Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Longitudinal community plasma HIV-1 RNA concentrations and incidence of HIV-1 among injecting drug users: prospective cohort study

Objective To examine the relation between plasma HIV-1 RNA concentrations in the community and HIV incidence among injecting drug users. Design Prospective cohort study. Setting Inner city community in Vancouver, Canada. Participants Injecting drug users, with and without HIV, followed up every six months between 1 May 1996 and 30 June 2007. Main outcome measures Estimated community plasma HIV-1 RNA in the six months before each HIV negative participant’s follow-up visit. Associated HIV incidence. Results Among 622 injecting drug users with HIV, 12 435 measurements of plasma HIV-1 RNA were obtained. Among 1429 injecting drug users without HIV, there were 155 HIV seroconversions, resulting in an incidence density of 2.49 (95% confidence interval 2.09 to 2.88) per 100 person years. In a Cox model that adjusted for unsafe sexual behaviours and sharing used syringes, the estimated community plasma HIV-1 RNA concentration remained independently associated with the time to HIV seroconversion (hazard ratio 3.32 (1.82 to 6.08, P<0.001), per log10 increase). When the follow-up period was limited to observations after 1 January 1988 (when the median plasma HIV RNA concentration was <20 000 copies/ml), the median viral load was no longer statistically associated with HIV incidence (1.70 (0.79 to 3.67, P=0.175), per log10 increase). Conclusions A longitudinal measure of community plasma HIV-1 RNA concentration was correlated with the community HIV incidence rate and predicted HIV incidence independent of unsafe sexual behaviours and sharing used syringes. If these findings are confirmed, they could help to inform both HIV prevention and treatment interventions.
Machine Learning Estimates of Natural Product Conformational Energies

Machine learning has been used for estimation of potential energy surfaces to speed up molecular dynamics simulations of small systems. We demonstrate that this approach is feasible for significantly larger, structurally complex molecules, taking the natural product Archazolid A, a potent inhibitor of vacuolar-type ATPase, from the myxobacterium Archangium gephyra as an example. Our model estimates energies of new conformations by exploiting information from previous calculations via Gaussian process regression. Predictive variance is used to assess whether a conformation is in the interpolation region, allowing a controlled trade-off between prediction accuracy and computational speed-up. For energies of relaxed conformations at the density functional level of theory (implicit solvent, DFT/BLYP-disp3/def2-TZVP), mean absolute errors of less than 1 kcal/mol were achieved. The study demonstrates that predictive machine learning models can be developed for structurally complex, pharmaceutically relevant compounds, potentially enabling considerable speed-ups in simulations of larger molecular structures.
Effects of previous dynamic arm exercise on power output during repeated maximal sprint cycling.

This study examined the effects of elevating blood lactate concentration by arm exercise on subsequent performance during repeated 30 s sprints with the legs. Eight male students performed two 30 s cycle ergometer sprints separated by 6 min of recovery, on two occasions. On one occasion the subjects performed only the two 30 s cycle ergometer sprints ('legs'), while on the other occasion 5 min of heavy arm cranking preceded the two sprints ('arms and legs'). Blood lactate concentration was determined from capillary samples at rest, after a standardized warm-up and 3 and 5 min following each exercise bout. In the 'legs' condition, the peak power output (PPO) and mean power output (MPO) in the second sprint were 92% (P < 0.05) and 85% (P < 0.01) of the values attained during the first sprint, respectively. Prior arm exercise, which increased blood lactate to 11.0 +/- 0.6 mM, had no effect on PPO and MPO during the first cycle ergometer sprint (approximately 4% drop, N.S.). However, in the second sprint after prior arm exercise, PPO was 10% lower than the PPO attained during the corresponding sprint in the 'legs' condition (sprint 2 'arms and legs' 963 +/- 42 W, sprint 2 'legs' 1074 +/- 60 W, P < 0.05), while MPO was better maintained (sprint 2 'arms and legs' 517 +/- 17 W, sprint 2 'legs' 549 +/- 24 W, N.S.). The rate of blood lactate accumulation after both cycle ergometer sprints was considerably decreased (by approximately 50%) when blood lactate levels were pre-elevated by arm crank exercise. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
DWT-based feature extraction and classification for motor imaginary EEG signals

A brain-computer interface (BCI) permits cerebral activity alone to control the external devices for assisting people with neuro muscular impairments. Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals are used for brain computer interaction which is highly non-stationary therefore major challenge is to extract features and classify the signals accurately. In this paper we focused on the extraction of features of EEG motor activities using Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) and classified the signal for using Artificial Neural Network (ANN) for differentiating left and right hand imagery movement. Two sets of feature vectors are taken from beta rhythm as input to the Feed-forward neural network classifier. We observed that three input feature vectors like mean, standard deviation and peak power achieved better classification performance result of 80.71% compared to two input feature vector which is of 78.57%.
Ultra-Broadband Wireless Home Network Based on 60-GHz WPAN Cells Interconnected via RoF

In this paper, we first identify the key requirements for the deployment of a 1-Gb/s ultra-broadband home area network (UBB-HAN). Second, we propose an architecture based on a transparent optical backbone feeding local access points. Third, we underline the role of the IEEE802.15. 3c pre-standard to provide a suitable radio interface for the UBB-HAN and demonstrate the technical feasibility of the concept using radio over fiber (RoF). More than 1-Gb/s transmission is demonstrated for 50-m optical antenna remoting using radio-over-fiber plus 15-m radio transmission.
Severe symptomatic intracranial internal carotid artery stenosis treated with intracranial stenting: a single center study with 58 patients.

PURPOSE We aimed to investigate the safety and effectiveness of intracranial stenting in a population with severe (≥ 70%) symptomatic intracranial internal carotid artery (ICA) atherosclerotic stenosis. METHODS Fifty-eight patients with severe intracranial ICA atherosclerotic stenosis were prospectively enrolled. The baseline data, cerebral angiography, success rate, perioperative complications, clinical and imaging follow-up were prospectively analyzed. RESULTS All patients had successful intracranial stenting (100%), and the mean degree of stenosis was improved from 84.3% ± 7.5% to 23.5% ± 5.1% after the stent procedure. During the 30-day perioperative period, only one patient (1.7%) had ischemic stroke. Seven patients (12.1%) had headache and dysphoria. Thirty-six patients (62.1%) had clinical follow-up for 6-68 months after stenting. Five female patients (13.9%) had ipsilateral stroke including one death, but no disabling stroke, while three other patients (8.3%) had ipsilateral temporary ischemic attack (TIA). The recurrent stroke rate was higher in patients presenting with stroke (4/17, 23.5%) than in patients presenting with TIA (1/19, 5.3%), with no statistical significance (P = 0.33). Thirteen patients (22.4%) had imaging follow-up of 5-12 months following stenting, five of whom (38.5%) had in-stent restenosis. CONCLUSION Intracranial stenting for patients with intracranial ICA atherosclerotic stenosis has a low perioperative stroke rate and decent outcome on long-term follow-up, despite a relatively high in-stent restenosis rate.
Further results for ARX models in adaptive tracking

We introduce a new concept of strong controllability for ARX models in adaptive tracking. This new notion is related to the Schur complement of a suitable limiting matrix. It allows us to extend the previous convergence results associated with both least squares and weighted least squares algorithms. In particular, we show the almost sure convergence as well as the central limit theorem for this two algorithms.
The Effect of Onion Peel Extract on Inflammatory Mediators in Korean Overweight and Obese Women

Quercetin, found abundantly in onion peel, has been known to have antioxidant and anti-obesity effects and improves endothelial function. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a quercetin-rich onion peel extract (OPE) on the inflammatory mediators in overweight and obese women. This study was a randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Thirty-seven healthy overweight and obese women were randomly assigned to two groups, and one group was given a soft capsuled OPE (100 mg quercetin/day, n = 18) and the other group a same capsuled placebo (n = 19) for 12 weeks. Fat mass was measured by bioimpendance method at baseline and after 12 weeks of intervention. The levels of alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) were measured with colorimetric assay kits. The concentrations of leptin, adiponectin, visfatin, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α and interleukin (IL)-4 in plasma were determined by using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kits. Baseline characteristics of anthropometric indicators and blood metabolic profiles were not significantly different between placebo and OPE groups. Compared with baseline value, both placebo and OPE supplementation significantly decreased the percent of body fat mass and induced plasma adiponectin levels while ALT and AST activities as well as leptin, visfatin, TNF-α, and IL-4 levels in plasma were not significantly different between two groups after 12 weeks of the supplementation. These findings suggest that 12-week supplementation of OPE do not affect modulators of systemic inflammation in overweight and obese women.
Adaptive rationality: An evolutionary perspective on cognitive bias

A casual look at the literature in social cognition reveals a vast collection of biases, errors, violations of rational choice, and failures to maximize utility. One is tempted to draw the conclusion that the human mind is woefully muddled. We present a three-category evolutionary taxonomy of evidence of biases: biases are (a) heuristics, (b) error management effects, or (c) experimental artifacts. We conclude that much of the research on cognitive biases can be profitably reframed and understood in evolutionary terms. An adaptationist perspective suggests that the mind is remarkably well designed for important problems of survival and reproduction, and not fundamentally irrational. Our analysis is not an apologia intended to place the rational mind on a pedestal for admiration. rather, it promises practical outcomes including a clearer view of the architecture of systems for judgment and decision making, and exposure of clashes between adaptations designed for the ancestral past and the demands of the present. By casually browsing journals in the social sciences one can discover a collection of human biases, errors, violations of rational choice, and failures to maximize utility. Papers published in Social Cognition are illustrative. In just 2007, the journal published a special issue dedicated to the hindsight bias, which is the tendency to believe that events that have occurred are more probable when assessing them after the fact than when estimating them prospectively (Blank, Musch, & Pohl, 2007). Other examples include misapprehensions of probability like the hot hand fallacy that leads people to erroneously believe that basketball players who have shot several successful baskets are more likely to succeed on the next try (Gilovich, Vallone, & Tversky, 1985). There are also many effects of emotion purported to cloud good judgment (e.g., Leith & Baumeister, 1996), overuses of stereotypes (Ross & Nisbett, 1991), misapprehensions of the motives of members of the opposite sex (Abbey, 1982), common violations of monetary utility in behavioral eco
Open access and the Caribbean academic

The potential which open access offers to Caribbean scholarly communication in general, and science and technology specifically, is an opportunity to shift the focus from one which has been publisher driven to one which is research driven. However, for this to become a reality, both the university and faculty will need to break free of the practices surrounding traditional publishing, tenure and promotion. In an attempt to assess readiness among science faculty at The University of the West Indies to make this transition, this exploratory study analyses their perceptions, knowledge and use of open access. The results revealed significant gaps in knowledge about, and minimal engagement with open access as a publication modality among this cohort.
Evaluating the effects of SEUs affecting the configuration memory of an SRAM-based FPGA

This paper analyses the effects of single event upsets in an SRAM-based FPGA, with special emphasis for the transient faults affecting the configuration memory. Two approaches are combined: from one side, by exploiting the available information and tools dealing with the device configuration memory, we were able to make hypothesis on the meaning of every bit in the configuration memory. From the other side, radiation testing was exploited to validate the hypothesis and to gather experimental evidence about the correctness of the obtained results. As a major result, we can provide detailed information about the effects of SEUs affecting the configuration memory of a commercial FPGA device. As a second contribution, we describe a method for obtaining the same result with similar devices. Finally, the obtained results are crucial to allow the possible usage of SRAM-based FPGAs in safety-critical environments, e.g., by working on the place and route strategies of the supporting tools.
Roles of histone H3K27 trimethylase Ezh2 in retinal proliferation and differentiation

The histone modification H3K27me3 regulates transcription negatively, and Jmjd3 and Ezh2 demethylate and methylate H3K27me3 and H3K27, respectively. We demonstrated previously that Jmjd3 plays pivotal roles in the differentiation of subsets of bipolar (BP) cells by regulating H3K27me3 levels at the Bhlhb4 and Vsx1 loci, both of which are transcription factors essential for the maturation of BP cell subsets. In this study, we examined the role of Ezh2 in retinal development using retina‐specific Ezh2 conditional knockout mice (Ezh2‐CKO). The eyes of the Ezh2‐CKO mice were microphthalemic, and the proliferation of retinal cells was diminished postnatally in Ezh2‐CKO. Differentiation of all examined retinal subsets was observed with higher proportion of BP cell subsets, which was determined by immunostaining using specific retinal markers. The onsets of Müller glia and rod photoreceptor differentiation were accelerated. The expression of Bhlhb4 was increased in postnatal retinas, which was accompanied by the loss of H3K27me3 modifications at these genetic loci. Decreased expression of proneural genes in postnatal stage was observed. As reported previously in other Ezh2‐KO tissues, increased expression of Arf/Ink4a was observed in the Ezh2‐CKO retinas. The ectopic expression of Arf or Ink4a in the retina suppressed proliferation and increased apoptosis. In addition, earlier onset of Müller glia differentiation was observed in Ink4a‐expressing cells. These results support an important role for histone H3K27me3 modification in regulating the proliferation and maturation of certain subsets of interneurons in the retina. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Develop Neurobiol 75: 947–960, 2015
Basal and insulin-regulated free fatty acid and glucose metabolism in humans.

These studies were done to examine the effects of body composition, resting energy expenditure (REE), sex, and fitness on basal and insulin-regulated FFA and glucose metabolism. We performed 137 experiments in 101 nondiabetic, premenopausal women and men, ranging from low normal weight to class III obese (BMI 18.0-40.5 kg/m2). Glucose flux was measured using [6-(2)H2]glucose and FFA kinetics with [9,10-(3)H]oleate under either basal (74 experiments) or euglycemic hyperinsulinemic (1.0 mU.kg FFM(-1). min(-1)) clamp conditions (63 experiments). Consistent with our previous findings, REE and sex independently predicted basal FFA flux, whereas fat-free mass was the best predictor of basal glucose flux; in addition, percent body fat was independently and positively associated with basal glucose flux (total r2 = 0.52, P < 0.0001). Insulin-suppressed lipolysis remained significantly associated with REE (r = 0.25, P < 0.05), but percent body fat also contributed (total adjusted r2 = 0.36, P < 0.0001), whereas sex was not significantly related to insulin-suppressed FFA flux. Glucose disposal during hyperinsulinemia was independently associated with peak VO2, percent body fat, and FFA concentrations (total r2 = 0.63, P < 0.0001) but not with sex. We conclude that basal glucose production is independently related to both FFM and body fatness. In addition, hyperinsulinemia obscures the sex differences in FFA release relative to REE, but brings out the effects of fatness on lipolysis.
FT-IR Study of Stabilized PAN Fibers for Fabrication of Carbon Fibers

In this investigation, types of commercial and special polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fibers contain sodium 2-methyl-2acrylamidopropane sulfonate (SAMPS) and itaconic acid (IA) comonomers were studied by fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. The study of FT-IR spectra of PAN fibers samples with different comonomers shows that during stabilization of PAN fibers, the peaks related to C≡N bonds and CH2 are reduced sharply. These reductions are related to cyclization of nitrile groups and stabilization procedure. This reduction in PAN fibers contain IA comonomer is very intense in comparison with PAN fibers contain SAMPS comonomer. This fact indicates the cycling and stabilization for sample contain IA comonomer have been conducted more completely. Therefore the carbon fibers produced from this material have higher tensile strength due to suitable stabilization. Keywords—PAN Fibers, Stabilization, Carbon Fibers, FT-IR.
Robust regularized feature selection for iris recognition via linear programming

Ordinal measures are robust image descriptors for encoding discriminative features of iris images. However, there are many tunable parameters in ordinal filters which can generate an over-complete feature pool. This paper proposes a novel feature selection method based on linear programming, which can learn a compact and effective ordinal feature set for iris recognition. Firstly, large margin principle is employed to obtain strong generalization capacity. Secondly, discriminative information for each feature is added to make the model more robust to noise. Finally, non-negative weight is not only interpretable but also suitable for a linear model. Additionally, the model can be efficiently solved by the Simplex algorithm. The comparative experiments are conducted on CASIA-Iris-V4 database, and the results show that our method has outperformed other state-of-the-art feature selection methods, including Adaboost and Sparsity based methods.
Hyperpolarization-activated chloride currents in Xenopus oocytes

During hyperpolarizing pulses, defolliculated Xenopus oocytes have time- and voltage-dependent inward chloride currents. The currents vary greatly in amplitude from batch to batch; activate slowly and, in general, do not decay; have a selectivity sequence of I- > NO3- > Br- > Cl- > propionate > acetate; are insensitive to Ca2+ and pH; are blocked by Ba2+ and some chloride channel blockers; and have a gating valence of approximately 1.3 charges. In contrast to hyperpolarization- activated chloride currents induced after expression of phospholemman (Palmer, C. J., B. T. Scott, and L. R. Jones. 1991. Journal of Biological Chemistry. 266:11126; Moorman, J. R., C. J. Palmer, J. E. John, J. E. Durieux, and L. R. Jones. 1992. 267:14551), these endogenous currents are smaller; have a different pharmacologic profile; have a lower threshold for activation and lower voltage- sensitivity of activation; have different activation kinetics; and are insensitive to pH. Nonetheless, the endogenous and expressed current share striking similarities. Recordings of macroscopic oocyte currents may be inadequate to determine whether phospholemman is itself an ion channel and not a channel-modulating molecule.
Cries and Whispers - Classification of Vocal Effort in Expressive Speech

The expansion of the video games industry raises innovative and challenging issues for speech technologies, e.g. the development of automatic content-based speech processing and speech recognition systems in the context of video games post-production and voice casting. This paper presents a large-scale study on the classification of vocal effort in expressive speech for video games. Changes in vocal effort conduct to substantial modifications in the configuration of voice production mechanisms. In particular, registers of vocal effort affect especially voice quality which reflects qualitative modifications of the source excitation characteristics. This study introduces robust source characteristics to measure various types of voice quality (e.g., breathy, creaky, tense) for the classification of vocal effort into whispered, normal, and shouted speech. The system is evaluated in the real scenario of video games production with the complete speech recordings of a massive role-playing video game. The proposed features significantly improve the classification from 81.1% to 87% over conventional MFCCs. These advancements confirm the role of the source and voice quality for the description of changes in vocal effort.
Hybrid porous-core microstructure terahertz fibre with ultra-low bending loss and low effective material loss

A hybrid porous-core microstructure optical fibre (MOF) is proposed and its guiding properties are characterised for efficient terahertz wave guiding. A numerical investigation using the finite element method showed that a hybrid-core MOF consisted of a diamond-shaped cell and the circular arrangement of air holes exhibited an extremely low-bending loss of 5.24 × 10−13 cm−1 for a bending radius of 1 cm and an operating frequency of 1.0 THz. The proposed fibre also showed a low effective material loss of 0.08 cm−1 at an optimised core porosity of 52%. Moreover, single mode propagation, dispersion and fabrication feasibility of the proposed MOF are discussed. Due to the excellent guiding properties, this MOF can be potentially used in THz imaging, sensing and flexible communication applications.
The loyal editor effect: Russian online journalism after independence

Abstract This article investigates what effect pressure from owners – via loyal editors – had on journalistic output at the popular Russian online newspapers Lenta and Gazeta. Using novel methods to analyze a data-set of nearly 1 million articles from the period 2010–2015, this article separates the effect of a changing news agenda from new editorial priorities. Statistical tests show that changes in output coincide temporally with editorial change, and that the direction of change sees new editors move away from publication patterns associated with other independent outlets. In both Gazeta and Lenta, editorial changes were accompanied by a move away from core news areas such as domestic and international politics, toward lifestyle and human interest subjects. The loyal editor effect resulted in a 50% reduction in coverage of controversial legal proceedings, together with the business dealings of Russian elites.