Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Is cytomegalovirus infection related to inflammatory bowel disease, especially steroid-resistant inflammatory bowel disease? A meta-analysis

Background Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection has been associated with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Numerous studies have been conducted to analyze the association between HCMV infection and risk of IBD and steroid-resistant IBD, but no clear consensus had been reached. Objectives The aim of this study was to confirm this relationship precisely by doing a systematic review and meta-analysis. Study design We identified relevant studies through a search of PubMed and Embase. Studies were eligible for inclusion if they 1) evaluated the association between HCMV infection and IBD disease; 2) evaluated the association between HCMV infection and steroid-resistant IBD disease; 3) were case–control studies or nested case–control studies; 4) provided the numbers (or percentage) of positivity for HCMV infection in cases and controls, respectively. Data were extracted and analyzed independently by two investigators. Results and conclusion A total of 18 studies including 1,168 patients and 951 health groups was identified, and HCMV infection was distinctly confirmed as a risk factor for the occurrence and development of IBD. When involving 17 studies including 1,306 IBD patients, a total of 52.9% of patients in the cytomegalovirus (CMV)-positive groups were observed to have steroid resistance, compared with 30.2% of patients in the CMV-negative groups. There was a significant difference in the risk of steroid resistance between people exposed to HCMV infection and those not exposed HCMV infection in IBD patients. This meta-analysis suggested that HCMV infection is associated with an increased risk for IBD and steroid-resistant IBD.
Intralesional Cryosurgery for Keloids , Hidradenitis Suppurativa , Basal Cell Carcinomas , and Cutaneous Metastases : A Review

Recently, the uses of intralesional cryosurgery (ILC) have been rapidly expanding in the field of dermatology and oncology. Thus far, ILC has been effectively used to treat keloids, hidradenitis suppurativa (HS), basal cell carcinomas (BCCs), and cutaneous metastases. These conditions can be difficult to treat so it is significant to have an alternative, effective treatment option available. ILC has several advantages over other treatment options for these conditions such as the method’s simplicity, cost-effectiveness, and lack of side effects, pain, and complications. This manuscript reviews data concerning the use of ILC in the treatment of keloids, HS, BCCs, and cutaneous metastases.
Influence of Vaginal Versus Abdominal Hysterectomy on Perioperative Glucose Metabolism

The aim of this study was to investigate the metabolic effects of abdominal versus vaginal hysterectomy with specific regard to perioperative glucose metabolism.Fourteen patients received either abdominal (AH, n = 7) or vaginal hysterectomy (VH, n = 7). Hepatic glucose production was measured before and 2.5 h after the operation by stable isotope technique ([6,6-(2) H2]-glucose). Metabolic substrates (glucose, lactate, nonesterified fatty acids [NEFA], beta-hydroxybutyrate) and hormones (insulin, glucagon, cortisol, catecholamines) were determined pre-, intra-, and postoperatively. VH induced a higher postoperative glucose concentration than the abdominal approach (VH, 148 +/- 25 mg/dL; AH, 111 +/- 16 mg/dL; P < 0.05). Since postoperative enhancement of hepatic glucose production was comparable in both groups, glucose clearance was lower after the vaginal procedure (VH, 1.7 +/- 0.3 mL [centered dot] kg-1 [centered dot] min-1; AH, 2.1 +/- 0.3 mL [centered dot] kg-1 [centered dot] min-1; P < 0.05). NEFA, beta-hydroxybutyrate, and catecholamines similarily increased after surgery. Cortisol levels were more increased after VH (VH, 80 +/- 26 micro g/dL; AH, 37 +/- 14 micro g/dL; P < 0.001). Lactate, glucagon, and insulin concentrations did not change perioperatively. The more pronounced hyperglycemic response to VH was due to lower peripheral glucose use caused by higher postoperative cortisol values. The mechanisms responsible for this marked cortisol enhancement after the vaginal operation as well as the clinical significance for patients with preexisting impaired carbohydrate tolerance, however, remained unclear and warrant further investigation. (Anesth Analg 1996;83:991-5)
Jogos Não Cooperativos de Localização de Instalações : uma Resenha Non-Cooperative Facility Location Games : a Survey

The Facility Location problem is a well-know NP-Hard combinatorial optimization problem. It models a diverse set of situations where one aims to provide a set of goods or services via a set of facilities F to a set of clients T , also called terminals. There are opening costs for each facility in F and connection costs for each pair of facility and client, if such facility attends this client. A central authority wants to determine the solution with minimum cost, considering both opening and connection costs, in such a way that all clients are attended by one facility. In this survey we are interested in the non-cooperative game version of this problem, where instead of having a central authority, each client is a player and decides where to connect himself. In doing so, he aims to minimize his own costs, given by the connection costs and opening costs of the facility, which may be shared among clients using the same facility. This problem has several applications as well, specially in distributed scenarios where a central authority is too expensive or even infeasible to exist. In this paper we present a survey describing different variants of this problem and reviewing several results about it, as well as adapting results from existing literature concerning the existence of equilibria, Price of Anarchy and Price of Stability. We also point out open problems that remain to be addressed. Palavras-chave: Teoria de jogos algorítmica, localização de instalações, preço da anarquia, preço da estabilidade.
P2P-5 Radiation Impedance and Equivalent Circuit for Immersed CMUT Array Element

In this paper, we present equivalent circuit for immersed capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers (cMUT), based on an accurate parametric model. We also present an accurate approximation for the radiation impedance cMUT. We develop a design approach for immersed cMUTs using the equivalent circuit. We demonstrate that the equivalent circuit predicts the performance of a cMUT array element composed of many cells in parallel. We investigate the applicability of the equivalent circuit in designing cMUT array elements
On Capacity-Maximizing Angular Densities of Multipath in MIMO Channels

This paper provides a partial answer to the question: "what is the best angular density of multipath in MIMO channels? " using the size-asymptotic theory of Toeplitz matrices for uniform 2-D and 3-D antenna arrays. A Kronecker-type approximation of the array correlation structure is proposed and used to find the angular densities that completely eliminate correlation between any elements of antenna arrays and thus maximize the asymptotic MIMO capacity for a broad class of fading distributions. At half-wavelength spacing, the best angular density is shown to be non-uniform, which implies that the popular Clarke's (Jake's) model does not represent the best case scenario. The asymptotic results are validated via Monte-Carlo simulations, and a number of practical guidelines for antenna design and optimal orientation are provided.
The alanine‐serine‐cysteine‐1 (Asc‐1) transporter controls glycine levels in the brain and is required for glycinergic inhibitory transmission

Asc‐1 (SLC7A10) is an amino acid transporter whose deletion causes neurological abnormalities and early postnatal death in mice. Using metabolomics and behavioral and electrophysiological methods, we demonstrate that Asc‐1 knockout mice display a marked decrease in glycine levels in the brain and spinal cord along with impairment of glycinergic inhibitory transmission, and a hyperekplexia‐like phenotype that is rescued by replenishing brain glycine. Asc‐1 works as a glycine and L‐serine transporter, and its transport activity is required for the subsequent conversion of L‐serine into glycine in vivo. Asc‐1 is a novel regulator of glycine metabolism and a candidate for hyperekplexia disorders.
Abrupt Temperature Changes in the Western Mediterranean over the Past 250,000 Years

A continuous high-resolution Western Mediterranean sea surface temperature (SST) alkenone record spanning the past 250,000 years shows that abrupt changes were more common at warming than at cooling. During marine isotope stage (MIS) 6, SST oscillated following a stadial-interstadial pattern but at lower intensities and rates of change than in the Dansgaard/Oeschger events of MIS 3. Some of the most prominent events occurred over MISs 5 and 7, after prolonged warm periods of high stability. Climate during the whole period was predominantly maintained in interglacial-interstadial conditions, whereas the duration of stadials was much shorter.
The PXY-CLE41 receptor ligand pair defines a multifunctional pathway that controls the rate and orientation of vascular cell division

Controlling the orientation of cell division is fundamental to the development of complex body plans. This is particularly apparent in plants, where development is determined by differential growth that results solely from changes in cell expansion and orientation of the cell division plane. Despite the fundamental importance of cell division orientation to plant development, the mechanisms regulating this process remain almost completely unknown. During vascular development, the meristematic cambial cells divide down their long axis in a highly orientated manner to generate clear files of cells. The receptor kinase PXY has previously be shown to be essential for this orientation. Here, we demonstrate that the division plane is determined by the interactions of PXY and its peptide ligand, CLE41. PXY is expressed within dividing meristematic cells of the procambium, whereas CLE41 localises to the adjacent phloem cells. Altering the pattern of CLE41 expression leads to a loss of cell division orientation and a dramatic loss of ordered vascular tissue development. By contrast, increasing phloem-specific expression of CLE41 results in more cell divisions, but the orientation of cell division is retained, leading to both increased and well-ordered vascular development. We demonstrate that PXY signalling is down-regulated by CLE41. This feedback mechanism is crucial in integrating the different roles of PXY signalling in controlling xylem differentiation, regulating the rate of vascular cell division and determining the orientation of cell division. Parallels with animal systems indicate that localised signalling from adjacent cells is a general mechanism for defining the plane of cell division.
The correlation between the intake of lutein, lycopene and β-carotene from vegetables and fruits, and blood plasma concentrations in a group of women aged 50-65 years in the UK

Abstract The correlations between the mean of 4 d weighed intakes of lutein, lycopene and βcarotene and mean plasma concentations during each of the four Seasons were lutein r 0·64, lycopene r 0·47 and βcarotene r 0·45. Intake was not significantly correlated with plasma concentrations during every seasonal time-point. There was a significantly higher intake of lutein during the spring compared with summer and autumn, lycopene intake was significantly higher during the summer and autumn and there were no significant seasonal differences in β-carotene intake. There were, however, significant seasonal differences in plasma carotenoid concentrations, the highest levels occumng between May and October. There were large inter- and intra-individual variations in intake and plasma concentrations of carotenoids. BMI was inversely correlated with plasma βcarotene (r-0·41). The findings suggest that plasma carotenoid concentrations are indicative of dietary intake, but the large intra-individual variation in plasma concentrations indicates that any assessment of longer-term status from data at any one time-point should be treated with caution.
Image representation by blob and CT reconstruction from few projections

The localized radial symmetric function, or the blob, is an ideal alternative to the pixel for CT image reconstruction. In this paper we develop image representation models using blob and propose reconstruction methods for few projections CT data. The image is represented by a single scale Gaussian blob or multiscale blobs of different frequency selectivity, and is reconstructed by minimizing the Total Variation or the ℓ1 norm of blob coefficients. Some 2D numerical results are presented, where we use the GPU platform for fast numerical evaluations of the operations such as the X-Ray projection and back projection.
A Multi-Objective Evolutionary Cloud Leasing Algorithm for Cloud and Peer Assisted VoD Systems

Although the combination of cloud and Peer-to- Peer (P2P) can leverage the performance of video on demand (VoD) system, there has been no mature solution for the cloud leasing strategy for the cloud and peer assisted VoD system. It is hard to get a balance between the operating cost of content provider and the user experience. In this paper, we first model the operating cost and the delay cost. And then, we propose an optimal cloud leasing algorithm based on a well-known multi- objective optimization algorithm NSGA-II to select the most suitable cloud storage server for the requester. Compared with other multi-objective optimization algorithm, i.e. SPEA and linear programming, the experimental results show that our proposed algorithm based on NSGA-II can effectively reduce the operating cost of content provider, without compromising the user's viewing experience.
An Object-space Simulation Method for Low-cost Digital Camera Stability Testing

The widespread availability and low cost of digital cameras has been the impetus for their increased use for photogrammetric applications. The metric suitability of these cameras is critically dependent upon the stability of their interior orientation parameters (IOPs), which can be evaluated by simulation methods. Focused on aerial photogrammetry, this paper presents a new method that assesses the impact of camera stability in terms of the accuracy of object space terrain reconstruction from a large number of simulations. The results of this method are compared with those from two simulation procedures based on single-photo resection for ten sets of IOPs from three different low-cost digital cameras and are found to be in close agreement in terms of the decision about camera stability. Detailed analyses show the method is relatively insensitive to the distribution of ground control points used for camera orientation and the realism of the randomly-generated terrain, but is highly sensitive to the range of simulated terrain heights and image point measurement precision.
A global analysis of the ozone deficit in the upper stratosphere and lower mesosphere

The global measurements of temperature, ozone, water vapor, and nitrogen dioxide acquired by the Limb Infrared Monitor of the Stratosphere (LIMS), supplemented by a precompiled distribution of chlorine monoxide, are used to test the balance between odd oxygen production and loss in the upper stratosphere and lower mesosphere. An efficient photochemical equilibrium model, whose validity is ascertained by comparison with the results from a fully time-dependent one-dimensional model at selected latitudes, is used in the calculations. The computed ozone abundances are systematically lower than observations for May 1–7, 1979, which suggests, contrary to the conclusions of other recent studies, a real problem in model simulations of stratospheric ozone. The “ozone deficit” at 30°N is smaller than previous analyses of LIMS data have indicated. In the stratosphere, this reduction in the deficit is due to the fact that ClO abundances for the 1979 period utilized in this study are much lower than in earlier work, mainly as a result of lower Cly concentrations. In the mesosphere, a correlation of the ozone deficit with the distribution of water vapor is indicated. The ozone deficit in the stratosphere can be eliminated by modifying only one model reaction rate: either by decreasing the rate of odd oxygen loss (e.g., by decreasing the abundances of atomic oxygen through an increase in the rate of the reaction O + O2 + M→ O3 + M within the recommended uncertainties) or by increasing the rate of odd oxygen production (by increasing the photodissociation rate of molecular oxygen primarily in the Herzberg continuum and/or invoking photolysis of vibrationally excited molecular oxygen). With the ozone abundances thus increased, a small residual deficit in the lower mesophere can be eliminated by reducing, within the recommended kinetic uncertainties, the efficiency of odd hydrogen-catalyzed odd oxygen loss. With the adjusted model, the calculated ozone abundances for the week of January 1–7, 1979, outside of winter latitudes, also agree with the LIMS observations to within 10%.
Frequency Filtering of Linear Features by Means of Wavelets. A Method and an Example

Abstract Cartographic generalization is one of the main difficulties when dealing with digital cartography and GIS. First works on automatic generalization of linear features were mainly devoted to algorithms of simplification, being their main target to reduce the number of co-ordinates to store. However, the use of techniques in the frequency domain provides us with a new research area. In this paper the use of wavelet filtering has shown a disposition to extract the general trend of a line, essential to reduce drastically the scale, but also to establish classifications and segmentations depending on the homogeneity and the sinuosity of the features.
Cost Analysis of Various Low Pathogenic Avian Influenza Surveillance Systems in the Dutch Egg Layer Sector

Background As low pathogenic avian influenza viruses can mutate into high pathogenic viruses the Dutch poultry sector implemented a surveillance system for low pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI) based on blood samples. It has been suggested that egg yolk samples could be sampled instead of blood samples to survey egg layer farms. To support future decision making about AI surveillance economic criteria are important. Therefore a cost analysis is performed on systems that use either blood or eggs as sampled material. Methodology/Principal Findings The effectiveness of surveillance using egg or blood samples was evaluated using scenario tree models. Then an economic model was developed that calculates the total costs for eight surveillance systems that have equal effectiveness. The model considers costs for sampling, sample preparation, sample transport, testing, communication of test results and for the confirmation test on false positive results. The surveillance systems varied in sampled material (eggs or blood), sampling location (farm or packing station) and location of sample preparation (laboratory or packing station). It is shown that a hypothetical system in which eggs are sampled at the packing station and samples prepared in a laboratory had the lowest total costs (i.e. € 273,393) a year. Compared to this a hypothetical system in which eggs are sampled at the farm and samples prepared at a laboratory, and the currently implemented system in which blood is sampled at the farm and samples prepared at a laboratory have 6% and 39% higher costs respectively. Conclusions/Significance This study shows that surveillance for avian influenza on egg yolk samples can be done at lower costs than surveillance based on blood samples. The model can be used in future comparison of surveillance systems for different pathogens and hazards.
Robustness of compound Dirichlet priors for Bayesian inference of branch lengths.

We modified the phylogenetic program MrBayes 3.1. 2 to incorporate the compound Dirichlet priors for branch lengths proposed recently by Rannala, Zhu, and Yang (2012. Tail paradox, partial identifiability and influential priors in Bayesian branch length inference. Mol. Biol. Evol. 29:325-335.) as a solution to the problem of branch-length overestimation in Bayesian phylogenetic inference. The compound Dirichlet prior specifies a fairly diffuse prior on the tree length (the sum of branch lengths) and uses a Dirichlet distribution to partition the tree length into branch lengths. Six problematic data sets originally analyzed by Brown, Hedtke, Lemmon, and Lemmon (2010. When trees grow too long: investigating the causes of highly inaccurate Bayesian branch-length estimates. Syst. Biol. 59:145-161) are reanalyzed using the modified version of MrBayes to investigate properties of Bayesian branch-length estimation using the new priors. While the default exponential priors for branch lengths produced extremely long trees, the compound Dirichlet priors produced posterior estimates that are much closer to the maximum likelihood estimates. Furthermore, the posterior tree lengths were quite robust to changes in the parameter values in the compound Dirichlet priors, for example, when the prior mean of tree length changed over several orders of magnitude. Our results suggest that the compound Dirichlet priors may be useful for correcting branch-length overestimation in phylogenetic analyses of empirical data sets.
Using Semantic and Syntactic Graphs for Call Classification

In this paper, we introduce a new data representation format for language processing, the syntactic and semantic graphs (SSGs), and show its use for call classification in spoken dialog systems. For each sentence or utterance, these graphs include lexical information (words), syntactic information (such as the part of speech tags of the words and the syntactic parse of the utterance), and semantic information (such as the named entities and semantic role labels). In our experiments, we used written language as the training data while computing SSGs and tested on spoken language. In spite of this mismatch, we have shown that this is a very promising approach for classifying complex examples, and by using SSGs it is possible to reduce the call classification error rate by 4.74% relative.
Long-Term Effect of the n-1 Criterion on Cascading Line Outages in an Evolving Power Transmission Grid

Cascading transmission line outages contribute to widespread blackouts. Engineers respond to the risk of cascading line outages by applying policies such as the n-1 criterion and upgrading lines involved in recent cascading outages. The transmission grid slowly evolves as these policies are applied to maintain reliability while the load grows. We suggest how to assess the long-term effect of these policies on the risk of cascading line outages by simulating both the cascading and the slow evolution of the transmission grid. The long-term effects of these policies on the probability distribution of outage size and the grid utilization are computed for the IEEE 118-bus test system. The results show complex system self-organization of an evolving transmission grid.
Data-Driven Correction of FunctionWords in Non-Native English

We extend the n-gram-based data-driven prediction approach (Elghafari, Meurers and Wunsch, 2010) to identify function word errors in non-native academic texts as part of the Helping Our Own (HOO) Shared Task. We focus on substitution errors for four categories: prepositions, determiners, conjunctions, and quantifiers. These error types make up 12% of the errors annotated in the HOO training data. In our best submission in terms of the error detection score, we detected 67% of preposition and determiner substitution errors, 40% of conjunction substitution errors, and 33% of quantifier substitution errors. For approximately half of the errors detected, we were also able to provide an appropriate correction.