Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Differential Cardiovascular Outcomes after Dipeptidyl Peptidase-4 Inhibitor, Sulfonylurea, and Pioglitazone Therapy, All in Combination with Metformin, for Type 2 Diabetes: A Population-Based Cohort Study

Background/Objectives Data on the comparative effectiveness of oral antidiabetics on cardiovascular outcomes in a clinical practice setting are limited. This study sought to determine whether a differential risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) exists for the combination of a dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitor plus metformin versus a sulfonylurea derivative plus metformin or pioglitazone plus metformin. Methods We conducted a cohort study of 349,476 patients who received treatment with a DPP-4 inhibitor, sulfonylurea, or pioglitazone plus metformin for type 2 diabetes using the Korean national health insurance claims database. The incidence of total CVD and individual outcomes of myocardial infarction (MI), heart failure (HF), and ischemic stroke (IS) were assessed using the hazard ratios (HRs) estimated from a Cox proportional-hazards model weighted for a propensity score. Results During follow-up, 3,881 patients developed a CVD, including 428 MIs, 212 HFs, and 1,487 ISs. The adjusted HR with 95% confidence interval (CI) for a sulfonylurea derivative plus metformin compared with a DPP-4 inhibitor plus metformin was 1.20 (1.09-1.32) for total CVD; 1.14 (1.04-1.91) for MI; 1.07 (0.71-1.62) for HF; and 1.51 (1.28-1.79) for IS. The HRs with 95% CI for total CVD, MI, HF, and IS for pioglitazone plus metformin were 0.89 (0.81-0.99), 1.05 (0.76-1.46), 4.81 (3.53-6.56), and 0.81 (0.67-0.99), respectively. Conclusions Compared with a DPP-4 inhibitor plus metformin, treatment with a sulfonylurea drug plus metformin was associated with increased risks of total CVD, MI, and IS, whereas the use of pioglitazone plus metformin was associated with decreased total CVD and IS risks.
Improvement of light extraction efficiency of GaN-based flip-chip LEDs by a double-sided spherical cap-shaped patterned sapphire substrate

This study reports on the development of a cost- and time-effective means to optimize a double-sided spherical cap-shaped patterned sapphire substrate (PSS) for highly efficient flip-chip GaN-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs). A simulation is conducted to study how light extraction efficiency (LEE) changed as a function of alteration in the parameters of the unit spherical cap for LEDs that are fabricated on a double-sided spherical cap-shaped PSS. Results show that the optimal double-sided spherical cap-shaped PSS can enhance LEE of flip-chip LEDs by over 5% compared with flip-chip LEDs grown on the optimal double-sided hemispherical PSS.
Fast high‐resolution T1 mapping using inversion‐recovery look‐locker echo‐planar imaging at steady state: Optimization for accuracy and reliability

A fast T1 measurement sequence using inversion recovery Look‐Locker echo‐planar imaging at steady state (IR LL‐EPI SS) is presented. Delay time for a full magnetization recovery is not required in the sequence, saving acquisition time significantly for high‐resolution T1 mapping. Imaging parameters of the IR LL‐EPI SS sequence were optimized to minimize the bias from the excitation pulses imperfection and to maximize the accuracy and reliability of T1 measurements, which are critical for its applications. Compared with the conventional inversion recovery Look‐Locker echo‐planar imaging (IR LL‐EPI) sequence, IR LL‐EPI SS method preserves similar accuracy and reliability, while saving 20% in acquisition time. Optimized IR LL‐EPI SS provided quantitative T1 mapping with 1 × 1 × 4 mm3 resolution and whole‐brain coverage (28 slices) in approximately 4 min. Magn Reson Med, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Identification of dynamics of humanoids: Systematic exciting motion generation

The mass parameters of robots influence performances of model-based control and validation of the simulation results. The mass parameters provided by CAD data are usually rough approximation of the true parameters. Therefore several methods for estimation of those parameters have been proposed. Their precision depends on the used motion, called optimal exciting trajectories. This paper describes a new approach to determine humanoid robot exciting trajectories for mass parameters identification. The method was inspired by the studies done in the field of human mass parameters identification, and it is based on observation of condition numbers of sub-regressor matrices created from the columns of the regressor matrix. The method has been experimentally applied to identify mass parameters of HRP-2 and HRP-4 humanoid robots. The proposed method is able to reconstruct ground reaction forces and force moments more accurately than parameters obtained from CAD data.
Query Classification Based on Regularized Correlated Topic Model

This paper addresses the problem of query classification (QC), which aims to classify Web search queries into one or more predefined categories. The state-of-the-art solution for QC is to employ a bridging classifier via an intermediate taxonomy. In this paper, we advanced the bridging method by leveraging probabilistic topic models. The topic model, referred as RCTM (Regularized Correlated Topic Model), is an extension of the conventional CTM (Correlated Topic Model). RCTM learns a topic model by leveraging weak supervision from existing annotated data rather than in an unsupervised fashion, and thus it can effectively address the problem in topic modeling while the topics are predefined. The experimental evaluations show that our QC approach outperforms other baseline methods.
Sponsors of Policy: A Network Analysis of Wealthy Elites, Their Affiliated Philanthropies, and Charter School Reform in Washington State

Background/Context Charter school policy has evolved into a major component of the current education reform movement in the United States. As of 2012, all but nine U.S. states allowed charter schools, and in one of those nine, Washington State, charter school legislation was passed by popular vote in November 2012. There is a substantial, if contested, research base focusing on charter school effectiveness, particularly related to test score achievement, as well as an equally contested literature base on charter school enrollment selectivity, student expulsions, and increased segregation in charter school populations. Purpose The purpose of this study is to analyze the network of relations of policy actors surrounding the statewide campaign to pass the charter school Initiative 1240 in Washington State in order to better understand how wealthy individuals and their associated philanthropic organizations influence educational policy. Research Design Making use of available tax records, public election information, individual and organizational websites, and institutional and foundation databases, this study uses simple directed graphing techniques from social network analysis to analyze the complex relationships and affiliations of policy actors relative to the campaign to pass charter school Initiative 1240 in the state of Washington. Conclusions/Recommendations This study concludes that, compared to the average voter in Washington, an elite group of wealthy individuals, either directly through individual donations or indirectly through their affiliated philanthropic organizations, wielded disproportionate influence over the outcome of the charter school initiative in the state, thereby raising serious concerns about the democratic underpinnings of an education policy that impacts all of the children in Washington State. This study also concludes that elite individuals make use of local nonprofit organizations as a mechanism to advance their education policy agenda by funding those nonprofits through the philanthropic organizations affiliated with those same wealthy elites. In light of these conclusions, the authors recommend that a mechanism for more democratic accountability be developed relative to education policy campaigns, initiatives, and legislation.
Prevalence of polyomavirus BK and JC infection and replication in 400 healthy blood donors.

BACKGROUND The replication of BK virus (BKV) and JC virus (JCV) is linked to polyomavirus-associated nephropathy, hemorrhagic cystitis, and multifocal leukoencephalopathy in immunodeficient patients, but the behavior of these viruses in immunocompetent individuals has hardly been characterized. METHODS We used EIA to study samples obtained from 400 healthy blood donors aged 20-59 years for BKV- and JCV-specific antibodies against virus-like particles. We also studied BKV and JCV loads in plasma and urine among these individuals by use of real-time polymerase chain reaction. RESULTS IgG seroprevalence was 82% (328 of 400 donors) for BKV and 58% (231 of400) for JCV. As age increased (age groups were divided by decade), the seroprevalence of BKV decreased from 87% (87 of 100) in the youngest group (aged 20-29 years) to 71% (71 of 100) in the oldest group (aged 50-59 years) (P = .006), whereas the seroprevalence of JCV increased from 50% (50 of 100) in the youngest group to 68% (68 of 100) in the oldest group (P = .06). Asymptomatic urinary shedding of BKV and JCV was observed in 28 (7%) and 75 (19%) of 400 subjects, respectively, with median viral loads of 3.51 and 4.64 log copies/mL, respectively (P < .001). Unlike urinary BKV loads, urinary JCV loads were positively correlated with IgG levels. The shedding of JCV was more commonly observed among individuals who were seropositive only for JCV, compared with individuals who were seropositive for both BKV and JCV, suggesting limited cross-protection from BKV immunity. Noncoding control regions were of archetype architecture in all cases, except for 1 rearranged JCV variant. Neither BKV nor JCV DNA was detected in plasma. CONCLUSIONS Our study provides important data about polyomavirus infection and replication in healthy, immunocompetent individuals. These data indicate significant differences between BKV and JCV with respect to virus-host interaction and epidemiology.
Speed optimization and capacitor mismatch calibration for high-resolution high-speed pipelined A/D converters

System-on-a-chip (SOC) requires integration of analog circuits and digital circuits on a single silicon chip to decrease cost, power dissipation, volume and radiant noise from the data bus on the printed circuit board (PCB). For these mixed-signal intergrated circuits, the standard digital CMOS technology is the best choice in view of cost, power dissipation and implementation convenience. The analog-to-digital converter (ADC) is an important building block as a bridge of the analog world to the digital section in SOC. Wide applications of digital signal processing (DSP) techniques into different fields, such as high-resolution image and video processing systems, asynchronous digital subscriber loop (ASDL), wireless communations and so on, require urgently high-speed, high-resolution, embeddable ADCs with low voltage, low power dissipation, small area and easy integration in the standard CMOS technology. Since 1970s, a large variety of architectures have been proposed one after another Time-Interleaved ADC, and so forth. Oversampling delta-sigma ADC [1-3] can obtain high resolution through oversample and noise-shaping techniques. However, its conversion speed is generally less than 1MHz. Flash ADC [4-8] is the fastest architecture, presently, because of its fully parallel processing feature. However, fully parallel processing produces a disadvantage that power dissipation and chip area increase exponentially with resolution and therefore, it is not suitable for high-resolution ADCs. Folding and Interpolating ADC[9-12] employes folding and interpolating techniques to eliminate Flash ADC's drawback that ciruit scale increases exponentially with resolution. However, folding processing restricts input signals' bandwith, and high requirements for the transistor match make it insuitable for CMOS implementations. Subranging ADC [13-15] decreases circuit scale and power dissipation through dividing conversion range and converting input signals step by step. However, its multi-step serial conversion greatly degrades conversion speed. 3 Pipelined ADC [16-20] introduces sample-and-hold circuits into subranging architecture to hold analog residues from previous stages. This feature allows pipeline stages convert analog signals in parallel and therefore, greatly improves conversion ratio. Parallel time-interleaved ADC [21-23] utilizes time-interleaved technique to obtain higher speed than Flash ADC. However, non-uniform sample together with mismatch of the channels' offset and gain makes it difficult to obtain higher resolution. Generally, for ADCs with high resolution of no-less-than 10 bit, high speed of more-than 1MS/s and easy integration for system, CMOS pipelined architecture is the reasonable scheme. Pipelined ADC employs subranging conversion and pipeline operation, implements high-resolution analog-to-digital conversion and meanwhile, maintains high speed and low power dissipation. Furthermore, Pipelined structure by itself …
Pulmonary surfactant augments cytotoxicity of silica nanoparticles: Studies on an in vitro air–blood barrier model

The air–blood barrier is a very thin membrane of about 2.2 µm thickness and therefore represents an ideal portal of entry for nanoparticles to be used therapeutically in a regenerative medicine strategy. Until now, numerous studies using cellular airway models have been conducted in vitro in order to investigate the potential hazard of NPs. However, in most in vitro studies a crucial alveolar component has been neglected. Before aspirated NPs encounter the cellular air–blood barrier, they impinge on the alveolar surfactant layer (10–20 nm in thickness) that lines the entire alveolar surface. Thus, a prior interaction of NPs with pulmonary surfactant components will occur. In the present study we explored the impact of pulmonary surfactant on the cytotoxic potential of amorphous silica nanoparticles (aSNPs) using in vitro mono- and complex coculture models of the air–blood barrier. Furthermore, different surface functionalisations (plain-unmodified, amino, carboxylate) of the aSNPs were compared in order to study the impact of chemical surface properties on aSNP cytotoxicity in combination with lung surfactant. The alveolar epithelial cell line A549 was used in mono- and in coculture with the microvascular cell line ISO-HAS-1 in the form of different cytotoxicity assays (viability, membrane integrity, inflammatory responses such as IL-8 release). At a distinct concentration (100 µg/mL) aSNP–plain displayed the highest cytotoxicity and IL-8 release in monocultures of A549. aSNP–NH2 caused a slight toxic effect, whereas aSNP–COOH did not exhibit any cytotoxicity. In combination with lung surfactant, aSNP–plain revealed an increased cytotoxicity in monocultures of A549, aSNP–NH2 caused a slightly augmented toxic effect, whereas aSNP–COOH did not show any toxic alterations. A549 in coculture did not show any decreased toxicity (membrane integrity) for aSNP–plain in combination with lung surfactant. However, a significant augmented IL-8 release was observed, but no alterations in combination with lung surfactant. The augmented aSNP toxicity with surfactant in monocultures appears to depend on the chemical surface properties of the aSNPs. Reactive silanol groups seem to play a crucial role for an augmented toxicity of aSNPs. The A549 cells in the coculture seem to be more robust towards aSNPs, which might be a result of a higher differentiation and polarization state due the longer culture period.
Initiative, Incentives and Soft Information: How Does Delegation Impact the Role of Bank Relationship Managers?

This paper empirically examines how changes in the hierarchical structure of a large organization can affect incentives. The empirical analysis exploits a change in the hierarchical structure of the Corporate Division of a private foreign commercial bank in Argentina between 1999 and 2001. Using detailed hand collected data on credit approvals, as well as perceived effort measures for each relationship manager from quality surveys done to borrowing firms, I test whether delegation of authority and reduction of oversight improves or decreases the provision of effort by account managers. Results suggest that 'empowering managers' increases the time relationship managers spend with their corporate clients, increases perceived effort and reduces the number of complaints the bank receives from its clients. Alternative explanations and several tests are constructed to examine the different channels through which effort measures could have increased other than the change in organizational structure. I then test whether the improvement is really because managers make better use of their decision making authority rather than they simply waste less time in filing reports to their superiors. I find that individuals who receive more authority use their soft information more compared to individuals to whom authority is only partially delegated. This suggests that delegation of authority increases managerial effort not only because management spends less time reporting to bosses, but also because they recognize that their effort will have greater impact on outcomes. Hence, transmission of, and reliance on, soft information are higher under decentralized than centralized structures. Finally, I test whether the change in structure was meaningful and productive from the bank's financial perspective. I find that cross-selling measures and bank's financial ratios increased after the organizational change.
Intelligent Supply Chain Agents using ADE Dr

This paper reviews extant agent applications and describes the Agent Development Environment (ADE) toolkit. ADE is the integrated development environment to design, develop, debug, simulate and deploy agents. ADE supports the development of multi-agent applications capable of running on a single machine or on a distributed network. ADE has been used to build commercial applications in the area of: (i) manufacturing scheduling, (ii) manufacturing process control, (iii) network information filtering, and (iv) network load balancing. We present intelligent supply chain agents for the software procurement process using electronic commerce. The paper highlights the use and utility of intelligent agents in electronic commerce using ADE. Supply chain management represents a critical competency in today’s fast-paced, global business environment. However, in the current transition from EDI to Web technology, most of the capability for process integration is being lost. The integration of buyer and seller supply chain processes is critical for speed and responsiveness in today’s hypercompetitive product and service markets. Intelligent agent technology offers the potential to overcome this limitation and effectively integrate buyer and seller processes without the rigid inflexibility of EDI. We use domain knowledge in software procurement and distributed problem solving approaches. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research. Commerce Through Intelligent Supply Chain
Finding all minimal curb sets

Sets closed under rational behavior were introduced by Basu and Weibull (1991) as subsets of the strategy space that contain all best replies to all strategy profiles in the set. We here consider a more restrictive notion of closure under rational behavior: a subset of the strategy space is strongly closed under rational behavior, or sCURB, if it contains all best replies to all probabilistic beliefs over the set. We present an algorithm that computes all minimal sCURB sets in any given finite game. Runtime measurements on two-player games (where the concepts of CURB and sCURB coincide) show that the algorithm is considerably faster than the earlier developed algorithm, that of Benisch et al. (2006).
Evaluation of 18F-CPFPX, a novel adenosine A1 receptor ligand: in vitro autoradiography and high-resolution small animal PET.

UNLABELLED Adenosine modulates brain activity through 4 G protein-coupled receptors, primarily adenosine A(1) receptors (A(1)ARs). A(1)ARs are heterogeneously distributed throughout the brain and participate in many physiologic processes-for example, the induction of sleep and feedback inhibition of excitatory neurotransmission. There is also evidence that A(1)ARs are involved in brain pathologies, including cerebral ischemia, epilepsy, and neurodegeneration. Therefore, measuring A(1)ARs in the living brain has been a long-standing goal. This report describes the preclinical evaluation of (18)F-8-cyclopentyl-3-(3-fluoropropyl)-1-propylxanthine ((18)F-CPFPX), a novel A(1)AR PET ligand. METHODS CPFPX, a xanthine-based A(1)AR antagonist, was labeled with either (18)F or (3)H, maintaining identical chemical structures, and evaluated in rats as a putative radioligand for in vivo or in vitro imaging of brain A(1)ARs by quantitative receptor autoradiography and the combination of high-resolution small animal PET and MRI. RESULTS (3)H-CPFPX bound with nanomolar affinity (K(d), 4.4 nmol/L) to A(1)ARs and showed a distribution typical of cerebral A(1)ARs. In extensive in vitro competition studies, (3)H-CPFPX proved to be a highly selective and specific A(1)AR radioligand. Neither the nonxanthine-type adenosine A(2A) receptor antagonist ZM 241385 nor multiple cholinergic, serotoninergic, and glutamatergic receptor compounds competed for (3)H-CPFPX below the micromolar level. In vivo animal PET and ex vivo autoradiographic experiments measured radioactivity in discrete brain regions after intravenous injection of (18)F-CPFPX. (18)F-CPFPX had excellent in vivo stability and penetrated the blood-brain barrier immediately after injection due to its high lipophilicity. Brain uptake was rapid and particularly high in gray matter regions. Retention of (18)F-CPFPX was highest in the cerebellum, thalamus, and neocortex with evidence of saturable binding. Low binding potentials were found in the midbrain. In vivo displacement PET experiments with the A(1)AR antagonist 8-cyclopentyl-1,3-dipropylxanthine showed a 72% +/- 8% displacement of (18)F-CPFPX. CONCLUSION (18)F-CPFPX is a highly selective and specific ligand for A(1)ARs and a suitable radioligand for noninvasive PET imaging of A(1)ARs in the living brain. These studies also support the application of high-resolution animal PET as an effective in vivo imaging tool in the evaluation process of new radioligands.
Efficient SVM Training Using Low-Rank Kernel Representations

SVM training is a convex optimization problem which scales with the training set size rather than the feature space dimension. While this is usually considered to be a desired quality, in large scale problems it may cause training to be impractical. The common techniques to handle this difficulty basically build a solution by solving a sequence of small scale subproblems. Our current effort is concentrated on the rank of the kernel matrix as a source for further enhancement of the training procedure. We first show that for a low rank kernel matrix it is possible to design a better interior point method (IPM) in terms of storage requirements as well as computational complexity. We then suggest an efficient use of a known factorization technique to approximate a given kernel matrix by a low rank matrix, which in turn will be used to feed the optimizer. Finally, we derive an upper bound on the change in the objective function value based on the approximation error and the number of active constraints (support vectors). This bound is general in the sense that it holds regardless of the approximation method.