Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Novel Method for Classification of ECG Arrhythmias Using Deep Belief Networks

In this paper, a novel approach based on deep belief networks (DBN) for electrocardiograph (ECG) arrhythmias classification is proposed. The construction process of ECG classification model consists of two steps: features learning for ECG signals and supervised fine-tuning. In order to deeply extract features from continuous ECG signals, two types of restricted Boltzmann machine (RBM) including Gaussian–Bernoulli and Bernoulli–Bernoulli are stacked to form DBN. The parameters of RBM can be learned by two training algorithms such as contrastive divergence and persistent contrastive divergence. A suitable feature representation from the raw ECG data can therefore be extracted in an unsupervised way. In order to enhance the performance of DBN, a fine-tuning process is carried out, which uses backpropagation by adding a softmax regression layer on the top of the resulting hidden representation layer to perform multiclass classification. The method is then validated by experiments on the well-known MIT-BIH arrhythmia database. Considering the real clinical application, the inter-patient heartbeat dataset is divided into two sets and grouped into four classes (N, S, V, F) following the recommendations of AAMI. The experiment results show our approach achieves better performance with less feature learning time than traditional hand-designed methods on the classification of ECG arrhythmias.
Intelligent gaze-added interfaces

We discuss a novel type of interface, the intelligent gaze-added interface, and describe the design and evaluation of a sample gaze-added operating-system interface. Gaze-added interfaces, like current gaze-based systems, allow users to execute commands using their eyes. However, while most gaze-based systems replace the functionality of other inputs with that of gaze, gaze-added interfaces simply add gaze functionality that the user can employ if and when desired. Intelligent gaze-added interfaces utilize a probabilistic algorithm and user model to interpret gaze focus and alleviate typical problems with eye-taking data. We extended a standard WIMP operating-system interface into a new interface, IGO, that incorporates intelligent gaze-added input. In a user study, we found that users quickly adapted to the new interface and utilized gaze effectively both alone and with other inputs.
Corrosion Behavior of Epoxy Coating Containing Poly-dopamine Modified Hexagonal Boron Nitride

In order to improve the dispersion of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) in the solvents and organic matrix, and to investigate the effect of h-BN on the corrosion resistance of epoxy coating, polydopamine was modified on the h-BN to achieve the well dispersion stability of h-BN in the solvents and epoxy coating. The corresponding morphology, chemical composition and thermal stability were characterized by SEM, TEM, XPS, Raman spectrum and TG. In addition, the corrosion behavior of the epoxy coating and h-BN@PDA/epoxy coating was investigated in 3.5%NaCl solution by electrochemical measurements. The results indicate that h-BN@PDA/epoxy composite coating exhibites nobler open circuit potential (-0.1 V), higher impedance modulus and coating resistance (~10~(10)Omega·cm~2), lower breakpoint frequency (~0.1 Hz) than those of the epoxy coating during long time immersion in 3.5 % NaCl solution. Furthmore, very little corrosion is found at the substrate surface coated with h-BN@PDA/epoxy composite coating, indicating the outstanding corrosion resistance of the composite coating. Addition of h-BN nanosheets can reduce the coatings porosity and inhibit the penetration of corrosive medium, which helps to improve the corrosion resistance of the composite coating.
Dietary calcium intake and risk of obesity in school girls aged 8-10 years

Background: Some studies have demonstrated the role of calcium in reducing body mass index (BMI) or fat mass. Though, BMI does not provide very valid information about changes in body fat mass, Fat Mass Index (FMI) relates body fat mass to height and allows comparing body fat mass of individuals at different heights. This study investigated the possible association between dietary calcium intake (CI) and other nutritional factors and weight status of girls aged 8-10 years. Materials and Methods: In this case-control study, 110 girls aged 8-10 with FMI at or above 7.2 kg/m2 as cases and 307 girls with FMI less than 7.2 kg/m2 as controls were recruited through multistage cluster random sampling. FMI at or above 7.2 kg/m2 was considered as the cutoff point for obesity. Body fat mass was assessed by a stand on bio impedance analyzer. In order to assess CI, participants were asked to complete a validated food frequency questionnaire. Results: Mean and standard deviation of CI in the case group was significantly lower than the control group 649 ± 103 and 951 ± 152 mg/d, respectively (P < 0.01). After Adjustment for total energy intake, the percentage of energy from fat, carbohydrate and protein in quartiles of physical activity, inverse association between CI and obesity was significant and in the highest quartile of physical activity the association was weaker. By further adjustment for the effect of fruits and vegetable intake inverse association between CI and obesity became weaker but yet was significant. Conclusion: The inverse relationship between CI and FMI remained significant even after controlling for confounding factors. FMI may be more accurate, compared to BMI, in showing the association between CI and obesity.
Cleavage of yeast and bacteriophage T7 genomes at a single site using the rare cutter endonuclease I-Sce I

It is obvious that the availability of rare cutter restriction endonucleases would facilitate large scale genome mapping, cloning and sequencing projects. Restriction endonucleases of bacterial origin have recognition sites of 8 bp long, at most, and even when used in combination with methylases they can produce cleavage specificities of up to 12 bp only (1). Artificial endonucleases have been made by chemical modifications of either DNA binding proteins (2) or synthetic oligodeoxynucleotides (3). Although this last strategy can, in principle, be generalized to many sequences, cleavage occurs at low efficiency. Cleavage of yeast and E. coli genomic DNAs at a single predetermined site using a frequent cutter bacterial endonuclease has recently been achieved by the Achille's heel method, an elegant three step procedure combining the action of the lac repressor on artificially inserted sites with that of a methylase (4). We present here the first evidence for cleavage of total yeast genomic DNA at a single predetermined site in a one step procedure using a new endonuclease, l-Sce I, encoded by a mobile group I intron of yeast mitochondria. We further show that, although l-Sce I is extremely specific, cleavable sites can also be found in natural DNA.
A positive feedback loop stabilizes the guanine‐nucleotide exchange factor Cdc24 at sites of polarization

In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, activation of Cdc42 by its guanine‐nucleotide exchange factor Cdc24 triggers polarization of the actin cytoskeleton at bud emergence and in response to mating pheromones. The adaptor protein Bem1 localizes to sites of polarized growth where it interacts with Cdc42, Cdc24 and the PAK‐like kinase Cla4. We have isolated Bem1 mutants (Bem1‐m), which are specifically defective for binding to Cdc24. The mutations map within the conserved PB1 domain, which is necessary and sufficient to interact with the octicos peptide repeat (OPR) motif of Cdc24. Although Bem1‐m mutant proteins localize normally, bem1‐m cells are unable to maintain Cdc24 at sites of polarized growth. As a consequence, they are defective for apical bud growth and the formation of mating projections. Localization of Bem1 to the incipient bud site requires activated Cdc42, and conversely, expression of Cdc42–GTP is sufficient to accumulate Bem1 at the plasma membrane. Thus, our results suggest that Bem1 functions in a positive feedback loop: local activation of Cdc24 produces Cdc42–GTP, which recruits Bem1. In turn, Bem1 stabilizes Cdc24 at the site of polarization, leading to apical growth.
Core-stateless guaranteed rate scheduling algorithms

Many per-flow scheduling algorithms have been proposed to provide rate and delay guarantees to flows. It is often argued that the need for maintaining per-flow state and performing per-packet classification seriously limits the scalability of routers that employ such per-flow scheduling algorithms. Consequently, design of algorithms that can provide per-flow rate and delay guarantees without requiring per-flow functionality in the network core routers has become an active area of research. We propose a methodology to transform any guaranteed rate (GR) per-flow scheduling algorithm into a version that does not require per-flow state to be maintained in the core routers. We prove that a network of such core-stateless servers provides the same delay guarantee as a corresponding network of GR servers.
Disability and Quality of Life of Subjects with Bipolar Affective Disorder in Remission

Background: Despite significant advances in pharmacological and psychological therapies for bipolar disorder, many people continue to have less than optimal outcomes, which are associated with significant disability and poor quality of life (QOL). This study aimed to assess the disability and QOL and factors associated with such suboptimal outcomes in subjects with bipolar disorder in remission. Methods: Consecutive patients diagnosed to have bipolar disorder in remission attending the Department of Psychiatry, MOSC Medical College, Kerala, India were recruited for the study. They were assessed using the International Classification of Diseases Diagnostic Criteria for Research-10, Hamilton Scale for Depression, Young's Mania Rating Scale, World Health Organization-QOL (WHO QOL-BREF), WHO-Disability Assessment Scale (WHO-DAS), and Kuppuswamy's scale for socioeconomic status assessment. Results: Eighty-four patients were evaluated. The mean total WHO-DAS score was 19.2 ± 2.09, the maximum disability in domain 4 (getting along) followed by domain 2 (mobility). The mean total WHO-QOL BREF score was 54.26 ± 2.85, the lowest subscore in domain 3 (social interactions). Disability scores were significantly associated with increasing age, female gender, not being an earning member of the family, and lower QOL scores. Poorer QOL scores were significantly associated with increasing age and higher disability score. Conclusions: Many bipolar patients in remission have significant disability and poorer QOL. There is a need for longitudinal studies to explore such associations and develop interventions to reduce the disability thereby enhancing the QOL.
Short-term effects of CO2, nutrients and temperature on three marine macroalgae under solar radiation

Three macroalgal species belonging to Chlorophyta (Ulva rigida), Rhodophyta (Ellisolandia elongata) and Phaeophyceae (Heterokontophyta; Cystoseira tamariscifolia), natu- rally growing at the same shore level and representing 3 morpho-functional groups, were exposed to short-term changes in temperature under different carbon and nitrogen regimes. Experiments were conducted in outdoor tanks at 4 combinations of carbon and nitrogen levels under reduced solar radiation. In vivo chl a fluorescence parameters and pigment contents were monitored to assess diurnal physiological responses and potential for recovery. Strong fluctuations in chl a flu- orescence parameters, but not in chl a content, were observed in response to diurnal variation in solar radiation and light climate within the tanks; sensitivity varied between algal species and, in some cases, depended on the carbon and nitrogen regime. Nitrogen uptake was similarly high in U. rigida and E. elongata and lowest in C. tamariscifolia. In U. rigida and E. elongata, chl a con- centrations decreased after high-carbon treatments. Effective photosystem II quantum efficiency was reduced in all species at noon, and lowest in C. tamariscifolia. The results highlight the com- plexity of physiological short-term acclimations which were most likely linked to biochemical changes at the cellular level. Long-term experiments are required in future for more comprehen- sive investigation of the observed interactive effects of the different environmental parameters.
Bias and controversy: beyond the statistical deviation

In this paper, we investigate how deviation in evaluation activities may reveal bias on the part of reviewers and controversy on the part of evaluated objects. We focus on a 'data-centric approach' where the evaluation data is assumed to represent the 'ground truth'. The standard statistical approaches take evaluation and deviation at face value. We argue that attention should be paid to the subjectivity of evaluation, judging the evaluation score not just on 'what is being said' (deviation), but also on 'who says it' (reviewer) as well as on 'whom it is said about' (object). Furthermore, we observe that bias and controversy are mutually dependent, as there is more bias if there is higher deviation on a less controversial object. To address this mutual dependency, we propose a reinforcement model to identify bias and controversy. We test our model on real-life data to verify its applicability.
Infinitary affine proofs

Even though the multiplicative–additive fragment of linear logic forbids structural rules in general, is does admit a bounded form of exponential modalities enjoying a bounded form of structural rules. The approximation theorem, originally proved by Girard, states that if full linear logic proves a propositional formula, then the multiplicative–additive fragment proves every bounded approximation of it. This may be understood as the fact that multiplicative–additive linear logic is somehow dense in full linear logic. Our goal is to give a technical formulation of this informal remark. We introduce a Cauchy-complete space of infinitary affine term-proofs and we show that it yields a fully complete model of multiplicative exponential polarised linear logic, in the style of Girard's ludics. Moreover, the subspace of finite term-proofs, which is a model of multiplicative polarised linear logic, is dense in the space of all term-proofs.
Magnetocaloric materials: From micro- to nanoscale

Twenty one years ago, the discovery of the giant magnetocaloric effect (GMCE) at room temperature completely revolutionized the magnetocaloric materials field demonstrating the potential of magnetic refrigeration at room temperature and setting the beginning of a race for the best magnetocaloric material. Since then, hundreds of different bulk magnetic materials were studied in detail; however, only a small set of these exhibit GMCE. In the last ten years, the broad interest on these materials leads to the extension of their study to the micro- and nanoscale. In this review, we highlight the main motivations for exploring the size-reduction both from the technological and the purely scientific point of view and stress the general consequences on the magnetic and magnetocaloric properties. The emergence of different underlying mechanisms driving these effects will be identified with particular emphasis for the set of materials presenting GMCE.
Earnings Shocks and the Idiosyncratic Volatility Anomaly in the Cross- Section of Stock Returns

Ang, Hodrick, Xing, and Zhang (2006, 2009) document a puzzling negative relation between idiosyncratic volatility and cross-section of stock returns. This paper examines whether this idiosyncratic volatility discount is related to earnings shocks, and finds that a substantial portion of the idiosyncratic volatility discount can be explained by earnings momentum and post-formation earnings shocks. When these two effects are accounted for, idiosyncratic volatility has little, if any, return predictability. In addition, earnings momentum alone can explain at least 42% of the idiosyncratic volatility discount.
WebOS: operating system services for wide area applications

Demonstrates the power of providing a common set of operating system services to wide-area applications, including mechanisms for naming, persistent storage, remote process execution, resource management, authentication and security. On a single machine, application developers can rely on the local operating system to provide these abstractions. In the wide area, however, application developers are forced to build these abstractions themselves or to do without. This ad-hoc approach often results in individual programmers implementing non-optimal solutions, wasting both programmer effort and system resources. To address these problems, we are building a system, WebOS, that provides the basic operating systems services needed to build applications that are geographically distributed, highly available, incrementally scalable and dynamically reconfigurable. Experience with a number of applications developed under WebOS indicates that it simplifies system development and improves resource utilization. In particular, we use WebOS to implement Rent-A-Server to provide dynamic replication of overloaded Web services across the wide area in response to client demands.
ASOSI: Asymmetric Operating System Infrastructure

At the present time, when the usage of super-computers has been brought into play and turned out to be more widespread, the research of Asymmetric Operating Systems has been gathering speed, because super-computers more often than not run an Asymmetric Operating System. In this paper some new algorithms and implementations designed in our group and based on our ASOSI framework are presented.
Solution structure of a tethered Lmo2LIM2/Ldb1LID complex

LIM‐only protein 2, Lmo2, is a regulatory protein that is essential for hematopoietic development and inappropriate overexpression of Lmo2 in T‐cells contributes to T‐cell leukemia. It exerts its functions by mediating protein–protein interactions and nucleating multicomponent transcriptional complexes. Lmo2 interacts with LIM domain binding protein 1 (Ldb1) through the tandem LIM domains of Lmo2 and the LIM interaction domain (LID) of Ldb1. Here, we present the solution structure of the LIM2 domain of Lmo2 bound to Ldb1LID. The ordered regions of Ldb1 in this complex correspond well with binding hotspots previously defined by mutagenic studies. Comparisons of this Lmo2LIM2–Ldb1LID structure with previously determined structures of the Lmo2/Ldb1LID complexes lead to the conclusion that modular binding of tandem LIM domains in Lmo2 to tandem linear motifs in Ldb1 is accompanied by several disorder‐to‐order transitions and/or conformational changes in both proteins.
Autohydrolyzed Low-Cost Biomass and Adsorbent Aging

Autohydrolysis or self-hydrolysis or hydrothermal treatment of lignocellulosic materials like sawdust and straw is already used in bioethanol industry for water soluble fermentable sugars production. The main idea in this paper is the use of the autohydrolysis and other thermochemical treatments’ solid residue as an adsorbent. In this study continuous fixed-bed-column systems were investigated. Continue-flow experiments were carried out on stainless steel columns with dimensions 15 × 2.5 and 25 × 2.5 cm. In chemical processing, a packed bed is a hollow tube, pipe, or other vessel that is filled with a packing material.
Severe Infectious Complications following Frontal Sinus Fracture: The Impact of Operative Delay and Perioperative Antibiotic Use

Background: The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a delay in operative management of frontal sinus fractures is associated with increased risk of serious infections. Methods: Retrospective chart review was performed of 242 consecutive patients with surgically managed frontal sinus fractures who presented to the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center between 1996 and 2011. Collected patient characteristics included demographics, surgical management, hospital course, and complications. All computed tomographic imaging was reviewed to evaluate involvement of the posterior table and nasofrontal outflow tract. Serious infections included meningitis, encephalitis, brain abscess, frontal sinus abscess, and osteomyelitis. Delayed operative interventions were defined as procedures performed more than 48 hours after admission. Adjusted relative risk estimates were obtained using multivariable regression. Results: There were 14 serious infections (5.8 percent). All patients with serious infections had both involvement of the posterior table and nasofrontal outflow tract injury. The cumulative incidence of serious infection in these patients was 10.8 percent. After adjustments for confounding, multivariable regression showed that operative delay beyond 48 hours was independently associated with a 4.03-fold (p < 0.05) increased risk for serious infection; external cerebrospinal fluid drainage catheter use and local soft-tissue infection conferred a 4.09-fold (p < 0.05) and 5.10-fold (p < 0.001) increased risk, respectively. Antibiotic use beyond 48 hours postoperatively was not associated with fewer infections. Conclusions: Delay in operative management of frontal sinus fractures in patients requiring operative intervention is associated with an increased risk for serious infections. Continued antibiotic prophylaxis beyond the perioperative period provides little benefit in preventing serious infections. CLINICAL QUESTION/LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Risk, II.
International Journal of Women's Health Dovepress Dovepress Gender-related Mortality for Hiv-infected Patients on Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (haart) in Rural Uganda

The purpose of this study was to examine gender differences in mortality for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) patients in rural Western Uganda after six months of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). Three hundred eighty five patients were followed up for six months after initiating HAART. Statistical analysis included descriptive, univariate and multivari-ate methods, using Kaplan–Meier estimates of survival distribution and Cox proportional hazards regression. Mortality in female patients (9.0%) was lower than mortality in males (13.5%), with the difference being almost statistically significant (adjusted hazard ratio for females 0.55; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.28–1.07; P = 0.08). At baseline, female patients had a significantly higher CD4+ cell count than male patients (median 147 cells/µL vs 120 cells/µL; P  0.01). A higher CD4+ cell count and primary level education were strongly associated with better survival. The higher CD4+ cell count in females may indicate that they accessed HAART services at an earlier stage of their disease progression than males. A borderline statistically significant lower mortality rate in females shows that females fare better on treatment in this context than males. The association between lower mortality and higher CD4+ levels suggest that males are not accessing treatment early enough and that more concerted efforts need to be made by HAART programs to reach male HIV patients.