Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comorbid conditions as predictors of mortality in severe COPD – an eight-year follow-up cohort study

ABSTRACT Purpose Co-morbidities are common in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and are associated with increased morbidity and mortality. The aim of the present study was to explore the prevalence of several comorbid conditions in severe COPD, and to investigate and compare their associations with long-term mortality. Methods In May 2011 to March 2012, 241 patients with COPD stage 3 or 4 were included in the study. Information was collected on sex, age, smoking history, weight and height, current pharmacological treatment, number of exacerbations the recent year and comorbid conditions. At December 31st, 2019, mortality data (all-cause and cause specific) were collected from the National Cause of Death Register. Data were analyzed using Cox-regression analysis with gender, age, previously established predictors of mortality and comorbid conditions as independent variables, and all-cause mortality and cardiac and respiratory mortality, respectively, as dependent variables. Results Out of 241 patients, 155 (64%) were deceased at the end of the study period; 103 patients (66%) died of respiratory disease and 25 (16%) of cardiovascular disease. Impaired kidney function was the only comorbid condition independently associated with increased all-cause mortality (HR (95% CI) 3.41 (1.47-7.93) p=0.004) and respiratory mortality (HR (95%CI) 4.63 (1.61 to 13.4), p = 0.005). In addition, age ≥70, BMI <22 and lower FEV1 expressed as %predicted were significantly associated with increased all-cause and respiratory mortality. Conclusion In addition to the risk factors high age, low BMI and poor lung function; impaired kidney function appears to be an important risk factor for mortality in the long term, which should be taken into account in the medical care of patients with severe COPD.
Influence of Paper Properties and Printing Machines Properties on Optical Density in Electrophotography

: Electrophotography is affected by several parameters, including printing machines and paper type, which determine the final quality of reproduction. For the investigation of those effects, tests were done on the three types of electrophotography printing machines and eight types of uncoated paper with different properties of weight, surface roughness, whiteness, brightness and opacity. Samples were printed with cyan, magenta, yellow and black toner under the standard, identical conditions. The assessment of standard print quality parameter (optical density) was done using spectrodensitometer Techkon Spectro Dens. At the same time, the paper substrates were characterized using the atomic force microscopy (AFM) as well as by spectrophotometric measurements (X Rite Eye-One, i1). Obtained results showed that the reproducibility significantly depends on the type of printing machine rather than optical and mechanical properties of paper.
Cohomology-free diffeomorphisms of low-dimension tori

We study cohomology-free (c.f.) diffeomorphisms of the torus $T^n$. A diffeomorphism is c.f. if every smooth function $f$ on $T^n$ is cohomologous to a constant $f_0$, i.e. there exists a $C^{\infty}$ function $h$ so that $h-h\circ\varphi=f-f_0$. We show that the only c.f. diffeomorphisms of $T^n$, $1\le n\le3$, are the smooth conjugations of Diophantine translations. For $n=4$, we prove the same result for c.f. orientation-preserving diffeomorphisms.
Multivariable dead-beat control with robustness

This paper deals with the design of dead-beat control with optimal robustness for multivariable systems. First, a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of stabilizing dead-beat controllers is derived based on the YJB parametrization of all stabilizing controllers. Then, a robustness index is proposed that is optimized under the constraint of internal stability. The bound of robustness improvement is also shown by calculating the limit value of the robustness index. Finally, numerical examples are given to illustrate the theoretical results.
Inference in Panel Cointegration Models With Long Panels

This article presents a general likelihood-based framework for inference in panel vector autoregressive (VAR) models with cointegration restrictions. The cointegrating relationships are restricted to each cross section while the rest of the model is unrestricted. The homogeneous restriction of common cointegrating space is also considered. Asymptotic distributions of parameter estimators and the test statistics for the cointegrating rank and the homogeneous restriction are derived. The asymptotic distribution for the cointegrating rank is shown to be the convolution of the standard distribution of the trace statistic and the χ2 distribution. The homogeneous restriction test statistic is asymptotically χ2. A Monte Carlo simulation investigates the small-sample properties of the two tests. The empirical size of the test for the cointegrating rank is well above the nominal. A Bartlett-corrected test statistic is shown to have size very close to the nominal. We give an empirical example for a consumption model, including consumption, income, and inflation as well as considering the monetary exchange rate model of Groen and Kleibergen.
A New Visible Albedo Normalization Method: Quasi-Lambertian Surface Adjustment

AbstractA new visible (VIS; 0.55–0.9 μm) albedo normalization method, that is, the quasi-Lambertian surface adjustment (QLSA), is developed herein by using the geostationary meteorological satellite data and radiative transfer model. Taking the variation of relative locations between the sun, satellite, and clouds into account, the QLSA effectively reduces the inconsistencies in the VIS image brightness caused by the Lambertian surface approximation to cloud tops (i.e., the reflection characteristic is isotropic). The evaluation, using Chinese and Japanese geostationary satellite data, shows that the QLSA is more effective and accurate than three other albedo normalization methods currently in use. The new algorithm is applicable in regions with solar zenith angle and satellite zenith angle less than 60°, which, in the summertime, approximately corresponds to the time range from 0800 to 1600 local time (LT).
Two-Epoch Space VLBI Observations of the Gamma-Ray Loud Quasar PKS 1741–038

We present the results of high-resolution imaging of the gamma-ray loud quasar PKS 1741—038 with the HALCA satellite and ground radio telescopes. Observations were made at two epochs at an interval of nine months with the first-epoch observation at 1.6 and 5 GHz and with the second-epoch observation at 5 GHz. The source shows a very compact structure, but is clearly resolved in the space-ground baseline visibility data. The core component of the source has a brightness temperature, Tb, greater than 10 K in the source's rest frame at each frequency. We applied three individual jet models in order to derive the Doppler factor, 6. The core component has 6 ~ 14, considering the Tb limit due to the inverse Compton catastrophe, while a 2.5-times larger 8 is obtained assuming that the particles and magnetic field are in equipartition. Two-epoch images at 5 GHz show almost no change of the structure. Assuming that the component motion in this interval is less than our resolution, we derived the upper limit of the viewing angle as being 4. °8. The smaller viewing angle and higher Doppler factor favor the inverse Compton gamma-ray emission model; we conclude that the gamma-ray emission from this source is highly Doppler-boosted.
The Stellar Population in the rho Ophiuchi Cluster

We report a near-infrared survey of 200 arcmin 2 in the cores of the ρ Ophiuchi interstellar clouds, leading to the detection of 91 sources. We develop a new method for estimating the luminosities of these sources based on fitting of isochrones from theoretical models. Application of this method allows us to determine a luminosity function and accompanying initial mass function for the cluster of young stars forming in these clouds. The IMF extends to well below the bottom of the main sequence (0.08 M ○. ) with no obvious feature at the transition between stellar and substellar masses. The power-law exponent of the IMF at low stellar and substellar masses is roughly −1.3 to −1.1, with formal errors of 0.2
Spatiotemporal expression and regulation of peptidase inhibitor 3 and secretory leukocyte protease inhibitor at the maternal–fetal interface in pigs

Objective Two serine protease inhibitors, peptidase inhibitor 3 (PI3) and secretory leukocyte protease inhibitor (SLPI), play important roles in protease inhibition and antimicrobial activity, but their expression, regulation, and function at the maternal–fetal interface in pigs are not fully understood. Therefore, we determined the expression and regulation of PI3 and SLPI in the endometrium throughout the estrous cycle and at the maternal–fetal interface in pigs. Methods Endometrial tissues during the estrous cycle and pregnancy, conceptus tissues during early pregnancy, and chorioallantoic tissues during mid to late pregnancy were obtained, and the expression of PI3 and SLPI was analyzed. The effects of the steroid hormones estradiol-17β (E2) and progesterone (P4) on the expression of PI3 and SLPI were determined in endometrial explant cultures. Results PI3 and SLPI were expressed in the endometrium during the estrous cycle and pregnancy, with higher levels during mid to late pregnancy than during the estrous cycle and early pregnancy. Early-stage conceptuses and chorioallantoic tissues during mid to late pregnancy also expressed PI3 and SLPI. PI3 protein and SLPI mRNA were primarily localized to endometrial epithelia. In endometrial explant cultures, the expression of PI3 was induced by increasing doses of P4, and the expression of SLPI was induced by increasing doses of E2 and P4. Conclusion These results suggest that the PI3 and SLPI expressed in the endometrium and conceptus tissues play an important role in antimicrobial activity for fetal protection against potential pathogens and in blocking protease actions to allow epitheliochorial placenta formation.
Elliptic flow in Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s-NN) = 130 GeV

Elliptic flow from nuclear collisions is a hadronic observable sensitive to the early stages of system evolution. We report first results on elliptic flow of charged particles at midrapidity in Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN)=130 GeV using the STAR TPC at RHIC. The elliptic flow signal, v_2, averaged over transverse momentum, reaches values of about 6% for relatively peripheral collisions and decreases for the more central collisions. This can be interpreted as the observation of a higher degree of thermalization than at lower collision energies. Pseudorapidity and transverse momentum dependence of elliptic flow are also presented.
Alleviated environmental constraints and restructured fungal microbiome facilitate aggregate formation and stabilization in coastal mudflat saline soil amended by sewage sludge

Soil aggregates are important drivers of soil productivity. However, the relative importance of soil abiotic and biotic agents in driving aggregate formation and stabilization remain largely unexplored, especially in coastal mudflat saline soils. We amended saline soil with sewage sludge at rates of 0, 30, 75, and 150 t ha−1 to investigate the effects of sewage sludge on the particle size distribution and stability of soil aggregate and the underlying mechanisms induced by soil environmental factors and fungal community. Results revealed that the sewage sludge amendment significantly (p < 0.05) increased the proportion of macroaggregates with sizes larger than 0.25 mm (R0.25) and enhanced aggregate stability. Moreover, alleviation of saline‐alkali stress and nutrient (C, N, and P) deficiency conditions were significantly (p < 0.05) observed in sewage sludge‐amended soils. Additionally, restructured fungal communities in amended soils harbored significantly (p < 0.05) distinguishable structures and core and unique microbiomes. Particularly, fungal species belonging to Moterella significantly (p < 0.05) enriched in sludge reclaimed soils. Results derived from the random forest (RF) model accompanied by linear regression analysis revealed that soil pH, soil organic carbon, and fungal structural diversity were significantly (p < 0.05) related to aggregate composition (R0.25) and stability (geometric average diameter, GMD). Furthermore, fungal consortia composed of 20 closely interconnected operational taxonomic units (OTUs) affiliated with Ascomycota, Basidiomycota, and Zygomycota explained 28.36% and 49.88% variance of R0.25 and GMD, respectively. Overall, our results revealed the effect of sewage sludge on soil aggregation improvement in coastal areas and highlighted the respective importance of soil chemical properties and fungal microbiome in predicting aggregation status.
Estimating the entropy of discrete distributions

Given an i.i. d. sample (X/sub 1/,.,X/sub n/) drawn from an unknown discrete distribution P on a countably infinite set, we consider the problem of estimating the entropy of P. We show that the plug-in estimate is universally consistent and that, without further assumptions, no rate of convergence results can be obtained for any sequence of entropy estimates. Under additional conditions we get convergence rates for the plug-in estimate and for an estimate based on match-lengths. The behavior of the expected error of the plug-in estimate is shown to be in sharp contrast to the finite-alphabet case.
Nonlinear observer design using Lyapunov's auxiliary theorem

The work proposes an approach to the nonlinear observer design problem. Based on the early ideas that influenced the development of the linear Luenberger observer theory, the proposed approach develops a nonlinear analogue. The formulation of the observer design problem is realized via a system of first-order linear singular PDEs, and a rather general set of necessary and sufficient conditions for solvability is derived by using Lyapunov's auxiliary theorem. The solution to the above system of PDEs is locally analytic and this enables the development of a series solution method, that is easily programmable with the aid of a symbolic software package. Within the proposed design framework, both full-order and reduced-order observers are studied.
Relativistic quantum mechanical calculations of electron-impact broadening for spectral lines in Be-like ions

Aims. We present relativistic quantum mechanical calculations of electron-impact broadening of the singlet and triplet transition 2s3s ← 2s3p in four Be-like ions from NIV to NeVII. Methods. In our theoretical calculations, the K-matrix and related symmetry information determined by the colliding systems are generated by the DARC codes. Results. A careful comparison between our calculations and experimental results shows good agreement. Our calculated widths of spectral lines also agree with earlier theoretical results. Our investigations provide new methods of calculating electron-impact broadening parameters for plasma diagnostics.
Possible Species of “Ferroelastic” Crystals and of Simultaneously Ferroelectric and Ferroelastic Crystals

It is convenient to grasp crystals of a kind as “ferroelastic” crystals. They are defined analogously to “ferroelectric” crystals, mechanical strain and stress in the former corresponding to electric polarization and field in the latter respectively. The order of magnitude of the coercive stress for ferroelastic state-shifts which corresponds to the coercive field for ferroelectric state-shifts is expected, on the average, to be 10 2 newt·cm -2 . A determination is made of all theoretically possible species of ferroelastic crystals and the number of states and ferroelectricity or nonferroelctricity in each of these species. It is found that there are 94 of these ferroelastic species and that 42 of them are simultaneously ferroelectric. Incidentally, an alteration is made of the hitherto used symbols for the 88 species of ferroeletric crystals.
Structure and dynamics of the convective boundary layer on Mars as inferred from large‐eddy simulations and remote‐sensing measurements

The structure of the Martian convective boundary layer (BL) is decribed by means of a novel approach involving both modelling and data analysis. Mars Express radio‐occultation (RO) temperature profiles are compared to large‐eddy simulations (LESs) performed with the Martian mesoscale model. The model combines the Martian radiative transfer, soil and surface layer schemes designed at Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (LMD) with the most recent version of the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) fully compressible non‐hydrostatic dynamical core. The key roles of the vertical resolution and, to lesser extent, of the domain horizontal extent have been investigated to ensure the robustness of the LES results. The dramatic regional variations of the BL depth are quantitatively reproduced by the Martian LES. Intense BL dynamics are found to underlie the measured depths (up to 9 km): vertical speed up to 20 m s−1, heat flux up to 2.7 K m s−1 and turbulent kinetic energy up to 26 m2 s−2. Under specific conditions, both the model and the measurements show a distinctive positive correlation between surface topography and BL depth. Our interpretation is that, in the tenuous CO2 Martian near‐surface environment, the daytime BL is to first order controlled by the infrared radiative heating, fairly independent of elevation, which implies a simple correlation between the BL potential temperature and the inverse pressure (‘pressure effect’). No prominent ‘pressure effect’ is in action on Earth where sensible heat flux dominates the BL energy budget. Both RO observations and numerical simulations confirm the terrain‐following behaviour of near‐surface temperature on Mars induced by the dominant radiative influence. The contribution of the Martian sensible heat flux is not negligible and results in a given isotherm in the BL being comparatively closer to the ground at higher surface elevation. The strong radiative control of the Martian convective BL implies a generalised formulation for the BL dimensionless quantities. Based on this formulation and the variety of simulated BL depths by the LES, new similarity relationships for the Martian convective BL in quasi‐steady midday conditions are derived. Rigorous comparisons between the Martian and terrestrial BL and fast computations of the mean Martian BL turbulent statistics are now made possible by such similarity laws. Copyright © 2010 Royal Meteorological Society
Stability of global and exponential attractors for a three‐dimensional conserved phase‐field system with memory

We consider a conserved phase‐field system on a tri‐dimensional bounded domain. The heat conduction is characterized by memory effects depending on the past history of the (relative) temperature ϑ, which is represented through a convolution integral whose relaxation kernel k is a summable and decreasing function. Therefore, the system consists of a linear integrodifferential equation for ϑ, which is coupled with a viscous Cahn–Hilliard type equation governing the order parameter χ. The latter equation contains a nonmonotone nonlinearity ϕ and the viscosity effects are taken into account by a term −αΔ∂tχ, for some α⩾0. Rescaling the kernel k with a relaxation time ε>0, we formulate a Cauchy–Neumann problem depending on ε and α. Assuming a suitable decay of k, we prove the existence of a family of exponential attractors {ℰα,ε} for our problem, whose basin of attraction can be extended to the whole phase–space in the viscous case (i.e. when α>0). Moreover, we prove that the symmetric Hausdorff distance of ℰα,ε from a proper lifting of ℰα,0 tends to 0 in an explicitly controlled way, for any fixed α⩾0. In addition, the upper semicontinuity of the family of global attractors {𝒜α,ε} as ε→0 is achieved for any fixed α>0. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Some remarks on Gauss sums associated with kth powers

Estimates for rational trigonometric sums are of great importance in analysing the local aspects of many additive problems. Indeed, bounds for the sums in which e(α) denotes exp (2πiα), play a fundamental rôle in the application of the Hardy–Littlewood method to Waring's problem (see [11]), and also in the analysis of the local solubility of systems of additive equations (see, for example, [2]). When k ≥ 2 is an integer, and p is a prime number it is well known (see [5] or [11, lemma 4·3]) that
A multivariate piecing-together approach with an application to operational loss data

The univariate piecing-together approach (PT) fits a univariate generalized Pareto distribution (GPD) to the upper tail of a given distribution function in a continuous manner. We propose a multivariate extension. First it is shown that an arbitrary copula is in the domain of attraction of a multivariate extreme value distribution if and only if its upper tail can be approximated by the upper tail of a multivariate GPD with uniform margins. The multivariate PT then consists of two steps: The upper tail of a given copula $C$ is cut off and substituted by a multivariate GPD copula in a continuous manner. The result is again a copula. The other step consists of the transformation of each margin of this new copula by a given univariate distribution function. This provides, altogether, a multivariate distribution function with prescribed margins whose copula coincides in its central part with $C$ and in its upper tail with a GPD copula. When applied to data, this approach also enables the evaluation of a wide range of rational scenarios for the upper tail of the underlying distribution function in the multivariate case. We apply this approach to operational loss data in order to evaluate the range of operational risk.
A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Bag Extraction Versus Direct Extraction for Retrieval of Gallbladder After Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy

This analysis aims to evaluate the comparative outcomes of gallbladder extraction with a bag versus direct extraction in laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC). A systematic online search was conducted using the following databases: PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane database, The Virtual Health Library, Clinical trials.gov, and Science Direct. Comparative studies comparing bag versus direct extraction of the gallbladder in LC were included. Outcomes were surgical site infection (SSI), the extension of fascial defect to extract the gallbladder, intra-abdominal collection, bile spillage, and port-site hernia. Revman 5.4 (Cochrane, London, United Kingdom) was used for the data analysis. The results show eight studies were eligible to be included in this review with a total number of 1805 patients divided between endo-bag (n=835) and direct extraction (n=970). Four of the included studies were randomized controlled trials (RCTs) while the rest were observational studies. The rate of SSI and bile spillage were significantly higher in the direct extraction group: odds ratio (OR)=2.50, p=0.006 and OR=2.83, p=0.01, respectively. Comparable results were observed regarding intra-abdominal collection between the two groups(OR=0.01, p=0.51). However, the extension of a fascial defect was higher in the endo-bag group (OR=0.22, p=0.00001), and no difference was observed regarding the port-site hernia rate (OR-0.70, p=0.55). In conclusion, extraction of the gallbladder with an endo-bag provides a lower rate of SSI and bile spillage with similar results regarding post-operative intra-abdominal collection. Although with the endo-bag, the fascial defect will more likely need to be increased to extract the gallbladder. However, the port-site hernia rate remains similar between the two groups.