Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Relevance of Diuresis on Nutrition Studied in 26 Patients Undergoing Peritoneal Dialysis

Recently, clinicians have questioned the advisability to save the diuresis in patientsnbsp come to the need of a substitutive treatment. This interest drove us to look at the strategy of incremental dialysis, based on progressively increasing dialytic treatment, with the purpose of delaying the loss ofnbsp diuresis for as long a time as possible. This work aimed to study the importance of residual diuresis, analyzing the differences of nutritional data in a population of 26 patients undergoing peritoneal dialysis. Of the 26 patients, 18 of them had diuresis and 8 of them were anuric. The nutritional data of patients with diuresis were compared with those without diuresis. The same was performed between patients with diuresis of greater than the average of diuresis versus those with a significantly lower diuresis. The relationships between the total clearances and nutritional data were analyzed, as well as between nutritional data and the attained creatinine clearance/volume of creatinine (KT/V), this also to state the need of a predefined KT/V value to maintain adequate nutritional conditions. It was shown that, in the studied population, no significant differences of nutrition resulted between patients with and without diuresis and in patients with diuresis when separating them in two groups having significant difference of diuresis, nor were significant differences found in nutrition data and the attained KT/V. The final conclusion is that the value of residual glomerular filtration rate (GFR) to signal the start of incremental dialysis treatment should not be based on a predefined value in all patients, but should be tailored according to the specific needs of each patient.nbsp nbspnbsp
This study extends Reynolds’ (1992) investigation of the social-psychological influences on grade retention and school adjustment in early childhood by tracing the predictors and consequences of grade retention for school achievement, perceived competence, and delinquency in early adolescence

This study extends Reynolds’ (1992) investigation of the social-psychological influences on grade retention and school adjustment in early childhood by tracing the predictors and consequences of grade retention for school achievement, perceived competence, and delinquency in early adolescence (age 14). The study sample included 1,164 (93 percent of the sample from the original study) lowincome, mostly black children in the Chicago Longitudinal Study. Twenty-eight percent of the study sample were retained-in-grade by age 14 (first grade to eighth grade). The strongest predictors of retention were early school performance (test scores and grades), sex (boys were more likely to be retained), parent participation in school, and school mobility. Overall, grade retention was significantly associated with lower reading and math achievement at age 14 above and beyond a comprehensive set of explanatory variables. Results based on same-age comparison groups yielded larger effects of retention on school achievement than those based on same-grade comparisons, but both approaches indicated that grade retention was associated with significantly lower reading achievement. In the full model, grade retention was unrelated to perceived school competence at age 12 and to delinquency infractions at age 14. With the exception of reading achievement, retention during the primary grades and retention during grades 4 to 7 yielded a similar pattern of effects. Findings were largely consistent with the earlier study and suggest that intervention approaches other than grade retention are needed to better promote school achievement and adjustment. Grade Retention and School Performance: An Extended Investigation
Association of statin use with cataracts: a propensity score-matched analysis.

IMPORTANCE Cataracts are a main cause of low vision; with the growing elderly population, the incidence of cataracts is likely to increase. Investigators have previously hypothesized that statin antioxidant effects may slow the natural aging process of the lens. OBJECTIVE To compare the risks for development of cataracts between statin users and nonusers. DESIGN A propensity score-matched cohort analysis using retrospective data from October 1, 2003, to March 1, 2010. A propensity score-matched cohort of statin users and nonusers was created using 44 variables. SETTING Database of a military health care system. PARTICIPANTS Based on medication fills during fiscal year 2005, patients were divided into 2 groups: (1) statin users (received at least a 90-day supply of statin) and (2) nonusers (never received a statin throughout the study). Among 46,249 patients meeting study criteria, we identified 13,626 statin users and 32,623 nonusers. EXPOSURE Use of statin therapy for more than 90 days. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Primary analysis examined the risks for cataract in the propensity score-matched cohort. Secondary analyses examined the risks for cataract in patients with no comorbidities according to the Charlson Comorbidity Index (patients with no Charlson comorbidity). A sensitivity analysis was conducted to repeat the secondary analysis in patients taking statins for durations of 2, 4, and 6 years. RESULTS For our primary analysis, we matched 6972 pairs of statin users and nonusers. The risk for cataract was higher among statin users in comparison with nonusers in the propensity score-matched cohort (odds ratio, 1.09; 95% CI, 1.02-1.17). In secondary analyses, after adjusting for identified confounders, the incidence of cataract was higher in statin users in comparison with nonusers (odds ratio, 1.27; 95% CI, 1.15-1.40). Sensitivity analysis confirmed this relationship. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE The risk for cataract is increased among statin users as compared with nonusers. The risk-benefit ratio of statin use, specifically for primary prevention, should be carefully weighed, and further studies are warranted.
Birational geometry of G-varieties

These notes are made to go a little further in the different theories introduced in a four talks lecture during the summer school “Current Topics in the Theory of Algebraic Groups”, in Dijon, on July 3rd 7th, 2017. The aim of this lecture was to introduce one of the big theories of complex algebraic geometry, the Minimal Model Program (MMP), in the case of G-varieties, i.e., algebraic varieties endowed with an action of an algebraic group G. In these notes, I first introduce birational geometry and the MMP, and I explain what happens when an algebraic group acts on the varieties. Secondly, I introduce the theory of Cartier divisors or equivariantly line bundles; and in particular G-linearized line bundles over G-varieties, which naturally reveal a family of G-varieties: spherical varieties. Then, I introduce two particular subfamilies of spherical varieties: toric and horospherical varieties. And I explain how to study the geometry of these varieties by using the theory of algebraic groups and convex geometry (in particular polytopes). Finally, I describe the MMP for horospherical varieties via one-parameter families of polytopes. 1 A short introduction to birational geometry Here, varieties are algebraic varieties over C, i.e., locally defined as the set of zeros of polynomials. Moreover we suppose them to be irreducible, i.e., they cannot be the union of two varieties. The topology of these varieties is the Zariski topology, where closed sets are sets of zeros of polynomials; in particular, non-empty open sets are dense. Example 1.1. The cylinder: y + x = 1. The cone: z = y + x. The equation z = 0 defines closed subsets: a circle in the cylinder and the union of two lines in the cone (over C). Morphisms are maps locally defined by polynomials. Example 1.2. – The projection of a parabola to a line
Design of a User Centered Web Based Expert System for Assisted VIA Result Confirmation in Nigeria

The best way to prevent cervical cancer is through early detection of pre-cancerous lesions by regular screening to detect the presence of the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), the cancer causing virus in the cervix of a woman. Although some diagnostic expert systems have been designed to detect the presence of pre-cancerous lesions in women, most are designed to work with Pap smear, a common method of screening for cervical cancer in more developed countries as against Visual Inspection with Acetic acid (VIA) that is more common in developing countries like Nigeria which is the major reason for this study. The system called Cervipert was developed using Adobe Dreamweaver as the programming environment, HTML, JavaScript, CSS as the front end while PHP and MySQL were used for the backend and Apache was used as the server. The inference engine which is the brain of Cervipert was implemented in PHP. The system was built to detect the presence of HPV in the cervix, recommend advice and or treatment for patients based on clinical symptoms inputted by user after which VIA test input have been done on patients. It was developed using the Dokas approach, a standard approach for developing expert systems and the ISO 13407 recommendations for developing user centered systems. The system was developed based on medical expert information collected through interviews and review of several literatures found online. Black box testing was done on Cervipert to ensure the system was doing what it was meant to do and manual debugging was done on the codes to remove excess and redundant codes. The system was tested by health workers using 20 patients that have previously been screened manually and it was found to be 90 % accurate. The developed software can be used as a tool to support screening programs for cervical cancer by health institutions and Non-governmental Organizations (NGO) and thereby reducing the high prevalence of this disease.
Screening for Psychiatric Morbidity in Subjects Presenting with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Background There is a need for a valid self-rating questionnaire to screen for psychiatric morbidity in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). This study had the aim of assessing the utility and validity of two commonly used measures. Method Scores obtained on the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) were compared with various diagnostic and severity ratings obtained via a validating clinical interview, the Schedules for the Clinical Assessment of Neuropsychiatry (SCAN) in 95 consecutively referred subjects at a medical out-patient clinic who fulfilled standard criteria for CFS, and 48 healthy controls. Outcome measures were validating coefficients and receiver operating characteristics (ROC) for different thresholds and scoring on GHQ and BDI and index of definition (ID) as measured by SCAN; and Pearson and point by serial correlation coefficients for different diagnostic groups derived via SCAN and defined according to ICD–10 and DSM–III–R. Results GHQ and BDI perform poorly as screeners of psychiatric morbidity in CFS subjects when compared with various SCAN derived ratings although results for controls are comparable with other studies. Conclusions Neither the GHQ nor BDI alone can be recommended as screeners for psychiatric morbidity in CFS subjects.
Seismic performance of thin-bed layered masonry Walls made of clay blocks and comprising a door Opening

The recent transposition of Eurocode 8 for low-to-moderate seismicity areas implies that some seismic guarantees need to be given. The use of conservative models considering masonry structures as a set of cantilever walls does often not allow justifying the seismic resistance of usual buildings even with design accelerations only up to 1 m/s2. It is therefore necessary to consider the coupling effects of lintels and spandrels and to consider the structure as a frame. According to design codes, this is however only allowed if the lintels and spandrels are "regularly bonded and correctly connected". In this perspective, this contribution presents in a first part results of cyclic tests carried out on 5 walls with dimensions 3,0 x 2,8 m (one full wall and 4 walls including a door opening with different configurations of lintel). It presents then a comparison of experimental and numerical results both in terms of stiffness and resistance.
Biosynthesis of Cholesteryl Glucoside by Mycoplasma gallinarum

The biosynthesis of cholesteryl glucoside by Mycoplasma gallinarum strain J proceeds by the transfer of glucose from uridine-5′-diphosphoglucose to membrane-bound sterol. Galactose also can be coupled to cholesterol via uridine-5′-diphosphogalactose. The reaction is specific for the uridine-5′-diphospho sugars. Enzymatic activity is associated with the membrane. Treatment of the membrane to remove endogenous sterol inactivates the enzyme. Only sterol which has been bound to the membrane participates in the reaction. The optimum pH is about 8.0, and Mg2+ is required. The reaction is unaffected by nucleotide triphosphate, uridine-5′-monophosphate, and uridine-5′-diphosphate. Reduction of pH to the optimum for β-glucosidase in the membrane results in loss of synthesized glucoside. The enzyme is saturated at 0.5 mm uridine-5′-diphosphoglucose. The apparent Km of 2.05 × 10−7 indicates a high affinity of the enzyme for the nucleotide sugar.
Model-Based Dereverberation of Single-Channel Speech Signals

In closed rooms reverberation may drastically decrease speech intelligibility as well as performance of speech recognition systems. The classical approaches to counteract this problem is to dereverberate the signal by inverse filtering. These methods however lack robustness since precise estimates of the unknown channel are required. Another approach is to suppress reverberation components by dynamic spectral weighting. For estimating the power spectral density of the reverberant signal component a simple model can be applied [1]. Derivatives of this basic approach have been proposed in the time domain [2] and in the frequency domain [3]. In this contribution a more elaborate method for estimating the power spectral density of the reverberant signal is presented which incorporates the principles of room acoustics in a more adequate way.
Real-time Aerodynamic Sound Synthesis for Slender Objects

In this project, I explored the problem of real-time, physics-based aerodynamic sound synthesis for slender objects. It is largely inspired by the paper by Dobashi et al. [Dobashi et al. 2003]. The aerodynamic sound when we swing a slender object, such as a stick, is originated from the complex interaction between the air flow and the stick. Sufficient spatial/temporal resolution was regarded to be essential to capture the physics and thus the characteristics of the sound generated. However, the required fluid simulation is too expensive to run at audio stepping rate. To avoid such computation, I first precomputed a comprehensive database that contains relevant sound textures evaluated from high-quality grid-based fluid simulation, and then at runtime, this database is fetched and textures are blended to effectively resynthesize the aerodynamic swinging sound. Next, to increase the interactivity of the project, I interfaced the sound system with Leap Motion sensor to give real-time motion capture data. The system is proven to be quite reliable and can run at real-time even on a low-end laptop, and create realistic swinging sound.
A Low-Cost Wire Type Strip Antenna for Dual ISM-Bands ( 2 . 4 and 5 . 8 GHz ) Operation

This paper presents a low-cost wire type strip antenna for dual ISM-bands (2.4 and 5.8 GHz) operation by means of numerical simulation. The antenna has very high peak gain of 8.35 and 7.28 dBi with less than 0.5 and 2.0 dBi gain variation within the 10 dB return loss bandwidth at 2.4 and 5.8 GHz ISMbands respectively. Moreover the proposed antenna can provide a bandwidth of 680 MHz (2350–3030MHz) and 125 MHz (5795–5920 MHz) at lower and upper frequency bands respectively and the size of the antenna is 34×37 mm2. In addition, the proposed antenna has achievable return loss and radiation characteristics.
Spacio-Temporal Fertigation Effects on Growth , Yield and Nutrient Use Efficiency of Elephant Foot Yam ( Amorphophallus paeoniifolius )

A field experiment was conducted for two consecutive years during 2013-14 and 2014-15 at the Regional Centre of ICAR-Central Tuber Crops Research Institute, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. The experiment was laid out in split plot design with fertigation interval (2, 3 and 4 days) in the main plots and in sub plots the recommended fertilizer (Soluble fertilizer NP O -K O 120-60-120 kg ha ) was split into 30, 40 and 50 doses and 2 5 2 1 applied through drip irrigation. A Check [furrow irrigation where P O 60 kg ha was applied as basal and N2 5 1 K O 120-120 kg ha were applied at 1 (40%), 2 (30%) and 3 (30%) month after planting (MAP) to soil] and 2 1 st nd rd control (no fertilizer) treatments were also included. All the treatments had three replications. The results revealed that the plant height, canopy spread and pseudostem girth at 3 and 5 MAP were the maximum in rd th treatments which received maximum fertigation during that period. Corm yield increased with increase in fertigation interval from 3 to 4 days along with fertilizers application in 40 to 50 split doses. However, the crop did not respond to fertigation beyond 180 days after planting (DAP). The corm yield had significant positive correlation with N, P and K uptake. The fertigation at 4 days interval with application of recommended fertilizers split into 40 doses and fertigation at 3 days interval with application of recommended fertilizers into 50 doses resulted in the maximum corm yield, nutrient (N, P and K) uptake and use efficiency (agronomic efficiency, recovery efficiency and partial factor productivity) in elephant foot yam.
with pedicle screws at the level of the fracture fractures : Biomechanical evaluation of screw configuration Pedicle screw instrumentation of thoracolumbar burst

Background: Posterior fixation alone may not be adequate to achieve and maintain burst fracture reduction. Adding screws in the fractured body may improve construct stiffness. This in vitro study evaluates the biomechanical effect of inserting pedicle screws in the fractured body compared with conventional shortand long-segment posterior fixation. Methods: Stable and unstable L2 burst fractures were created in 8 calf spines (aged 18 weeks). Constructs were tested at 8 Nm in the intact state and then with instrumentation consisting of longand short-segment posterior fixation with and without screws in the fractured L2 vertebral body after (1) stable burst fracture and (2) unstable burst fracture. Range of motion was recorded at L1-3 for flexion-extension, lateral bending, and axial rotation. Statistical analysis was performed with repeated-measures analysis of variance, with significance set at P . 05. The data were normalized to the intact state (100%). Results: Both longand short-segment constructs with screws in the fractured body significantly reduced motion compared with the stable and unstable burst fracture in flexion-extension and lateral bending. Fracture screws enhanced construct stability by 68% (on average) relative to conventional short-segment posterior fixation and were comparable to long-segment posterior fixation. Conclusions: Screws at the fracture level improve construct stiffness. Short-segment constructs may suffice for stable burst fractures. More severe injuries may benefit from fracture screws and can be considered as an alternative treatment to long-segment constructs. © 2012 ISASS International Society for the Advancement of Spine Surgery. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
TWITTER AS A TECHNOLOGY FOR AUDIENCING AND FANDOM

Amongst the most prominent uses of Twitter is its role in the discussion of widely televised events: Twitter's own statistics for 2011, for example, list major entertainment spectacles (the MTV Music Awards and the BET Awards) and sports matches (the UEFA Champions League final and the FIFA Women's World Cup final) amongst the events generating the most tweets per second during the year. During such major media events, Twitter is used most predominantly as a technology of fandom: it serves as a backchannel to television and other streaming audiovisual media, enabling users offer their own running commentary on the universally shared media text of the event as it unfolds live. This article examines the use of Twitter as a technology for the expression of shared fandom in the context of a major, internationally televised annual media event: the Eurovision Song Contest. Our analysis draws on comprehensive data sets for the ‘official’ event hashtags, #eurovision, #esc, and #sbseurovision. Using innovative methods that combine qualitative and quantitative approaches to the analysis of Twitter data sets containing several hundreds of thousands, overall patterns of participation to discover how audiences express their fandom throughout the event are examined. Such analysis is able to provide a unique insight into the use of Twitter as a technology for fandom and for what in cultural studies research is called ‘audiencing’: the public performance of belonging to the distributed audience for a shared media event. The work points to Twitter as an important new medium facilitating the connection and communion of fans.
Forecasting the Sales of New Pharmaceutical Products Based on Bass Model (The Study of Pharmaceutical Companies in Tehran Stock Exchange)

Abstract. Sales forecasting models show how an analyst forecasts the earnings of an investment and investigates new products in the valuation process . Therefore, these models are a support system for decision-makings of important company experts, investors and managers. Accurate forecasting helps managers develop strategies, identify priorities and allocate resources optimally. In order to conduct this study, the 10-year sales information of 18 new pharmaceutical products in these companies has been used. In this study, in addition to describing the theoretical foundations of the diffusion models of new products in the market including the highly innovative Fourt-Woodlock model, the imitative Fisher-Perry model and integrated Bass diffusion model, influencing parameters are introduced. Then, the model has been tested by multiple regression in order to estimate the level of the confidence of model and its coefficients, Afterwards, based on the parameters of innovation (P) and imitation (q), the results of Bass model have been used in order to forecast the sales of new products in the pharmaceutical industry in the of companies of Tehran Stock Exchange.
Excision repair of ultraviolet-irradiated deoxyribonucleic acid in plasmolyzed cells of Escherichia coli

A system of cells made permeable by treatment with high concentrations of surcrose (plasmolysis) has been exploited to study the excision repair of ultraviolet-irradiated deoxyribonucleic acid in Escherichia coli. It is demonstrated that adenosine 5'-triphosphate is required for incision breaks to be made in the bacterial chromosome as well as in covalently closed bacteriophage lambda deoxyribonucleic acid. After plasmolysis, uvrC mutant strains appear as defective in the incision step as the uvrA-mutated strains. This is in contrast to the situation in intact cells where uvrC mutants accumulate single-strand breaks during postirradiation incubation. These observations have led to the proposal of a model for excision repair, in which the ultraviolet-specific endonuclease, coded for by the uvrA and uvrB genes, exists in a complex with the uvrC gene product. The complex is responsible for the incision and possibly also the excision steps of repair. The dark-repair inhibitors acriflavine and caffeine are both shown to interfere with the action of the adenosine 5'-triphosphate-dependent enzyme.