Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bone density and risk of hip fracture in men and women: cross sectional analysis

Abstract Objective: To determine the relative contribution of decline in bone density to the increase in risk of hip fracture with age in men and women. Design: Incidence data of hip fracture from the general population were combined with the bone density distribution in a sample from the same population and with a risk estimate of low bone density known from literature. Setting: The Netherlands. Subjects: All people with a hospital admission for a hip fracture in 1993, and bone density measured in a sample of 5814 men and women aged 55 years and over in a district of Rotterdam. Main outcome measure: One year cumulative risk of hip fracture by age, sex, and bone density measured at the femoral neck. Results: A quarter of all hip fractures occurred in men. Men reached the same incidence as women at five years older. Controlled for age, the risk of hip fracture by bone density was similar in men and women. The risk of hip fracture increased 13-fold from age 60 to 80; decrease in bone density associated with age contributed 1.9 (95% confidence interval 1.5 to 2.4) in women and 1.6 (1.3 to 1.8) in men. Conclusions: The risk of hip fracture by age and bone density is similar in men and women. The decrease in bone density associated with age makes a limited contribution to the exponential increase of the risk of hip fracture with age. Key messages The risk of hip fracture increases exponentially with age in both men and women Men have about the same risk of hip fracture five years later than women The risk of hip fracture by age and bone density is similar in men and women The difference in age specific incidence is explained completely by the different bone density in men and women The contribution of decline in bone density to the exponential increase in risk of hip fracture with age is relatively small
Predictive FTF Adaptive Algorithm for Mobile Channels Estimation

The aim of this research paper is to improve the performance of Fast Transversal Filter (FTF) adaptive algorithm used for mobile channel estimation. A multi-ray Jakes mobile channel model with a Doppler frequency shift is used in the simulation. The channel estimator obtains the sampled channel impulse response (SIR) from the predetermined training sequence. The FTF is a computationally efficient implementation of the recursive least squares (RLS) algorithm of the conventional Kalman filter. A stabilization FTF is used to overcome the problem caused by the accumulation of roundoff errors, and, in addition, degree-one prediction is incorporated into the algorithm (Predictive FTF) to improve the estimation performance and to track changes of the mobile channel. The efficiency of the algorithm is confirmed by simulation results for slow and fast varying mobile channel. The results show about 5 to 15 dB improvement in the Mean Square Error (Deviation) between the estimated taps and the actual ones depending on the speed of channel time variations. Slow and fast vehicular channels with Doppler frequencies 100 Hz and 222 Hz respectively are used in these tests. The predictive FTF (PFTF) algorithm give a better channel SIR estimation performance than the conventional FTF algorithm, and it involves only a small increase in complexity.
Migration and Homeostasis of Naive T Cells Depends on Coronin 1-Mediated Prosurvival Signals and Not on Coronin 1-Dependent Filamentous Actin Modulation

Coronins are WD repeat-containing proteins highly conserved in the eukaryotic kingdom implicated in the regulation of F-actin. Mammalian coronin 1, one of the most conserved isoforms expressed in leukocytes, regulates survival of T cells, which has been suggested to be due to its role in preventing F-actin–induced apoptosis. In this study, we come to a different conclusion. We show that coronin 1 does not modulate F-actin and that induction of F-actin failed to induce apoptosis. Instead, coronin 1 was required for providing prosurvival signals, in the absence of which T cells rapidly underwent apoptosis. These results argue against a role for coronin 1 in F-actin–mediated T cell apoptosis and establish coronin 1 as an essential regulator of the balance between prosurvival and proapoptotic signals in naive T cells.
Bloom's syndrome. XIX. Cytogenetic and population evidence for genetic heterogeneity

Cells with abnormally high rates of sister‐chromatid exchange (SCE) are uniquely characteristic of Bloom's syndrome (BS). However, in one in five persons a minor population of cells with a low‐SCE phenotype circulates in the blood. The origin and significance of the low‐SCE cells in BS have never been understood, although they are assumed to arise by somatic mutation. In the present investigation, the enigmatic high‐SCE/low‐SCE mosaicism was investigated by comparing the incidence in several subpopulations of persons in the Bloom's Syndrome Registry who exhibit the two types of cells, and a striking negative correlation emerged: in persons with BS whose parents share a common ancestor, the case in approximately half of registered persons, low‐SCE cells are found only rarely; conversely, the mosaicism occurs almost exclusively in persons with BS whose parents are not known to share a common ancestor. Because those who share a common ancestor are predominantly homozygous‐by‐descent at the mutated BS locus, the negative correlation is interpreted to mean that the emergence of low‐SCE cells in BS in some way depends on the pre‐existence of compound heterozygosity. A corollary to this is that BS is genetically heterogeneous.
"Kairos": A Web-Based System for Automatic Generation of Weather Forecasts in Two Languages, Greek-English

Forecast composition is a time consuming task requiring the interaction and the integration of knowledge about meteorology, knowledge about language and knowledge about the conventions used to communicate the right amount of information to meet the needs of diverse user communities. The project “KAIROS” facilitates this work by (semi-)automating the configuration and the generation of forecasts in two languages, English and Greek via a web-based system. Among the major innovative features of “KAIROS” are the following: Generator configuration by means of several resources in which the user specifies different textual plans, the output format of the forecasts, the terminology that will be used as also the concept mappings of the data. Additionally, the modular design and the user intervention functionality of the system enforce two valuable characteristics: reusability and maintainability. In this paper, brief analysis of the architecture of the system under development "KAIROS" is given.
Dichotomous Effects of Rosiglitazone in Transplantation-Induced Systemic Vasodilator Dysfunction in Rats

Background. Transplantation-induced systemic endothelial dysfunction causes severe cardiovascular morbidity and mortality after transplantation. Interventions that improve systemic endothelial function after transplantation and furthermore reduce intragraft vascular dysfunction might improve graft and patient survival. Treatment with the PPAR&ggr; agonist rosiglitazone is an intervention that potentially fulfills these criteria. In this study, we determined the effect of rosiglitazone treatment on transplantation-induced endothelial dysfunction and vasomotor activity in an experimental model for chronic transplant dysfunction in rats. Methods. Lewis abdominal aortic allografts were orthotopically transplanted into Brown Norway recipients that received either regular chow or chow containing rosiglitazone (∼4.2 mg/day). Endothelium-dependent (response to metacholine) and total (response to sodium nitrite) vasodilatory responses were determined in autologous thoracic aortic rings using an ex vivo organ bath setup. Measurements were performed 8 weeks after transplantation. Results. Aortic allografting induced systemic endothelial dysfunction as measured by reduced endothelium-dependent vasodilation in the recipient’s vascular system. Rosiglitazone treatment restored endothelium-dependent vasodilatory responses to pretransplantation levels. However, rosiglitazone treatment reduced the total dilatory response despite normalized endothelial function, indicating impairment of vascular smooth muscle cell vasomotor activity. Conclusions. Rosiglitazone treatment after allogeneic transplantation restores endothelial function but impairs vascular smooth muscle cell vasomotor activity. This dichotomous effect of rosiglitazone might impede use of rosiglitazone after organ transplantation since this potentially increases cardiovascular risk despite improved endothelial cell function.
Autoencodeurs discriminants pour la détection de cibles faiblement résolues

Les autoencodeurs permettent de modeliser des donnees au moyen de varietes. Dans un contexte de detection d'objets, ils modelisent l'apparence des objets a detecter. La distance entre un vecteur a classer et la variete peut alors etre utilisee comme une mesure de probabilite d'appartenance du vecteur a la classe. Cependant, si la variete ainsi construite est telle que les vecteurs de la classe appartiennent a la variete, rien ne garantit que des vecteurs d'autres classes ne lui appartiennent pas egalement. Nous cherchons a lever cette limitation en proposant un nouveau type d'autoencodeurs, les autoencodeurs discriminants, qui ont la propriete de construire des varietes eloignant les formes negatives des positives. Une validation experimentale dans un contexte de detection d'objets permet de conclure sur la pertinence de la methode proposee.
Revisiting diastolic filling time as mechanistic insight for response to cardiac resynchronization therapy.

AIMS Intraventricular dyssynchrony and commonly associated prolonged atrioventricular conduction both reduce diastolic filling time (DFT), which can be improved by cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT). Our aim was to investigate whether change in DFT corrected for RR interval (DFTC) after CRT might serve to assess the mechanistic response to CRT. METHODS AND RESULTS Echocardiography data of consecutive patients in sinus rhythm (n = 91) were studied before and 6 months after implantation. Mortality and heart failure hospitalization data were collected. Patients with vs. without DFTC increase after 6 months were compared. The programmed atrioventricular delay, percentage of biventricular pacing, and change in PR interval were similar in both groups. DFTC increase after 6 months reflected favourable reverse left ventricular remodelling and was significantly associated with freedom from death or heart failure admission (P = 0.008). In multivariate analysis including guideline criteria for CRT (i.e. QRS width, presence of left bundle branch block, and ejection fraction), interventricular mechanical delay, and Tei index, baseline DFTC was the strongest predictor of adverse outcome. Notably, while patients with impaired relaxation had a large and highly significant reduction in all-cause mortality and heart failure admissions when DFTC increased [hazard ratio (HR), 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.24, 0.08-0.73; P = 0.012], this benefit was less pronounced and did not reach statistical significance in patients with pseudonormal or restrictive filling (HR, 95% CI = 0.64, 0.23-1.77; P = 0.388). CONCLUSION DFTC increase after CRT reflects favourable reverse remodelling and is associated with better clinical outcome.
Bandwidth allocation for multiple qualities of service using generalized processor sharing

We consider the asymptotic behavior of the queue length distribution in segregated buffers sharing a deterministic server via a class of weighted processor sharing policies. Such policies have been proposed as a means to guarantee individual quality of service constraints to heterogeneous streams in integrated services digital networks. These results exhibit the manner in which spare capacity is shared by statistically multiplexed traffic streams. The framework corresponds to a natural relaxation of networks with so called (/spl sigma/,/spl rho/)-constrained flows, where, instead of studying the worst case behavior. We consider statistical bounds on the performance of individual traffic streams. We obtain effective bandwidth results for generalized processor sharing (GPS) and packetised generalized processor sharing (PGPS) buffering systems, in the context of ATM-based B-ISDN networks, allowing for a circuit-switched style admission control and routing for multiple QoS.
Manual Clustering Refinement using Interaction with Blobs

The huge amount of different automatic clustering methods emphasizes one thing: there is no optimal clustering method for all possible cases. In certain application domains, like genomics and natural language processing, it is not even clear if any of the already known clustering methods suffice. In such cases, an automatic clustering method is often followed by manual refinement. The refined version may then be used as either an illustration, a reference, or even an input for a rule based or other machine learning algorithm as a new clustering method. In this paper, we describe a novel interaction technique to manual cluster refinement using the metaphor of soap bubbles, represented by special implicit surfaces (blobs). For instance, entities can simply be moved inside and outside of these blobs. A modified force-directed layout process automatically arranges entities equidistant on the screen. The modifications include a reduction to the expected amount of computation per iteration down to O(|V| log |V|+|E|) in order to achieve a high response time for use in an interactive system. We also spend a considerable amount of effort making the display of blobs fast enough for an interactive system.
Entry age into day care and later development of allergic disorders--results from the city of Leipzig cohort of the LISA study.

The situation in early childhood is supposed to be a risk factor for later development of allergic diseases. The birth cohort from the LISA (Lifestyle-Immune System-Allergy) study gave us the opportunity to investigate the relationship between early childhood situation and the development of allergic diseases. This paper describes our findings regarding to the relationship between entry age into day care and obstructive bronchitis as well as allergic rhinitis and atopic eczema. Study was designed as a longitudinal birth cohort study. Children were examined by a physician at birth, 1/2 year, 1 year, 1 1/2 year, 2 years, 3 years and 4 years. Further information was collected using a structured questionnaire which was answered by the parents. Outcomes under investigation were atopic eczema, allergic rhinitis, wheezing (with and without cold), obstructive bronchitis and asthma (after 2nd year of life). Logistic regression analysis adjusted for infectious diseases of the mother during pregnancy, vaccination of the mother during pregnancy, antibiotics, prenatal smoking of the mother or other persons in the apartment and vaccination state showed an significant promoting effect of entry age into day care against obstructive bronchitis over the first three years of life (OR 1/2 year: 8.55; 95%CI: 2.93.24.97; OR 1st year: 4.96; 95% CI: 1.73.14.24; OR 2nd year: 3.06 95% CI: 1.9.37). A further significant effect was found for crowding against asthma in the fourth year of life (OR 25.7; 95%CI: 1.65.400.17). No significant effects were found between the other periods under investigation (1st year until 4th year of life). On the base of our findings we recommend an entry age into day care of more than six months to prevent effects shown.
A 13.56 MHz CMOS RF identification transponder integrated circuit with a dedicated CPU

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology is attracting attention for its growing market in telephony and transport fare collection systems, which are replacing magnetic debit card technology, as well as factory automation and access control systems. In the former systems, the data rate is expected to exceed 100 kb/s, higher than previous results. Complex functions, such as anti-collision and authentication, are indispensable in transponder ICs in spite of the fact that their addition increases power consumption. To achieve the high data rate along with high magnetic field emission from interrogators, the 13.56 MHz ISM band is appropriate for RF power and data transmission. These RF and analog circuits for a 13.56 MHz RFID transponder IC are associated clocking and anti-collision techniques controlled by a dedicated CPU.
Syntactical models of distributed cooperative systems

Abstract The central aim of this paper is to inform on a specific direction of language-theoretic research focused on modelling distributed and cooperative systems. The basic view of distributivity and cooperativeness is adopted from classical approaches of artificial intelligence, especially from the field of problem-solving and blackboard architectures. Basic concepts are translated into the conceptual framework of the theory of formal grammars and languages. An overview is presented of some approaches to distributivity and cooperativeness in this framework, and some of the results that have been obtained are sketched.
Normalized Joint Mutual Information Measure for Ground Truth Based Segmentation Evaluation

Ground truth based image segmentation evaluation paradigm plays an important role in objective evaluation of segmentation algorithms. So far, many evaluation methods in terms of comparing clusterings in machine learning field have been developed. However, most traditional pairwise similarity measures, which only compare a machine generated clustering to a “true” clustering, have their limitations in some cases, e.g. when multiple ground truths are available for the same image. In this letter, we propose utilizing an information theoretic measure, named NJMI (Normalized Joint Mutual Information), to handle the situations which the pairwise measures can not deal with. We illustrate the effectiveness of NJMI for both unsupervised and supervised segmentation evaluation. key words: image segmentation evaluation, similarity measure, joint mutual information
Salient Factors for Maintenance Standard Adoption in Enterprise Resource Planning Context: An Exploratory Study

Research issues on information technology standards are getting more attention recently. It is observed that limited research effort has been devoted to adoption of process standard for instance software maintenance process. This study aims to identify the salient factors for maintenance process standard(s) adoption in enterprise resource planning (ERP) packaged software environment. To achieve this, a survey is conducted with the ERP-client organizations. The result from the principle component analysis shows that ERP-client’s satisfaction with the maintenance tool and system provided by the vendor for supporting maintenance activities plays a role in maintenance standard adoption. Also, the ERP-client’s top management acceptance for best practices in software maintenance is another salient factor.
Excessive daytime sleepiness in young adults: a 20-year prospective community study.

OBJECTIVE Excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) is a symptom with high clinical and public health importance because of its association with increased risk for accidents, decreased productivity, and impaired quality of life. Little information is available regarding the longitudinal course or clinical correlates of EDS. The aim of this study was to explore associations between self-reported EDS, sleep disorder symptoms, major depression, and anxiety in a longitudinal community study of young adults. METHOD A prospective single-age community study of young adults (Zurich Cohort Study) was conducted from 1978 through 1999. Information was derived from 6 interviews administered when participants (N = 591) were ages 20, 22, 27, 29, 34, and 40 years. Trained health professionals administered a semistructured interview for health habits and psychiatric and medical conditions. The presence of either or both of 2 symptoms-accidentally falling asleep or excessive need for sleep during the day-was used to establish the presence of EDS. RESULTS EDS was a common complaint among the study participants, with increasing prevalence with age. Cross-sectionally, EDS was associated with insomnia symptoms, nocturnal hypersomnia, anxiety disorders, somatization, and reduced quality of life. Longitudinally, impaired sleep quality, waking up too early, and anxiety were associated with later EDS. Conversely, EDS was not significantly associated with later anxiety or depressive disorders. CONCLUSIONS Insomnia symptoms and anxiety are associated with the subsequent occurrence of EDS. Although these findings do not demonstrate causality, insomnia and anxiety disorders are prevalent and treatable conditions, and our results may have important clinical implications for the prevention and treatment of EDS. Whether the results of this study are limited to populations with elevated levels of psychopathology remains to be tested.
Characterization of recombinant Streptococcus mitis‐derived human platelet aggregation factor

Ohkuni H, Nagamune H, Ozaki N, Tabata A, Todome Y, Watanabe Y, Takahashi H, Ohkura K, Kourai H, Ohtsuka H, Fischetti VA, Zabriskie JB. Characterization of recombinant Streptococcus mitis‐derived human platelet aggregation factor. APMIS 2012; 120: 56–71.
RAN slicing for multi-tenancy support in a WLAN scenario

Radio Access Network (RAN) slicing is a key technology, based on Software Defined Networks (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV), which aims at providing a more efficient utilization of the available network resources and the reduction of the operational costs. On that respect, in this demo a Wireless LAN hypervisor is presented that is based on a time variant scheduling mechanism and that is able to follow the dynamicity of the traffic variations seen by the different tenants in the network Access Points (APs). The work builds upon the 5G-EmPOWER tool kit, which is provided with SDN and NFV capabilities. During this demo it will be shown that the proposed hypervisor is able to dynamically assign, in every AP of the network, the appropriate resources per tenant according to their traffic requirements.
Efeito da temperatura na germinação de sementes de diferentes genótipos de Carthamus tinctorius

A cultura do cartamo vem sendo cultivado extensivamente em varios paises do mundo. E uma especie oleaginosa que apresenta alto teor de oleo de alta qualidade, sendo utilizado para diversas finalidades, como para fins industriais, alimentacao de bovinos, passaro e ganhando maior enfase em pesquisas. No entanto, o cartamo e pouco conhecido no Brasil, os trabalhos sao escassos e acaba gerando questionamentos sobre a viabilidade de seu cultivo. Diante de tal situacao, objetivou-se determinar a temperatura ideal para germinacao de sementes de cartamo. Foram utilizadas sementes de tres genotipos de cartamo (7329, S-325 e 2106). O delineamento experimental adotado foi inteiramente casualizado, com os tratamentos distribuidos em esquema fatorial 6 x 2 (temperaturas x hipoclorito de sodio), com tres repeticoes de 25 sementes cada. Os tratamentos constituiram-se pela combinacao entre seis temperaturas (15, 20, 25, 35, 45 e 20-30oC), com ausencia de fotoperiodo (sem controle). Avaliou-se atraves do teste de germinacao, velocidade de germinacao, uniformidade de germinacao e o tempo medio de germinacao. Conclui-se que a temperatura influencia na germinacao das sementes de genotipos de cartamo, assim verificou-se que temperaturas acima de 45 oC prejudicam tanto a G%, T50, T2575 e TMG. A faixa de temperatura entre 15 oC e 30 oC mostrou-se favoravel a germinacao das sementes de cartamo, com percentagens acima de 70%.