Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The role of G protein coupled receptor kinases in neurocardiovascular pathophysiology

In coronary artery disease the G protein related kinases (GRKs) play a role in desensitization of β-adrenoreceptors (AR) after coronary occlusion. Targeted deletion and lowering of cardiac myocyte GRK-2 decreases the risk of post-ischemic heart failure (HF). Studies carried out in humans confirm the role of GRK-2 as a marker for the progression of HF after myocardial infarction (MI). The level of GRK-2 could be an indicator of β-AR blocker efficacy in patients with acute coronary syndrome. Elevated levels of GRK-2 are an early ubiquitous consequence of myocardial injury. In hypertension an increased level of GRK-2 was reported in both animal models and human studies. The role of GRKs in vagally mediated disorders such as vasovagal syncope and atrial fibrillation remains controversial. The role of GRKs in the pathogenesis of neurocardiological diseases provides an insight into the molecular pathogenesis process, opens potential therapeutic options and suggests new directins for scientific research.
The IPO Lock-Up Period: Implications for Market Efficiency and Downward Sloping Demand Curves

After an initial public offering, most existing shareholders are subject to a lock-up period in which they cannot sell their shares for a prespecifed time. At the end of the lock-up, there is a permanent and large shift in the supply of shares. The lock-up expiration is a particularly interesting event to study because it is (i) completely known and observable, and (ii) potentially meaningful economically given the existing literature on supply shocks. This paper investigates volume and price patterns around this period, and documents several interesting results. Specifically, even though the event is totally anticipated, there is a 1% - 3% drop in the stock price, and a 40% increase in volume, when the lock-up ends. Various explanations are considered and rejected, suggesting a new anomalous fact against market efficiency. However, convincing evidence is provided which shows that this inefficiency is not exploitable, i.e., arbitrage is not violated. This aside, the evidence points to a downward sloping demand curve for shares, with the most likely explanation pointing to a permanent, long-run effect.
CF-IDC: A robust robot’s self-localization in dynamic environments using curvature information

This paper describes a complete laser-based approach for self-localization of mobile robots. The presented algorithm is a novel variant of the classic Iterative Dual Correspondence Method (IDC). Our scan matching method improves results of this popular algorithm in dynamic environments, due to the changed elements between two consecutive scans acquired by the robot are detected and removed of the matching process. To do that, the curvature information of each element of the environment is used. The proposed scan matching algorithm consists of three stages. Firstly, the whole raw data laser is segmented into groups of consecutive range readings using a distance-based criterion and the adaptive curvature function for each group is computed. Then, this set of curvature functions is matched to the set of curvature functions associated to the previously acquired laser scan. Finally, IDC algorithm is applied only considering those scan points which belong to the set of matched curvature functions. Thus, the system is outstanding in terms of robustly, accuracy and computation time. The implemented algorithm is evaluated and compared to the classic IDC scan matching approaches. Experimental results show that the new variant of the popular IDC algorithm performs well as it adjusts in a good way to changing environments.
Finite Part Integrals and Hypersingular Kernels

Singular integral equation method is one of the most effective numerical methods solving a plane crack problem in fracture mechanics. Depending on the choice of the density function, very often a higher order of sigularity appears in the equation, and we need to give a proper meaning of the integration. In this article we address the Hadamard finite part integral and how it is used to solve the plane crack problems. Properties of the Hadamard finite part integral will be summarized and compared with other type of integrals. Some numerical results for crack problems by using Hadamard finite part integral will be provided.
Isoflavone Metabolites Cis- and Trans-Tetrahydrodaidzein Improve Plasma Lipid Profile in Apolipoprotein(E)-Deficient Mice

Isoflavones have been suggested to have hypolipidemic effects. As these compounds undergo complex metabo- lism in the body, the biological actions of isoflavone metabolites are largely unknown. We studied the hypolipidemic ef- fects of two isoflavone metabolites initially identified in the human urine, cis-tetrahydrodaidzein (NV-04) and trans- tetrahydrodaidzein (NV-05) in apolipoprotein(E)-deficient mice fed with a high-fat diet. NV-04 and NV-05 were mixed in the food (200 mg per kg) and the treatment lasted for 16 weeks. NV-04 decreased plasma levels of LDL by 30%, triglyc- erides by 65% and increased HDL/LDL ratio by 70%. These effects of NV-04 are specific since its stereoisomer NV-05 is less effective. Notably, the effects of NV-04 are observed in the absence of apolipoprotein(E), therefore our results sug- gest that using cis-tetrahydrodaidzein as a complimentary medicine in hyperlipidemic patients with apolipoprotein(E) dys- functions warrants further investigations.
ARS VEHO: Augmented Reality System for VEHicle Operation

The increasing use of personal in-car technologies has created more opportunities for driver distraction. Communication and navigational systems exact a high cognitive price for the assistance they provide to the driver. Starting from existing research in the areas of augmented reality and context-aware systems, this paper proposes a system designed to assist the driver in the primary task while mitigating the effects of secondary systems. The core of the system includes a calculated interruptibility metric, which in conjunction with a driver profile system allows the system to postpone or eliminate secondary tasks when the primary task demands the driver’s full attention. The navigational system’s output is seamlessly integrated into the driver’s field of vision, eliminating the need to shift between 2D and 3D spatial representations or translate audio information to a spatial context. This paper presents the problem in detail, the proposed solution and excerpts from the software model.
Ultrasonic speckle denoising using the combination of wavelet transform and Wiener filter

Ultrasonic images are inherently affected by multiplicative noise, which is due to the coherent wave interference in tissue. This paper presents a method for ultrasonic speckle denoising using the combination of wavelet transform and wiener filter to effectively reduce the speckle noise while preserving the resolvable details. In our method, the steps involved are finding the 2D discrete wavelet transform of the logarithmic image. Then, the wiener filter is used to apply over areas in each detail subband (HH,HL and LH). Next the inverse wavelet transform is computed and applying the inverse logarithm. To evaluate the denoising performance, mean square error (MSE), signal to mean square error (S/mse) and edge preservation (/spl beta/) are used. From the experimental results, we found that our approach leads to an effective method for ultrasonic speckle denoising.
Orthogonal transform of SIFT descriptors and the effect on size and performance of Fisher Vectors in visual search

Fisher Vectors have shown great capability for visual search. Their main drawback is their high dimensionality. We propose several methods to reduce the size of the Fisher Vectors by applying different preprocessing steps and dimension reduction techniques to SIFT descriptors. Also, we investigate the effects of PCA and DCT transforms employed on SIFT descriptors and the resulting improvement for an image retrieval application. We show that DCT transformed SIFT descriptors show superiority over other methods and that dimension reduction to 32 dimensions is possible as well as a reduction of number of clusters used for Fisher Vector generation without too much loss in the mean average precision.
ESTs Analysis Reveals Putative Genes Involved in Symbiotic Seed Germination in Dendrobium officinale

Dendrobium officinale (Orchidaceae) is one of the world’s most endangered plants with great medicinal value. In nature, D . officinale seeds must establish symbiotic relationships with fungi to germinate. However, the molecular events involved in the interaction between fungus and plant during this process are poorly understood. To isolate the genes involved in symbiotic germination, a suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) cDNA library of symbiotically germinated D . officinale seeds was constructed. From this library, 1437 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) were clustered to 1074 Unigenes (including 902 singletons and 172 contigs), which were searched against the NCBI non-redundant (NR) protein database (E-value cutoff, e-5). Based on sequence similarity with known proteins, 579 differentially expressed genes in D . officinale were identified and classified into different functional categories by Gene Ontology (GO), Clusters of orthologous Groups of proteins (COGs) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways. The expression levels of 15 selected genes emblematic of symbiotic germination were confirmed via real-time quantitative PCR. These genes were classified into various categories, including defense and stress response, metabolism, transcriptional regulation, transport process and signal transduction pathways. All transcripts were upregulated in the symbiotically germinated seeds (SGS). The functions of these genes in symbiotic germination were predicted. Furthermore, two fungus-induced calcium-dependent protein kinases (CDPKs), which were upregulated 6.76- and 26.69-fold in SGS compared with un-germinated seeds (UGS), were cloned from D . officinale and characterized for the first time. This study provides the first global overview of genes putatively involved in D . officinale symbiotic seed germination and provides a foundation for further functional research regarding symbiotic relationships in orchids.
Reduced sleep quality and depression associate with decreased quality of life in patients with pituitary adenomas.

OBJECTIVES Several studies reported decreased quality of life (QoL) and sleep as well as increased rates of depression for patients with pituitary adenomas. Our aim was to explore to what extent differences in depression and sleep quality contribute to differences in QoL between patients with pituitary adenomas and controls. DESIGN A cross-sectional case-control study. SETTING Endocrine Outpatient Unit of the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Munich, Department of Internal Medicine, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, and the Institute of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Technical University, Dresden. PARTICIPANTS Patients with pituitary adenomas (n=247) and controls (from the DETECT cohort, a large epidemiological study in primary care patients) matched individually by age and gender (n=757). MEASUREMENTS Sleep quality was assessed with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and QoL was measured by the generic EQ-5D and calculated by the time trade-off- and VAS-method. Depression was categorized as 'no depression', 'subclinical depression', and 'clinical depression' according to the Beck Depressions Inventory for patients and the Depression Screening Questionnaire for control subjects. STATISTICAL ANALYSES General linear and generalized, logistic mixed models as well as proportional odds mixed models were calculated for analyzing differences in baseline characteristics and in different subgroups. RESULTS Patients with pituitary adenomas showed decreased QoL (VAS index: 0.73±0.19) and sleep (PSQI score: 6.75±4.17) as well as increased rates of depression (subclinical or clinical depression: 41.4%) compared with their matched control subjects (VAS index: 0.79±0.18, PSQI score: 5.66±4.31, subclinical or clinical depression: 25.9%). We have shown that a substantial proportion of the reduced QoL (48% respectively 65%) was due to the incidence of depression and reduced sleep quality. CONCLUSIONS These findings emphasize the importance of diagnosing depressive symptoms and sleep disturbances in patients with pituitary disease, with the ultimate goal to improve QoL in patients with pituitary adenomas.
Avahan: the transition to a publicly funded programme as a next stage

Avahan the flag ship programme of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) for the prevention of HIV in India was projected as a unique business model that brought private sector efficiency to a public health programme. However, within a period of 3 years after its launch, the programme already started planning for a phased withdrawal and a ‘graceful transfer’ into a publicly funded programme.1 Avahan with a US$250 million project cost was effectively complementing the Government of India's efforts to control AIDS through its own publicly funded National AIDS Control Program (NACP). Avahan was tasked to deliver to scale, high quality prevention interventions to high-risk community groups in six high prevalence states and make an impact on the progression of the epidemic in these states. Six years later, despite its impressive success in rapid scale up and efficient management of programme delivery, Avahan is coming under criticism for trying to wind up early from India, and worse, for experimenting with a model that is high cost in terms of unit costs of intervention. The programme, which aimed at ultimate community ownership of the interventions, has initiated the process of transfer before this objective is fully realised. The feasibility of Avahan's proposed transition into a publicly funded …
Reversed Citations and the Localization of Knowledge Spillovers

Spillover of knowledge is considered to be an important cause of agglomeration of inventive activity. Many studies argue that knowledge spillovers are localized based on the observation that patents tend to cite nearby patents disproportionately. Specifically, patent citations are interpreted as mapping the transmission of knowledge from the cited invention to the citing invention. The localization of patent citations is therefore taken as evidence that such knowledge transmission is also localized. Localization of knowledge transmission, however, may not be the only reason for why patent citations are localized. Using a set of citations that are unlikely to be associated with knowledge transmission from the cited to the citing invention, we present evidence that challenges the view that localization of citations is driven by localized knowledge transmission. Though localized knowledge transmission may well exist, it is unlikely to be captured by patent citations
Natural and anthropogenic factors affecting the feeding ecology of a top marine predator, the Magellanic penguin

Understanding how top predators respond to natural and anthropogenically induced changes in their environment is a major conservation challenge especially in marine environments. We used a multidisciplinary approach to explore the mechanisms through which a typical central-place forager, the Magellanic penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) from the Chubut province of Argentina, responds to variations in oceanic conditions and prey resources. We combined habitat and species distribution modeling with isotopic dietary reconstructions based on blood δ13C and δ15N values to quantify the role of bathymetry, sea-surface temperature and chlorophyll-a concentration, abundance of conspecifics, and extent of fisheries activities in explaining the foraging and feeding ecology of individuals breeding at different colonies. The at-sea distribution of penguins was tightly coupled with the spatial distribution of their staple prey species, anchovies (Engraulis anchoita), especially in areas over the continental shelf (>200 m depth), with relatively warm water (from 16° to 21°C), and moderate abundances of conspecifics (from 50 to 250 individuals). Competition with conspecifics and human fisheries were also identified as important factors explaining penguin diet with decreasing relative contributions of anchovies with increasing abundance of conspecifics and fishing activity. Our multifactorial approach allowed us to simultaneously explore different physical, biological and anthropogenic features likely affecting marine resource availability, and, consequently, driving the feeding and foraging ecology of this central-place forager. Our approach can be extended to a large suite of central-place foragers, thus providing important advances in the way we investigate how to effectively conserve and manage these species.
A DLL-based Clock Data Recovery with a modified input format

This letter presents a DLL (Delay Locked Loop)-based CDR (Clock Data Recovery) design with a modified input data format. The proposed CDR recovers the clock and tracks the phase by the proposed training and real data patterns. The proposed input data formatting is done by inserting the ‘01’ pattern in every N-bit data. To prove the feasibility, a 2.4Gbps CDR is designed and simulated. The training and the real data pattern were formatted as the 10B12B for a high-performance display interface. The CDR achieves less jitter due to the DLL structure. The proposed CDR with the 10B12B format consumes approximately 8mA under 3.3V power supply using 0. 25µm CMOS process.
Retinal Sensitivity in Patients with Type I Diabetes without Retinopathy or with Minor Retinal Changes

Abstract Objective: To evaluate the ability of short-wavelength automated perimetry (SWAP) for the detection of visual impairment in patients with type I diabetes without retinopathy or with minor retinal vascular changes. Design: Comparative cross-sectional study. Participants: 30 eyes of 30 healthy subjects and 73 eyes of 73 patients with type I diabetes mellitus were studied. Methods: Ophthalmic examination of diabetic patients showed no retinopathy or minimal changes (less than 5 microaneurisms in each eye) with no previous laser treatment. All patients were examined by means of the SWAP 24-2 strategy. Mean Deviation (MD) and Pattern Standard Deviation (PSD) were compared between both groups. Results: There were differences in the clusters of altered points between both groups (p=0.004). SWAP MD was lower in the diabetic group than in the controls (−2.89 dB vs. −0.20 dB, p<0.001). SWAP PSD also differed between both groups (2.50 dB in control group, 3.12 dB in the diabetic group, p=0.003). In the diabetic group, mean period from the onset of diabetes was 12.6±6.7 years and minimal vascular changes were observed in the retina of 18 eyes (24.7%), while 55 had no lesions (75.3%). No differences in SWAP changes were found between patients without and with minimal diabetic retinopathy. Conclusions: Retinal sensitivity assessed by SWAP is depressed in patients with type I diabetes regardless of the presence of retinal vascular changes.
Feature Reinforcement Learning using Looping Suffix Trees

There has recently been much interest in history-based methods using suffix trees to solve POMDPs. However, these suffix trees cannot efficiently represent environments that have long-term dependencies. We extend the recently introduced CTMDP algorithm to the space of looping suffix trees which have previously only been used in solving determinis- tic POMDPs. The resulting algorithm replicates results from CTMDP for environments with short term dependencies, while it outperforms LSTM-based methods on TMaze, a deep memory environment.
LONG‐TERM FOUR‐YEAR EXERCISE HAS A POSITIVE EFFECT ON MENOPAUSAL RISK FACTORS: THE ERLANGEN FITNESS OSTEOPOROSIS PREVENTION STUDY

The purpose of the study was to determine the effect of long-term exercise on coronary heart disease, osteoporotic risk factors, and physical fitness parameters in postmenopausal women. Forty early postmenopausal women (age 55.1 ± 3.3 years) with no medication or illness affecting bone metabolism exercised (high impact aerobic, multilateral jumps, multi-set resistance exercise) for 50 months (EG), while 28 women (age 55.5 ± 3.0 years) served as a nontraining control (CG). Both groups were supplemented with calcium and cholecalciferol. Bone mineral density (BMD) was measured at the lumbar spine, hip, and forearm by dual energy x-ray absorptiometry. Blood lipids were determined using serum samples, and body composition was determined using the bioimpedance technique. Further, maximum isometric strength was determined (Schnell M3, Schnell Trainer). The BMD at the lumbar spine (+1.0%, p = 0.037) and the total hip (−0.3%, p = 0.194) were maintained in the EG, while significant (p < 0.001) decreases were observed in the CG (lumbar spine −3.2; total hip −2.3%). Differences between both groups were significant (p < 0.001). Significant differences between EG and CG were also observed, respectively, for total cholesterol (−6.1 vs. +3.5%, p = 0.008), HDL-cholesterol (+14.1 vs. −7.1%, p = 0.007), triglycerides (−10.2 vs. +27.5%, p = 0.002), body fat (−3.3 vs. +1.3%, p = 0.041), and waist-hip-ratio (−3.5 vs. +0.2%, p > 0.001). Maximum isometric strength significantly (p < 0.001) increased in the EG, while strength parameters decreased in the CG (−0.5 to −6.4%). Thus, the study demonstrated that multipurpose high-intensity exercise programs significantly affect relevant menopausal risk factors and, therefore, may be individually considered as an alternative to hormone replacement therapy.
Multiple parenting identification in image phylogeny

Image phylogeny deals with tracing back parent-child relationships among near duplicates, images that share the same semantic content. This approach results in a visual structure showing the inheritance of semantic content among images, called phylogeny tree. In this paper, we extend upon the image phylogeny's original formulation, which considers that an image may inherit content from only a single parent, to deal with situations whereby an image may inherit it from multiple different parents. Our objective is to find the multiple parenting relationships in a set of images, a problem which we refer to as multiple parenting phylogeny. The proposed solution works by first identifying near-duplicate groups and reconstructing their phylogenies; then among the found groups we determine the one(s) representing the composition images; finally, we detect the parenting relations between those compositions and the source images used to create them.
Necessary conditions for the confidence level of the randomized algorithm of finding the true number of clusters

One of the most difficult problems in cluster analysis is the identification of the number of groups in a given data set. In this paper we offer the approach in the framework of the common “elbow” methodology such that the true number of clusters is recognized as the slope discontinuity of the index function. A randomized algorithm has been suggested to allocate this position. The scenario approach is used to significantly reduce the computational complexity. We present weaker necessary conditions to provide a priori chosen level of confidence. In addition, we present a number of simulation examples of unknown huge number of groups clustering to demonstrate theoretical results. Finally, we note that necessary conditions can be relaxed more and ideas considered potentially can be extended to a wide range of real-time decision-making problems in control systems.