Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of Gram Stain as an Alternative in the Assessment of Human Spermatozoa Quality

Introduction: During spermiogenesis, protaminosis and sperm chromatin condensation are important prerequisites for the preservation of DNA integrity in spermatozoa. The aim of this study is to assess Gram stain as an alternative technique for the evaluation of human sperm chromatin condensation status. Patients and Methods: Aniline blue and Gram staining were applied to semen samples from 34 donors in order to determine the relationship between sperm chromatin condensation and infertility. In addition, the possible correlation between morphology and vitality (eosin-Y staining) of spermatozoa compared with their nuclear status (aniline blue and Gram staining) was studied. Results: Chromatin condensation and sperm vitality were significantly higher in fertile men compared to the subfertile. A significant correlation was found between chromatin condensation and (a) sperm vitality (p < 0.01), and (b) nuclear protein status (p < 0.01). Conclusions: Gram staining may be used as a routine method in assisted reproduction laboratories and could assist in the evaluation of sperm quality as well as in the selection of the appropriate fertilization technique.
Glutamate decreases pyruvate carboxylase activity and spares glucose as energy substrate in cultured cerebellar astrocytes

The effects of glutamate on [U‐13C]glucose metabolism were studied in cerebellar astrocytes using 13C magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Labeled glutamate, glutamine, aspartate, lactate, and alanine were observed both in the cell extracts and in media, and, additionally, labeled glycogen was detected in the cell extracts. However, only labeled lactate and alanine were quantifiable in the medium in addition to [U‐13C]glucose. In the presence of unlabeled glutamate, the amount of [U‐13C]glucose removed from the medium was decreased, indicating that glutamate might spare glucose as an energy substrate and thus decrease the uptake of glucose. Labeled glycogen, [4,5‐13C]glutamate, [3,4,5‐13C]glutamate, [3,4‐13C]aspartate, and [U‐13C]alanine were increased in the presence of glutamate. However, the increase in the amount of [3,4,5‐13C]glutamate from the second turn in the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle was less pronounced than that of [4,5‐13C]glutamate from the first turn in the TCA cycle. This indicates the dilution of label, probably resulting from the synthesis of unlabeled oxaloacetate from glutamate in the TCA cycle. Furthermore, exogenous glutamate had an inhibiting effect on pyruvate carboxylation, presumably by formation of oxaloacetate from 2‐oxoglutarate derived from glutamate. It could be shown that glucose is a better substrate for energy production than glutamate; it is, however, less efficient in labeling amino acids than glutamate in cerebellar astrocytes. J Neurosci. Res. 66:1127–1132, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Hydrotherapy Versus Conventional Land-Based Exercise for the Management of Patients With Osteoarthritis of the Knee: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Background and Purpose: This study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of hydrotherapy in subjects with osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee compared with subjects with OA of the knee who performed land-based exercises. Subjects and Methods: Sixty-four subjects with OA of the knee were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 groups that performed exercises for 18 weeks: a water-based exercise group and a land-based exercise group. The outcome measures included a visual analog scale (VAS) for pain in the previous week, the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC), pain during gait assessed by a VAS at rest and immediately following a 50-foot (15.24-m) walk test (50FWT), walking time measured at fast and comfortable paces during the 50FWT, and the Lequesne Index. Measurements were recorded by a blinded investigator at baseline and at 9 and 18 weeks after initiating the intervention. Results: The 2 groups were homogenous regarding all parameters at baseline. Reductions in pain and improvements in WOMAC and Lequesne index scores were similar between groups. Pain before and after the 50FWT decreased significantly over time in both groups. However, the water-based exercise group experienced a significantly greater decrease in pain than the land-based exercise group before and after the 50FWT at the week-18 follow-up. Discussion and Conclusion: Both water-based and land-based exercises reduced knee pain and increased knee function in participants with OA of the knee. Hydrotherapy was superior to land-based exercise in relieving pain before and after walking during the last follow-up. Water-based exercises are a suitable and effective alternative for the management of OA of the knee.
Measuring the Interestingness of News Articles

An explosive growth of online news has taken place. Users are inundated with thousands of news articles, only some of which are interesting. A system to filter out uninteresting articles would aid users that need to read and analyze many articles daily, such as financial analysts and government officials. The most obvious approach for reducing the amount of information overload is to learn keywords of interest for a user (Carreira et al., 2004). Although filtering articles based on keywords removes many irrelevant articles, there are still many uninteresting articles that are highly relevant to keyword searches. A relevant article may not be interesting for various reasons, such as the article's age or if it discusses an event that the user has already read about in other articles. Although it has been shown that collaborative filtering can aid in personalized recommendation systems (Wang et al., 2006), a large number of users is needed. In a limited user environment, such as a small group of analysts monitoring news events, collaborative filtering would be ineffective. The definition of what makes an article interesting--or its 'interestingness'--varies from user to user and is continually evolving, calling for adaptable user personalization. Furthermore, due to the naturemore » of news, most articles are uninteresting since many are similar or report events outside the scope of an individual's concerns. There has been much work in news recommendation systems, but none have yet addressed the question of what makes an article interesting. « less
A Privacy Protection Model Based On K-Anonymity

In this paper, we focuse that the existing k-anonymity does not fully consider the privacy protection degree issues of sensitive attribute, proposing a (p,  )-sensitive k-anonymity privacy protection model based on privacy protection degree grouping of sensitive attribute. The solution can not only effectively protect highly sensitive private information and reduce the risk of privacy leakage, but also reduce loss of information from the anonymous processing to improve the quality of the data.
Selection of Phototransduction Genes in Homo sapiens.

PURPOSE We investigated the evidence of recent positive selection in the human phototransduction system at single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and gene level. METHODS SNP genotyping data from the International HapMap Project for European, Eastern Asian, and African populations was used to discover differences in haplotype length and allele frequency between these populations. Numeric selection metrics were computed for each SNP and aggregated into gene-level metrics to measure evidence of recent positive selection. The level of recent positive selection in phototransduction genes was evaluated and compared to a set of genes shown previously to be under recent selection, and a set of highly conserved genes as positive and negative controls, respectively. RESULTS Six of 20 phototransduction genes evaluated had gene-level selection metrics above the 90th percentile: RGS9, GNB1, RHO, PDE6G, GNAT1, and SLC24A1. The selection signal across these genes was found to be of similar magnitude to the positive control genes and much greater than the negative control genes. CONCLUSIONS There is evidence for selective pressure in the genes involved in retinal phototransduction, and traces of this selective pressure can be demonstrated using SNP-level and gene-level metrics of allelic variation. We hypothesize that the selective pressure on these genes was related to their role in low light vision and retinal adaptation to ambient light changes. Uncovering the underlying genetics of evolutionary adaptations in phototransduction not only allows greater understanding of vision and visual diseases, but also the development of patient-specific diagnostic and intervention strategies.
Econometric study on the impact of EU loan guarantee financial instruments on growth and jobs of SMEs

This working paper investigates the economic effects of guaranteed loans granted under the EU programmes MAP and CIP on SMEs' growth in Italy, the Benelux and the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden) from 2002 to 2016. In these macro-regions, the facilities supported 174,107 loans to SMEs, for a total of EUR 15.58bn. Using a sample of these loans with corresponding firm-level data, this study estimates the average treatment effect on firms' growth, profitability, assets intangibility and survival. The analysis compares beneficiary SMEs to similar firms that were not supported by the programmes, identified through coarsened exact matching (CEM) and propensity score matching (PSM). Overall, guaranteed loans are found to positively affect the growth in assets (+19.6 percentage points over the two years after the end of the signature year), sales (+14.8 percentage points), employment (+16.9 percentage points) and the share of intangible assets (+1 percentage point). No significant effect on profits is observed. Beneficiary SMEs also have lower bankruptcy rates compared to control firms. Consistent with the literature on financing constraints, positive effects are stronger for smaller, younger SMEs. Treatment effects are more pronounced in the Benelux and Nordic countries, mostly due to the sample composition of treated firms in each macro-region.
Error-Free Operation of Superconducting Nanowire Optical-to-Electrical Converter Connected with SFQ Circuits

We report on the demonstration of the error-free operation of optical-to-electrical (O/E) signal converter based on superconducting nanowires with single-flux-quantum circuits. Optical input pulses were generated by the pulse pattern generator and the optical modulator, and the error rate of the output signals was measured. For a 300-nm-wide device with active area of 15×15 μm2, correct O/E conversion was confirmed with the error-rate of less than 10-6 at the maximum repetition frequency of 120 MHz. The optical energy consumption per pulse was one order of magnitude lower than those of conventional semiconductor photodiodes.
Lord ’ s Paradox Revisited – ( Oh Lord ! Kumbaya ! ) Judea Pearl

Among the many peculiarities that were dubbed “paradoxes” by well meaning statisticians, the one reported by Frederic M. Lord in 1967 has earned a special status. Although it can be viewed, formally, as a version of Simpson’s paradox (Arah, 2008; Tu et al., 2008; Pearl, 2014b) its reputation has gone much worse. Unlike Simpson’s reversal, Lord’s is easier to state, harder to disentangle (Wainer and Brown, 2007) and, for some reason, it has been lingering for almost four decades, under several interpretations and re-interpretations (Holland and Rubin, 1983), and it keeps coming up in new situations and under new lights (van Breukelen, 2013; Senn, 2006; Eriksson and Häggström, 2014). Most peculiar yet, while some of its variants has received a satisfactory resolution (Glymour, 2006; Hernández-Dı́az et al., 2006), the original version presented by Lord, to the best of my knowledge, has not been given a proper treatment, not to mention a resolution. The purpose of this paper is to trace back Lord’s paradox from its original formulation, resolve it using modern tools of causal analysis, explain why it resisted prior attempts at resolution and, finally, address the general methodological issue of whether adjustments for pre-existing conditions is justified in group comparison applications. 1 Lord’s original dilemma Any attempt to describe Lord’s paradox in words other than those used by Lord himself can only do injustice to the clarity and freshness with which it was first enunciated in 1967. We will begin therefore by listening to Lord’s own words. “A large university is interested in investigating the effects on the students of the diet provided in the university dining halls and any sex difference in these effects. Various types of data are gathered. In particular, the weight of each student at the time of his arrival in September and his weight the following June are recorded. 1 TECHNICAL REPORT R-436 July 2016
Speech Emotion Recognition Using Voiced Segment Selection Algorithm

Speech emotion recognition (SER) poses one of the major challenges in human-machine interaction. We propose a new algorithm, the Voiced Segment Selection (VSS) algorithm, which can produce an accurate segmentation of speech signals. The VSS algorithm deals with the voiced signal segment as the texture image processing feature which is different from the traditional method. It uses the Log-Gabor filters to extract the voiced and unvoiced features from spectrogram to make the classification. The finding shows that the VSS method is a more accurate algorithm for voiced segment detection. Therefore, it has potential to improve performance of emotion recognition from speech.
A Framework for Achieving Realism in Agent-Based Pedestrian Crowd Simulations

Pedestrian crowd simulations are used to predict the behavior of human crowds. Decision makers, however, often feel crowd simulations look mechanized and do not accurately reflect the motion of real crowds. Thus, current research focuses less on computational efficiency and more on improving simulation realism. In this conceptual work, we analyze recent, major contributions in the computer science field to identify current endeavors in crowd simulation research that lead to increased realism. We provide a framework that can be used to identify components in agent-based crowd simulations that contribute towards realism. External and internal factors influence the realism of any crowd simulation. We show that crowd simulations typically address environmental, situational and physiological factors. Agents however are rarely implemented to also consider psychological and cultural factors. As a result, the realism and therefore model accuracy and trustworthiness of crowd simulations is undermined.
Antagonistic Behavior, Dominance, Hostility, and Coronary Heart Disease

Purpose: This study investigated the relationship between antagonistic behavior, dominance, attitudinal hostility, and coronary heart disease (CHD). Methods: One hundred one men and 95 women referred for thallium stress testing were administered the Structured Interview and the Cook-Medley Hostility Scale. The Hostile Behavior Index, derived from the Structured Interview and developed by Haney et al., served as an index of antagonism, and the frequency with which interviewees interrupted their interviewer served as a measure of dominance. On the basis of their medical history and thallium stress test results, patients were classified as having (N = 44) or not having (N = 99) CHD. Results and Conclusions: Multivariate logistic regressions (with age, gender, disease, and lifestyle risk factors in the model) revealed that both the Hostile Behavior Index and dominance were significant independent risk factors for CHD (relative risk [RR] = 1.22 and 1.47, p < .03). Of the two Hostile Behavior Index component scores, indirect challenge and irritability, only the latter correlated significantly with CHD (RR = 1.27, p < .03). Separate logistic regressions for men and women suggest that subtle, indirect manifestations of antagonism confer CHD risk in women and that more overt expressions of anger confer risk in men. A significant univariate correlation between hostility scale scores and CHD became not significant when we adjusted for socioeconomic status.
A Semiparametric Two‐Component “Compound” Mixture Model and Its Application to Estimating Malaria Attributable Fractions

Summary Malaria remains a major epidemiologic problem in many developing countries. Malaria is defined as the presence of parasites and symptoms (usually fever) due to the parasites. In endemic areas, an individual may have symptoms attributable either to malaria or to other causes. From a clinical viewpoint, it is important to correctly diagnose an individual who has developed symptoms so that the appropriate treatments can be given. From an epidemiologic and economic viewpoint, it is important to determine the proportion of malaria‐affected cases in individuals who have symptoms so that policies on intervention program can be developed. Once symptoms have developed in an individual, the diagnosis of malaria can be based on the analysis of the parasite levels in blood samples. However, even a blood test is not conclusive as in endemic areas many healthy individuals can have parasites in their blood slides. Therefore, data from this type of study can be viewed as coming from a mixture distribution, with the components corresponding to malaria and nonmalaria cases. A unique feature in this type of data, however, is the fact that a proportion of the nonmalaria cases have zero parasite levels. Therefore, one of the component distributions is itself a mixture distribution. In this article, we propose a semiparametric likelihood approach for estimating the proportion of clinical malaria using parasite‐level data from a group of individuals with symptoms. Our approach assumes the density ratio for the parasite levels in clinical malaria and nonclinical malaria cases can be modeled using a logistic model. We use empirical likelihood to combine the zero and nonzero data. The maximum semiparametric likelihood estimate is more efficient than existing nonparametric estimates using only the frequencies of zero and nonzero data. On the other hand, it is more robust than a fully parametric maximum likelihood estimate that assumes a parametric model for the nonzero data. Simulation results show that the performance of the proposed method is satisfactory. The proposed method is used to analyze data from a malaria survey carried out in Tanzania.
Talking About God and Talking About Creation: Avicenna's and Thomas Aquinas' Positions

Comparing Avicenna's and Thomas Aquinas' positions regarding human knowledge, this volume talks about God and the nature of the creative action and the beginning of the universe. The overall argument of the book is that their conception of theological language plays an important role in shaping their positions concerning the creation of the universe. In the first part, their conception of the theological language and divine formal features are explored and how their positions regarding theological language differ from each other is discussed. The second part includes a comparison of their conceptions of the nature of the divine creative action - which provides a good example showing how their conceptions of theological language affect the way they talk about creation - and their arguments concerning the beginning of the universe.
Modelos de fragilidad en el análisis multivariante de supervivencia

La problematica planteada por los datos de supervivencia multivariante hace necesaria la aplicacion de nuevos modelos, entre ellos modelos marginales y modelos condicionales, debido principalmente a la falta de independencia entre los tiempos de supervivencia, En esta tesis se exponen dichos modelos en el contexto de los procesos contadores multivariantes. Mientras que los modelos marginales estiman el modelo ignorando la dependencia aunque corrigiendola posteriormente mediante estimadores jackknife, bootstrap o sandwich, los modelos condiconales estiman la dependencia especificando explicitamente la distribucion de probabilidad de la misma e incorporandola en el modelo. Los modelos marginales suponen que la dependencia entre observaciones es constante. Aun cuando los modelos de fragilidad relajan ligeramente esta hipotesis (esta dependencia no tiene porque ser constante entre observaciones sino entre individuos), continuan manteniendola. La parte mas innovadora de la tesis consiste en modelizar directamente la varianza, permitiendo asi que esta pueda variar a lo largo del tiempo. Para ello, se propone un metodo de estimacion para el modelo AG de fragilidad gamma basado en un algoritmo (al que llamamos algoritmo EMB), en el que se modeliza la media y la dispersion simultaneamente, consiguiendo, de esta manera, solucionar algunos de los problemas planteados por el algoritmo EM y, adicionalmente, algunas de las principales limitaciones de los modelos de fragilidad. En conreto, se introduce flexibilidad en el modelo ya que ahora,la fragilidad no tiene porque ser necesariamente constante en el tiempo, se posibilita la existencia de mas de un efecto aleatorio, se permite que la dependencia pueda ser negativa y el modelo puede complicarse permitiendo efectos cruzados y anidados, asi como interacciones entre variables explicativas observables y la fragilidad.
Reading interventions for children with Down syndrome.

Though many individuals with Down syndrome are now able to achieve useful levels of literacy skills, it is still not clear how best to support the development of reading skills with this group. Research with typically developing children has identified successful methods of teaching reading, and recent work has begun to evaluate these methods for individuals with Down syndrome. The aim of this paper is to review this work, and to highlight areas in need of further research.
Effects of L-732 , 138 and GR 159897 on Paclitaxel-Induced Mechanical Allodynia and Cold Hyperalgesia

The painful peripheral neuropathy occurring frequently during chemotherapy with paclitaxel or oxaliplatin is one of their dose-limiting factors. We reported previously that substance P is involved in the pathogenesis of pulmonary hypersensitivity reaction to paclitaxel in rats, and an antiallergic agent pemirolast reverses this reaction via the blockade of release of substance P. In the present study, we investigated the involvement of substance P in paclitaxelinduced peripheral neuropathy compared with that by oxaliplatin. In von Frey and acetone tests in rats repeated administration of paclitaxel (6 mg/kg i.p., once a week for 4 weeks) or oxaliplatin (4 mg/kg i.p., twice a week for 4 weeks) induced both mechanical allodynia and cold hyperalgesia. Paclitaxel-induced peripheral neuropathy was reversed primarily by the acute administration of pemirolast (0.1 and 1 mg/kg p.o.). Moreover, coadministration of the receptor antagonists neurokinin 1 [N-acetyl-L-tryptophan 3,5bis(trifluoromethyl)benzylester (L-732,138), 100 g/body i.t. ] and neurokinin 2 [5-fluoro-3-[2-[4-methoxy-4-[[(R)-phenylsulphinyl]methyl]-1-piperidinyl]ethyl]-1H-indole (GR159897), 100 g/body i.t. ] strongly reversed paclitaxel-induced neuropathy. On the other hand, oxaliplatin-induced peripheral neuropathy was not reversed by pemirolast. In the in vitro study using cultured adult rat dorsal root ganglion neurons paclitaxel (1000 ng/ml) significantly increased the release of substance P, and pemirolast (100 and 1000 nM) significantly inhibited this increase of substance P release. Oxaliplatin, by contrast, did not increase the release of substance P. These results suggest that substance P is involved in paclitaxelinduced neuropathy, and the mechanism of its action is clearly different from that of oxaliplatin.