Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparative effectiveness of oral diabetes drug combinations in reducing glycosylated hemoglobin.

AIMS To provide evidence on the comparative effectiveness of oral diabetes drug combinations. METHODS We performed a retrospective, observational cohort study of glycosylated hemoglobin change in outpatients newly exposed to dual- or triple-drug oral diabetes treatment. RESULTS Adjusted response to a second drug added to metformin ranged from 0.85 to 1.21% glycosylated hemoglobin decline. Response to a third drug was smaller (0.53-0.91%). Higher baseline glycosylated hemoglobin was associated with larger response; sulfonylurea effectiveness declined over time; and thiazolidinediones were more effective in obese patients and women. CONCLUSION Observational data provide results qualitatively consistent with the limited available randomized data on diabetes drug effectiveness, and extend these findings into common clinical scenarios where randomized data are unavailable. Sex and BMI influence the comparative effectiveness of diabetes drug combinations.
Segmentation of Bright-field Cell Images

Image segmentation is a complex problem with many practical applications. In particular segmenting images of cells and tracking each cell through a series of images has the potential to increase the throughput of cell experiments. Brightfield images present many challenges to segment due to their poor contrast with the image background, broken boundaries, partial halos and overlapping cells. In this paper I present three solutions for the bright-field cell image segmentation problem. The first solution is based on a multiphase level set segmentation technique and the watershed method, the second is based on the minimization of a statistical energy function by using a level set function, while the third is based on K-Means segmentation, spectral partitioning and separation of variances. The first technique and the third technique produce good segmentation results of individual cell images, as well as fit into the proposed multiple cell segmentation framework.
Comparison of Active Power Decoupling Methods for High-Power-Density Single-Phase Inverters Using Wide-Bandgap FETs for Google Little Box Challenge

This paper presents a comparison between mitigation techniques for double line frequency ripples in single-phase microinverters based on wide-bandgap FETs. A topology based on an auxiliary dc-ac stage is adopted based on optimizing both power density and efficiency to achieve the pressing needs of the next generation of microinverters as announced by Google's little box challenge. An accurate yet simple control algorithm is proposed that provides a ripple-free dc current. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the presented topology and control algorithm in achieving a high-power-density microinverter rated at 2 kW.
Genetic Programming for Extracting Edge Features Using Two Blocks

In low-level edge detection, single pixels have been popularly used to extract edge features. However, the extracted edge features might not have good ability to effectively mark edge points on images with noise or/and textures. Single pixels can be extracted based on a local window. To automatically search pixels to extract edge features using Genetic Programming, search operators based on single pixels and single blocks of pixels have been proposed. Single blocks of pixels can be used to improve detection performance on natural images, but the computational cost is high. In this paper, to reduce the computational cost of using blocks of pixels, a new search operator based on two blocks of pixels is proposed. The experiment results show that the proposed search operator can effectively reduce computational cost on evolved edge detectors, remaining good detection performance.
Routine transferrin saturation measurement in liver clinic patients increases detection of hereditary haemochromatosis

Background: Hereditary haemochromatosis (HH) is one of the commonest genetic disorders in European populations. Transferrin saturation (TFS) measurement has been advocated as a phenotypic screening test to improve detection. We undertook a prospective study to examine the value of routine TFS measurement in detecting new cases of HH in unselected liver clinic attenders. Methods: Non-fasting TFS was measured in new patients. HH mutations were determined in those with elevated TFS (>45%) and all who underwent liver biopsy. Liver biopsy was performed in 349 patients, including all found to be C282Y homozygotes or compound heterozygotes. Results: Of 667 new patients attending over 5 years, 156 had TFS >45% and 18 had significant mutations (12 C282Y homozygotes and six compound heterozygotes). Eleven of the 12 C282Y homozygotes identified had an elevated TFS and 10 had significant hepatic siderosis. Only two of the six compound heterozygotes had an elevated TFS and hepatic siderosis. Conclusions: The prevalence of new HH cases in patients of European origin attending a liver clinic, detected by phenotypic screening over a 5-year period, was 2.8%. All were identified by a TFS cut off >45%, but TFS >60% provided the best combination of sensitivity and specificity for detecting C282Y homozygosity.
Peer tutoring with the aid of the Internet

While the positive effects of peer tutoring in a face-to-face classroom are well documented, studies of computer-aided peer tutoring are less common. However, such exercises have the potential to introduce additional student-student interaction in distance, online and blended courses. Additionally, technology can provide both students and instructors with unprecedented amounts of information related to tutor competency and methods. With these ideas in mind, we have developed a web-based peer-tutoring system called Opal (Online Peer-Assisted Learning) for use in problem-based undergraduate courses. Tutoring interactions on Opal use problems as both contexts for discussion and enforcers of tutor competency-that is, each interaction is based on a single problem, and students must demonstrate competency by answering the problem correctly on a computer before they become eligible to teach it. Based on social network analysis methods and a student assessment of learning gains survey, the introduction of this method of peer tutoring has had a positive effect on student-student interaction and student learning in our course and may have broad implications for peer tutoring in courses that involve digital problem solving as a key component. Practitioner Notes What is already known about this topic Traditional peer tutoring improves student motivation, learning and persistence and has a positive effect on student-student interaction. , Reciprocal peer-tutoring designs, in which students tutor one another without defined tutor and tutee roles, benefit from structured designs with concrete rewards. , Tutor competency is a significant issue for peer-tutoring programs, as students respond negatively when their tutors are unqualified to teach. , What this paper adds Tracking and facilitating peer-tutoring interactions through the web is possible using a website we have developed. , Within our system, tutoring eligibility is tied to digital problem solving (we call this approach 'gated'). The digitally gated approach maximizes tutor competency without significant instructor labor. , Use of the system improved student-student interaction in our course and helped facilitate student learning, as measured by the Student Assessment of Learning Gains survey. , Implications for practice and/or policy Courses involving significant amounts of digital problem solving may benefit from peer-tutoring exercises, particularly with respect to student-student interactions. , Web-based interfaces for peer tutoring provide unprecedented tracking capabilities and allow instructors to structure peer tutoring exercises in new ways with minimal effort. , Instructors should look to technology not just as a means for conveying content, but also as a way to connect students to one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
A new approach to design switching strategy for the Buck converters

In this paper, a novel method is developed to control switched DC-DC Buck converters. The circuit dynamic is described as an affine linear switched system. Utilizing switched systems theory, a switching state-feedback law is derived to asymptotically stabilize the desired equilibrium point and also minimize a guaranteed cost. The efficiency of the proposed method is illustrated by simulation which verifies the improvement of the obtained results compared with the literatures.
FTIR study of the photoisomerization processes in the 13-cis and all-trans forms of Anabaena sensory rhodopsin at 77 K.

Archaeal-type rhodopsins can accommodate either all-trans- or 13-cis,15-syn-retinal in their chromophore binding site in the dark, but only the former isomer is functionally important. In contrast, Anabaena sensory rhodopsin (ASR), an archaeal-type rhodopsin found in eubacteria, exhibits a photochromic interconversion of both forms, suggesting that ASR functions as a photosensor which interacts with its 14 kDa soluble transducer differently in the all-trans and 13-cis,15-syn forms. In this study, we applied low-temperature Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy to the 13-cis,15-syn form of ASR (13C-ASR) at 77 K and compared the local structure around the chromophore and its structural changes upon retinal photoisomerization with those of the all-trans form (AT-ASR) [Furutani, Y. , Kawanabe, A. , Jung, K. H. , and Kandori, H. (2005) Biochemistry 44, 12287-12296]. By use of [zeta-15N]lysine-labeled ASR, we identified the N-D stretching vibrations of the Schiff base (in D2O) at 2165 cm(-1) for 13C-ASR and at 2163 and 2125 cm(-1) for AT-ASR. The frequencies indicate strong hydrogen bonds of the Schiff base with a water molecule for both 13C-ASR and AT-ASR. In contrast, the N-D stretching vibration appears at 2351 cm(-1) and at 2483 cm(-1) for the K states of 13C-ASR (13C-ASR(K)) and AT-ASR (AT-ASR(K)), respectively, indicating that the Schiff base still forms a hydrogen bond in 13C-ASR(K). Rotational motion of the Schiff base upon retinal isomerization is probably smaller for 13C-ASR than for AT-ASR, the latter altering hydrogen bonding of the Schiff base similar to bacteriorhodopsin (BR), a light-driven proton pump. Appearance of several hydrogen-out-of-plane vibrations and amide I vibrations in 13C-ASR(K), but not in AT-ASR(K), suggests that structural changes are distributed widely along the polyene chain for 13C-ASR. On the other hand, retinal photoisomerization in AT-ASR breaks the hydrogen bond of the Schiff base, and localized structural changes in the Schiff base region are induced.
SUSTENTABILIDADE AMBIENTAL EM RESTAURANTES COMERCIAIS DA ZONA CENTRAL DE PELOTAS - RS

A quantidade de residuos gerados por Unidades de Alimentacao e Nutricao (UAN) e elevada, o que resulta em preocupacao com o destino deste lixo, pois se encaminhado a locais inadequados causa danos ao meio ambiente. E de grande importância que os gestores de restaurantes se preocupem em realizar acoes para reduzir os danos causados ao meio ambiente. O presente estudo teve como objetivo avaliar as acoes de sustentabilidade ambiental em 21 restaurantes do tipo self-service do centro da cidade de Pelotas/RS, visando diagnosticar o destino dos residuos solidos, medidas de uso racional de agua e energia eletrica alem da documentacao relacionada a estes. Foi aplicada uma lista de verificacao, com respostas fechadas, contendo as opcoes sim, nao e nao se aplica abordando questoes de boas praticas ambientais. De acordo com o levantamento efetuado, poucas sao as acoes realizadas com vistas aos cuidados com o meio ambiente, estas acoes quando ocorrem na UAN visam a economia em termos financeiros e nao os cuidados com o meio ambiente.
RECOMMENDATION SYSTEM USING COLLABORA TIVE FILTERING

Recommendation System Using Collaborative Filtering by Yunkyoung Lee Collaborative filtering is one of the well known and most extensive techniques in recommendation system its basic idea is to predict which items a user would be interested in based on their preferences. Recommendation systems using collaborative filtering are able to provide an accurate prediction when enough data is provided, because this technique is based on the user’s preference. User-based collaborative filtering has been very successful in the past to predict the customer’s behavior as the most important part of the recommendation system. However, their widespread use has revealed some real challenges, such as data sparsity and data scalability, with gradually increasing the number of users and items. To improve the execution time and accuracy of the prediction problem, this paper proposed item-based collaborative filtering applying dimension reduction in a recommendation system. It demonstrates that the proposed approach can achieve better performance and execution time for the recommendation system in terms of existing challenges, according to evaluation metrics using Mean Absolute Error (MAE).
Somatostatin inhibition of insulin and gastrin hypersecretion in pancreatic islet-cell carcinoma.

SOMATOSTATIN has been reported to diminish basal insulin levels1 and to inhibit insulin secretion stimulated by glucose,2 arginine,3 glucagon,4 and tolbutamide4 in normal man. These effects of somatostatin administration have not been associated with serious untoward effects. Therefore, it has been suggested5 that somatostatin might be efficacious in suppressing autonomous hypersecretion of insulin by pancreatic islet-cell adenomas or carcinomas. In the following case, somatostatin was indeed found to be effective in suppressing insulin hypersecretion in a woman with metastatic pancreatic islet-cell carcinoma. Somatostatin also reduced elevated serum gastrin levels. Case Report A 54-year-old woman was admitted to the University of .
Students aggress against professors in reaction to receiving poor grades: an effect moderated by student narcissism and self-esteem.

Laboratory evidence about whether students' evaluations of teaching (SETs) are valid is lacking. Results from three (3) independent studies strongly confirm that "professors" who were generous with their grades were rewarded for their favor with higher SETs, while professors who were frugal were punished with lower SETs (Study 1, d = 1.51; Study 2, d = 1.59; Study 3, partial η(2) = . 26). This result was found even when the feedback was manipulated to be more or less insulting (Study 3). Consistent with laboratory findings on direct aggression, results also indicated that, when participants were given a poorer feedback, higher self-esteem (Study 1 and Study 2) and higher narcissism (Study 1) were associated with them giving lower (more aggressive) evaluations of the "professor. " Moreover, consistent with findings on self-serving biases, participants higher in self-esteem who were in the positive grade/feedback condition exhibited a self-enhancing bias by giving their "professor" higher evaluations (Study 1 and Study 2). The aforementioned relationships were not moderated by the professor's sex or rank (teaching assistant vs.professor). Results provide evidence that (1) students do aggress against professors through poor teaching evaluations, (2) threatened egotism among individuals with high self-esteem is associated with more aggression, especially when coupled with high narcissism, and (3) self-enhancing biases are robust among those with high self-esteem.
Effect of Supplemental Trace Minerals on Hsp-70 mRNA Expression in Commercial Broiler Chicken

ABSTRACT The effects of supplementing the organic forms of selenium (Se), chromium (Cr), and zinc (Zn) on Hsp-70 mRNA expression and body weight in broiler chickens were evaluated. 200 chicks were equally distributed into stainless steel battery brooders at the rate of 5 birds per pen and reared under heat stress condition up to 42nd day. The chicks were fed with three experimental diets supplemented with organic forms of Se (0.30 mg/kg), Cr (2 mg/kg), and Zn (40 mg/kg) during the starter and finisher phases and a control diet without any supplementation. On the 21st and 42nd day, 20 birds from each period were sacrificed and samples were collected for analysis. Organic Se, Cr, and Zn supplementation significantly (P < 0.05) reduced the expression of Hsp-70 mRNA levels. The Hsp-70 mRNA expression levels were significantly (P < 0.05) different between the tissues studied with spleen having the lowest expression level. Hsp-70 mRNA expression level was not affected by age of the birds. The study concluded that organic trace mineral (oTM) supplementation resulted in low Hsp-70 mRNA expression, indicating reduced heat stress in broilers.
The Offense as Perceived by the Parents of Forensic Psychiatric Patients

ABSTRACT This study aims to describe the views of forensic psychiatric patients' parents, and especially how they feel about the patient's offense. The data analyzed was collected by interviews with forensic psychiatric patients' parents and analyzed by inductive content analysis. The findings suggest that the offense committed has a significant effect on the lives of parents of forensic psychiatric patients and in many ways these people felt like a marginalized group even though they were frequently a major resource for their child who had been taken into forensic psychiatric care. The parents of a forensic psychiatric patient have a prominent role in the life of the patient and this role and the parents' coping should also be supported by the forensic psychiatric treatment system.
Face detection by fuzzy pattern matching

The paper describes an approach to detect faces whose size and position are unknown in an image with a complex background. The candidates of faces are detected by finding out "face like" regions in the input image using the fuzzy pattern matching method. The perceptually uniform color space is used in our research in order to obtain reliable results. The skin color that is used to detect face like regions, is represented by a model developed by us called skin color distribution function. The skin color regions are then extracted by estimating a measure that describes how well the color of a pixel looks like the skin color for each pixel in the input image. The faces which appear in images are modeled as several 2 dimensional patterns. The face like regions are extracted by a fuzzy pattern matching approach using these face models. The face candidates are then verified by estimating how well the extracted facial features fit a face model which describes the geometrical relations among facial features. <<ETX>>
A multidisciplinary approach to the management of traumatic intrusion in immature permanent teeth

Intrusion in a developing permanent tooth is an extremely complicated traumatic injury and is rarely seen in the permanent dentition. The damage caused by the trauma to the surrounding tooth structures results in a multitude of complications during the healing process. Careful repositioning of the intruded tooth by orthodontic means, revascularisation of the immature tooth to regain vitality, and periodontal treatment to provide the most acceptable aesthetic outcome are described in this case report. It outlines the treatment options to overcome the complications and variable outcomes. The present report emphasises the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to provide complete rehabilitation of a traumatically intruded developing tooth.
Open Data Policy Innovation Diffusion: An Analysis of Australian Federal and State Governments

Despite previous studies on comparing open data policies and identifying their challenges, little is known about open data policy innovation diffusion in Australia, one of earlier adopters of open government/open data policies and a leading e-government nation worldwide. Drawing on innovation diffusion theory and its application to public policy innovation research in political science, we examine Australia's open data policy diffusion patterns at federal and state government levels. Australian early adopters of open data policies are positively associated with the level of openness of their open data portals. Portal openness is measured by the number of public datasets proactively and systematically published through their data portals. They are also positively associated with the efficacy of policy entrepreneurs, which are lead departments/agencies responsible for pushing open data policies against the existing barriers in the governments. Their efficacy is measured by the relatively high rank in the measure of open data portal openness.
Fix-it: An extensible code auto-fix component in Review Bot

Coding standard violations, defect patterns and non-conformance to best practices are abundant in checked-in source code. This often leads to unmaintainable code and potential bugs in later stages of software life cycle. It is important to detect and correct these issues early in the development cycle, when it is less expensive to fix. Even though static analysis techniques such as tool-assisted code review are effective in addressing this problem, there is significant amount of human effort involved in identifying the source code issues and fixing it. Review Bot is a tool designed to reduce the human effort and improve the quality in code reviews by generating automatic reviews using static analysis output. In this paper, we propose an extension to Review Bot- addition of a component called Fix-it for the auto-correction of various source code issues using Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) transformations. Fix-it uses built-in fixes to automatically fix various issues reported by the auto-reviewer component in Review Bot, thereby reducing the human effort to greater extent. Fix-it is designed to be highly extensible-users can add support for the detection of new defect patterns using XPath or XQuery and provide fixes for it based on AST transformations written in a high-level programming language. It allows the user to treat the AST as a DOM tree and run XQuery UPDATE expressions to perform AST transformations as part of a fix. Fix-it also includes a designer application which enables Review Bot administrators to design new defect patterns and fixes. The developer feedback on a stand-alone prototype indicates the possibility of significant human effort reduction in code reviews using Fix-it.
Expression of gap junction proteins Cx26, Cx31.1, Cx37, and Cx43 in developing and mature rat epidermis

To elucidate mechanisms underlying gap junction‐mediated intercellular communication in epidermal keratinocytes, we have examined the expression of four connexin genes, Cx26, Cx31.1, Cx37, and Cx43, in fetal (embryonic day 17–18), newborn (post‐natal day 0), and mature rat skin. Northern analyses of total skin RNA showed that levels of Cx26, Cx37, and Cx43 mRNAs remained relatively constant throughtout the three developmental stages examined, whereas Cx31.1 mRNA was 15–30 times more abundant in mature skin than in fetal skin. Antibodies specifically recognizing these connexin proteins were then used in conjunction with a recently described amplification technique to immunohistochemically stain sections of paraffin embedded rat tail epidermis. We show that Cx26, Cx31.1, Cx37, and Cx43 display overlapping but distinct patterns of expression within the keratinocyte cell layers of developing and mature epidermis. © 1994 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Renal Hemodynamics : Integrating With the Nephron and Beyond Effects of NKCC 2 isoform regulation on NaCl transport in thick ascending limb and macula densa : a modeling study

Aurélie Edwards, Hayo Castrop, Kamel Laghmani, Volker Vallon, and Anita T. Layton University of Paris 6, University of Paris 5, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale UMRS 1138, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique ERL 8228, Centre de Recherche des Cordeliers, Paris, France; Institute of Physiology University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany; Departments of Medicine and Pharmacology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, and San Diego Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, San Diego, California; and Department of Mathematics, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina