020), thereby indicating binding to a homogeneous class of receptors. No significant differences between males and females were found in Bmax or Kdapp. The interindividual difference in Bmaxwas statistically significant (α = 0.01). The difference in Kdapp was not significant. Upregulation of the receptor density (Bmax) has been widely discussed as a mechanism for increased dopaminergic neurotransmission in schizophrenia. This study indicates that receptor density varies considerably in a group of healthy subjects. © 1995 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Risk factors of self-reported adverse drug events among Medicare enrollees before and after Medicare Part D

Objectives: Quantify risk factors for self-reported adverse drug events (ADEs) after the implementation of Medicare Part D, quantify self-reported ADEs before and after Medicare Part D and quantify the association between self-reported ADEs and increased use of prescription medication. Methods: The design was a longitudinal study including an internet survey before Medicare Part D in 2005 (n=1220) and a follow-up survey in 2007 (n=1024), with n=436 responding to both surveys. Harris Interactive® invited individuals in their online panel to participate in this study. Individuals who were 65 or older, English speakers, US residents and enrolled in Medicare were included. Data collected and used in analysis included self-reported ADE, socio-demographics, self-rated health, number of medications, symptoms experienced, concern and necessity beliefs about medicines, number of pharmacies, and whether doses were skipped or stopped to save money. Results: In 2007, reporting an ADE was related to concern beliefs, symptoms experienced and age. ADEs were experienced by 18% of respondents in 2005 and 20.4% in 2007. The average number of medications increased from 3.82 (SD=2.82) in 2005 to 4.32 (SD=3.20) in 2007 (t= -5.77, p<0.001). Among respondents who answered both surveys (n=436), 18.4% reported an ADE in 2005 while 24.3% reported an ADE in 2007. The increase in self-reported ADE was related to concern beliefs (OR=1.12, 95%CI=1.05, 1.19) and symptoms experienced (OR= 3.27, 95%CI=1.60, 6.69), not number of medications (OR=1.04, 95%CI=0.77, 1.41). Conclusion: Discussing elderly patients’ beliefs about their medicines may affect their medication expectations, symptom interpretation and attributions and future medication attributions.
A syntax directed level building algorithm for large vocabulary handwritten word recognition

This paper describes a large vocabulary handwritten word recognition system based on a syntax{directed level building algorithm (SDLBA) that incorporates contextual information. The sequences of observations extracted from the input images are matched against the entries of a tree{structure lexicon where each node is represented by a 10{state character HMM. The search proceeds breadth| rst and each node is decoded by the SDLBA. Contextual information about writing styles and case transitions is injected between the levels of the SDLBA. An implementation of the SDLBA together with a 36,100{entry lexicon is described. In terms of recognition speed, the results show that the SDLBA together with the tree{structured lexicon outperforms a baseline system that uses a Viterbi{ at{lexicon scheme while maintaining the same accuracy and consuming a reasonable amount of memory.
Urinary excretion of purine derivatives as an index of microbial-nitrogen intake in growing rabbits

Three experiments were carried out to establish a response model between intake and urinary excretion of purine compounds. In Expt 1 the relationship between the intake of purine bases (PB) and the excretion of total purine derivatives (PD) was determined in seven growing rabbits with a mean initial live weight (LW) of 2·03 (SE 0·185) kg, aged 70 d, each fitted with a wooden neck collar to prevent caecotrophagy. They were fed on five experimental diets formulated with different levels of nucleic acids (0·00, 3·75, 7·50, 11·25, 15·00 g yeast-RNA/kg diet). The relationship between intake of purine (x, μmol/kg W0·75) and total urinary PD excretion (y, μmol/kg W0·75), y = 0·56 + 0·67x (r2 0·86; RSD 0·338), indicated that about 70% of duodenal PB were recovered as urinary PD and that the endogenous contribution was constant and independent of dietary PB supply. Endogenous excretion of PD (allantoin and uric acid) was measured in a second experiment using six rabbits fed on a purine-free diet and fitted with neck collars to avoid caecotrophagy. Basal daily urinary excretion values for allantoin and uric acid were 532 (SE 33·9) and 55 (SE 7·3) μmol/kg W0·75 respectively; xanthine and hypoxanthine were not found in urine samples and therefore the sum of allantoin and uric acid should comprise the total excretion of PD (588 (SE 40·1) μmol/kg W0·75). The xanthine oxidase (EC 1·2.3·2) activity in plasma, liver, duodenum, jejunum and kidney was measured in a third experiment. The activities of xanthine oxidase in duodenal and jejunal mucosa, liver and kidney were: 0·61 (SE 0·095), 0·37 (SE 0·045), 0·035 (SE 0·001) and 0 units/g fresh tissue respectively and in plasma 2·96 (SE 0·094) units/1. The results show that urinary excretion of PD may be a useful tool to estimate duodenal PB input and microbial protein intake once the relationship between PB and N has been established in caecal micro-organisms.
Adequate internal sphincterotomy for chronic anal fissure: Subcutaneous or open technique?

The extent of sphincter division by the subcutaneous or the open technique is examined by comparing the change in anal canal pressure after either method of sphincterotomy in twenty‐eight patients with chronic anal fissure randomly allocated. In all patients the fissures healed at one month with significant reduction (P < 0.01) of anal canal pressures to 52 (17–75) cmH2O after subcutaneous and 47.5 (35–100) cmH2O after open sphincterotomy, a 51 (22–77) and 50 (11–68) per cent reduction of their respective pre‐operative measurements. Adequate sphincterotomy can be achieved by both techniques.
Multimedia Indexing and Retrieval Research at the Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval

Abstract : The digital libraries of the future will include not only (ASCII) text information but scanned paper documents as well as still photograph and videos. There is, therefore, a need to index and retrieve information from such multi-media collections. The Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval (CIIR) has a number of projects to index and retrieve multi-media information. These include: 1. The extraction of text from images which may be used both for finding text zones against general backgrounds as well as for indexing and retrieving image information. 2. Indexing hand-written and poorly printed documents using image matching techniques (word spotting). 3. Indexing images using their content.
The Speed-Accuracy Tradeoff in the Elderly Brain: A Structural Model-Based Approach

Even in the simplest laboratory tasks older adults generally take more time to respond than young adults. One of the reasons for this age-related slowing is that older adults are reluctant to commit errors, a cautious attitude that prompts them to accumulate more information before making a decision (Rabbitt, 1979). This suggests that age-related slowing may be partly due to unwillingness on behalf of elderly participants to adopt a fast-but-careless setting when asked. We investigate the neuroanatomical and neurocognitive basis of age-related slowing in a perceptual decision-making task where cues instructed young and old participants to respond either quickly or accurately. Mathematical modeling of the behavioral data confirmed that cueing for speed encouraged participants to set low response thresholds, but this was more evident in younger than older participants. Diffusion weighted structural images suggest that the more cautious threshold settings of older participants may be due to a reduction of white matter integrity in corticostriatal tracts that connect the pre-SMA to the striatum. These results are consistent with the striatal account of the speed-accuracy tradeoff according to which an increased emphasis on response speed increases the cortical input to the striatum, resulting in global disinhibition of the cortex. Our findings suggest that the unwillingness of older adults to adopt fast speed-accuracy tradeoff settings may not just reflect a strategic choice that is entirely under voluntary control, but that it may also reflect structural limitations: age-related decrements in brain connectivity.
Compressive Light Transport Sensing Natural Illumination Relighting Reference Photograph Complex Illumination Relighting

In this paper we propose a new framework for capturing light transport data of a real scene, based on the recently developed theory of compressive sensing. Compressive sensing offers a solid mathematical framework to infer a sparse signal from a limited number of non-adaptive measurements. Besides introducing compressive sensing for fast acquisition of light transport to computer graphics, we develop several innovations that address specific challenges for image-based relighting, and which may have broader implications. We develop a novel hierarchical decoding algorithm that improves reconstruction quality by exploiting inter-pixel coherency relations. Additionally, we design new non-adaptive illumination patterns that minimize measurement noise and further improve reconstruction quality. We illustrate our framework by capturing detailed highresolution reflectance fields for image-based relighting.
Barriers to dispersal: The effect of a weir on stream insect drift

Dams and weirs degrade river ecosystems, reducing diversity and altering the assemblage composition of aquatic biota. These structures may damage rivers by disrupting longitudinal connectivity, fragmenting rivers, and isolating populations. We tested whether a weir could impede the downstream dispersal of stream insects by comparing drift rates through natural pools and through a weir pool. For three of four of our study taxa (Offadens spp., Austrosimulium spp., and Simsonia spp.), we found the numbers of drifters were consistently reduced by the weir across multiple occasions (reduction ranging from 68 to 98%) to a higher degree than natural pools (reduction ranging from 24 to 41%). Drift of Cheumatopsyche spp. through the weir was greatly reduced in December (−95%) compared with natural pools, but the weir had little effect during April (−9%). There were size‐related patterns in drift through the weir pool for some taxa. In the weir pool, emigrating individuals of Austrosimulium spp. were significantly smaller than immigrating individuals, which was not observed in natural pools. In contrast, significant reductions of Cheumatopsyche spp. drifters through the weir only occurred when individuals were small (December). Within the weir pool, the combined effects of lower average water velocity, multiple large low velocity areas, and the weir wall were likely to be the cause of the reduction in stream insect drift through the weir. The impediment of drift of some taxa by weirs may affect dispersal and colonisation processes. This obstruction of downstream movement could undermine the outcomes of river restoration projects.
Effects of Seed Priming on Mitigating the Negative Effects of Increased Salinity in Two Varieties of Sweet Pepper (Capsicum annuum L.)

The increase in soil salinity has a negative effect on the growth and yield of plants. Mitigating the negative effects of soil salinity is therefore a difficult task and different methods are being used to overcome the negative effects of salt stress on crop plants. One of the often-used approaches is seed priming that can increase plants’ vigor and resilience. In this paper, we tested the effects of hydropriming, proline priming, and salicylic acid priming on the mitigation of the negative effects of salt stress on two bell pepper varieties (Capsicum annuum L.): Herkules and Kurtovska kapija. Sweet bell pepper seeds were primed following desiccation to achieve the original water content, and subsequently cultivated in salt-supplemented medium. The positive effects on vigor (in the form of increased germination and seedling establishment) as well as on level of tolerance for salt stress were recorded for both cultivars. The positive effects varied between the priming treatments and pepper cultivar used. The results of germination, seedling performance, photosynthetic pigments, and osmolytes were measured for seedlings grown from unprimed and primed seeds with under 0, 25, and 50 mM of NaCl. Both cultivars demonstrated greater germination when primed with proline and salicylic acid, while the Herkules cultivar demonstrated a higher tolerance to salt when proline was used as the priming agent. Priming with salicylic acid and proline in the seed improved germination and seedling performance, which could be related to the increase in proline content in the seedlings.
Impaired White Matter Development in Extremely Low-Birth-Weight Infants with Previous Brain Hemorrhage

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Brain hemorrhage is common in premature infants. The purpose of the study is to evaluate white matter development in extremely low-birth-weight infants with or without previous brain hemorrhage. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Thirty-three extremely low-birth-weight infants were prospectively enrolled and included in this institutional review board–approved study. Another 10 healthy term infants were included as controls. The medical records of the extremely low-birth-weight infants were reviewed for sonography diagnosis of intraventricular hemorrhage. All infants had an MR imaging examination at term-equivalent age for detection of previous hemorrhage, and their white matter was scored and compared among different groups. DTI measured fractional anisotropy values were also compared voxelwise by tract-based spatial statistics. RESULTS: Compared with controls, the white matter score was not significantly different in extremely low-birth-weight infants without blood deposition on MR imaging (P = .17), but was significantly worse in extremely low-birth-weight infants with blood deposition on MR imaging but no intraventricular hemorrhage diagnosis by sonography (P = .02), in extremely low-birth-weight infants with grade 1 or 2 intraventricular hemorrhage on sonography (P = .003), and in extremely low-birth-weight infants with grade 3 or 4 intraventricular hemorrhage on sonography (P = .0001). Extremely low-birth-weight infants without blood deposition on MR imaging did not show any white matter regions with significantly lower fractional anisotropy values than controls. Extremely low-birth-weight infants with blood deposition on MR imaging, but no intraventricular hemorrhage diagnosis, did show white matter regions with significantly lower fractional anisotropy values, and extremely low-birth-weight infants with intraventricular hemorrhage diagnosis had widespread white matter regions with lower fractional anisotropy values. CONCLUSIONS: Previous brain hemorrhage is associated with abnormal white matter in extremely low-birth-weight infants at term-equivalent age, and sonography is not sensitive to minor hemorrhages that are sufficient to cause white matter injury.
Convergence of MCMC and Loopy BP in the Tree Uniqueness Region for the Hard-Core Model

We study the hard-core (gas) model defined on independent sets of an input graph where the independent sets are weighted by a parameter (aka fugacity) λ > 0. For constant Δ, previous work of Weitz (2006) established an FPTAS for the partition function for graphs of maximum degree Δ when λ <; λ<sub>c</sub>(Δ). Sly (2010) showed that there is no FPRAS, unless NP=RP, when λ > λ<sub>c</sub>(Δ). The threshold λ<sub>c</sub>(Δ) is the critical point for the statistical physics phase transition for uniqueness/non-uniqueness on the infinite Δ-regular tree. The running time of Weitz's algorithm is exponential in log Δ. Here we present an FPRAS for the partition function whose running time is O* (n<sup>2</sup>). We analyze the simple single-site Markov chain known as the Glauber dynamics for sampling from the associated Gibbs distribution. We prove there exists a constant Δ<sub>0</sub> such that for all graphs with maximum degree Δ > Δ<sub>0</sub> and girth > 7 (i.e., no cycles of length ≤ 6), the mixing time of the Glauber dynamics is O(nlog n) when λ <; λ<sub>c</sub>(Δ). Our work complements that of Weitz which applies for small constant Δ whereas our work applies for all Δ at least a sufficiently large constant Δ<sub>0</sub> (this includes Δ depending on n = IVI). Our proof utilizes loopy BP (belief propagation) which is a widely-used algorithm for inference in graphical models. A novel aspect of our work is using the principal eigenvector for the BP operator to design a distance function which contracts in expectation for pairs of states that behave like the BP fixed point. We also prove that the Glauber dynamics behaves locally like loopy BP. As a byproduct we obtain that the Glauber dynamics, after a short burn-in period, converges close to the BP fixed point, and this implies that the fixed point of loopy BP is a close approximation to the Gibbs distribution. Using these connections we establish that loopy BP quickly converges to the Gibbs distribution when the girth ≥ 6 and λ <; λ<sub>c</sub>(Δ).
Controlled Experiments for Word Embeddings

An experimental approach to studying the properties of word embeddings is proposed. Controlled experiments, achieved through modifications of the training corpus, permit the demonstration of direct relations between word properties and word vector direction and length. The approach is demonstrated using the word2vec CBOW model with experiments that independently vary word frequency and word co-occurrence noise. The experiments reveal that word vector length depends more or less linearly on both word frequency and the level of noise in the co-occurrence distribution of the word. The coefficients of linearity depend upon the word. The special point in feature space, defined by the (artificial) word with pure noise in its c o-occurrence distribution, is found to be small but non-zero.
Cyanobacterial occurrence and detection of microcystins and saxitoxins in reservoirs of the Brazilian semi-arid

Aim:The rapid spread of cyanobacteria in water sources and reservoirs has caused serious environmental damage and public health problems, and consists in a problem that challenges the institutions responsible for providing water to the population. In this study, the quantification of microcystin, saxitoxins and cyanobacteria levels was performed over 3 years in the semi-arid reservoirs of Rio Grande do Norte (Brazil). In addition, we analyzed the seasonal distribution of cyanotoxins and the percentage of cyanobacteria and cyanotoxins which were above the limit established by Brazilian law.MethodsThe study was conducted between 2009 and 2011 in four dams with six sites: Armando Ribeiro Goncalves (ARG) in Itaja, San Rafael (SR) and Jucurutu; Passagem das Trairas (PT); Itans and Gargalheiras (GARG). Cyanobacteria presence were quantified and identified and the presence of microcystins (MCYs) and saxitoxins (STXs) was investigated by ELISA.ResultsThe densities of cyanobacteria were found to be above the permitted in 76% of cases. The ELISA results showed that of the 128 samples analyzed, 27% were above the maximum allowed by the Brazilian Ministry of Health Order 2914/2011. A seasonal pattern for the presence of MCYs was found (0.00227 to 24.1954 µg.L–1), with the highest values in the rainy season. There was no clear seasonal pattern for STXs (0.003 to 0.766 µg.L–1). ConclusionsThis study showed the importance of establishing a water quality monitoring for human consumption and its potability standards since the concentration of MCYs in some samples was above the maximum limit allowed by Brazilian law, thus posing a risk to public health since the conventional water treatment is not able to eliminate these potent hepatotoxins.
Fast algorithms for large scale conditional 3D prediction

The potential success of discriminative learning approaches to 3D reconstruction relies on the ability to efficiently train predictive algorithms using sufficiently many examples that are representative of the typical configurations encountered in the application domain. Recent research indicates that sparse conditional Bayesian mixture of experts (cMoE) models (e.g. BME (Sminchisescu et al., 2005)) are adequate modeling tools that not only provide contextual 3D predictions for problems like human pose reconstruction, but can also represent multiple interpretations that result from depth ambiguities or occlusion. However, training conditional predictors requires sophisticated double-loop algorithms that scale unfavorably with the input dimension and the training set size, thus limiting their usage to 10,000 examples of less, so far. In this paper we present large-scale algorithms, referred to as fBME, that combine forward feature selection and bound optimization in order to train probabilistic, BME models, with one order of magnitude more data (100,000 examples and up) and more than one order of magnitude faster. We present several large scale experiments, including monocular evaluation on the HumanEva dataset (Sigal and Black, 2006), demonstrating how the proposed methods overcome the scaling limitations of existing ones.
Hand1 regulates cardiomyocyte proliferation versus differentiation in the developing heart

The precise origins of myocardial progenitors and their subsequent contribution to the developing heart has been an area of considerable activity within the field of cardiovascular biology. How these progenitors are regulated and what signals are responsible for their development are, however, much less well understood. Clearly, not only is there a need to identify factors that regulate the transition from proliferation of cardioblasts to differentiation of cardiac muscle, but it is also necessary to identify factors that maintain an adequate pool of undifferentiated myocyte precursors as a prerequisite to preventing organ hypoplasia and congenital heart disease. Here, we report how upregulation of the basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factor Hand1, restricted exclusively to Hand1-expressing cells, brings about a significant extension of the heart tube and extraneous looping caused by the elevated proliferation of cardioblasts in the distal outflow tract. This activity is independent of the further recruitment of extracardiac cells from the secondary heart field and permissive for the continued differentiation of adjacent myocardium. Culture studies using embryonic stem (ES) cell-derived cardiomyocytes revealed that, in a Hand1-null background, there is significantly elevated cardiomyocyte differentiation, with an apparent default mesoderm pathway to a cardiomyocyte fate. However, Hand1 gain of function maintains proliferating precursors resulting in delayed and significantly reduced cardiomyocyte differentiation that is mediated by the prevention of cell-cycle exit, by G1 progression and by increased cell division. Thus, this work identifies Hand1 as a crucial cardiac regulatory protein that controls the balance between proliferation and differentiation in the developing heart, and fills a significant gap in our understanding of how the myocardium of the embryonic heart is established.