Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Continuous versus intermittent treatment strategies during primary HIV-1 infection: the randomized ANRS INTERPRIM Trial

Objectives:The ANRS-112 INTERPRIM trial assessed whether fixed-cycles of antiretroviral treatment interruption (ART-STI) combined or not with pegylated interferon alpha-2b (peg-IFN) could lower viral load and achieve a healthier immune system in patients diagnosed during primary HIV-1-infection (PHI). Design and methods:Patients were randomized to receive either continuous ART (cART) during 72 weeks, or cART during 36 weeks followed by three ART-STIs, or the same ART-STIs associated with peg-IFN during the first 14 weeks and each interruption (ART-STI-IFN). Treatment was stopped at week 72. Final evaluation was based on plasma HIV-RNA level 6 months after the last treatment interruption. Results:Eighty-seven percent of patients achieved undetectable HIV-RNA at week 32, with no deleterious impact of sequential treatment interruptions (STIs). Viral rebounds during interruptions were lower in the ART-STI-IFN than in the ART-STI group and during the second and third interruptions compared with the first one. However, HIV-RNA levels, CD4+ T-cell counts and CD4+ T/CD8+ T ratios were similar between groups after the 6-month interruption, with a persistent effect on CD4+ T cells and total cell-associated HIV-DNA levels. Predictive factors of virological outcome were HIV-RNA and HIV-DNA levels at PHI and HIV-DNA levels at treatment interruption. HIV-specific responses did not differ between strategies and were not associated with outcome. Forty-eight percent of patients experienced treatment resumption during long-term follow-up without difference between groups. Conclusion:When initiated during PHI, STIs associated or not with IFN did not result in a different outcome as compared to cART. All regimens showed a high response rate and a sustained immunological benefit after cessation.
Multi-Functioning AFM Cantilever for Mechanical Tests: Indentation, Strip Bending and Adhesion Tests

This paper reports on the development of a novel AFM cantilever and its application to various mechanical tests for characterizing micro/nano-structures. We have designed and fabricated rhombus-shaped AFM cantilevers capable of performing multi-functioning tasks by using single crystal silicon (SCS) micromachining techniques. Structural improvement of the cantilever has clearly solved the crucial problems resulted from using conventional simple beam-AFM cantilever for mechanical testings. After force-calibration of the cantilever, various mechanical tests such as indentation, strip bending and adhesion tests are performed to determine the mechanical behaviors in micro/nano-scale as well as topographic imaging.
Support Vector Machines for Regression: A Succinct Review of Large-Scale and Linear Programming Formulations

Support Vector-based learning methods are an important part of Computational Intelligence techniques. Recent efforts have been dealing with the problem of learning from very large datasets. This paper reviews the most commonly used formulations of support vector machines for regression (SVRs) aiming to emphasize its usability on large-scale applications. We review the general concept of support vector machines (SVMs), address the state-of-the-art on training methods SVMs, and explain the fundamental principle of SVRs. The most common learning methods for SVRs are introduced and linear programming-based SVR formulations are explained emphasizing its suitability for large-scale learning. Finally, this paper also discusses some open problems and current trends.
Formal specification and verification of the SET/A protocol with an approach

In this paper, we specify the SET/A protocol which is an agent-based payment protocol for credit card transactions in UML statechart diagrams. Then we translate them into the NuSMV language and analyze the payment protocol using the NuSMV model checker. Although the payment protocol satisfies desired properties including data integrity and deadlock freedom in the absence of an agent failure, a failure analysis reveals that not all desired properties are satisfied when the agent crashes. The agent may fail while it is travelling to a merchant's server or when it is running in the merchant's server. To ensure that a transaction is resilient to the agent failure, an extended SET/A protocol is proposed. Whenever a timeout occurs, the cardholder sends an inquiry request to the merchant directly for finding out the transaction result. Our work contributes the e-commerce field by using an integrated approach for modelling and analyzing the SET/A protocol.
Automatic division for pure/mixed pixels based on probabilities entropy and spatial heterogeneity

Mixed pixels have been one of the most formidable challenges in target recognition area of remote sensing, such as image registration and classification. Here we develop an automatic threshold selection approach based on belonging probabilities entropy and spatial heterogeneity. To perform the final automatic threshold selection, we employ kmeans to make a distinction between pure and mixed pixels. Experimental results in Tongzhou, Beijing using spot image confirmed the effectiveness of our method to convey pixel's chaos. We further applied the division of pure pixels and mixed pixels to soft and hard classification and scale invariant feature transform (sift), some improvements are achieved.
Identification of phenolic compound in manuka honey as specific superoxide anion radical scavenger using electron spin resonance (ESR) and liquid chromatography with coulometric array detection

Apitherapy has become the focus of attention as a form of folk and preventive medicine for treating certain conditions and diseases as well as promoting overall health and well-being. In apitherapy, honey is the therapeutic agent used for dressing surgical wounds, burns or skin ulcers, as well as for dyspepsia, peptic ulcer, etc., because of its antioxidant activity. Therefore, it is important to determine the antioxidants in honey by analytical techniques. In the present study, the antioxidant activities of honeys from different floral sources were investigated by electron spin resonance (1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and H2O2/NaOH/DMSO scavenging systems), liquid chromatography with coulometric array detection (LC-ED), and liquid chromatography with electrospray mass spectrometry (LC-MS). The antioxidant activities of some unifloral honeys (acacia, Chinese milk vetch, buckwheat and manuka) were evaluated using the radical scavenging systems. It was shown that DPPH radical scavenging activity was significantly different among the honeys, with buckwheat and manuka honeys having significantly higher scavenging activity than acacia honey. In addition, only manuka honey had specific scavenging activity for superoxide anion radicals. The compound responsible for this activity in manuka honey was identified by LC-ED and LC-MS. Careful examination of the LC-ED chromatographic patterns of manuka and other honey samples revealed a distinct peak in the chromatogram of manuka honey to be methyl syringate (MSYR). The radical scavenging activity of MSYR was specific for superoxide anion radicals, similar to the case of manuka honey. Copyright © 2005 Society of Chemical Industry
Psychological Trauma and Functional Somatic Syndromes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Objective This meta-analysis systematically examined the association of reported psychological trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with functional somatic syndromes including fibromyalgia, chronic widespread pain, chronic fatigue syndrome, temporomandibular disorder, and irritable bowel syndrome. Our goals were to determine the overall effect size of the association and to examine moderators of the relationship. Methods Literature searches identified 71 studies with a control or comparison group and examined the association of the syndromes with traumatic events including abuse of a psychological, emotional, sexual, or physical nature sustained during childhood or adulthood, combat exposure, or PTSD. A random-effects model was used to estimate the pooled odds ratio and 95% confidence interval. Planned subgroup analyses and meta-regression examined potential moderators. Results Individuals who reported exposure to trauma were 2.7 (95% confidence interval = 2.27–3.10) times more likely to have a functional somatic syndrome. This association was robust against both publication bias and the generally low quality of the literature. The magnitude of the association with PTSD was significantly larger than that with sexual or physical abuse. The association of reported trauma with chronic fatigue syndrome was larger than the association with either irritable bowel syndrome or fibromyalgia. Studies using nonvalidated questionnaires or self-report of trauma reported larger associations than did those using validated questionnaires. Conclusions Findings are consistent with the hypothesis that traumatic events are associated with an increased prevalence of functional somatic syndromes. The analyses also highlight limitations of the existing literature and emphasize the importance of prospective studies, examining the potential similarities and differences of these conditions, and pursuing hypothesis-driven studies of the mechanisms underlying the link between trauma, PTSD, and functional somatic syndromes.
The Migration of Elements from Toys and Speciation of Chromium ( VI ) in Toy Material Using a Low Cost IC-ICP-MS Solution

The European Union directive for toy safety (2009/48/EC) is currently under revision, and the proposed limits for Cr (VI) content are analytically challenging with commonly used methods. For example, High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) coupled to Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) may not be suitable as high elemental chromium backgrounds push detection limits above the directive specified values. In this paper, the use of Ion Chromatography (IC) is shown to be a powerful alternative to HPLC, allowing the analysis of both Cr species in the low ng L-1 range. Although IC chromatographic separation of the two species is simple, sample preparation plays an important role. Depending on sample conditions (e.g. pH), inter species conversion may occur prior to quantification producing inaccurate species distribution. In this application note, we present a method for total elemental quantification (TEQ) and stabilization and quantification of Cr (VI) after migration from toy material at the 2009/48/EC directive required levels. Sample and Calibration Solution Preparation Three different samples were analyzed; finger paint, pen ink and a titanium dioxide (TiO2) raw material that is commonly used as a white pigment in many different toy products.
Municipal wastewater treatment using constructed wetlands

The aim of the paper is to present alternative to conventional (i.e., the commonly used biological treatment plants) wastewater treatment systems, appropriate for small communities and settlements. These systems are the natural treatment systems. The emphasis here is given on constructed wetlands (CWs). First, advantages and disadvantages of these systems are presented compared to conventional systems. Design guidelines from various EU countries for CW systems used in municipal wastewater treatment, and data on the operation of such systems in Greece are presented. Finally, the wastewater treatment facility in Korestia municipality, Kastoria prefecture, Northern Greece, is described, where this technology was employed. The system was designed as a hybrid system, consisting in series of vertical flow CW beds (1 and 2 stage) and a horizontal subsurface flow bed (3 stage) to serve 600 population equivalent (p.e.). The first stage consists of 3 identical beds, with a total surface area of 891 m or 1.5 m/p.e. ; the second stage comprises two identical beds, with a total surface area of 594 m or 1.0 m/p.e. , and the third stage of one bed with a surface area of 903 m or 1.5 m/p.e. The total construction cost was 286,282 € or 477 €/p.e. The expected operating cost was estimated at 7,121 €/year, or 11.87 €/p.e. /year. The use of constructed wetlands, as appropriate wastewater treatment method in small settlements, is proposed.
Extracellular Subunit Interactions Control Transitions between Functional States of Acid-sensing Ion Channel 1a*

Background: It is currently not known how extracellular interaction surfaces between ASIC subunits change during channel activity. Results: Different engineered extracellular intersubunit disulfide bonds lock ASIC1a in open or non-conducting states. Conclusion: Subunit interactions are critical for the ASIC gating process. Significance: This study highlights new features of the mechanisms by which the pH controls ASIC activity. Acid-sensing ion channels (ASICs) are neuronal, voltage-independent Na+ channels that are transiently activated by extracellular acidification. They are involved in pain sensation, the expression of fear, and in neurodegeneration after ischemic stroke. Our study investigates the role of extracellular subunit interactions in ASIC1a function. We identified two regions involved in critical intersubunit interactions. First, formation of an engineered disulfide bond between the palm and thumb domains leads to partial channel closure. Second, linking Glu-235 of a finger loop to either one of two different residues of the knuckle of a neighboring subunit opens the channel at physiological pH or disrupts its activity. This suggests that one finger-knuckle disulfide bond (E235C/K393C) sets the channel in an open state, whereas the other (E235C/Y389C) switches the channel to a non-conducting state. Voltage-clamp fluorometry experiments indicate that both the finger loop and the knuckle move away from the β-ball residue Trp-233 during acidification and subsequent desensitization. Together, these observations reveal that ASIC1a opening is accompanied by a distance increase between adjacent thumb and palm domains as well as a movement of Glu-235 relative to the knuckle helix. Our study identifies subunit interactions in the extracellular loop and shows that dynamic changes of these interactions are critical for normal ASIC function.
Velocity tracking algorithm in forward walking using estimated zmp by whole-body control framework

This paper presents a forward walking strategy for humanoid robots using a whole-body control framework. Implementation of walking requires the coordination of movements between the feet and the center of mass (COM) of the system. In addition, the condition of preventing falling needs to be considered at the planning stage and later the robot is controlled to meet this condition upon execution. In this paper, assuming that the planned velocity of the COM and the corresponding foot trajectories are given, generating the desired COM position and velocity by estimating the ZMP of the foot is proposed to account for the stability condition. This strategy provides a way to implement walking without the explicit planning of the COM in the forward direction. The proposed approach is implemented and verified in a simulation of a humanoid robot.
An Efficient Method to Convert Arbitrary Quantum Circuits to Ones on a Linear Nearest Neighbor Architecture

A variety of quantum circuits have been designed.Most of them assume that arbitrary pairs of qubits can interact.However, several promising implementations of quantum computation rely on a Linear Nearest Neighbor (LNN) architecture, which arranges quantum bits on a line, and allows neighbor interactions only.Therefore, several specific circuits have been designed on an LNN architecture.However, a general and efficient conversion technique for an arbitrary circuit has not been established.Therefore, this paper gives an efficient method that converts an arbitrary quantum circuit to one on an LNN architecture.Our method achieves small overhead and time complexity compared with naive techniques.To develop the method, we introduce two key theorems that may be interesting on their own.In addition, our method also achieves smaller overhead for some known circuits designed on an LNN architecture.
Spatio‐temporal population genetic structure of the parasitic mite Spinturnix bechsteini is shaped by its own demography and the social system of its bat host

Information about the population genetic structures of parasites is important for an understanding of parasite transmission pathways and ultimately the co‐evolution with their hosts. If parasites cannot disperse independently of their hosts, a parasite’s population structure will depend upon the host’s spatial distribution. Geographical barriers affecting host dispersal can therefore lead to structured parasite populations. However, how the host’s social system affects the genetic structure of parasite populations is largely unknown. We used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) to describe the spatio‐temporal population structure of a contact‐transmitted parasitic wing mite (Spinturnix bechsteini) and compared it to that of its social host, the Bechstein’s bat (Myotis bechsteinii). We observed no genetic differentiation between mites living on different bats within a colony. This suggests that mites can move freely among bats of the same colony. As expected in case of restricted inter‐colony dispersal, we observed a strong genetic differentiation of mites among demographically isolated bat colonies. In contrast, we found a strong genetic turnover between years when we investigated the temporal variation of mite haplotypes within colonies. This can be explained with mite dispersal occuring between colonies and bottlenecks of mite populations within colonies. The observed absence of isolation by distance could be the result from genetic drift and/or from mites dispersing even between remote bat colonies, whose members may meet at mating sites in autumn or in hibernacula in winter. Our data show that the population structure of this parasitic wing mite is influenced by its own demography and the peculiar social system of its bat host.
Merged Ontology and SVM-Based Information Extraction and Recommendation System for Social Robots

The recent technology of human voice capture and interpretation has spawned the social robot to convey information and to provide recommendations. This technology helps people obtain information about a particular topic after giving an oral query to a humanoid robot. However, most of the search engines are keyword-matching mechanism-based, and the existing full-text query search engines are inadequate at retrieving relevant information from various oral queries. With only predefined words and sentence-based recommendations, a social robot may not suggest the correct items, if items retrieved along with the information are not predefined. In addition, the available conventional ontology-based systems cannot extract precise data from webpages to show the correct results. In this regard, we propose a merged ontology and support vector machine (SVM)-based information extraction and recommendation system. In the proposed system, when a humanoid robot receives an oral query from a disabled user, the oral query changes into a full-text query, the system mines the full-text query to extract the disabled user’s needs, and then converts the query into the correct format for a search engine. The proposed system downloads a collection of information about items (city features, diabetes drugs, and hotel features). The SVM identifies the relevant information on the item and removes anything irrelevant. Merged ontology-based sentiment analysis is then employed to find the polarity of the item for recommendation. The system suggests items with a positive polarity term to the disabled user. The intelligent model and merged ontology were designed by employing Java and Protégé Web Ontology Language 2 software, respectively. Experimentation results show that the proposed system is highly productive when analyzing retrieved information, and provides accurate recommendations.
A Classification Method for Complex Power Quality Disturbances Using EEMD and Rank Wavelet SVM

This paper aims to develop a combination method for the classification of power quality complex disturbances based on ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) and multilabel learning. EEMD is adopted to extract the features of complex disturbances, which is more suitable to the nonstationary signal processing. Rank wavelet support vector machine (rank-WSVM) is proposed to apply in the classification of complex disturbances. First, the characteristic quantities of complex disturbances are obtained with EEMD through defining standard energy differences of each intrinsic mode function. Second, after the optimization of rank-SVM, based on wavelet kernel function, the ranking function, and multilabel function are, respectively, constructed. Lastly, rank-WSVM is applied to classify the complex disturbances. Simulation results and real-time digital simulator tests show that for different signal to noise ratio, the rank-WSVM classification performance of complex disturbances including hamming loss, ranking loss, one-error, coverage, and average precision, is generally better than the other three methods, namely rank-SVM, multilabel naive Bayes, and multilabel learning with backpropagation.
Clinical practice guidelines and quality of care for older patients with multiple comorbid diseases: implications for pay for performance.

CONTEXT Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) have been developed to improve the quality of health care for many chronic conditions. Pay-for-performance initiatives assess physician adherence to interventions that may reflect CPG recommendations. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the applicability of CPGs to the care of older individuals with several comorbid diseases. DATA SOURCES The National Health Interview Survey and a nationally representative sample of Medicare beneficiaries (to identify the most prevalent chronic diseases in this population); the National Guideline Clearinghouse (for locating evidence-based CPGs for each chronic disease). STUDY SELECTION Of the 15 most common chronic diseases, we selected hypertension, chronic heart failure, stable angina, atrial fibrillation, hypercholesterolemia, diabetes mellitus, osteoarthritis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and osteoporosis, which are usually managed in primary care, choosing CPGs promulgated by national and international medical organizations for each. DATA EXTRACTION Two investigators independently assessed whether each CPG addressed older patients with multiple comorbid diseases, goals of treatment, interactions between recommendations, burden to patients and caregivers, patient preferences, life expectancy, and quality of life. Differences were resolved by consensus. For a hypothetical 79-year-old woman with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, hypertension, and osteoarthritis, we aggregated the recommendations from the relevant CPGs. DATA SYNTHESIS Most CPGs did not modify or discuss the applicability of their recommendations for older patients with multiple comorbidities. Most also did not comment on burden, short- and long-term goals, and the quality of the underlying scientific evidence, nor give guidance for incorporating patient preferences into treatment plans. If the relevant CPGs were followed, the hypothetical patient would be prescribed 12 medications (costing her 406 dollars per month) and a complicated nonpharmacological regimen. Adverse interactions between drugs and diseases could result. CONCLUSIONS This review suggests that adhering to current CPGs in caring for an older person with several comorbidities may have undesirable effects. Basing standards for quality of care and pay for performance on existing CPGs could lead to inappropriate judgment of the care provided to older individuals with complex comorbidities and could create perverse incentives that emphasize the wrong aspects of care for this population and diminish the quality of their care. Developing measures of the quality of the care needed by older patients with complex comorbidities is critical to improving their care.