Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Local time sharing for index coding

A series of extensions of the index coding schemes based on time sharing by Birk and Kol, by Blasiak, Kleinberg, and Lubetzky, and by Shanmugam, Dimakis, and Langberg are presented. Each extension strictly improves upon the previous extensions as well as the existing schemes. The main idea behind these extensions is local time sharing over subproblems introduced by Shanmugam et al., in which the local side information available at each receiver is exploited to send the subproblm indices with a fewer number of transmissions. The final extension, despite being the best in this class of coding schemes, is shown to be still suboptimal, characterizing the fundamental limit of local time sharing.
Status of Systemic Oxidative Stresses in Patients with Primary Open-Angle Glaucoma and Pseudoexfoliation Syndrome

Background The involvement of local and systemic oxidative stress in intraocular pressure (IOP) elevation and optic nerve damage has been hypothesized in the pathogenesis of glaucoma. To test this, we measured the systemic levels of prooxidants and antioxidants by analyzing the blood biochemistry in patients with glaucoma. Methods Peripheral blood samples were collected from Japanese patients with primary open-angle glaucoma (PG) (n = 206), exfoliation syndrome (EX) (n = 199), and controls (n = 126). Plasma levels of lipid peroxides, ferric-reducing activity, and thiol antioxidant activity were measured by diacron reactive oxygen metabolites (dROM), biological antioxidant potential (BAP), and sulfhydryl (SH) tests, respectively, using a free radical analyzer. Results In the PG, EX, and control groups, the mean ± standard deviation values were 355±63, 357±69, and 348±56 (U. Carr), respectively, for dROM; 1,951±282, 1,969±252, and 2,033±252 (µmol/L), respectively, for BAP (µmol/L); and 614±98, 584±91, and 617±99 (µmol/L), respectively, for SH. The differences in the BAP values were significant between the PG and control groups (p = 0.0062), for SH between the EX and control groups (p = 0.0017), and for SH between the PG and EX groups (p = 0.0026). After adjustment for differences in age and sex among groups using multiple regression analysis, lower BAP values were correlated significantly with PG (p = 0.0155) and EX (p = 0.0049). Higher dROM values with and without glaucoma were correlated with female gender, and lower SH values with older age. There were no significant differences between the higher (≥21 mmHg) and lower (<21 mmHg) baseline IOPs in the PG group or between the presence or absence of glaucoma in the EX group. Conclusions Lower systemic antioxidant capacity that measured by ferric-reducing activity is involved in the pathogenesis of PG and EX.
Upper airway response in workers exposed to fuel oil ash: nasal lavage analysis.

OBJECTIVES--Among other constituents, fuel oil ash contains vanadium pentoxide, a known respiratory irritant. Exposure to ambient vanadium pentoxide dust has been shown to produce irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat. The usefulness of nasal lavage in detecting an inflammatory response to exposure to fuel oil ash among 37 boilermakers and utility workers was investigated. METHODS--A baseline lavage was performed on the morning of the first day back to work after an average of 114 days away from work (range 36 hours to 1737 days). A lavage was performed after exposure on the morning three days after the baseline lavage. Exposure to respirable particulate matter of diameter < or = 10 microns (PM10) and respirable vanadium dust were estimated with daily work diaries and a personal sampling device for respirable particulates. These estimates were made for each subject on each workday during the three days between lavages. For each subject, the adjusted change in polymorphonuclear cells was calculated by dividing the change in polymorphonuclear cell counts by the average of the counts before and after exposure. The association between the adjusted polymorphonuclear cell counts and exposure was assessed with multiple linear regression, adjusted for age and current smoking. RESULTS--Personal sampling (one to 10 hour time weighted average) showed a range of PM10 concentrations of 50 to 4510 micrograms/m3, and respirable vanadium dust concentration of 0.10 to 139 micrograms/m3. In smokers the adjusted polymorphonuclear cell count was not significantly different from zero (-0.1%, P > 0.5), but in nonsmokers it was significantly greater than zero (+50%, P < 0.05). In both non-smokers and smokers, there was considerable variability in adjusted polymorphonuclear cell counts and a dose-response relation between these adjusted cell counts and either PM10 or respirable vanadium dust exposure could not be found. CONCLUSION--A significant increase in polymorphonuclear cells in non-smokers but not smokers was found. This suggests that in non-smokers, exposure to fuel oil ash is associated with upper airway inflammation manifested as increased polymorphonuclear cell counts. The lack of an increase in polymorphonuclear cells in smokers may reflect either a diminished inflammatory response or may indicate that smoking masks the effect of exposure to fuel oil ash.
Dynamic partitioning for enterprise applications

Today's enterprise applications face a severe change in how they process data. They evolved from simple data entry applications to complex systems where the focus is to make the right decision based on latest transactional data instead of pre-processed outdated business intelligence data from secondary systems. This paradigm shift results in more analytical queries executed on the transactional database system. In addition we see a change in how the persistence layer is seen and that more and more effort is spent on developing database engines that are designed to address special needs and requirements, e.g. for Web 2.0 applications. In this paper we discuss that it is crucial for enterprise applications to share application semantics with the database to increase performance. Furthermore we show how this principle can be applied to dynamically partition application data. In contrast to static partitioning we propose to adapt the life-cycle semantics of the application and move data from active to different passive partitions, by leveraging the merge process of our database prototype. The goal is to reduce the amount of data that is touched during query execution to increase the performance of the main workload by the same factor. We present how our HYRISE prototype is implemented and how it can be extended to fully support this use case.
A Dynamic Analysis of Household Decision-Making: The Brazilian Case

In this paper we analyze the evolution of family structure, human capital accumulation and returns, labor force participation and household consumption and savings decisions for Mexican households. We use as theoretical framework the Life Cycle Model. Our analysis is based on a synthetic panel technique as proposed by Browning, Deaton and Irish (1985) that allows us to track the average behavior of cohorts over successive surveys. Mexico went through important demographic and socioeconomic changes between the mid-1970s and mid-1980s, simultaneously with the government`s implementation of different policies as well as some institutional changes, including an important birth control program and the expansion of educational opportunities. A reduction in fertility and an increase in the schooling of women are observed simultaneously with an increase in women`s labor force participation. Most of this process is dominated by age and cohort effects. In terms of consumption-saving decisions, we find that this reduction in the number of children and the increase in women`s labor force participation, reinforced by higher investment in education and higher rate of returns, have been correlated with higher saving rates for younger cohorts, particularly those where the head has higher educational levels.
Detecting deception through reaction times

Reaction times (RTs) are among the oldest measures in psychology, and remain popular in several psychology disciplines. However, they have been largely neglected as a cue for deception, reflecting the sceptic's view that RTs fall under voluntary control and are easily manipulated. From our review of the literature, we draw tentative conclusions on when RTs may provide a valid cue for deception. A growing body of research suggests that there are at least two paradigms that show promise for deception detection: The RT-based Concealed Information Test (RT-CIT) and the autobiographical Implicit Association Test (aIAT). Whereas its applicability is restricted, a key strength of the RT-CIT is its low false positive rate. An attractive feature of the aIAT is its broad applicability, yet subtle design features can heavily impact its validity. These findings point to the potential of the two RT tests, but need to be extended by studies conducted under field-like circumstances.
Six-Month Mortality among HIV-Infected Adults Presenting for Antiretroviral Therapy with Unexplained Weight Loss, Chronic Fever or Chronic Diarrhea in Malawi

Background In sub-Saharan Africa, early mortality is high following initiation of antiretroviral therapy (ART). We investigated 6-month outcomes and factors associated with mortality in HIV-infected adults being assessed for ART initiation and presenting with weight loss, chronic fever or diarrhea, and with negative TB sputum microscopy. Methods A prospective cohort study was conducted in Malawi, investigating mortality in relation to ART uptake, microbiological findings and treatment of opportunistic infection (OIs), 6 months after meeting ART eligibility criteria. Results Of 469 consecutive adults eligible for ART, 74(16%) died within 6 months of enrolment, at a median of 41 days (IQR 20–81). 370(79%) started ART at a median time of 18 days (IQR 7–40) after enrolment. Six-month case-fatality rates were higher in patients with OIs; 25/121(21%) in confirmed/clinical TB and 10/50(20%) with blood stream infection (BSI) compared to 41/308(13%) in patients with no infection identified. Median TB treatment start was 27 days (IQR 17–65) after enrolment and mortality [8 deaths (44%)] was significantly higher among 18 culture-positive patients with delayed TB diagnosis compared to patients diagnosed clinically and treated promptly with subsequent culture confirmation [6/34 (18%);p = 0.04]. Adjusted multivariable analysis, excluding deaths in the first 21 days, showed weight loss >10%, low CD4 count, severe anemia, laboratory-only TB diagnosis, and not initiating ART to be independently associated with increased risk of death. Conclusions Mortality remains high among chronically ill patients eligible for ART. Prompt initiation of ART is vital: more than half of deaths were among patients who never started ART. Diagnostic and treatment delay for TB was strongly associated with risk of death. More than half of deaths occurred without identification of a specific infection. ART programmes need access to rapid point-of-care-diagnostic tools for OIs. The role of early empiric OI treatment in this population requires further evaluation in clinical trials.
Cognitive Biases in Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing has become a popular paradigm in data curation, annotation and evaluation for many artificial intelligence and information retrieval applications. Considerable efforts have gone into devising effective quality control mechanisms that identify or discourage cheat submissions in an attempt to improve the quality of noisy crowd judgments. Besides purposeful cheating, there is another source of noise that is often alluded to but insufficiently studied: Cognitive biases. This paper investigates the prevalence and effect size of a range of common cognitive biases on a standard relevance judgment task. Our experiments are based on three sizable publicly available document collections and note significant detrimental effects on annotation quality, system ranking and the performance of derived rankers when task design does not account for such biases.
Six- and 9-Month-Old Infants Discriminate Between Goals Despite Similar Action Patterns.

Behne, Carpenter, Call, and Tomasello (2005) showed that 9- to 18-month-olds, but not 6-month-olds, differentiated between people who were unwilling and unable to share toys. As the outcome of the two tasks is the same (i.e., the toy is not shared), the infants must respond to the different goals of the actor. However, visual habituation paradigms have shown an earlier onset of goal awareness. The present study reconciles this disparity by replicating the findings of Behne et al. with both 6- and 9-month-olds, using similar tasks and additional response measures.
Cross-sectional study of nutritional markers in pregnancy

Objectives: To note the value of serum Vitamin B12, folic acid, and ferritin in normal and high-risk pregnancies (HRPs) in patients attending antenatal clinic at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). Materials and Methods: This is a cross-sectional study where a total of 282 patients attending Gynaecology Outpatient Department at AIIMS, New Delhi, India were recruited. Among the 282 subjects, 251 were pregnant, and 31 were controls. The serum was tested for serum Vitamin B12, serum folic acid, and serum ferritin levels using Beckman Coulter Access 2 immunoassay. Results: The median value of serum folic acid level in pregnant women was 12 pg/ml with range being 2–20 pg/ml in contrast to 8 pg/ml with range being 3–20 pg/ml in nonpregnant female. This difference was statistically significant. (P = 0.05). There was no significant difference in the median level of serum Vitamin B12 and serum ferritin in pregnant and nonpregnant group. Serum Vitamin B12 level was lower in the third trimester (127 pg/ml) than in first trimester (171 pg/ml) and the difference is statistically significant (P = 0.03). Serum ferritin levels were also significantly lower in the second trimester (16.4 pg/ml) than third trimester (24.55 pg/ml). Although the median serum folic acid level was lower in the first trimester (9.84 pg/ml) than in second trimester (10.8 pg/ml) and in the third trimester (13.18 pg/ml) but the difference was not statistically significant. There was no significant difference in Vitamin B12 level in HRPs (median value 134 pg/ml) as compared to low-risk pregnancies (149.5 pg/ml). Conclusion: Serum folic acid levels are significantly higher during pregnancy as compared to nonpregnant state. However, there was no significant difference in the median level of serum Vitamin B12 and serum ferritin in pregnant and nonpregnant group. Serum folic acid level and ferritin level were significantly higher in HRPs compared to low-risk pregnancies.
Convex reformulation of biologically-based multi-criteria intensity-modulated radiation therapy optimization including fractionation effects

Finding fluence maps for intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) can be formulated as a multi-criteria optimization problem for which Pareto optimal treatment plans exist. To account for the dose-per-fraction effect of fractionated IMRT, it is desirable to exploit radiobiological treatment plan evaluation criteria based on the linear-quadratic (LQ) cell survival model as a means to balance the radiation benefits and risks in terms of biologic response. Unfortunately, the LQ-model-based radiobiological criteria are nonconvex functions, which make the optimization problem hard to solve. We apply the framework proposed by Romeijn et al (2004 Phys. Med. Biol. 49 1991–2013) to find transformations of LQ-model-based radiobiological functions and establish conditions under which transformed functions result in equivalent convex criteria that do not change the set of Pareto optimal treatment plans. The functions analysed are: the LQ-Poisson-based model for tumour control probability (TCP) with and without inter-patient heterogeneity in radiation sensitivity, the LQ-Poisson-based relative seriality s-model for normal tissue complication probability (NTCP), the equivalent uniform dose (EUD) under the LQ-Poisson model and the fractionation-corrected Probit-based model for NTCP according to Lyman, Kutcher and Burman. These functions differ from those analysed before in that they cannot be decomposed into elementary EUD or generalized-EUD functions. In addition, we show that applying increasing and concave transformations to the convexified functions is beneficial for the piecewise approximation of the Pareto efficient frontier.
Tolfenamic acid inhibits colon cancer cell and tumor growth and induces degradation of specificity protein (Sp) transcription factors

Tolfenamic acid (TA) is a non‐steroidal anti‐inflammatory drug (NSAID) that inhibits lung, esophageal, breast and pancreatic cancer cell and tumor growth, and this study investigated the anticancer activity of TA in colon cancer. TA inhibited growth and induced apoptosis in RKO, SW480, HT‐29, and HCT‐116 colon cancer cells, and TA (50 mg/kg/d) also inhibited tumor growth in athymic nude mice bearing RKO cells as xenografts. TA downregulated expression of Sp proteins (Sp1, Sp3, and Sp4) in colon cancer cells and this was accompanied by decreased expression of several Sp‐regulated growth promoting (cyclin D1, hepatocyte growth factor receptor), angiogenic (vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and its receptor 1), survival (survivin and bcl‐2), and inflammatory (NFκBp65/p50) gene products. The mechanism of TA‐mediated effects on Sp proteins was due to activation of caspases. These results now extend the number of NSAIDs that may have clinical potential for colon cancer chemotherapy and show that the anticancer activity of TA is due, in part, to targeting Sp transcription factors. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
An Interim LAeq8 Criterion for Impulse Noise Injury.

OBJECTIVES We present a method to account for the effects of the hearing protection devices (HPDs) for use with the 8 hours equivalent A-weighted energy (LAeq8) criterion. The method involves the calculation of the LAeq8 equivalent unprotected free-field dose (LAeq8EUFF), which is obtained by using the insertion loss (IL) data of the HPD together with free-field pressure measurements. METHODS The method was validated against the historical the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command walk-up study data with volunteers exposed to simulated large weapon noise wearing a range of HPDs. The IL data were obtained using standard acoustical test fixtures fitted with the matching HPDs in replicated field tests and using shock tubes at conditions comparable to the actual exposure intensities. Logistic regression calculations were performed to correlate the LAeq8EUFF values against the walk-up study outcomes to determine the L(95,95) threshold for the protection of 95% of the population with 95% of the time. RESULTS Data comparison shows that L(95,95) is 89 dBA, which is slightly higher than the 85 dBA criterion but falls in the 80 to 90 dBA range as used by various NATO nations. CONCLUSIONS Therefore, considering the limitation of the walk-up dataset, it is conservative to adopt the 85 dBA threshold for general application.
Ranirestat for the Management of Diabetic Sensorimotor Polyneuropathy

OBJECTIVE Aldose reductase inhibitors (ARIs) are potential disease modifiers for diabetes complications. We aimed to determine whether ranirestat, an ARI, could slow or reverse the course of diabetic sensorimotor polyneuropathy (DSP). RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS A total of 549 patients with DSP were randomly assigned to treatment with placebo or 10, 20, or 40 mg/day ranirestat for 52 weeks in this multicenter, double-blind study. Efficacy was evaluated by nerve conduction studies, the modified Toronto Clinical Neuropathy Score (mTCNS), and quantitative sensory tests (QSTs). RESULTS At week 52, the summed sensory (bilateral sural plus proximal median sensory) nerve conduction velocity (NCV) did not show significant changes from baseline (2.0 m/s for placebo compared with 3.2–3.8 m/s for ranirestat). Significant improvement in the summed motor (peroneal, tibial, and median) NCV was observed with 20 and 40 mg/day ranirestat treatment at week 12 (P ≤ 0.05) and at weeks 24 and 36 and in peroneal motor NCV at weeks 36 and 52 (P ≤ 0.05) for the 20 mg/day ranirestat group. The mTCNS and QST results did not differ among the groups during the study. Ranirestat was well tolerated with no pertinent differences in drug-related adverse events or in effects on clinical laboratory parameters, vital signs, or electrocardiograms among the four groups. CONCLUSIONS Treatment with ranirestat appears to have an effect on motor nerve function in mild to moderate DSP, but the results of this study failed to show a statistically significant difference in sensory nerve function relative to placebo.
Acremonium in fescue and ryegrass: boon or bane? A review.

Acremonium coenophialum Morgan-Jones and Gams, an endophytic fungus commonly found in tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.), has been identified as the cause of poor performance of beef cattle and horses on tall fescue. Ryegrass staggers, a neurological disorder of sheep, has been linked to the presence of a similar fungus, A. lolii Latch, Christensen and Samuels, in perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.). Renovation of endophyte-infected (E+) pastures with endophyte-free (E-) cultivars of tall fescue or perennial ryegrass has resulted in improved animal performance, but productivity and stand persistence of the grasses have been reduced. Stand loss of E- tall fescue has been attributed to a number of stresses, including insect attack, disease, root predation by nematodes, and drought stress. The Acremonium endophyte has been observed to stimulate the tall fescue plant's production of chitinase, an enzyme associated with disease resistance. Nematode resistance, which can also be enhanced in E+ plants, has been attributed, in part, to thickening of the root endodermal layer. Drought stress has been identified as the most common cause of E- tall fescue stand loss in the eastern United States. Endophyte-infected tall fescue plants exhibit several adaptive morphological and physiological responses to drought stress compared with E- plants. Drought-induced leaf rolling, leaf senescence, stomatal closure, and osmotic adjustment are more prevalent in E+ than in E- plants and may be mediated through endophyte enhancement of the production of phytohormones such as abscisic acid. Endophyte-infected tall fescue plants have been shown to be more productive and competitive than E- plants through improvement of germination, tillering, and biomass production per tiller. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)