Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
REM Sleep Latency in Major Depressed Patients Predicts Mood Improvement After Transdermal Nicotine Administration

C mechanisms underlying (Rapid Eye Movement) REM sleep have been supported through different studies (1). In major depression, a hypersensitivity of the cholinergic system has been proposed (2). Cholinergic challenges have been used as a test for hypersensitivity of the cholinergic system in depressed patients and in the first degree relatives, looking for changes in sleep variables (3). Glassman et al (4), have reported a high frequency of cigarette smoking among individuals who have experienced major depression, while smokers with major depression have been less successful than non depressed smokers in their attempts to quit smoking (5). Recently it has been shown that a subgroup of subjects during smokingcessation treatment developed major depression disorder although some of them were on fluoxetine 30 mg/day (6). Transdermal nicotine has been used in normal volunteers in order to evaluate its effects on sleep. A doseresponse curve with two doses of nicotine (7 and 14 mg) and placebo patches were studied. The main changes were reduction in both total sleep and REM sleep times (7). Nicotine transdermal patches were studied in a comparative study between normal volunteers and major depressed patients (8). Normal volunteers reduced both total sleep time as well as REM sleep, as previously reported, but depressed patients showed an increase in total sleep time and REM sleep time. Depressed patients also showed a short-lasting improvement in mood. Antidepressant effect of four days administration of nicotine patches was also reported in 10 major depressed patients. After the second day of nicotine administration, a significant reduction of Hamilton Depression Scale (HAMD) was observed. Patients relapsed after 2 to 4 days of the last nicotine path (9). In a sleep study with 6 major depressed patients and 6 normal volunteers with four continuos nights of transdermal nicotine administration, it REM Sleep Latency in Major Depressed Patients Predicts Mood Improvement After Transdermal Nicotine Administration
Supervised Syntax-based Alignment between English Sentences and Abstract Meaning Representation Graphs

As alignment links are not given between English sentences and Abstract Meaning Representation (AMR) graphs in the AMR annotation, automatic alignment becomes indispensable for training an AMR parser. Previous studies formalize it as a string-to-string problem and solve it in an unsupervised way, which suffers from data sparseness due to the small size of training data for English-AMR alignment. In this paper, we formalize it as a syntax-based alignment problem and solve it in a supervised manner based on syntax trees, which can address the data sparseness problem by generalizing English-AMR tokens to syntax tags. Experiments verify the effectiveness of the proposed method not only for English-AMR alignment, but also for AMR parsing.
Synthesising contextually appropriate intonation in limited domains

We describe a method of synthesising contextually appropriate intonation with limited domain unit selection voices. The method enables the natural language generation component of a dialogue system to specify its intonation choices via APML, an XML-based markup language. In a pilot study, we built an APML-aware limited domain voice for use in flight information dialogues, and carried out a perception experiment comparing the APML voice to a default version built using the same recordings without the additional structure. The intonation produced by the APML voice was judged significantly more contextually appropriate than that of the default voice. These results justified building a second voice with a much larger vocabulary, using an automated script generation algorithm.
On effective multi-dimensional indexing for strings

As databases have expanded in scope from storing purely business data to include XML documents, product catalogs, e-mail messages, and directory data, it has become increasingly important to search databases based on wild-card string matching: prefix matching, for example, is more common (and useful) than exact matching, for such data. In many cases, matches need to be on multiple attributes/dimensions, with correlations between the dimensions. Traditional multi-dimensional index structures, designed with (fixed length) numeric data in mind, are not suitable for matching unbounded length string data. In this paper, we describe a general technique for adapting a multi-dimensional index structure for wild-card indexing of unbounded length string data. The key ideas are (a) a carefully developed mapping function from strings to rational numbers, (b) representing an unbounded length string in an index leaf page by a fixed length offset to an external key, and (c) storing multiple elided tries, one per dimension, in an index page to prune search during traversal of index pages. These basic ideas affect all index algorithms. In this paper, we present efficient algorithms for different types of string matching. While our technique is applicable to a wide range of multi-dimensional index structures, we instantiate our generic techniques by adapting the 2-dimensional R-tree to string data. We demonstrate the space effectiveness and time benefits of using the string R-tree both analytically and experimentally.
Cardiac Remodeling: Concepts, Clinical Impact, Pathophysiological Mechanisms and Pharmacologic Treatment

Cardiac remodeling is defined as a group of molecular, cellular and interstitial changes that manifest clinically as changes in size, mass, geometry and function of the heart after injury. The process results in poor prognosis because of its association with ventricular dysfunction and malignant arrhythmias. Here, we discuss the concepts and clinical implications of cardiac remodeling, and the pathophysiological role of different factors, including cell death, energy metabolism, oxidative stress, inflammation, collagen, contractile proteins, calcium transport, geometry and neurohormonal activation. Finally, the article describes the pharmacological treatment of cardiac remodeling, which can be divided into three different stages of strategies: consolidated, promising and potential strategies.
Antibacterial and Anti-Biofilm Activities of Ambroxol Against Oral Bacteria

The first stage to develop periodontal disease and caries is to get a biofilm of oral bacteria. This oral biofilm presents similitude with bronchial mucus, therefore in theory we can use mucolytic agents to eradicate oral biofilm. Ambroxol is a mucolytic agent employed to eradicate this kind of mucus in patients with cystic fibrosis. However, there are no reports about the capability of ambroxol against oral bacteria. The aim of this study was determine the antimicrobial and antibiofilm effectiveness of ambroxol against oral bacteria. The bactericidal activity of ambroxol was determined by using the cell viability MTT assay. The Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) of ambroxol to interfere with oral bacteria growth was detected. At same time, the anti-biofilm activity of ambroxol was explored by fluorescence microscopy. Within our results, ambroxol showed an important bactericidal activity since 4 mg/ml as final concentration. The MIC estimated for ambroxol was 1mg/ml against oral bacteria. At this concentration, ambroxol was capable to inhibit the oral biofilm formation added in the inoculation time. Also, it was effective to remove a mature oral biofilm. As conclusion, ambroxol is a good therapeutic alternative for prevent or treatment of oral diseases. Keyword: Mucolytic Agent, Antimicrobial Activity, Biofilm, S. mutans.
Efficient and Rapid C. elegans Transgenesis by Bombardment and Hygromycin B Selection

We report a simple, cost-effective, scalable and efficient method for creating transgenic Caenorhabditis elegans that requires minimal hands-on time. The method combines biolistic bombardment with selection for transgenics that bear a hygromycin B resistance gene on agar plates supplemented with hygromycin B, taking advantage of our observation that hygromycin B is sufficient to kill wild-type C. elegans at very low concentrations. Crucially, the method provides substantial improvements in the success of bombardments for isolating transmitting strains, the isolation of multiple independent strains, and the isolation of integrated strains: 100% of bombardments in a large data set yielded transgenics; 10 or more independent strains were isolated from 84% of bombardments, and up to 28 independent strains were isolated from a single bombardment; 82% of bombardments yielded stably transmitting integrated lines with most yielding multiple integrated lines. We anticipate that the selection will be widely adopted for C. elegans transgenesis via bombardment, and that hygromycin B resistance will be adopted as a marker in other approaches for manipulating, introducing or deleting DNA in C. elegans.
Recognition of Vowel Segments in Spanish Esophageal Speech Using Hidden Markov Models

This paper presents a system for recognition of voiced segments in Spanish esophageal speech. It exposes different algorithms for the feature extraction of speech segment like formant analysis, linear prediction coefficients (LPC) and mel frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC), as well as, the recognition stage through the hidden Markov models. Simulation results are presented for normal and esophageal speech. The system was implemented in a real time processing platform based on a digital signal processor TMS320C5416 of Texas Instruments
Mouse translation elongation factor eEF1A‐2 interacts with Prdx‐I to protect cells against apoptotic death induced by oxidative stress

eEF1A‐1 and eEF1A‐2 are two isoforms of translation elongation factor eEF1A. In adult mammalian tissues, isoform eEF1A‐1 is present in all tissues except neurons, cardiomyocytes, and myotubes, where its isoform, eEF1A‐2, is the only form expressed. Both forms of eEF1A have been characterized to function in the protein elongation step of translation, and eEF1A‐1 is shown to possess additional non‐canonical roles in actin binding/bundling, microtubule bundling/severing, and cellular transformation processes. To study whether eEF1A‐2 has similar non‐canonical functions, we carried out a yeast two‐hybrid screening using a full sequence of mouse eEF1A‐2 as bait. A total of 78 hits, representing 23 proteins, were identified and validated to be true positives. We have focused on the protein with the highest frequency of hits, peroxiredoxin I (Prdx‐I), for in‐depth study of its functional implication for eEF1A‐2. Here we show that Prdx‐I coimmunoprecipitates with eEF1A‐2 from extracts of both cultured cells and mouse tissues expressing this protein, but it does not do so with its isoform, eEF1A‐1, even though the latter is abundantly present. We also report that an eEF1A‐2 and Prdx‐I double transfectant increases resistance to peroxide‐induced cell death as high as 1 mM peroxide treatment, significantly higher than do single transfectants with either gene alone; this protection is correlated with reduced activation of caspases 3 and 8, and with increased expression of pro‐survival factor Akt. Thus, our results suggest that eEF1A‐2 interacts with Prdx‐I to functionally provide cells with extraordinary resistance to oxidative stress‐induced cell death. J. Cell. Biochem. 100: 267–278, 2007. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Systematic and random mismatch characterization in device arrays

A general methodology of device array mismatch characterization is introduced, analyzed and verified. Instead of measuring each device's parameter individually, the device array is configured as a data converter and the mismatch information is extracted from the differential linearity (DNL) of the converter. Systematic and random mismatch are characterized separately using the proposed decomposition method with robustness to additive measurement noise. An 8-bit high precision resistor array is fabricated in Globalfoundries 0. 13μm TaN thin film resistor process. Measurement results show that systematic mismatch contributes to a large portion of the total mismatch when the matching accuracy comes down to 0.01% level.
The Relation Between Self-Compassion, Body Image, and Mood: How Do Women Internalize Weight-Related Feedback?

Objective: Body dissatisfaction has been identified as a risk factor for depression and eating pathology, whereas, self-compassion has been associated with higher quality of life. This study sought to examine the relationship between negative body image and self-compassion as risk or protective factors for weight and body composition related feedback mood changes. Method: This deception study used a true-experimental, preand post-test design in a sample of 117 female graduate and medical students and college staff, aged 18 to 45 years; women diagnosed with eating disorders were excluded. After completing baseline questionnaires (including mood, body image, and self-compassion), participants had their weight and body fat percentage measured. Changes in self-reported mood were examined after participants were given weight and body fat readings, respectively, that were either: (a) accurate; (A) (b) false higher (FH) by 5 pounds and 4 body fat percentage points; or (c) false lower (FL) by 5 pounds and 4 body fat percentage points. Results: The FH group reported an average 14.6% mood reduction, whereas the FL and A feedback groups showed very little change in mood. In addition, self-compassion and body image served both as protective and as risk factors in the FH condition. Discussion: Findings suggest self-compassion and body image as important targets of intervention for the prevention of depression and eating disorders because they may play an important role in how women subjectively experience weight and body fat related feedback.
UMass at TREC 2013 Knowledge Base Acceleration Track: Bi-directional Entity Linking and Time-aware Evaluation

This notebook details the participation of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the Cumulative Citation Recommendation task (CCR) of the TREC 2013 Knowledge Base Acceleration Track. Our interest in TREC KBA is motived by our research on entity-based query expansion. Query expansion is a information retrieval technique for improving recall by augmenting the original query terms with other terms that are likely to indicate relevant documents. Such expansion terms can be inferred with pseudo-relevance feedback techniques (Lavrenko and Croft, 2001). The resulting retrieval model can be interpreted as a weighted mixture model including the original retrieval model and retrieval models for each expansion term. Instead of expanding the query with terms, our research is on expanding the query with relevant entities from a knowledge base. Such entities are very rich in structure, including name variants, related entities and associated text. An essential component of our entity-based query expansion is to derive a retrieval model for a given knowledge base entity, which can be incorporated into the weighted mixture model. We study the effectiveness of different entity-based retrieval models within the TREC KBA Cumulative Citation Recommendation task. However, we do not address the novelty aspects of the task, and therefore do not distinguish between ’vital’ and ’useful’ documents. This year we only evaluate memoryless methods, i.e., the prediction is not influenced by predictions on previous time intervals. We segment the stream into week-long intervals which are filtered independently.
DL-Lite in the Light of First-Order Logic

The use of ontologies in various application domains, such as Data Integration, the Semantic Web, or ontology-based data management, where ontologies provide the access to large amounts of data, is posing challenging requirements w.r. t. a trade-off between expressive power of a DL and efficiency of reasoning. The logics of the DL-Lite family were specifically designed to meet such requirements and optimized w.r. t. the data complexity of answering complex types of queries. In this paper we propose DL-Litebool, an extension of DL-Lite with full Booleans and number restrictions, and study the complexity of reasoning in DL-Litebool and its significant sub-logics. We obtain our results, together with useful insights into the properties of the studied logics, by a novel reduction to the one-variable fragment of first-order logic. We study the computational complexity of satisfiability and subsumption, and the data complexity of answering positive existential queries (which extend unions of conjunctive queries). Notably, we extend the LOGSPACE upper bound for the data complexity of answering unions of conjunctive queries in DL-Lite to positive queries and to the possibility of expressing also number restrictions, and hence local functionality in the TBox.
Usefulness of 99mTc-dimercaptosuccinic acid renal scan in the diagnosis and follow-up of acute tubulointerstitial nephritis in children

Abstract Background Symptoms and signs of acute tubulointerstitial nephritis (ATIN) are nonspecific; therefore, renal biopsy is often necessary to clarify the diagnosis. The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of 99mTc-dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA) scintigraphy in the diagnosis and follow-up of ATIN. Methods We retrospectively reviewed the charts of five patients (nine renal units) with a median age of 14 years who underwent DMSA scan after a clinical and/or biopsy-proven diagnosis of ATIN. The exam was performed within 1 month after disease onset and repeated at a median time of 12 months after the acute phase. Results DMSA renal scans performed during the acute phase allowed the discovery of suggestive findings, including diffuse reduction of the renal uptake of radionuclide and presence of multiple ‘cold’ focal lesions in a corticomedullary distribution. The follow-up scintigraphy resulted normal in two patients who were treated with steroids and in one patient who presented a mild renal dysfunction in the acute phase. By contrast, the control scan showed persistent renal damage in one patient who was further readmitted because of hypertension and in one renal transplanted patient who presented a Stage 3 acute kidney injury in the acute phase. Conclusions DMSA renal scan might be a reliable tool for an early non-invasive diagnosis of ATIN in children and might be particularly useful in those patients who are not candidates for a kidney biopsy. Moreover, DMSA scan gives accurate follow-up evaluation, as it allows monitoring of the evolution of acute renal parenchymal inflammation with potential risk of renal scar formation. Due to the small sample size, our findings warrant further validation in a larger study.
Layered space-frequency coding and receiver design for MIMO MC-CDMA

For the single-user communications pragmatic yet powerful methods known as layered space-time (LST) architectures provide means to increase the user data rate of a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna system dramatically. To achieve better error rate performance, the LST transmission can be further accompanied with forward error correction coding. Future wireless communication systems, however, require high data rates also in multiuser environments. For broadband multiuser wireless communications, multicarrier code-division multiple-access (MC-CDMA) has emerged as an attractive technique due to its low equalization complexity and robust performance in multipath fading channels. Utilizing strong channel coding and LST architectures with MC-CDMA, high spectral efficiency and good error rate performance can be obtained in diverse environments. In this paper, single and multi-antenna turbo coded downlink MC-CDMA is combined with the concept of LST architectures. Due to the inevitable complexity restrictions, a suboptimal receiver interface for the underlying system is designed and its performance is evaluated in fading channels. The results demonstrate that significant improvement in both error rate performance and the system throughput can be achieved also with multiuser communications by using these MIMO techniques.
A 6-GHz All-Digital Fractional-$N$ Frequency Synthesizer Using FIR-Embedded Noise Filtering Technique

A 6-GHz all-digital fractional- frequency synthesizer using an FIR-embedded noise filtering technique is presented. This noise filtering technique is realized in the digital domain without multiple matched analog components. This fractional- frequency synthesizer is fabricated in a 90-nm CMOS process, and it occupies 0.18 . Its power is 28.8 mW with a supply of 1.2 V. The measured out-of-band phase noise at an offset of half the reference frequency is improved by more than 13 dB around 6 GHz considering cancellation variations for different output frequencies.
Data‐Driven Shape Analysis and Processing

Data‐driven methods serve an increasingly important role in discovering geometric, structural and semantic relationships between shapes. In contrast to traditional approaches that process shapes in isolation of each other, data‐driven methods aggregate information from 3D model collections to improve the analysis, modelling and editing of shapes. Data‐driven methods are also able to learn computational models that reason about properties and relationships of shapes without relying on hard‐coded rules or explicitly programmed instructions. Through reviewing the literature, we provide an overview of the main concepts and components of these methods, as well as discuss their application to classification, segmentation, matching, reconstruction, modelling and exploration, as well as scene analysis and synthesis. We conclude our report with ideas that can inspire future research in data‐driven shape analysis and processing.
Workers’ Remittances and Growth in MENA Labor Exporting Countries

This paper presents an empirical examination of effects of workers’ remittance on economic growth in a sample of 7 remittance-receiving MENA countries. In order to empirically analyze the impact of remittances we estimate growth equations using a set of 7 MENA labor exporting countries during the period 1975-2006. A standard growth models are estimated using both fixed-effects and random effects models. The empirical results show the support of the fixed –effects method as the random effects model is rejected in statistical tests. The results show the support for the view that remittances have a positive impact on growth both directly and indirectly through their interactions with financial and institutional channels.