Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
POPE study: rationale and methodology of a study to phenotype patients with COPD in Central and Eastern Europe

Introduction Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) constitutes a major health challenge in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. However, clinical phenotypes, symptom load, and treatment habits of patients with COPD in CEE countries remain largely unknown. This paper provides a rationale for phenotyping COPD and describes the methodology of a large study in CEE. Methods/design The POPE study is an international, multicenter, observational cross-sectional survey of patients with COPD in CEE. Participation in the study is offered to all consecutive outpatients with stable COPD in 84 centers across the CEE region if they fulfill the following criteria: age >40 years, smoking history ≥10 pack-years, a confirmed diagnosis of COPD with postbronchodilator FEV1/FVC <0.7, and absence of COPD exacerbation ≥4 weeks. Medical history, risk factors for COPD, comorbidities, lung function parameters, symptoms, and pharmaceutical and nonpharmaceutical treatment are recorded. The POPE project is registered in ClinicalTrials.gov with the identifier NCT02119494. Outcomes The primary aim of the POPE study was to phenotype patients with COPD in a real-life setting within CEE countries using predefined classifications. Secondary aims of the study included analysis of differences in symptoms, and diagnostic and therapeutic behavior in participating CEE countries. Conclusion There is increasing acceptance toward a phenotype-driven therapeutic approach in COPD. The POPE study may contribute to reveal important information regarding phenotypes and therapy in real-life CEE.
Cognitive Performance, Psychological Well-Being, and Brain Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Older Patients With Type 1 Diabetes

Modest cognitive impairment has been reported in young-adult patients with type 1 diabetes. In older patients with type 2 diabetes, cognitive impairments are more pronounced, which might be due to age but also to differential effects of type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes on the brain. This study therefore assessed cognitive performance and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain in older type 1 diabetic patients. Forty type 1 diabetic patients (age >50 years) and 40 age-matched control subjects were included. Neuropsychological assessment included all major cognitive domains, and psychological well-being was assessed with questionnaires. Atrophy, white-matter abnormalities, and infarcts were rated on MRI scans. Type 1 diabetic patients performed slightly (effect sizes <0.4) worse on cognitive tasks, but only “speed of information processing” reached statistical significance. No significant between-group differences were found on any of the MRI parameters. Type 1 diabetic patients tended to report more cognitive and depressive problems than control subjects, but this did not correlate with the performance on cognitive tests. We conclude that cognition in older type 1 diabetic patients is only mildly disturbed. Chronic exposure to hyperglycemia is in itself, even at older age, apparently not sufficient to have considerable impact on the brain.
New Multiple Encryption for Making Double Encryption Secure Against Meet-inthe-Middle and Related-Key Attacks

There is no practical way to attack DES more efficiently than an exhaustive key search attack. However, the key length of DES is not sufficient now, so DES can be attacked within the realistic time and cost with the current computing power. By using the longer key, we may be able to cope with such threats. For example, a DES variant called Double DES repeats DES encryption twice with two different keys. However, double DES can also be attacked by the meet-in-the-middle attack with O(2) memory space and O(2) times DES operations where n is the bit length of a single DES key and an adversary uses the data which is computed between two DES operations. To prevent such a meet-in-the-middle attack, we can hide the middle data by some methods so that the adversary cannot compute the middle data. One of such methods is called DES-EXE which takes the exclusive-ORed middle data of double DES with a new third 64-bit key. However, it was indicated that DES-EXE was also vulnerable to the elaborate meet-in-the-middle attack and the other one which uses the related keys. In the meet-in-the-middle attack using related keys, the adversary uses a pair of a plaintext and ciphertext encrypted under a key K1 and another pair of the same plaintext and the ciphertext encrypted under a different key K2 where K1 is related to K2 in some mathematical way and the relationship is known to the adversary. In this work, we propose a new double DES variant (that we call DES-XEEX) that adds the exclusive-ORed data with new third and fourth keys outside two DES operations. The adversary can not apply the same elaborate meet-in-the-middle attack as in DES-EXE and can not use related keys, so the proposed scheme is more secure than DES-EXE against the meet-in-the-middle and related-key attacks. Our construction is generic and applicable to any block cipher such as AES to have a longer key effectively.
Development of Left Ventricular Hypertrophy in Young Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats after Peripheral Sympathectomy

The effects of peripheral sympathectomy with nerve growth factor antisemm (NGFAS) on blood pressure, systemic hemodynamics, myocardial function, myocardial hypertrophy, and renin were studied in male spontaneously hypertensive (SH) rats of the Okamoto strain and normotensive control Kyoto-Wistar (WKY) rats. NGFAS prevented the development of hypertension in the SH rats but did not alter blood pressure in the WKY rats. The NGFAS-treated SH rats developed the same hemodynamic abnormalities as the sham-treated rats, including increased peripheral vascular resistance and depressed cardiac output. Indices of left ventricular performance, including peak flow velocity, stroke power, stroke work, dP/dtmax and flow acceleration (dF/dt), were diminished in the SH rats compared to the WKY rats. NGFAS treatment further depressed ventricular function in the SH rats, but had little effect on the WKY rats. Plasma renin activity in both the SH and WKY rats was unaffected by NGFAS treatment. Although NGFAS treatment effectively prevented the development of hypertension in the SH rats, it did not influence the development of left ventricular hypertrophy as reflected by increases in left ventricular mass, RNA, DNA, and hydroxyproline content. The data suggest that the development of myocardial hypertrophy and myocardial dysfunction in the SH rat is in part independent of hypertension and plasma renin activity.
Energy Efficient MAC Protocols in Wireless Body Area Sensor Networks -A Survey

In this paper, we first presented an analytically discussion about energy efficiency of Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols for Wireless Body Area Sensor Networks (WBASNs). For this purpose, different energy efficient MAC protocols with their respective energy optimization techniques; Low Power Listening (LPL), Scheduled Contention and Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), are elaborated. We also analytically compared path loss models for In-body, On-body and Off-body communications in WBASNs. These three path loss scenarios are simulated in MATLAB and results shown that path loss is more in In-body communication because of less energy level to take care of tissues and organs located inside human body. Secondly, power model for WBASNs of Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA) and beacon mode is also presented. MATLAB simulations results shown that power of CSMA/CA mode is less as compared to beacon mode. Finally, we suggested that hybrid mode is more useful to achieve optimization in power consumption, which consequently results in high energy efficiency.
Carotid Plaques Increase the Risk of Stroke and Subtypes of Cerebral Infarction in Asymptomatic Elderly: The Rotterdam Study

Background—Few studies have quantified the relation between carotid plaques and stroke in asymptomatic patients, and limited data exist on the importance of location of plaques or the association with subtypes of cerebral infarction. We investigated the relationship between carotid plaques, measured at different locations, and risk of stroke and subtypes of cerebral infarction in a population-based study. Methods and Results—The study was based on the Rotterdam Study and included 4217 neurologically asymptomatic subjects aged 55 years or older. Presence of carotid plaques at 6 locations in the carotid arteries was assessed at baseline. Severity was categorized according to the number of affected sites. After a mean follow-up of 5.2 years, 160 strokes had occurred. Data were analyzed using Cox proportional hazards regression. Plaques increased the risk of stroke and cerebral infarction ≈1.5-fold, irrespective of plaque location. Severe carotid plaques increased the risk of nonlacunar infarction in anterior (RR 3.2 [95% CI, 1.1 to 9.7]) but not in posterior circulation (RR 0.6 [95% CI, 0.1 to 4.9]). A >10-fold increased risk of lacunar infarction was found in subjects with severe plaques (RR 10.8 [95% CI, 1.7 to 69.7]). No clear difference in risk estimates was seen between ipsilateral and contralateral infarction. Conclusions—Carotid plaques increase the risk of stroke and cerebral infarction, irrespective of their location. Plaques increase the risk of infarctions in the anterior but not in the posterior circulation. It is likely that carotid plaques in neurologically asymptomatic subjects are both markers of generalized atherosclerosis and sources of thromboemboli.
Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology Expression of Nodal Signalling Components in Cycling Human Endometrium and in Endometrial Cancer

Background: The human endometrium is unique in its capacity to remodel constantly throughout adult reproductive life. Although the processes of tissue damage and breakdown in the endometrium have been well studied, little is known of how endometrial regeneration is achieved after menstruation. Nodal, a member of the transforming growth factor-beta superfamily, regulates the processes of pattern formation and differentiation that occur during early embryo development.
Sum-Rate Optimal Network Beamforming and Subcarrier Power Allocation for Multi-Carrier Asynchronous Two-Way Relay Networks

In this paper, we consider a multicarrier asynchronous bidirectional relay network, where different relay-transceiver links can cause different delays in the signals they convey, thereby producing inter-symbol-interference at the two transceivers. Such a two-way relay link can be modeled as a frequency selective channel with multiple taps, and thus, it can be equalized using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) transmission and reception schemes at the two transceivers, while the relays use simple amplify-and-forward relaying protocol. We prove rigorously that maximizing the sum-rate under a total power budget, through jointly optimal network beamforming at the relays and subcarrier power loading at the two transceivers, leads to a relay selection scheme, where only those relays which contribute to one tap of the end-to-end channel impulse response, have to be active and the remainder of the relays have to be switched off. The optimal tap can then be obtained using a simple search method. Moreover, we present semi-closed-form solutions for the optimal value of transceivers' subcarrier powers as well as for the relay beamforming weights.
Analysis of incidence and clinical outcomes in patients with thromboembolic events and invasive exocrine pancreatic cancer

Pancreatic adenocarcinoma is among the most common malignancies associated with thromboembolic events (TEs); however, reported incidence figures vary significantly and contain small patient cohorts. Pancreatic cancer‐specific thrombosis studies examining the correlation between clinical variables, including thrombosis timing and the impact of thrombosis on survival, have not been reported.
THE GJ 436 SYSTEM: DIRECTLY DETERMINED ASTROPHYSICAL PARAMETERS OF AN M DWARF AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THE TRANSITING HOT NEPTUNE

The late-type dwarf GJ 436 is known to host a transiting Neptune-mass planet in a 2.6 day orbit. We present results of our interferometric measurements to directly determine the stellar diameter (R⋆ = 0.455 ± 0.018 R☉) and effective temperature (TEFF = 3416 ± 54 K). We combine our stellar parameters with literature time-series data, which allows us to calculate physical and orbital system parameters, including GJ 436's stellar mass (M⋆ = 0.507+0.071 − 0.062 M☉), stellar density (ρ* = 5.37+0.30 − 0.27 ρ☉), planetary radius (Rp = 0.369+0.015 − 0.015 RJupiter), and planetary mass (Mp = 0.078+0.007 − 0.008 MJupiter), implying a mean planetary density of ρp = 1.55+0.12 − 0.10 ρJupiter. These values are generally in good agreement with previous literature estimates based on assumed stellar mass and photometric light curve fitting. Finally, we examine the expected phase curves of the hot Neptune GJ 436b, based on various assumptions concerning the efficiency of energy redistribution in the planetary atmosphere, and find that it could be constrained with Spitzer monitoring observations.
VC Theory of Large Margin Multi-Category Classifiers

In the context of discriminant analysis, Vapnik's statistical learning theory has mainly been developed in three directions: the computation of dichotomies with binary-valued functions, the computation of dichotomies with real-valued functions, and the computation of polytomies with functions taking their values in finite sets, typically the set of categories itself. The case of classes of vector-valued functions used to compute polytomies has seldom been considered independently, which is unsatisfactory, for three main reasons. First, this case encompasses the other ones. Second, it cannot be treated appropriately through a naive extension of the results devoted to the computation of dichotomies. Third, most of the classification problems met in practice involve multiple categories. In this paper, a VC theory of large margin multi-category classifiers is introduced. Central in this theory are generalized VC dimensions called the γ-Ψ-dimensions. First, a uniform convergence bound on the risk of the classifiers of interest is derived. The capacity measure involved in this bound is a covering number. This covering number can be upper bounded in terms of the γ-Ψ-dimensions thanks to generalizations of Sauer's lemma, as is illustrated in the specific case of the scale-sensitive Natarajan dimension. A bound on this latter dimension is then computed for the class of functions on which multi-class SVMs are based. This makes it possible to apply the structural risk minimization inductive principle to those machines.
A Universal Attack Against Histogram-Based Image Forensics

In this paper the authors propose a universal image counter-forensic scheme that contrasts any detector based on the analysis of the image histogram. Being universal, the scheme does not require knowledge of the detection algorithms available to the forensic analyst, and can be used to conceal traces left in the histogram of the image by any processing tool. Instead of adapting the histogram of the image to fit some statistical model, the proposed scheme makes it practically identical to the histogram of an untouched image, by solving an optimization problem. In doing this, the perceptual similarity between the processed and counter-attacked image is preserved to a large extent. The validity of the scheme in countering both contrast-enhancement and splicing-detection is assessed through experimental validation.
Evaluating new search engine configurations with pre-existing judgments and clicks

We provide a novel method of evaluating search results, which allows us to combine existing editorial judgments with the relevance estimates generated by click-based user browsing models. There are evaluation methods in the literature that use clicks and editorial judgments together, but our approach is novel in the sense that it allows us to predict the impact of unseen search models without online tests to collect clicks and without requesting new editorial data, since we are only re-using existing editorial data, and clicks observed for previous result set configurations. Since the user browsing model and the pre-existing editorial data cannot provide relevance estimates for all documents for the selected set of queries, one important challenge is to obtain this performance estimation where there are a lot of ranked documents with missing relevance values. We introduce a query and rank based smoothing to overcome this problem. We show that a hybrid of these smoothing techniques performs better than both query and position based smoothing, and despite the high percentage of missing judgments, the resulting method is significantly correlated (0.74) with DCG values evaluated using fully judged datasets, and approaches inter-annotator agreement. We show that previously published techniques, applicable to frequent queries, degrade when applied to a random sample of queries, with a correlation of only 0.29. While our experiments focus on evaluation using DCG, our method is also applicable to other commonly used metrics.
Topology-Preserved Diffusion Distance for Histogram Comparison

In most previous works, histograms are simply treated as n-dimensional arrays or even reshaped into vectors when measuring the distances between them. However many histograms have their intrinsic topologies, such as HSV histogram (cone), shape context (polar), orientation histogram (circle). The topologies are important for so-called cross-bin distance, because they determine the similarities between histogram bins, and influence the crossbin distances between histograms. In this paper, we proposed the topologypreserved diffusion distance to take the topology into account. This method extracts the distance by measuring the heat diffusion process defined on the topology of the histogram. Moreover, a fast implementation with time complexity O(N) is developed. Experiments on image retrieval and interest point matching show the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method.
Diffusional Kurtosis and Diffusion Tensor Imaging Reveal Different Time-Sensitive Stroke-Induced Microstructural Changes

Background and Purpose— Diffusion MRI is a promising, clinically feasible imaging technique commonly used to describe white matter changes after stroke. We investigated the sensitivity of diffusion MRI to detect microstructural alterations in gray matter after sensorimotor cortex stroke in adult male rats. Methods— The mean diffusivity (MD) and mean kurtosis of perilesional motor cortex were compared with measures in the contralesional forelimb area of sensorimotor cortex at 2 hours, 24 hours, 72 hours, or 25 days after surgery. MD and mean kurtosis were correlated to the surface densities of glia, dendrites, and axons. Results— Perilesional mean kurtosis was increased at 72 hours and 25 days after stroke, whereas MD was no longer different from contralesional sensorimotor cortex at 24 hours after stroke. There was a significant increase in the density of glial processes at 72 hours after stroke in perilesional motor cortex, which correlated with perilesional MD. Conclusions— These data support that mean kurtosis and MD provide different but complimentary information on acute and chronic changes in perilesional cortex. Glia infiltration is associated with pseudonormalization of MD in the perilesional motor cortex at 72 hours after lesion; however, this association is absent 25 days after lesion. These data suggest that there are likely several different, time-specific microstructural changes underlying these 2 complimentary diffusion measures.
Facial expression recognition based on texture and shape

Facial expression recognition has become key challenge in the field of anthropomorphic human-computer interaction. In this paper, an approach is presented for facial expression recognition through the shape of facial feature points and the texture information of specific areas, based on Active Appearance Model (AAM). First, find out that the shape and texture parameters can express more personalized information of each expression by analysing the physical significance of main parameters in the AAM. And then use these two features to classify expressions which rely on machine learning classification algorithm. Next, weigh the relationship between identification rate and retaining information in the training process of AAM, and understand that noise is also introduced into the classification along with the increase of retaining information. So the dimension of feature vector should be adjusted to get high identification rate in a lower dimension. Experiments show that feature extraction suitable for facial expression can get higher identification rate and is also robust, compared with the previous expression recognition directly based on the appearance parameters of AAM. Meanwhile, feature dimension can be effectively reduced under the condition of no loss of identification rate.
Effects of a dietary portfolio of cholesterol-lowering foods vs lovastatin on serum lipids and C-reactive protein.

CONTEXT To enhance the effectiveness of diet in lowering cholesterol, recommendations of the Adult Treatment Panel III of the National Cholesterol Education Program emphasize diets low in saturated fat together with plant sterols and viscous fibers, and the American Heart Association supports the use of soy protein and nuts. OBJECTIVE To determine whether a diet containing all of these recommended food components leads to cholesterol reduction comparable with that of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitors (statins). DESIGN Randomized controlled trial conducted between October and December 2002. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS Forty-six healthy, hyperlipidemic adults (25 men and 21 postmenopausal women) with a mean (SE) age of 59 (1) years and body mass index of 27.6 (0.5), recruited from a Canadian hospital-affiliated nutrition research center and the community. INTERVENTIONS Participants were randomly assigned to undergo 1 of 3 interventions on an outpatient basis for 1 month: a diet very low in saturated fat, based on milled whole-wheat cereals and low-fat dairy foods (n = 16; control); the same diet plus lovastatin, 20 mg/d (n = 14); or a diet high in plant sterols (1.0 g/1000 kcal), soy protein (21.4 g/1000 kcal), viscous fibers (9.8 g/1000 kcal), and almonds (14 g/1000 kcal) (n = 16; dietary portfolio). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Lipid and C-reactive protein levels, obtained from fasting blood samples; blood pressure; and body weight; measured at weeks 0, 2, and 4 and compared among the 3 treatment groups. RESULTS The control, statin, and dietary portfolio groups had mean (SE) decreases in low-density lipoprotein cholesterol of 8.0% (2.1%) (P =.002), 30.9% (3.6%) (P<.001), and 28.6% (3.2%) (P<.001), respectively. Respective reductions in C-reactive protein were 10.0% (8.6%) (P =.27), 33.3% (8.3%) (P =.002), and 28.2% (10.8%) (P =.02). The significant reductions in the statin and dietary portfolio groups were all significantly different from changes in the control group. There were no significant differences in efficacy between the statin and dietary portfolio treatments. CONCLUSION In this study, diversifying cholesterol-lowering components in the same dietary portfolio increased the effectiveness of diet as a treatment of hypercholesterolemia.