Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hyponatremia induced by vasopressin or desmopressin in female and male rats.

Previous studies have demonstrated that hyponatremia induced by continuous sc infusion of desmopressin (dDAVP) in combination with a liquid diet allows brain volume adaptation with negligible morbidity and mortality in rats. In contrast, some studies of hyponatremia induced by injections of long-acting preparations of arginine vasopressin (AVP) have reported mortality rates as high as 20 to 80%. To evaluate the possibility that the use of AVP to produce antidiuresis may cause greater mortality as a result of increased brain edema, this study examined brain water and electrolyte contents of male and female rats after varying periods of hyponatremia induced by continuous sc infusions of either dDAVP (5 ng/h) or AVP (100 ng/h). Rats infused with AVP had AVP levels in plasma elevated into ranges reported in patients with the syndrome of inappropriate antidiuretic hormone secretion (17.5 +/- 2.0 pg/mL); however, despite the production of comparably severe degrees of hyponatremia with both AVP and dDAVP infusions (105 to 115 mmol/L), no mortality occurred in any of the rats (N = 40 AVP infused and N = 40 dDAVP infused). AVP- and dDAVP-induced hyponatremia both caused transient brain edema in female and male rats, but brain water content returned to the levels of normonatremic controls after 5 days in the females and 10 days in the males. However, at no time during the 10-day study period did brain water content differ significantly between rats infused with AVP or dDAVP, either in females or males. Decreases in brain electrolytes were also equivalent in the AVP- and dDAVP-infused male and female rats. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Local Bifurcations and Global Dynamics in a Solow-type Endogenous Business Cycles Model

Neoclassical growth models are essentially characterized by the formation of a steady state where the main economic aggregates (capital, output, consumption and investment) do not grow, unless some external event takes place (e.g., technological progress or population growth). Hence, the long term result corresponds to a fixed point and any kind of endogenous fluctuations is ruled out. This paper introduces an inefficiency mechanism through which non perfect firmsi¯ expectations about future demand conduct to underinvestment, which originates periodic and a-periodic long run cycles; this mechanism is applied over the simplest neoclassical growth model, the Solow equation regarding capital accumulation. Results, containing a large variety of dynamic features, are discussed through the analysis of local bifurcations and through numerical examples that give insights about global dynamics.
A Concurrency Analysis Tool Suite: Rationale, Design, and Preliminary Experience

Cats (Concurrency Analysis Tool Suite) is designed to satisfy several criteria: it must analyze implementation-level source code and check user-speciied conditions associated with program source code; it must be modularized in a fashion that supports exible composition with other tool components, including integration with a variety of testing and analysis techniques; and its performance and capacity must be suucient for analysis of real application programs. Meeting these objectives together is signiicantly more diicult than meeting any of them alone. We describe the design and rationale of Cats and report experience with an implementation. Enumerative techniques for analyzing concurrent programs are widely dismissed as impractical , but we report successfully applying Cats to major subsystems of a (non-toy) highly concurrent user interface system. The content of the information does not necessarily reeect the position or the policy of the Government and no oocial endorsement should be inferred.
Font retrieval on a large scale: An experimental study

This paper addresses the problem of font retrieval using a query-by-example paradigm: given a font, retrieve the the most visually similar fonts. We describe a font by (a) rendering a set of reference characters, (b) extracting a feature vector for each reference character and (c) concatenating the-level character descriptors. The similarity between two fonts is simply the similarity between the vectorial representations. Our contribution is an experimental comparison of character-level descriptors of step (b) on a large dataset of 9,000 fonts. The descriptors we chose to evaluate were drawn from the literature on typed and handwritten text analysis. An important conclusion is that the SIFT descriptor, which was shown to be state-of-the-art for object recognition in photographs and for handwriting recognition, yields the best results for font retrieval.
An Approach for the Design of Smart Tools and Environments Based on Networked Experiences

Fast improvements in information communication technologies and demanding market conditions trigger the development of most digital services and products, which have been discussed for their adverse effects on their users today. Neglecting the potential and possible contributions of information architecture within the design process is recognized to be one of the causes for incompatibility of the tools to the perceptual and behavioural qualities of users, especially where the scale of physical space is concerned. This study looked for an approach for the design of smart environments and technological tools based on developing multi-dimensional networking and interconnected experiences. In order to reach the objectives of this study, spatial communication projects that focus on experience design were created and studied in 2010-2012 in the design studio course in the Department of Communication Design of a well-established university. The analysis of 84 projects reflected the importance of integrating the physical data as an element of design within the process of obtaining compact design solutions.
UFMG at the TREC 2016 Dynamic Domain track

In TREC 2016, we focus on tackling the challenges posed by the Dynamic Domain (DD) track. The goal of the TREC DD track is to support research in dynamic, exploratory search within a complex domain. To this end, our participation investigates the suitability of multiple diversiﬁcation approaches for dynamic information retrieval. In particular, based on ﬁne-grained real-time feedback obtained from a simulated user, we apply diversiﬁcation strategies that make use of single-source as well multi-source information for mining ﬂat or hierarchical query aspects.
Semi-automatic Codification of Economical Activities with Support Vector Machines

The correct attribution of codes to economical activities is of ultimate importance for fiscal and administrative purposes. In a joint effort involving federal, state and city business regulating offices, the unification and automation of this codification process is in progress. As the input information is in the form of free textual entries, techniques used in multi-class, multi-label text categorization are well suited. Due to the fact that the possible codes are in the order of one thousand, this problem is under investigation through an approach based on a hierarchical use of Support Vector Machines (SVM). The hierarchical organization of several SVMs split the problem into smaller ones and allows a fine tuning of the code attribution obeying the very hierarchy present in the table describing the codes. This paper will introduce the problem, describe the proposed approach based on SVMs and show some results that validate the approach.
Increased Nitric Oxide Bioavailability and Decreased Sympathetic Modulation Are Involved in Vascular Adjustments Induced by Low-Intensity Resistance Training

Resistance training is one of the most common kind of exercise used nowadays. Long-term high-intensity resistance training are associated with deleterious effects on vascular adjustments. On the other hand, is unclear whether low-intensity resistance training (LI-RT) is able to induce systemic changes in vascular tone. Thus, we aimed to evaluate the effects of chronic LI-RT on endothelial nitric oxide (NO) bioavailability of mesenteric artery and cardiovascular autonomic modulation in healthy rats. Wistar animals were divided into two groups: exercised (Ex) and sedentary (SED) rats submitted to the resistance (40% of 1RM) or fictitious training for 8 weeks, respectively. After LI-RT, hemodynamic measurements and cardiovascular autonomic modulation by spectral analysis were evaluated. Vascular reactivity, NO production and protein expression of endothelial and neuronal nitric oxide synthase isoforms (eNOS and nNOS, respectively) were evaluated in mesenteric artery. In addition, cardiac superoxide anion production and ventricle morphological changes were also assessed. In vivo measurements revealed a reduction in mean arterial pressure and heart rate after 8 weeks of LI-RT. In vitro studies showed an increased acetylcholine (ACh)-induced vasorelaxation and greater NOS dependence in Ex than SED rats. Hence, decreased phenylephrine-induced vasoconstriction was found in Ex rats. Accordingly, LI-RT increased the NO bioavailability under basal and ACh stimulation conditions, associated with upregulation of eNOS and nNOS protein expression in mesenteric artery. Regarding autonomic control, LI-RT increased spontaneous baroreflex sensitivity, which was associated to reduction in both, cardiac and vascular sympathetic modulation. No changes in cardiac superoxide anion or left ventricle morphometric parameters after LI-RT were observed. In summary, these results suggest that RT promotes beneficial vascular adjustments favoring augmented endothelial NO bioavailability and reduction of sympathetic vascular modulation, without evidence of cardiac overload.
A novel mechanism of eukaryotic translation initiation that is neither m7G-cap-, nor IRES-dependent

Resistance of translation of some eukaryotic messenger RNAs (mRNAs) to inactivation of the cap-binding factor eIF4E under unfavorable conditions is well documented. To date, it is the mechanism of internal ribosome entry that is predominantly thought to underlay this stress tolerance. However, many cellular mRNAs that had been considered to contain internal ribosome entry sites (IRESs) failed to pass stringent control tests for internal initiation, thus raising the question of how they are translated under stress conditions. Here, we show that inserting an eIF4G-binding element from a virus IRES into 5′-UTRs of strongly cap-dependent mRNAs dramatically reduces their requirement for the 5′-terminal m7G-cap, though such cap-independent translation remains dependent on a vacant 5′-terminus of these mRNAs. Importantly, direct binding of eIF4G to the 5′-UTR of mRNA makes its translation resistant to eIF4F inactivation both in vitro and in vivo. These data may substantiate a new paradigm of translational control under stress to complement IRES-driven mechanism of translation.
Correlation between Diastolic Function and Endothelial Function in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes and Hypertension

Background: Endothelial dysfunction may be involved in the pathophysiology of cardiac abnormalities in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM). A correlation between endothelial dysfunction and diastolic dysfunction in patients with type 1 DM has been demonstrated, but this relationship has not been well investigated in type 2 DM. Objective: Compare groups of patients with type 2 DM and hypertension with and without diastolic dysfunction using endothelial function indexes, and to assess whether correlations exist between the diastolic function and the endothelial function indexes. Method: This was a cross-sectional study of 34 men and women with type 2 DM and hypertension who were aged between 40 and 70 years and were categorized based on assessments of their Doppler echocardiographic parameters as having normal (14 patients) and abnormal (20 patients) diastolic function. Flow-mediated dilatation (FMD) assessments of the brachial artery evaluated the patients’ endothelial function. Results: The mean maximum FMD was 7.15 ± 2.80% for the patients with diastolic dysfunction and it was 11.85 ± 4.77% for the patients with normal diastolic function (p = 0.004). Correlations existed between the maximum FMD and the E/e' ratio (p = 0.040, r = -0.354) and the early wave velocity (e') at the lateral mitral annulus (p = 0.002, r = 0.509). Conclusion: The endothelial function assessed by FMD was worse in hypertensive diabetic patients with diastolic dysfunction. There were correlations between the diastolic function indexes and the endothelial function indexes in our sample.
Inferring the Diffusion and Evolution of Topics in Social Communities

The prevailing of Web 2.0 techniques has led to the boom of various online communities, where topics are spreading ubiquitously among user-generated documents. Together with this diffusion process is the content evolution of the topics, where novel contents are introduced in by documents which adopt the topic. Unlike an explicit user behavior (e.g., buying a DVD), both the diffusion paths and the evolutionary process of a topic are implicit, making them much more challenging to be discovered. In this paper, we aim to simultaneously track the evolution of any arbitrary topic and reveal the latent diffusion paths of that topic in a social community. A novel and principled probabilistic model is proposed which casts our task as an joint inference problem, taking into consideration of textual documents, social influences, and topic evolution in a unified way. Specifically, a mixture model is introduced to model the generation of text according to the diffusion and the evolution of the topic, while the whole diffusion process is regularized with user-level social influences through a Gaussian Markov Random Field. Experiments on both synthetic data and real world data show that the discovery of topic diffusion and evolution benefits from this joint inference; and the probabilistic model we propose performs significantly better than existing methods.
Comparison of Second Order Statistical Analysis and Wavelet Transform Method for Texture Image Classification

The quality of texture image classification depends on quality of texture features and classification algorithms. Most important is to select texture features with highly discriminative to inter-class textures. In this paper, features are extracted from texture images using Gray Level Co-occurrence method and Wavelet method. Haralick features with a feed forward neural network show classification accuracy of 98.21%, while Wavelet features show classification accuracy of 96.05% for the same data. These results show that Haralick features are suitable for texture classification.
Contagious Capital: A Network Analysis of Interconnected Intermediaries

I measure the effects of capital flow contagion in financial markets by analyzing portfolio managers linked through interconnected asset holdings. My novel, network-based specification provides estimates of shocks to common predictor variables 50-75% higher than existing estimates of manager’s capital flows which ignore network relationships. This additional impact arises because my network specification includes the effect of spillover onto immediate neighbors and beyond, leading to feedback loops. My findings seem to result from crowded trades (popular, short-term investment strategies) since network connections do not show strong persistence and relatively small changes in asset allocation toward more concentrated positions may increase interconnection considerably. ∗Special thanks to Jennifer Conrad, Adam Reed and Joey Engelberg, Greg Brown and Pab Jotikasthira for timely and helpful advice on this project. I am also grateful to Rick Sias (Discussant at FRA conference), Chris Lundblad, Ed VanWesep and Matt Ringgenberg for useful comments. Thanks to Matthew Bothner (ESMT Management/Sociology) and Peter Mucha (UNC Applied Mathematics) for valuable guidance on network measures and computational algorithms, respectively. Ethan Cohen-Cole and Tim Conley provided help and references on identification and econometrics. James Moody and seminar participants at the Duke Network Analysis Center (dnac.ssri.duke.edu) provided useful feedback, as did seminar participants at the SAMSI (www.samsi.info) program on Complex Networks. Blocher is from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Kenan-Flagler Business School, Finance Area, Campus Box 3490 McColl Building, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3490. Contact info: jesse_blocher@unc.edu or www.unc.edu/~jabloche.
Value stream analysis and mapping for product development

This paper explores the concept of Value Stream Analysis and Mapping (VSA/M) as applied to Product Development (PD) efforts. Value Stream Analysis and Mapping is a method of business process improvement. The application of VSA/M began in the manufacturing community. PD efforts provide a different setting for the use of VSA/M. Site visits were made to nine major U.S. aerospace organizations. Interviews, discussions, and participatory events were used to gather data on (1) the sophistication of the tools used in PD process improvement efforts, (2) the lean context of the use of the tools, and (3) success of the efforts. It was found that all three factors were strongly correlated, suggesting success depends on both good tools and lean context. Finally, a general VSA/M method for PD activities is proposed. The method uses modified process mapping tools to analyze and improve process.
Nonlinear scheduled control for linear systems subject to saturation with application to anti-windup control

In this paper we propose a nonlinear state-feedback control law for the global asymptotic stabilization (GAS) of non- exponentially unstable plants. For these types of plants, nonlinear controllers are necessary in general to achieve GAS and several results are available in the literature. The theory is then also used as a solution to the so-called anti-windup problem for these types of plants. The advantages of the approach here proposed, in addition to a formal stability proof, are that it is not computationally intensive, therefore prone for real-time implementation on plants with fast dynamics and that it induces fast transients and converges to the desired equilibrium in set-point regulation. Various examples illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control laws both in the stabilization and in the anti- windup design task.
Molecular Epidemiology of Giardia, Blastocystis and Cryptosporidium among Indigenous Children from the Colombian Amazon Basin

The incidence and prevalence of intestinal parasites in children is most likely due to lack of natural or acquired resistance and differences in behavior and habits closely related to environmental and socioeconomic determinants. The most important protozoa that parasitize humans are Giardia, Entamoeba, Blastocystis, and Cryptosporidium. These parasites present wide intraspecific genetic diversity and subsequently classified into assemblages and subtypes. The Amazon basin is the largest in the world and is the fifth freshwater reserve on the planet. Contradictorily, people living in these areas (Indigenous populations) have poor quality of life, which favors the infection of diseases of fecal-oral transmission. The aim of this work was to unravel the molecular epidemiology of Giardia, Blastocystis and Cryptosporidium across four communities (Puerto Nariño, San Juan del Soco, Villa Andrea and Nuevo Paraíso). We obtained 284 fecal samples from children under 15 years old that were analyzed by direct microscopy (261 samples) and Real Time PCR (qPCR) (284 samples). The positive samples for these protozoa were further characterized by several molecular markers to depict assemblages and subtypes. We observed a frequency of Giardia infection by microscopy of 23.7% (62 samples) and by qPCR of 64.8% (184 samples); for Blastocystis by microscopy of 35.2% (92 samples) and by qPCR of 88.7% (252 samples) and for Cryptosporidium only 1.9% (5 samples) were positive by microscopy and qPCR 1.8% (5 samples). Regarding the Giardia assemblages, using the glutamate dehydrogenase (gdh) marker we observed AI, BIII and BIV assemblages and when using triose phosphate isomerase (tpi) we observed assemblages AI, AII, BIII and BIV. In contrast, Blastocystis STs detected were 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6. Lastly, the species C. viatorum, C. hominis (with the subtypes IdA19 and IaA12R8) and C. parvum (with the subtype IIcA5G3c) were identified. We observed a high profile of zoonotic transmission regarding the Giardia assemblages and Blastocystis STs/alleles. Also, we highlight the elevated frequency of infection by these two protozoans suggesting an active transmission in the area. Our findings reinforces the need to deploy better epidemiological surveillance systems for enteric pathogens in the area.
Holographic gauge mediation

We discuss gravitational backgrounds where supersymmetry is broken at the end of a warped throat, and the SUSY-breaking is transmitted to the Standard Model via gauginos which live in (part of) the bulk of the throat geometry. We find that the leading effect arises from splittings of certain ``messenger mesons," which are adjoint KK-modes of the D-branes supporting the Standard Model gauge group. This picture is a gravity dual of a strongly coupled field theory where SUSY is broken in a hidden sector and transmitted to the Standard Model via a relative of semi-direct gauge mediation.
The Impact of Ownership Structure on the Level of Financial Risk of SME in China

The level of financial risk has great significance to the sound operation of enterprises and the healthy development of economics. Based on the data from 2009 to 2011 of 205 small and medium manufacturing enterprises listed before 2009, this study studies the impact of ownership structure on the level of financial risk, especially the relationship between financial risk to firms on small board and one-share dominance as well as the family characteristics of family business. The empirical result shows that: the proportion of tradable shares and the degree of equity balance are negatively correlated with the financial risk level; while the ownership concentration is positively correlated with the financial risk level; and the proportion of state-owned shares or legal person shares and CEO share-holding rate have no significant effect on the financial risk level of SME (small and medium enterprises).