Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Apolipoprotein E and dementia in Parkinson disease: a meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE To understand the relationship of apolipoprotein E (APOE) polymorphism to dementia in Parkinson disease (PD) because the APOE epsilon4 allele is linked to Alzheimer disease. DATA SOURCE We reviewed MEDLINE, BIOSIS Previews, and ISI Web of Science from January 1, 1966, to May 7, 2004, supplemented by citation analysis from retrieved articles. STUDY SELECTION Case-control studies using clinical or pathologic criteria for PD and dementia, and with complete APOE genotype frequencies data. DATA EXTRACTION We compared estimated prevalence odds ratios for dementia in PD in relation to each allele. We also looked for evidence of heterogeneity and publication bias and performed a stratified analysis on several study characteristics. DATA SYNTHESIS Data analyses suggest publication bias and heterogeneity of source data for the epsilon4 allele (homogeneity P = .2; Begg and Mazumdar, P = .06; and Egger et al, P = .1). The estimated odds ratios for development of dementia in PD are 1.6 for epsilon4 (95% confidence interval, 1.0-2.5); 1.3 for epsilon2 (95% confidence interval, 0.73-2.4); and 0.54 for epsilon3 (95% confidence interval, 0.18-1.6). The odds ratio estimates for epsilon4 were higher for studies published in 1996 or later (2.3 vs 1.0) and for studies conducted outside North American sites (2.4 vs 1.2). CONCLUSIONS The APOE epsilon4 allele appears to be associated with a higher prevalence of dementia in PD. Publication bias and heterogeneous source data may, however, confound this conclusion. Confirmatory studies that use standardized and validated diagnostic criteria for dementia in PD are needed.
Racial discrimination and death ideation 1 A longitudinal study of racial discrimination and risk for death ideation in African American youth

Though multiple studies have found that African Americans commonly experience racial discrimination, available studies have yet to examine how perceived racism might be related to suicide vulnerability in African American youth. The purpose of this study was to examine a framework for how perceived racial discrimination contributes to symptoms of depression and anxiety as well as subsequent suicide ideation and morbid ideation. Data were obtained from 722 African American youth at mean age 10.56 years (SD=0.64); a second wave of data was obtained two years later. Results revealed both a direct effect and mediated effects of perceived racism on later suicide and morbid ideation. For boys and girls the effect of perceived racism was mediated by symptoms of depression. However, the association was mediated by anxiety for girls, but not for boys in the current sample. Implications for future research and intervention are discussed.
Evaluating the Efficiency of Two Different Search Strategies for Patient Identification in Computerized Provider Order Entry

This experiment investigates two visual search strategies in order to determine if one strategy helps clinicians identify patients in medical computer systems. There are patient safety issues when trying to find patients in electronic health records such as a clinician unintentionally selecting the wrong patient and ordering a treatment for them. To examine how people may try to better identify patients, we investigated two different search strategies of finding a patient in patient information list. Participants were asked to search for a patient using one method, then the other. We measured accuracy and speed and utilized eye tracking to collect fixation metrics. This data was used to investigate if one of the methods was more efficient. The findings of the current study suggest that neither of methods used in this experiment were more beneficial compared to the other. However, the analysis of participants’ fixation duration provides some insight into search strategies when searching in a simulated patient list that could be built on in future work to improve this process of making sure the right patient gets the right care.
Image Scan line Conversion For Portable Ultrasound Machine

Ultrasound is one of the fastest-growing medical imaging modalities due its relative simplicity, low cost, and radiation-free operation . Portable ultrasound machines are typically used in situations where space is limited, mobility is important, or the scanning must be done in the field. Currently portable ultrasound machines are used in Cardiac, Vascular, Radiology, Endocrinology, and OB/GYN applications. The problem in this portable ultrasound machine is the power consumption, performance and quality of display . To reduce the power consumption and to increase the quality of display highly efficient scan conversion algorithm is developed on DSP. This algorithm helps to improve the quality of an image and to reduce the power consumption of the machine. The purpose of scan conversion in digital ultrasound machine is to translate the input data that are captured in different polar coordinate in to Cartesian coordinate, which will improve the quality of the display
COMPETITIVE MICRO ENVIRONMENT OF SMALL RESIDENTIAL BUILDING CONTRACTORS

Competitiveness is an evolving concept which gains new meanings in line with the dynamism of economic life. The number of research studies that focus on competitiveness in the Project and Construction Management (PCM) field is increasing steadily. However, only few studies have attempted to analyze the competitive behavior of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), although SMEs constitute the majority in the building construction industry. Understanding their competitive behavior is of particular importance to create an environment with common sustainable practices. Current models, reflecting to a large extent the perspective of large enterprises (LEs), fail to explain the competitive behavior of SMEs which differ from LEs by their managerial, organizational and financial structure and by their oversensitivity to environmental changes. Furthermore, current models are usually based on the production paradigm of the manufacturing industry and they ignore the special product and process characteristics of the building construction industry. This paper attempts to address these gaps and presents the findings of a study which aimed to decipher the characteristics of the competitive micro environment of small residential building contractors using ‘Porter’s five competitive forces’ model. Qualitative data collected from the owner-managers of nine small ‘general contractors’ through face-to-face in-depth interviews were analyzed using content analysis. The findings (i) confirm that competition models of the manufacturing industry should be approached with caution as they cannot be directly applied to the building construction industry without any appropriation; (ii) special characteristics of the residential building market should be taken into account in model building; (iii) the dynamics of small and local markets significantly differ from those of mass markets and these have considerable influence on SMEs’ competitive behavior.
Heart Rate Variability and Blood Pressure during Dynamic and Static Exercise at Similar Heart Rate Levels

Aim was to elucidate autonomic responses to dynamic and static (isometric) exercise of the lower limbs eliciting the same moderate heart rate (HR) response. Method: 23 males performed two kinds of voluntary exercise in a supine position at similar heart rates: static exercise (SE) of the lower limbs (static leg press) and dynamic exercise (DE) of the lower limbs (cycling). Subjective effort, systolic (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP), mean arterial pressure (MAP), rate pressure product (RPP) and the time between consecutive heart beats (RR-intervals) were measured. Time-domain (SDNN, RMSSD), frequency-domain (power in the low and high frequency band (LFP, HFP)) and geometric measures (SD1, SD2) as well as non-linear measures of regularity (approximate entropy (ApEn), sample entropy (SampEn) and correlation dimension D2) were calculated. Results: Although HR was similar during both exercise conditions (88±10 bpm), subjective effort, SBP, DBP, MAP and RPP were significantly enhanced during SE. HRV indicators representing overall variability (SDNN, SD 2) and vagal modulated variability (RMSSD, HFP, SD 1) were increased. LFP, thought to be modulated by both autonomic branches, tended to be higher during SE. ApEn and SampEn were decreased whereas D2 was enhanced during SE. It can be concluded that autonomic control processes during SE and DE were qualitatively different despite similar heart rate levels. The differences were reflected by blood pressure and HRV indices. HRV-measures indicated a stronger vagal cardiac activity during SE, while blood pressure response indicated a stronger sympathetic efferent activity to the vessels. The elevated vagal cardiac activity during SE might be a response mechanism, compensating a possible co-activation of sympathetic cardiac efferents, as HR and LF/HF was similar and LFP tended to be higher. However, this conclusion must be drawn cautiously as there is no HRV-marker reflecting “pure” sympathetic cardiac activity.
Active sensing using proximity sensors for object recognition and localization

In a recognition and localization process, active sensing techniques allow one to exploit the discriminant power of geometric features, although they are partially occluded to some sensors. The authors propose the use of proximity sensors on a robot hand and non-contact guarded and compliant motions to sense these features. To carry out recognition, the author compute geometric constraints by explicitly considering uncertainty in the acquired features. <<ETX>>
Comparative evaluation of limited preemptive methods

Schedulability analysis of real-time systems requires the knowledge of the worst-case execution time (WCET) of each computational activity. A precise estimation of such a task parameter is quite difficult to achieve, because execution times depend on many factors, including the task structure, the system architecture details, operating system features and so on. While some of these features are not under our control, selecting a proper scheduling algorithm can reduce the runtime overhead and make the WCETs smaller and more predictable. In particular, since task execution times can be significantly affected by preemptions, a number of scheduling methods have been proposed in the real-time literature to limit preemption during task execution. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive overview of the possible scheduling approaches that can be used to contain preemptions and present a comparative study aimed at evaluating their impact on task execution times.
Overcoming multidrug resistance in cancer: an update on the clinical strategy of inhibiting p-glycoprotein.

BACKGROUND Multidrug resistance (MDR) is a significant obstacle to providing effective chemotherapy to many patients. Multifactorial in etiology, classic MDR is associated with the overexpression of P-glycoprotein (P-gp), resulting in increased efflux of chemotherapy from cancer cells. Inhibiting P-gp as a method to reverse MDR in cancer patients has been studied extensively, but the results have generally been disappointing. METHODS The development of P-gp inhibitors is reviewed, including a discussion of early agents that are no longer being developed and third-generation agents that are currently in clinical trials. RESULTS First-generation agents (eg, cyclosporin, verapamil) were limited by unacceptable toxicity, whereas second-generation agents (eg, valspodar, biricodar) had better tolerability but were confounded by unpredictable pharmacokinetic interactions and interactions with other transporter proteins. Third-generation inhibitors (tariquidar XR9576, zosuquidar LY335979, laniquidar R101933, and ONT-093) have high potency and specificity for P-gp. Furthermore, pharmacokinetic studies to date have shown no appreciable impact on cytochrome P450 3A4 drug metabolism and no clinically significant drug interactions with common chemotherapy agents. CONCLUSIONS Third-generation P-gp inhibitors have shown promise in clinical trials. The continued development of these agents may establish the true therapeutic potential of P-gp-mediated MDR reversal.
Relating Process Algebras and Multiset Rewriting for Security Protocol Analysis

When formalizing security protocols, different specification languages support very different reasoning methodologies, whose results are not directly or easily comparable. Therefore, establishing clear relationships among different frameworks is highly desirable, as it permits various methodologies to cooperate by interpreting theoretical and practical results of one system in another. In this paper, we examine the nontrivial relationship between two general verification frameworks: multiset rewriting (MSR) and a process algebra (PA) inspired to the CCS and the π-calculus. We present two separate mappings, one from MSR to PA and the other from PA to MSR. Although defining a simple and general bijection between MSR and PA appears difficult, we show that in the specific context of cryptographic protocols they do admit effective translations that preserve traces
Impact of ENPP 1 genotype on arterial calcification in patients with end-stage renal failure

Background. Ectonucleotide pyrophosphatase/ phosphodiesterase-1 (ENPP1) generates inorganic pyrophosphate, a solute that serves as an essential physiological inhibitor of calcification. Inactivating mutations of ENPP1 are associated with generalized arterial calcification of infancy. We hypothesized the ENPP1 K121Q variant to be associated with increased vascular calcification in patients with end-stage renal failure. Subjects and methods. We recruited 79 patients with end-stage renal failure undergoing dialysis treatment and genotyped them for the ENPP1 K121Q polymorphism. Next, we matched to each patient with ENPP1 121KQ genotype (n1⁄4 15) a respective control with ENPP1 121KK genotype by gender, age, diabetes and duration of dialysis treatment. The matching ratio was 1 : 1. Severity of coronary calcification was quantified by computed tomography, and aortic stiffness was measured by pulse-wave analysis. Results. Patients with ENPP1 121KQ genotype had a significantly higher coronary calcium score (1385 vs 94; n1⁄4 30; P1⁄4 0.033), and also a higher aortic pulsewave velocity when compared to matched controls with ENPP1 121KK genotype (13.69m/s vs 9.37m/s; P1⁄4 0.003). Conclusions. Taken together, our study suggests a potential role of the ENPP1 K121Q polymorphism in arterial calcification of patients with end-stage renal failure. Patients heterozygous for the ENPP1 K121Q polymorphism have higher coronary calcification scores and increased aortic stiffness, and may benefit from more intense treatment in order to prevent progression of arterial calcification.
Activation and tremor of the shoulder muscles to the demands of an archery task

Abstract Physiological tremor and strength during the maintenance of shoulder position occur during a precision aiming task, such as archery. It is unclear how positions for precision demands affect physiological tremor and associated muscular activities. The purpose of this study was to assess the tremor amplitude and muscular activities of the shoulder between the various positions for precision demands. Ten males (age 21.9 ± 2.0 years) participated in the study. Electromyography (EMG) was quantified on eight humeral/scapular muscles. The tremor was measured by the acceleration component of a motion tracking sensor in the 3–7 Hz and 8–12 Hz frequency bands. Participants simulated six preparatory archery shooting positions (3 arm angles × 2 arm draw positions) and performed isometric contractions. The relative root mean square (RMS) amplitudes of the shoulder muscles were significantly greater for the full drawing position compared with the partial position (humeral muscles: P = 0.011; scapular muscles: P = 0.026). In the full drawing position, increased humeral/scapular muscle EMG amplitude was moderately associated with an increased power spectrum of 8–12/3–7 Hz tremor in humerus/scapula motion (R = 0.43–0.57). To minimize fluctuations in high strength muscle performance, 90° of elevation in the full drawing position may be a suitable position for demands in archery. In addition, scapular muscle amplitude is important for stability to reduce humerus tremor during archery performance.
Feature Learning With Matrix Factorization Applied to Acoustic Scene Classification

In this paper, we study the usefulness of various matrix factorization methods for learning features to be used for the specific acoustic scene classification (ASC) problem. A common way of addressing ASC has been to engineer features capable of capturing the specificities of acoustic environments. Instead, we show that better representations of the scenes can be automatically learned from time–frequency representations using matrix factorization techniques. We mainly focus on extensions including sparse, kernel-based, convolutive and a novel supervised dictionary learning variant of principal component analysis and nonnegative matrix factorization. An experimental evaluation is performed on two of the largest ASC datasets available in order to compare and discuss the usefulness of these methods for the task. We show that the unsupervised learning methods provide better representations of acoustic scenes than the best conventional hand-crafted features on both datasets. Furthermore, the introduction of a novel nonnegative supervised matrix factorization model and deep neural networks trained on spectrograms, allow us to reach further improvements.
Estimation of global solar radiation using sunshine duration and temperature in Chennai

Due to cost and difficulty in measurement, solar radiation data are not available in some of remote locations where there is a potential solar application. In this paper, linear Angstrom and non-linear polynomial relations were used to estimate global solar radiation(GSR) on horizontal surface using sunshine duration, maximum temperature and minimum temperature during a period of 10 years from 2003 to 2012 in Chennai city. The data for the analysis was obtained from Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), Pune. The performances of both sunshine and temperature dependent models were evaluated for the estimation of GSR and a comparison assessment of the models were carried out using measured GSR in MJ/m2/day in Chennai. The result of the correlations shows that sunshine duration based model gives the best result with a coefficient of determination of R2 =0.9784. The results revealed that models using sunshine hours had the smallest values of MBE, MAPE, MABE and RMSE of 0.0516, 0.6449, 0.5855 0.6953 respectively. Hence the regression equations using sunshine duration can be used to predict the GSR of the representative regions in the absence of experimental data. The daily GSR values produced by this approach can be used in the design and estimation of the performance of solar applications.
A comparison of network embedding approaches

Network embedding automatically learns to encode a graph into multi-dimensional vectors. The embedded representation appears to outperform hand-crafted features in many downstream machine learning tasks. There is a plethora of network embedding approaches in the last decade, based on the advances and successes of deep learning. However, there is no absolute winner as the network structure varies from application to application and the notion of connections in a graph has its own semantics in different domains. In this report, we compare different network embedding approaches in real and synthetic datasets, covering different graph structures. Although our prototype currently includes only two network embedding techniques, it can be easily extended due to our systematic evaluation methodology, and available source code.
Toward Fast and Scalable Key-Value Stores Based on User Space TCP/IP Stack

Key-Value Stores (KVS) are wildly prevalent in Web systems and services, and it is well-known that KVS systems exchange huge amount of small messages. Such workload unveils a new performance issue for TCP/IP processing. User-space networking such as Intel DPDK is a promising technology that addresses this issue by leveraging multi-core architecture and application specific processing without the intervention of the kernel. This paper shows the effects of user-space TCP/IP stack that works on top of Intel DPDK for high performance KVS systems. We have compared the performance of short message processing on an HTTP server and two KVS servers, Redis and memcached, between the Linux kernel TCP/IP stack and a user-space TCP stack over 10 Gigabit Ethernet link. We have used mTCP with Intel DPDK as a user-space TCP/IP stack. Our experimental results show that an mTCP-based KVS server with a single thread improves the performance by up to 35 %; the performance of an mTCP-based server increases as the number of threads increases and an mTCP server finally outperforms up to 5.5 times faster than a standard TCP server. Our observation leads to optimistic conclusions on the feasibility of a fast and scalable KVS server utilizing a user-space TCP/IP stack.
Real-time rendering of bumpmap shadows taking account of surface curvature

The bump-mapping technique is often used to represent bumps on objects such as bark on trees and craters on the moon. In order to render shadows cast by bumps, the horizon map method was proposed. The horizon map is a table which has, for each of a small collection of azimuthal directions, slopes from each viewpoint on the bump map (height field) to the corresponding horizon point, which is the highest viewable point seen from that viewpoint. We propose a more precise method for rendering bumpmap shadows using a both a horizon map and a distance map, to take curvature of surfaces into consideration. The distance map is a table, which has, for each azimuthal direction, horizontal projected distances from each point of the bump map to its corresponding horizon point. The proposed method can render shadows efficiently by using programmable graphics hardware.
Antigen Retrieval in Prion Protein Immunohistochemistry

Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies are a group of neurodegenerative diseases occurring in both humans and animals and are most likely caused by prions. Neuropathological confirmation of the clinical diagnosis has been a problem because of the difficulty in epitope retrieval from formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded brain specimens. Many different protocols for the detection of prions in brain tissue have been used. Thus far, picric and/or formic acid, steam autoclaving at 121C of sections, microwave treatment, and 4 M guanidine thiocyanate treatment have been suggested. The objective of our experiment was to obtain the standard pretreatment(s) resulting in optimal immunostaining. In the experiment, successive tissue slides of brain specimens of several Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and control patients were stained using different combinations of pretreatments. Using densitometric analysis, several well-defined locations per section were examined and prion immunostaining was quantified. The results showed that autoclaving is necessary for antigen retrieval and cannot be substituted by microwave treatment. The best results were obtained when the following combination was used in the specified order: 15 min saturated picric acid, 10 min steam autoclaving at 121C, 5 min 88% formic acid, and 2 hr 4 M guanidine thiocyanate at 4C.