Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exploring Attributes of High-Value Primary Care

PURPOSE Medicare’s merit-based incentive payment system and narrowing of physician networks by health insurers will stoke clinicians’ and policy makers’ interest in care delivery attributes associated with value as defined by payers. METHODS To help define these attributes, we analyzed 2009 to 2011 commercial health insurance claims data for more than 40 million preferred provider organization patients attributed to over 53,000 primary care practice sites. We identified sites ranking favorably on both quality and low total annual per capita health care spending (“high-value”) and sites ranking near the median (“average-value”). Sites were selected for qualitative assessment from 64 high-value sites and 102 average-value sites with more than 1 primary care physician who delivered adult primary care and provided services to enough enrollees to permit meaningful spending and quality ranking. Purposeful sampling ensured regional diversity. Physicians experienced in primary care assessment and blinded to site rankings visited 12 high-value sites and 4 average-value sites to identify tangible attributes of care delivery that could plausibly explain a high ranking on value. RESULTS Thirteen attributes of care delivery distinguished sites in the high-value cohort. Six attributes attained statistical significance: decision support for evidence-based medicine, risk-stratified care management, careful selection of specialists, coordination of care, standing orders and protocols, and balanced physician compensation. CONCLUSIONS Awareness of care delivery attributes that distinguish their high-value peers may help physicians respond successfully to incentives from Medicare and private payers to lower annual health care spending and improve quality of care.
Fault Detection and Test Minimization Methods for Combinational Circuits-A Survey

Rapid increase in population increased the usage of digital components dramatically and their production. For profitable income, the cost of the finished product and time taken for marketing the product needs to be reduced. In this paper, the authors conducted extensive survey of methods developed earlier to detect faults and minimize test set in digital circuits. The survey is limited to methods for simple combinational circuits only. In effect, this paper compares 11 different fault detection and test minimization methods for simple circuits. In addition, a survey on evolutionary techniques for optimizing the test set in digital circuits is performed. The surveyed methods are widely accepted by industries manufacturing digital circuits. A very brief introduction to entire flow of test minimization process is also presented. Keywords— Combinational Circuits, Fault Detection, Genetic Algorithm, ILP, Stuck-at-faults, Test Minimization.
Mitochondrial Superoxide Generation Enhances P2X7R-Mediated Loss of Cell Surface CD62L on Naive Human CD4+ T Lymphocytes

Migration of naive CD4+ T lymphocytes into lymphoid tissue is essential for their activation and subsequent roles in adaptive immunity. The adhesion molecule L-selectin (CD62L), critical for this process, is highly expressed on naive CD4+ T lymphocytes and is downregulated upon T lymphocyte activation. We demonstrate protein expression of P2X7R on naive CD4+ T lymphocytes and show functional channel activity in whole-cell patch clamp recordings. CD62L downregulation occurs rapidly in response to extracellular ATP, a process that is blocked by selective antagonists of P2X7R. This loss of surface CD62L expression was not associated with externalization of phosphatidylserine. While investigating the mechanisms for this process, we revealed that pharmacological modulation of mitochondrial complex I or III, but not inhibition of NADPH oxidase, enhanced P2X7R-dependent CD62L downregulation by increasing ATP potency. Enhanced superoxide generation in the mitochondria of rotenone- and antimycin A–treated cells was observed and may contribute to the enhanced sensitivity of P2X7R to ATP. P2X7R-dependent exposure of phosphatidylserine was also revealed by preincubation with mitochondrial uncouplers prior to ATP treatment. This may present a novel mechanism whereby P2X7R-dependent phosphatidylserine exposure occurs only when cells have enhanced mitochondrial reactive oxygen species generation. The clearance of apoptotic cells may therefore be enhanced by this mechanism which requires functional P2X7R expression.
Habitat relationships and conservation of the yellowhead

The yellowhead, a forest-dwelling passerine endemic to the South Island of New Zealand, has declined in both abundance and range since the arrival of European settlers last century. In the last 30 years it has all but disappeared from the northern half of the South Island but remains widespread in the south. One possible explanation is that the yellowhead has declined in abundance throughout its range, disappearing from less suitable habitats in which it was never very abundant. To test this hypothesis a habitat suitability index was constructed and northern and southern forests compared. Yellowheads appear to be tall forest specialists and are most common in tall red beech dominated forests at low altitude on flat valley floors. No evidence was found that forests in the northern South Island are any less suitable for yellowheads than those in the south. Other explanations for the decline of yellowheads in the north of their range are discussed.
Finite-size corrections to the rotating string and the winding state

We compute higher order finite size corrections to the energies of the circular rotating string on AdS5 ? S5, of its orbifolded generalization on AdS5 ? S5/M and of the winding state which is obtained as the limit of the orbifolded circular string solution when J ? and J/M2 is kept fixed. We solve, at the first order in ? ' = ? /J2, where ? is the 't Hooft coupling, the Bethe equations that describe the anomalous dimensions of the corresponding gauge dual operators in an expansion in m/K, where m is the winding number and K is the ``magnon number, and to all orders in the angular momentum J. The solution for the circular rotating string and for the winding state can be matched to the energy computed from an effective quantum Landau-Lifshitz model beyond the first order correction in 1/J. For the leading 1/J corrections to the circular rotating string in m2 and m4 and for the subleading 1/J2 corrections to the m2 term, we find agreement. For the winding state we match the energy completely up to, and including, the order 1/J2 finite-size corrections. The solution of the Bethe equations corresponding to the spinning closed string is also provided in an expansion in m/K and to all orders in J.
Statistical Mechanics of Optimal Convex Inference in High Dimensions

To model modern large-scale datasets, we need efficient algorithms to infer a set of $P$ unknown model parameters from $N$ noisy measurements. What are fundamental limits on the accuracy of parameter inference, given finite signal-to-noise ratios, limited measurements, prior information, and computational tractability requirements? How can we combine prior information with measurements to achieve these limits? Classical statistics gives incisive answers to these questions as the measurement density $\alpha = \frac{N}{P}\rightarrow \infty$. However, these classical results are not relevant to modern high-dimensional inference problems, which instead occur at finite $\alpha$. We formulate and analyze high-dimensional inference as a problem in the statistical physics of quenched disorder. Our analysis uncovers fundamental limits on the accuracy of inference in high dimensions, and reveals that widely cherished inference algorithms like maximum likelihood (ML) and maximum-a posteriori (MAP) inference cannot achieve these limits. We further find optimal, computationally tractable algorithms that can achieve these limits. Intriguingly, in high dimensions, these optimal algorithms become computationally simpler than MAP and ML, while still outperforming them. For example, such optimal algorithms can lead to as much as a 20% reduction in the amount of data to achieve the same performance relative to MAP. Moreover, our analysis reveals simple relations between optimal high dimensional inference and low dimensional scalar Bayesian inference, insights into the nature of generalization and predictive power in high dimensions, information theoretic limits on compressed sensing, phase transitions in quadratic inference, and connections to central mathematical objects in convex optimization theory and random matrix theory.
Registration of Remote Sensing Images with Steerable Pyramid Transform and Robust SIFT Features

This paper proposes an automatic registration technique based on steerable pyramid transform and robust shift invariant feature transform (SIFT) features, which can deal with the large variations of scale, rotation and illumination of the images. First, the steerable pyramid transform is used to the two input images and the sub-band images along certain orientations are obtained at each layer. Then, a robust SIFT algorithm is developed to calculate the initial transformation parameters for registration of these obtained images. Finally, the final refined parameters determined by using gradual optimization are adopted to achieve the registration result. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by the experimental results.
PPAR&ggr; Regulates Mitochondrial Structure and Function and Human Pulmonary Artery Smooth Muscle Cell Proliferation

&NA; Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a progressive disorder that causes significant morbidity and mortality despite existing therapies. PH pathogenesis is characterized by metabolic derangements that increase pulmonary artery smooth muscle cell (PASMC) proliferation and vascular remodeling. PH‐associated decreases in peroxisome proliferator‐activated receptor &ggr; (PPAR&ggr;) stimulate PASMC proliferation, and PPAR&ggr; in coordination with PPAR&ggr; coactivator 1&agr; (PGC1&agr;) regulates mitochondrial gene expression and biogenesis. To further examine the impact of decreases in PPAR&ggr; expression on human PASMC (HPASMC) mitochondrial function, we hypothesized that depletion of either PPAR&ggr; or PGC1&agr; perturbs mitochondrial structure and function to stimulate PASMC proliferation. To test this hypothesis, HPASMCs were exposed to hypoxia and treated pharmacologically with the PPAR&ggr; antagonist GW9662 or with siRNA against PPAR&ggr; or PGC1&agr; for 72 hours. HPASMC proliferation (cell counting), target mRNA levels (qRT‐PCR), target protein levels (Western blotting), mitochondria‐derived H2O2 (confocal immunofluorescence), mitochondrial mass and fragmentation, and mitochondrial bioenergetic profiling were determined. Hypoxia or knockdown of either PPAR&ggr; or PGC1&agr; increased HPASMC proliferation, enhanced mitochondria‐derived H2O2, decreased mitochondrial mass, stimulated mitochondrial fragmentation, and impaired mitochondrial bioenergetics. Taken together, these findings provide novel evidence that loss of PPAR&ggr; diminishes PGC1&agr; and stimulates derangements in mitochondrial structure and function that cause PASMC proliferation. Overexpression of PGC1&agr; reversed hypoxia‐induced HPASMC derangements. This study identifies additional mechanistic underpinnings of PH, and provides support for the notion of activating PPAR&ggr; as a novel therapeutic strategy in PH.
Explicit Causal Recursive Estimators for Continuous-Time Bivariate Markov Chains

A bivariate Markov chain comprises a pair of random processes which are jointly Markov. In this paper, both processes are assumed to be continuous-time with finite state space. One of the two processes is observable, while the other is an underlying process which affects the statistical properties of the observable process. Neither the observable, nor the underlying process , is required to be a Markov chain. Examples of bivariate Markov chains include the Markov modulated Markov process (MMMP), the Markov modulated Poisson process (MMPP), and the batch Markovian arrival process (BMAP). We develop explicit causal recursions for estimating the number of jumps from one state to another, and the total sojourn time in each state, of a general bivariate Markov chain. Explicit causal recursions of these statistics were previously developed for the MMMP and the MMPP using the transformation of measure approach. We argue that this approach cannot be extended to a general bivariate Markov chain. Instead, we modify the approach developed by Rydén for noncausal estimation of the same statistics of an MMPP, and use the state augmentation approach of Zeitouni and Dembo and a matrix recursion from Stiller and Radons, to derive the causal recursions. The new recursions do not require any numerical integration or sampling scheme of the continuous-time bivariate Markov chain.
Preoperative statins as modifiers of cardiac and inflammatory outcomes following coronary artery bypass graft surgery: a meta-analysis.

Early postoperative cardiac complications of coronary artery bypass graft surgery, such as atrial fibrillation (AF) or myocardial infarction (MI), may be beneficially modulated by preoperative statins, involving their anti-inflammatory effects. There is uncertainty on the clinical merit of statin pretreatment. Addressing this, we conducted a meta-analysis of early cardiac complications and inflammatory markers following statin pretreatment in coronary artery bypass graft surgery. A search of Medline and Cochrane databases was undertaken to identify suitable studies. A meta-analysis was carried out for early cardiac (AF, MI, myocardial injury markers) and inflammatory (cytokines, C-reactive protein) outcomes. We identified 17 suitable studies that featured data from the total of 2796 patients. Twelve studies (1260 treated and 1263 untreated patients) reported AF incidence. Statin pretreatment was associated with a significant decrease of AF incidence: odds ratio 0.44 (95% confidence interval: 0.27-0.70; P = 0.003). Seven studies (381 treated and 277 untreated patients) reported useful data on MI. Unlike in AF, no significant modulation of postoperative MI in association with statin pretreatment could be observed: odds ratio 0.62 (95% confidence interval: 0.21-1.81; P = 0.62). Five studies (248 treated and 245 untreated patients) provided data on postoperative rise of C-reactive protein. This rise was significantly downregulated in statin-pretreated patients: standardized mean difference -0.44 (95% confidence interval: -0.78 to -0.11; P = 0.02). Thus, postoperative AF incidence is the biggest beneficiary of statin pretreatment in coronary artery bypass graft surgery. This effect is associated with beneficial modulation of systemic inflammatory markers.
Eliminating global interpreter locks in ruby through hardware transactional memory

Many scripting languages use a Global Interpreter Lock (GIL) to simplify the internal designs of their interpreters, but this kind of lock severely lowers the multi-thread per-formance on multi-core machines. This paper presents our first results eliminating the GIL in Ruby using Hardware Transactional Memory (HTM) in the IBM zEnterprise EC12 and Intel 4th Generation Core processors. Though prior prototypes replaced a GIL with HTM, we tested real-istic programs, the Ruby NAS Parallel Benchmarks (NPB), the WEBrick HTTP server, and Ruby on Rails. We devised a new technique to dynamically adjust the transaction lengths on a per-bytecode basis, so that we can optimize the likelihood of transaction aborts against the relative overhead of the instructions to begin and end the transactions. Our results show that HTM achieved 1.9- to 4.4-fold speedups in the NPB programs over the GIL with 12 threads, and 1.6- and 1.2-fold speedups in WEBrick and Ruby on Rails, respectively. The dynamic transaction-length adjustment chose the best transaction lengths for any number of threads and applications with sufficiently long running times.
Lean Production Control at a High-Variety, Low-Volume Parts Manufacturer

Eaton Electric General Supplies, a parts manufacturing unit that supplies parts for Eaton's electrical business unit, implemented several lean control elements in its high-variety, low-volume production units. These control elements include a constant work-in-process mechanism to limit and control the amount of work in process, first-in-first-out sequencing to control the order of departing jobs, and takt time to control the timing of departing jobs. We conducted a simulation study to (1) illustrate the control-element operations for planners and supervisors, (2) indicate the general applicability of the elements, and (3) support the development of a production progress screen to support the workers in the production units.
2D Shape Manipulations with Holomorphic Coordinates

Cage-based deformation methods require an enclosing cage to deform a shape, which is not user-friendly. In this paper, we propose holomorphic coordinates that directly take user-specified shape points as handles to produce visually promising conformal deformations for 2D shapes. Based on the theory of holomorphic functions, holomorphic coordinates promise the interpolation and smoothness properties on the shape. Namely, handle points can be moved to the exact locations that the user specifies, and the deformations are smooth all over the shape. We also suggest an algorithm to solve holomorphic coordinates on a grid in a least-squares sense by constructing harmonic and conjugate constraints. Experiments have shown that the numerical errors are close to zero, and deformed shapes can be obtained at an interactive rate.
DISTINCT EVENTS IN THE IMMUNE RESPONSE ELICITED BY TRANSFERRED MARROW AND THYMUS CELLS

Marrow cells and thymocytes of unprimed donor mice were transplanted separately into X-irradiated syngeneic hosts, with or without sheep erythrocytes (SRBC). Antigen-dependent changes in number or function of potentially immunocompetent cells were assessed by retransplantation of thymus-derived cells with fresh bone marrow cells and SRBC; of marrow-derived cells with fresh thymocytes and SRBC; and of thymus-derived with marrow-derived cells and SRBC. Plaque-forming cells (PFC) of the direct (IgM) and indirect (IgG) classes were enumerated in spleens of secondary host mice at the time of peak responses. By using this two-step design, it was shown (a) that thymus, but not bone marrow, contained antigen-reactive cells (ARC) capable of initiating the immune response to SRBC (first step), and (b) that the same antigen complex that activated thymic ARC was required for the subsequent interaction between thymus-derived and marrow cells and/or for PFC production (second step). Thymic ARC separated from marrow cells but exposed to SRBC proliferated and generated specific inducer cells. These were the cells that interacted with marrow precursors of PFC to form the elementary units for plaque responses to SRBC, i.e. the class- and specificity-restricted antigen-sensitive units. It was estimated that each ARC generated 80–800 inducer cells in 4 days by way of a minimum of 6–10 cell divisions. On the basis of the available evidence, a simple model was outlined for cellular events in the immune response to SRBC.
Impact of Drug Resistance-Associated Amino Acid Changes in HIV-1 Subtype C on Susceptibility to Newer Nonnucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors

ABSTRACT The objective of this study was to assess the phenotypic susceptibility of HIV-1 subtype C isolates, with nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI) resistance-associated amino acid changes, to newer NNRTIs. A panel of 52 site-directed mutants and 38 clinically derived HIV-1 subtype C clones was created, and the isolates were assessed for phenotypic susceptibility to etravirine (ETR), rilpivirine (RPV), efavirenz (EFV), and nevirapine (NVP) in an in vitro single-cycle phenotypic assay. The amino acid substitutions E138Q/R, Y181I/V, and M230L conferred high-level resistance to ETR, while K101P and Y181I/V conferred high-level resistance to RPV. Y181C, a major NNRTI resistance-associated amino acid substitution, caused decreased susceptibility to ETR and, to a lesser extent, RPV when combined with other mutations. These included N348I and T369I, amino acid changes in the connection domain that are not generally assessed during resistance testing. However, the prevalence of these genotypes among subtype C sequences was, in most cases, <1%. The more common EFV/NVP resistance-associated substitutions, such as K103N, V106M, and G190A, had no major impact on ETR or RPV susceptibility. The low-level resistance to RPV and ETR conferred by E138K was not significantly enhanced in the presence of M184V/I, unlike for EFV and NVP. Among patient samples, 97% were resistant to EFV and/or NVP, while only 24% and 16% were resistant to ETR and RPV, respectively. Overall, only a few, relatively rare NNRTI resistance-associated amino acid substitutions caused resistance to ETR and/or RPV in an HIV-1 subtype C background, suggesting that these newer NNRTIs would be effective in NVP/EFV-experienced HIV-1 subtype C-infected patients.
Whole is Greater than Sum of Parts: Recognizing Scene Text Words

Recognizing text in images taken in the wild is a challenging problem that has received great attention in recent years. Previous methods addressed this problem by first detecting individual characters, and then forming them into words. Such approaches often suffer from weak character detections, due to large intra-class variations, even more so than characters from scanned documents. We take a different view of the problem and present a holistic word recognition framework. In this, we first represent the scene text image and synthetic images generated from lexicon words using gradient-based features. We then recognize the text in the image by matching the scene and synthetic image features with our novel weighted Dynamic Time Warping (wDTW) approach. We perform experimental analysis on challenging public datasets, such as Street View Text and ICDAR 2003. Our proposed method significantly outperforms our earlier work in Mishra et al. (CVPR 2012), as well as many other recent works, such as Novikova et al. (ECCV 2012), Wang et al. al.(ICPR 2012), Wang et al.(ICCV 2011).
Protection from Noise-Induced Hearing Loss by Kv2.2 Potassium Currents in the Central Medial Olivocochlear System

The central auditory brainstem provides an efferent projection known as the medial olivocochlear (MOC) system, which regulates the cochlear amplifier and mediates protection on exposure to loud sound. It arises from neurons of the ventral nucleus of the trapezoid body (VNTB), so control of neuronal excitability in this pathway has profound effects on hearing. The VNTB and the medial nucleus of the trapezoid body are the only sites of expression for the Kv2.2 voltage-gated potassium channel in the auditory brainstem, consistent with a specialized function of these channels. In the absence of unambiguous antagonists, we used recombinant and transgenic methods to examine how Kv2.2 contributes to MOC efferent function. Viral gene transfer of dominant-negative Kv2.2 in wild-type mice suppressed outward K+ currents, increasing action potential (AP) half-width and reducing repetitive firing. Similarly, VNTB neurons from Kv2.2 knock-out mice (Kv2.2KO) also showed increased AP duration. Control experiments established that Kv2.2 was not expressed in the cochlea, so any changes in auditory function in the Kv2.2KO mouse must be of central origin. Further, in vivo recordings of auditory brainstem responses revealed that these Kv2.2KO mice were more susceptible to noise-induced hearing loss. We conclude that Kv2.2 regulates neuronal excitability in these brainstem nuclei by maintaining short APs and enhancing high-frequency firing. This safeguards efferent MOC firing during high-intensity sounds and is crucial in the mediation of protection after auditory overexposure.