Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of 42 months of GH treatment on bone mineral density and bone turnover in GH-deficient adults.

OBJECTIVE To study the effects of GH treatment for up to 42 months on bone mineral density (BMD) and bone turnover. DESIGN AND METHODS BMD with dual energy X-ray absorptiometry, serum type I procollagen carboxy-terminal propeptide (PICP), serum type I collagen carboxy-terminal telopeptide (ICTP) and serum IGF-I were assessed in 71 adults with GH deficiency. There were 44 men and 27 women, aged 20 to 59 (median 43) years. Thirty-two patients completed 36 months and 20 patients 42 months of treatment. RESULTS The BMD increased for up to 30-36 months and plateaued thereafter. In the whole study group, the maximum increase of BMD was 5.0% in the lumbar spine (P<0. 001), 5.9% (P<0.01) in the femoral neck, 4.9% (NS, P>0.05) in the Ward's triangle and 8.2% (P<0.001) in the trochanter area. The serum concentrations of PICP (202.6+/-11.5 vs 116.3+/-5.4 microg/l; mean+/-s.e.m.) and ICTP (10.5+/-0.6 vs 4.4+/-0.3 microg/l) doubled (P<0.001) during the first 6 months of GH treatment but returned to baseline by the end of the study (130.0+/-10.4 and 5.6+/-0.7 microg/l respectively), despite constantly elevated serum IGF-I levels (39. 6+/-4.1 nmol/l at 42 months vs 11.9+/-0.9 nmol/l at baseline; P<0.001). The responses to GH treatment of serum IGF-I, PICP, ICTP (P<0.001 for all; ANOVA) and of the BMD in the lumbar spine (P<0.05), in the femoral neck and the trochanter (P<0.001 for both) were more marked in men than in women. At the end of the study the BMD had increased at the four measurement sites by 5.7-10.6% (P<0.01-0.001) in patients with at least osteopenia at baseline and by 0.1-5.3% (NS P<0.05) in those with normal bone status (P<0.001 for differences between groups; ANOVA). Among patients who completed 36-42 months of treatment, the number of those with at least osteopenia was reduced to more than a half. The response of BMD to GH treatment was more marked in young than in old patients at three measurement sites (P<0. 05-<0.001; ANOVA). In the multiple regression analysis the gender and the pretreatment bone mass appeared to be independent predictors of three measurement sites, whereas the age independently determined only the vertebral BMD. CONCLUSIONS GH treatment in GH-deficient adults increased BMD for up to 30-36 months, with a plateau thereafter. Concurrently with the plateau in BMD the bone turnover rate normalized. From the skeletal point of view GH-deficient patients exhibiting osteopenia or osteoporosis should be considered as candidates for GH supplementation of at least 3-4 years.
Automatic extension of Gene Ontology with flexible identification of candidate terms

MOTIVATION Gene Ontology (GO) has been manually developed to provide a controlled vocabulary for gene product attributes. It continues to evolve with new concepts that are compiled mostly from existing concepts in a compositional way. If we consider the relatively slow growth rate of GO in the face of the fast accumulation of the biological data, it is much desirable to provide an automatic means for predicting new concepts from the existing ones. RESULTS We present a novel method that predicts more detailed concepts by utilizing syntactic relations among the existing concepts. We propose a validation measure for the automatically predicted concepts by matching the concepts to biomedical articles. We also suggest how to find a suitable direction for the extension of a constantly growing ontology such as GO. AVAILABILITY http://autogo.biopathway. org SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary materials are available at Bioinformatics online.
Optoelectronic Systems Trained With Backpropagation Through Time

Delay-coupled optoelectronic systems form promising candidates to act as powerful information processing devices. In this brief, we consider such a system that has been studied before in the context of reservoir computing (RC). Instead of viewing the system as a random dynamical system, we see it as a true machine-learning model, which can be fully optimized. We use a recently introduced extension of backpropagation through time, an optimization algorithm originally designed for recurrent neural networks, and use it to let the network perform a difficult phoneme recognition task. We show that full optimization of all system parameters of delay-coupled optoelectronics systems yields a significant improvement over the previously applied RC approach.
Resource control for elastic traffic in CDMA networks

We present a framework for resource control in CDMA networks carrying elastic traffic, considering both the uplink and the downlink direction. The framework is based on microeconomics and congestion pricing, and seeks to exploit the joint control of the transmission rate and the signal quality in order to achieve efficient utilization of network resources, in a distributed and decentralized manner. An important feature of the framework is that it incorporates both the congestion for shared resources in wireless and wired networks, and the cost of battery power at mobile hosts. We prove that for elastic traffic, where users value only their average throughput, the user's net utility maximization problem can be decomposed into two simpler problems: one involving the selection of the optimal signal quality, and one involving the selection of the optimal transmission rate. Based on this result, the selection of signal quality can be performed as done today using outer loop power control, while rate adaptation can be integrated with rate adaptation at the transport layer.
Comparability of Computer-Based and Paper-and-Pencil Testing in K–12 Reading Assessments

In recent years, computer-based testing (CBT) has grown in popularity, is increasingly being implemented across the United States, and will likely become the primary mode for delivering tests in the future. Although CBT offers many advantages over traditional paper-and-pencil testing, assessment experts, researchers, practitioners, and users have expressed concern about the comparability of scores between the two test administration modes. To help provide an answer to this issue, a meta-analysis was conducted to synthesize the administration mode effects of CBTs and paper-and-pencil tests on K—12 student reading assessments. Findings indicate that the administration mode had no statistically significant effect on K—12 student reading achievement scores. Four moderator variables—study design, sample size, computer delivery algorithm, and computer practice—made statistically significant contributions to predicting effect size. Three moderator variables—grade level, type of test, and computer delivery method—did not affect the differences in reading scores between test modes.
The IL-3/IL-5/GM-CSF Common β Receptor Plays a Pivotal Role in the Regulation of Th2 Immunity and Allergic Airway Inflammation1

The eosinophil is a central effector cell in allergic asthma. Differentiation and function of eosinophils are regulated by the CD4 Th2 cytokines IL-3, IL-5, and GM-CSF, which all signal through a common β receptor subunit (βc). Recent therapeutic approaches targeting IL-5 alone have not ablated tissue accumulation of eosinophils and have had limited effects on disease progression, suggesting important roles for IL-3 and GM-CSF. By using a mouse model of allergic airways inflammation, we show that allergen-induced expansion and accumulation of eosinophils in the lung are abolished in βc-deficient (βc−/−) mice. Moreover, βc deficiency resulted in inhibition of hallmark features of asthma, including airways hypersensitivity, mucus hypersecretion, and production of Ag-specific IgE. Surprisingly, we also identified a critical role for this receptor in regulating type 2 immunity. Th2 cells in the lung of allergen-challenged βc−/− mice were limited in their ability to proliferate, produce cytokines, and migrate to effector sites, which was attributed to reduced numbers of myeloid dendritic cells in the lung compartment. Thus, the βc plays a critical role in allergen-induced eosinophil expansion and infiltration and is pivotal in regulating molecules that promote both early and late phases of allergic inflammation, representing a novel target for therapy.
Group‐level organizational citizenship behavior: Effects of demographic faultlines and conflict in small work groups

Organizational scholars have recently shifted their attention to examining organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) as a group-level phenomenon. Adopting the input-mediator-outcome model of group performance, we examined antecedents and intermediate processes that predict group-level OCB (GOCB) in small work groups. The results, based on data from 62 work groups representing a variety of industries, revealed that demographic faultlines based on relation-oriented attributes (gender, age, and race) and a task-related attribute (tenure) had differentiated relationships with task and relationship conflict, which mediated the relationships between faultlines and group outcomes (GOCB and group performance). Both task and relationship conflict were negative predictors of group performance. However, task conflict increased GOCB, whereas relationship conflict decreased it. The present study offers evidence of the relationship between demographic faultlines and various group processes and outcome variables in natural work groups. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A Robust to Outliers Hidden Markov Model with Application in Text-Dependent Speaker Identification

Hidden Markov models using Gaussian mixture models as their hidden state distributions have been successfully applied in text-dependent speaker identification applications. Nevertheless, it is well-known that Gaussian mixture models are very vulnerable to the presence of outliers in the fitting set used for their estimation. Student's-t mixture models have been proposed recently as a heavy-tailed, tolerant to outliers alternative to Gaussian mixture models. In this paper we exploit the robustness of student's-t mixture models in the context of hidden Markov models by introducing a new hidden Markov chain model where the hidden state distributions are student's-t mixture models. We experimentally show that our model outperforms competing text-dependent speaker identification techniques.
Multi-channel speaker localization and separation using a model-based GSC and an inertial measurement unit

In this paper we propose a novel multi-channel algorithm to separate simultaneous speakers in an environment where the microphone array is subject to movement. When the microphones are mounted to a person's head, for instance, the movements can lead to ambiguities with respect to the sources and to distortions in the processed signal. The proposed system estimates the direction-of-arrival of the speaker's signals relative to the array and updates these estimates using an inertial measurement unit (IMU). A GMM-based localization model is used to compute the posterior probabilities of source activity in each time-frequency bin and its parameters are re-estimated during array movements. Then, a model-based generalized side-lobe canceler (GSC) whose components are continuously updated, is employed for the separation of sources. For various speeds of microphone array rotation, it is demonstrated that the IMU-based system delivers improved speech quality when compared to the baseline technique without IMU.
Are Global and Regional Improvements in Life Expectancy and in Child, Adult and Senior Survival Slowing?

Improvements in life expectancy have been considerable over the past hundred years. Forecasters have taken to applying historical trends under an assumption of continuing improvements in life expectancy in the future. A linear mixed effects model was used to estimate the trends in global and regional rates of improvements in life expectancy, child, adult, and senior survival, in 166 countries between 1950 and 2010. Global improvements in life expectancy, including both child and adult survival rates, decelerated significantly over the study period. Overall life expectancy gains were estimated to have declined from 5.9 to 4.0 months per year for a mean deceleration of -0.07 months/year2; annual child survival gains declined from 4.4 to 1.6 deaths averted per 1000 for a mean deceleration of -0.06 deaths/1000/year2; adult survival gains were estimated to decline from 4.8 to 3.7 deaths averted per 1000 per year for a mean deceleration of -0.08 deaths/1000/year2. Senior survival gains however increased from 2.4 to 4.2 deaths averted per 1000 per year for an acceleration of 0.03 deaths/1000/year2. Regional variation in the four measures was substantial. The rates of global improvements in life expectancy, child survival, and adult survival have declined since 1950 despite an increase in the rate of improvements among seniors. We postulate that low-cost innovation, related to the last half-century progress in health–primarily devoted to children and middle age, is reaping diminishing returns on its investments. Trends are uneven across regions and measures, which may be due in part to the state of epidemiological transition between countries and regions and disparities in the diffusion of innovation, accessible only in high-income countries where life expectancy is already highest.
A Growth-Theoretic Empirical Analysis of Simultaneity in Cross-National  E-Commerce Development

The emergence of information and communication technologies infrastructure has transformed the global economy. The development of information technology infrastructure is limited to some developed countries though. This research explores the role of information technology infrastructure in B2C e-commerce growth at the country-level from the perspective of growth theory in economics. We propose a hybrid exogenous and endogenous growth model to explain e-commerce growth. We estimate a panel data model that incorporates the direct effects of e-commerce infrastructure and other key explanatory variables. We further specify a simultaneous effects model that permits the analysis of reverse causality in the association between e-commerce growth and Internet-based selling technology adoption. The data include 24 countries in four different regions around the world. We found that endogenous factors (online payment availability, and Internet-based selling technology adoption) and exogenous factors (international openness) both contribute to B2C e-commerce growth in a country. We also found that there is a two-way interaction between Internet-based selling technology adoption and e-commerce growth. The empirical findings support the effectiveness of our theoretical approach.
Monoclonal antibody therapy for central nervous system lymphomas: an emerging treatment paradigm

The management of CNS lymphomas is poised for another revolution due to the emergence of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies. As the technology for generating monoclonal antibodies matures and obstacles are solved, therapeutic monoclonal antibodies will play an increasing role in the management of cancer. This article will review the biology of CNS lymphomas, monoclonal antibody technology, limitation of existing chemotherapies and the application of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies for the treatment of CNS lymphomas.
Politics, Religion, Attribution Theory, and Attitudes Toward Same-Sex Unions

type="main"> The relationship between beliefs about the cause of homosexuality, political and religious ideology, and attitudes toward same-sex unions in the United States is unclear. This study aims to examine the mediating influence and socially embedded nature of attribution beliefs at a time when attitudes toward same-sex unions are undergoing substantial changes in the American public. This study employs simultaneous equation path models and a recent national, random sample of American adults (Baylor Religion Survey 2010) to test each hypothesis. Results reveal that constructed opinions about the origin and controllability of homosexuality significantly influence support for same-sex unions. However, these opinions are socially embedded, especially within particular political and religious ideologies. These findings highlight that while widespread changes in beliefs about the cause of homosexuality may presage shifts in support for same-sex unions, many will be able to resist those shifts toward support, possibly leading to their further marginalization within society.
Pattern Formation And Rhythm Generation In The Ventral Respiratory Group

1. There is increasing evidence that the kernel of the rhythm‐generating circuitry for breathing is located within a discrete subregion of a column of respiratory neurons within the ventrolateral medulla referred to as the ventral respiratory group (VRG). It is less clear how this rhythm is transformed into the precise patterns appearing on the varied motor outflows.
Effect of 18F-FDG Uptake Time on Lesion Detectability in PET Imaging of Early-Stage Breast Cancer

Prior reports have suggested that delayed 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) oncology imaging can improve the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) for known lesions. Our goal was to estimate realistic bounds for lesion detectability for static measurements within 1 to 4 hours between FDG injection and image acquisition. Tumor and normal tissue kinetic model parameters were estimated from dynamic PET studies of patients with early-stage breast cancer. These parameters were used to generate time-activity curves (TACs) for up to 4 hours, for which we assumed both nonreversible and reversible models with different rates of FDG dephosphorylation (k4). For each pair of tumor and normal tissue TACs, 600 PET sinogram realizations were generated, and images were reconstructed using the ordered subsets expectation maximization reconstruction algorithm. Test statistics for each tumor and normal tissue region of interest were output from the computer model observers and evaluated using a receiver operating characteristic analysis, with the calculated area under the curve (AUC) providing a measure of lesion detectability. For the nonreversible model (k4 = 0), the AUC increased in 11 of 23 (48%) patients for 1 to 2 hours after the current standard postradiotracer injection imaging window of 1 hour. This improvement was driven by increased tumor/normal tissue contrast before the impact of increased noise that resulted from radiotracer decay began to dominate the imaging signal. As k4 was increased from 0 to 0.01 min−1, the time of maximum detectability shifted earlier, due to decreasing FDG concentration in the tumor lowering the CNR. These results imply that delayed PET imaging may reveal inconspicuous lesions that otherwise would have gone undetected.
Universal RT-middleware robot controller

This paper presents a new dimension of robotics for SMEs. Open AIST RT-middleware technology enables SMEs to reuse old robots or machine tools which have good mechanism but outworn electronics. The technical solutions are described for three different experimental systems of different machines. All the systems are universal in the term that they can be connected to many different machines. They were all developed as a RT-Middleware real-time component in order to make them flexibly connectable to each other to form a production cell. The third is our latest novel conception which is combining the reliability of the LinuxCNC software system and the flexibility of RTM technology with using modern hardware elements. One of our several LinuxCNC based controllers is presented as an experimental result.
The Nature of E+A Galaxies in Intermediate-Redshift Clusters

Combining Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 mosaics with extensive ground-based spectroscopy, we study the nature of E+A galaxies in three intermediate-redshift clusters (z = 0.33, 0.58, and 0.83). From a sample of ~500 confirmed cluster members, we isolate 46 E+A candidates to determine the E+A fraction and study their physical properties. Spectral types are assigned using Balmer (Hδ, Hγ, Hβ) and [O II] λ3727 equivalent widths. For all members, we have galaxy colors, luminosities, Hubble types, and quantitative structural parameters. We also include measured internal velocity dispersions for 120 cluster members and estimate velocity dispersions for the rest of the cluster sample using the fundamental plane. We find that E+A galaxies comprise a nonnegligible component (~7%-13%) of the cluster population at these redshifts, and their diverse nature indicates a heterogeneous parent population. While cluster E+A's are predominantly disk-dominated systems, they span the range in Hubble type and bulge-to-total fraction to include even early-type members. Cluster E+A's also cover a wide range in luminosity [LB ~ (0.2-2.5)L], internal velocity dispersion (σ ~ 30-220 km s-1), and half-light radius [r1/2 ~ (0.4-4.3)h-1 kpc]. From their velocity dispersions and half-light radii, we infer that the descendants of E+A's in our highest redshift cluster are massive early-type galaxies. In contrast to the wide range of luminosity and internal velocity dispersion spanned by E+A's at higher redshift, only low-mass E+A's are found in nearby clusters, e.g., Coma. The observed decrease in the characteristic E+A mass is similar to the decrease in the luminosity of rapidly star-forming field galaxies since z ~ 1, i.e., galaxy "downsizing. " In addition, we argue that our statistics imply that ≳30% of the E-S0 members have undergone an E+A phase; the true fraction could be 100% if the effects of E+A downsizing, an increasing E+A fraction with redshift, and the conversion of spiral galaxies into early type galaxies are also considered. Thus, the E+A phase may indeed be an important stage in the transformation of star-forming galaxies into early-type members.
Oral administration of the NMDA receptor antagonist S-ketamine as add-on therapy of depression: a case series.

We intended to assess safety, response to treatment and time to response of 1.25 mg/kg oral S-ketamine as add-on to standard antidepressants in four depressed patients. Two patients with melancholic depression responded early and stayed in remission, while two patients with distinct somatic symptoms, chronicity or atypical features did not respond. The limited number of patients does not allow conclusions about efficacy. Oral S-ketamine was well tolerated and could merit being studied in randomised controlled trials due to its higher practicability compared to (S-)ketamine infusion therapy. Clinical subtyping should be considered.
Memristor-based pixel for event-detection vision sensor

We report on a vision sensor architecture relying on a pixel-embedded memristive device to perform dynamic background subtraction as basic image processing components, aimed at detecting anomalous events in the scene. A Light-To-Frequency Converter generates digital pulses, which are linearly proportional with the light intensity. During the exposure time, a certain number of pulses, with proper width and amplitude, drive the memristor MS, changing its resistance. The value of MS is then compared with two memristors, MH and ML, used as thresholds. After each frame, the values of MH and ML are adjusted in order to satisfy ML <; MS <; MH. The rate at which the two memristors are updated is application-dependent and can be digitally programmed. If the value of MS trespasses either MH or ML, due to a light change, the pixel behaviour is recognized as anomalous (hot-pixel) By aggregating the hot-pixels of the image, anomalous events can be detected through standard processing techniques. The pixel architecture has been designed in a 0. 35μm standard CMOS process and validated through simulation.