Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparing the diagnostic values of circulating microRNAs and cardiac troponin T in patients with acute myocardial infarction

OBJECTIVE: Recent studies have shown that circulating microRNAs might be useful, novel biomarkers for the diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction. The aims of this study were to evaluate the expression of cardiac-specific miRNAs (miR-1, -133a, -208b, and -499) in patients with acute myocardial infarction and to compare the diagnostic values of these miRNAs with that of cardiac troponin T. METHODS: Sixty-seven plasma samples obtained from patients with acute myocardial infarction and 32 plasma specimens collected from healthy volunteers were analyzed in this study. The levels of cardiac-specific miRNAs (miR-1, -133a, -208b, and -499) were measured by quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction, and the concentrations of plasma cardiac troponin T were measured using electrochemiluminescence-based methods and an Elecsys 2010 Immunoassay Analyzer. RESULTS: The levels of plasma miR-1, -133a, -208b, and -499 were significantly higher in acute myocardial infarction patients (all p<0.001) than in healthy volunteers. The expression of the cardiac-specific miRNAs in acute myocardial infarction patients decreased to close to the baseline levels at the time of hospital discharge (all p>0.05). There were no correlations between the levels of the four circulating miRNAs and the clinical characteristics of the study population (all p>0.05). Furthermore, receiver operating characteristic curve analyses showed that the four plasma miRNAs were not superior to cardiac troponin T for the diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction (all p>0.05). CONCLUSION: Our results demonstrate that circulating miR-1, -133a, -208b, and -499 may be useful biomarkers in acute myocardial infarction patients but that these miRNAs are not superior to cardiac troponin T for the diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction.
Adsorption of Thiophenic Compounds from Model Diesel Fuel Using Copper and Nickel Impregnated Activated Carbons

Adsorption of sulfur compoundsby porous materials is an effective way to produce cleaner diesel fuel.In this study, adsorption of refractory thiophenic sulfur compounds, i.e. , benzothiophene (BT), dibenzothiophene (DBT), and 4,6-dimethyldibenzothiophene (4,6-DMDBT) in single-solute systems from n -hexane solutions onto metal-impregnated activated carbons was investigated. A hydrogen-treated activated carbon fiber was selectively loaded with Ni, NiO, Cu, Cu 2 O, and CuO species to systematically assess the impact of each metal species on the adsorption of thiophenic compounds (TC). Metal-loaded adsorbents had the same total metal contents and similar microporosities, but contained different types of copper or nickel species. All metal-loaded adsorbents showed enhanced adsorption of tested TC. Cu 2 O- or NiO-loaded adsorbents exhibited the highest uptakes, due to more specific interactions between Cu + or Ni 2+ species and TC molecules. The theoretical monolyer coverage of TC on the exposed Cu + sites was estimated and compared with that calculated from the experimental data. Results suggested catalytic conversion of TC molecules to other compounds on the Cu + sites, followed by adsorption of reaction products onto the carbon surface or multilayer accumulation of TC molecules on the Cu + sites. TC adsorption uptake of the majority of adsorbents followed the order of: 4,6-DMDBT > DBT > BT due to higher intensity of specific and non-specific interactions of larger TC molecules with adsorbents.
Overexpression of Acid Ceramidase Protects from Tumor Necrosis Factor–Induced Cell Death

Tumor necrosis factor (TNF) signals cell death and simultaneously induces generation of ceramide. To evaluate the contribution of ceramide to TNF-dependent cell death, we generated clones of the TNF-sensitive cell line L929 that constitutively overexpress human acid ceramidase (AC). Ceramidase, in concert with sphingosine kinase, metabolizes ceramide to sphingosine-1-phosphate (SPP), an inducer of proliferation. In response to TNF, parental L929 cells display a significant increase in intracellular ceramide correlated with an “atypical apoptosis” characterized by membrane blebbing, DNA fragmentation and degradation of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase despite a lack of caspase activity. These features are strongly reduced or absent in AC-overexpressing cells. Pharmacological suppression of AC with N-oleoylethanolamine restored the accumulation of intracellular ceramide as well as the sensitivity of the transfectants to TNF, implying that an enhanced metabolization of intracellular ceramide by AC shifts the balance between intracellular ceramide and SPP levels towards cell survival. Correspondingly, inhibition of ceramide production by acid sphingomyelinase also increased survival of TNF-treated L929 cells.
Further Properties and Applications of Koszul Pairs

Koszul pairs were introduced in (arXiv:1011.4243) as an instrument for the study of Koszul rings. In this paper, we continue the enquiry of such pairs, focusing on the description of the second component, as a follow-up of the study in (arXiv:1605.05458). As such, we introduce Koszul corings and prove several equivalent characterizations for them. As applications, in the case of locally finite R-rings, we show that a graded R-ring is Koszul if and only if its left (or right) graded dual coring is Koszul. Finally, for finite graded posets, we obtain that the respective incidence ring is Koszul if and only if the incidence coring is so.
On differences and deficits: A critique of the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of the word gap

The word gap, or the language gap, can be traced back to Hart and Risley’s 1995 seminal work on language practices in high- and low-income families, and it is one of the most widely cited explanations for why children from low-income, minority contexts underperform academically in contrast to their white, middle-income counterparts. Despite its widespread influence on research, education and policy, the word gap has been at the centre of vociferous debates in academic circles over whether the word gap is a deficit in language input for infants that should be attended to or a difference in language practices that should be embraced. In this article, I draw on multiple disciplines to highlight the strengths and shortcomings of word gap findings, and I provide future directions for educators, policymakers and researchers seeking to better understand the language experiences of children growing up in low-income contexts from a cultural and contextual perspective.
Momentum and excitation energy dependence of the "waterfalls" in cuprates

Using high-resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy we have studied the momentum and photon energy dependence of the anomalous high-energy dispersion, termed "waterfalls", between the Fermi level and 1 eV binding energy in several high-Tc superconductors. We observe strong changes of the dispersion between different Brillouin zones and a strong dependence on the photon energy around 75 eV, which we associate with the resonant photoemission at the Cu 3p3d_{x^2-y^2} edge. We conclude that the high-energy "waterfall" dispersion results from a strong suppression of the photoemission intensity at the center of the Brillouin zone due to matrix element effects and is, therefore, not an intrinsic feature of the spectral function. This indicates that the new high energy scale in the electronic structure of cuprates derived from the "waterfall"-like dispersion may be incorrect.
EP-X: a demonstration of semantically based search of bibliographic databases

EP-X (Environmental Pollution eXpert) is a prototype knowledge-based system that assists users in conducting bibliographic searches of the environmental pollution literature. This system combines artificial intelligence and human factors engineering techniques, allowing us to redesign traditional bibliographic information retrieval interfaces. The result supports semantically-based search as opposed to the typical character-string matching approach. This paper discussesa sample interaction with EP-X, the knowledge representations necessary to support this semantically-based interaction, preliminary results of empirical studies to evaluate the interface, and recommendations for future directions
Polytomy refinement for the correction of dubious duplications in gene trees

Motivation: Large-scale methods for inferring gene trees are error-prone. Correcting gene trees for weakly supported features often results in non-binary trees, i.e. trees with polytomies, thus raising the natural question of refining such polytomies into binary trees. A feature pointing toward potential errors in gene trees are duplications that are not supported by the presence of multiple gene copies. Results: We introduce the problem of refining polytomies in a gene tree while minimizing the number of created non-apparent duplications in the resulting tree. We show that this problem can be described as a graph-theoretical optimization problem. We provide a bounded heuristic with guaranteed optimality for well-characterized instances. We apply our algorithm to a set of ray-finned fish gene trees from the Ensembl database to illustrate its ability to correct dubious duplications. Availability and implementation: The C++ source code for the algorithms and simulations described in the article are available at http://www-ens.iro.umontreal.ca/~lafonman/software.php. Contact: lafonman@iro.umontreal.ca or mabrouk@iro.umontreal.ca Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
How metaphors are rendered in subtitles

Metaphors have been thoroughly studied as translation problems in recent decades. However, they are still under-researched in the subfield of audiovisual translation. This is strange since this mode of translation, particularly subtitling, has very special conditions which complicate the translating of metaphors, such as the interplay between dialogue, image and subtitles, as well as severe time and space constraints. This paper investigates how metaphors in the British sitcom Yes, Prime Minister were subtitled into Swedish. The results show that subtitlers treat metaphors as an important language feature, less prone to omission than other features. Furthermore, monocultural metaphors, which are not shared between cultures, are subtitled using more strategies than transcultural ones. Metaphors are also subtitled differently depending on the degree of entrenchment. Typically for metaphor translation, there is a loss of metaphor force, but more research is needed to ascertain whether this is media-specific or a general translation effect of growing standardization.
Efficient Skew Handling for Outer Joins in a Cloud Computing Environment

Outer joins are ubiquitous in many workloads and Big Data systems. The question of how to best execute outer joins in large parallel systems is particularly challenging, as real world datasets are characterized by data skew leading to performance issues. Although skew handling techniques have been extensively studied for inner joins, there is little published work solving the corresponding problem for parallel outer joins, especially in the extremely popular Cloud computing environment. Conventional approaches to the problem such as ones based on hash redistribution often lead to load balancing problems while duplication-based approaches incur significant overhead in terms of network communication. In this paper, we propose a new approach for efficient skew handling in outer joins over a Cloud computing environment. We present an efficient implementation of our approach over the Spark framework. We evaluate the performance of our approach on a 192-core system with large test datasets in excess of 100 GB and with varying skew. Experimental results show that our approach is scalable and, at least in cases of high skew, significantly faster than the state-of-the-art.
A general analytical method for determining the theoretical harmonic components of carrier based PWM strategies

The analysis of pulse width modulation schemes for switched power converters has been a major research area for several decades, and considerable effort has gone into attempting to develop analysis techniques which allow one scheme to be evaluated against another for various fundamental and carrier frequencies and at different modulation depths. Except for a limited number of analytical solutions developed for specific modulation strategies, this analysis is generally done by digital simulation of the switched waveform and subsequent FFT or performance index calculation. This approach can require substantial computing capacity, and also has a significant potential for inaccuracies caused by subtle programming errors, which may cause erroneous comparisons to be made between different PWM schemes under particular operating conditions when the performance differences are slight. This paper presents a general method for determining the theoretical harmonic components of all major known variations of PWM. The method identifies appropriate inner and outer integral limits of the double Fourier integral solution of the switched waveform to suit each modulation strategy, and then solves this double integral using Jacobi-Anger expansions to establish closed form solutions. The method is applicable irrespective of the pulse ratio between the carrier and the fundamental, and the computational requirements are essentially constant irrespective of the absolute value of the carrier frequency.
Distinguishing vertices of inhomogeneous random graphs

We explore under what conditions simple combinatorial attributes and algorithms such as the distance sequence and degree-based partitioning and refinement can be used to distinguish vertices of inhomogeneous random graphs. In the classical setting of Erdős-Renyi graphs and random regular graphs it has been proven that vertices can be distinguished in a constant number of rounds of degree-based refinement or the distance sequence at a logarithmic distance. This yields a high-probability canonical labeling algorithm, and hence an efficient high-probability isomorphism test. In this paper we analyze the same attributes in the context of random graphs that come from distributions that more closely model real-world networks. We first prove a technical result about the effects of one refinement step in the general setting were edges are chosen independently at random. This allows us to prove that an algorithm based on distinguishing vertices yields a canonical labeling for graphs with scale-free degree distribution where edges are added independently, and for Stochastic Kronecker Product Graphs with certain settings of the parameters. Along the way we prove results on the degree distribution, connectedness and diameter of Stochastic Kronecker Graphs with generating matrices of arbitrary size.
Real-time top-n recommendation in social streams

The Social Web is successfully established, and steadily growing in terms of users, content and services. People generate and consume data in real-time within social networking services, such as Twitter, and increasingly rely upon continuous streams of messages for real-time access to fresh knowledge about current affairs. In this paper, we focus on analyzing social streams in real-time for personalized topic recommendation and discovery. We consider collaborative filtering as an online ranking problem and present Stream Ranking Matrix Factorization - RMFX -, which uses a pairwise approach to matrix factorization in order to optimize the personalized ranking of topics. Our novel approach follows a selective sampling strategy to perform online model updates based on active learning principles, that closely simulates the task of identifying relevant items from a pool of mostly uninteresting ones. RMFX is particularly suitable for large scale applications and experiments on the "476 million Twitter tweets" dataset show that our online approach largely outperforms recommendations based on Twitter's global trend, and it is also able to deliver highly competitive Top-N recommendations faster while using less space than Weighted Regularized Matrix Factorization (WRMF), a state-of-the-art matrix factorization technique for Collaborative Filtering, demonstrating the efficacy of our approach.
Optimal thermal power production by means of an equivalent electric circuit for a thermal network: The Savona Campus Smart Polygeneration Microgrid case

The paper proposes to model a thermal network by using a simple equivalent electrical circuit, in order to easily predict the thermal power generation once fixed the desired temperature. The validation has been performed on the Savona Campus Smart Polygeneration Microgrid (SPM): identifying the value of the parameters involved in the model by minimizing the difference between the temperature profile as calculated with the circuit and the measured one in a set of training days; testing its efficiency on a set of testing days by showing a good agreement with the theoretical temperature profiles and the measured ones; obtaining a more efficient behavior of the thermal generation once fixed a desired thermal profile.
A Description of Contrasting Discourse Patterns Used in Differentiated Reading Instruction

ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is to provide a description of contrasting discourse patterns during small-group reading instruction. The authors report on case studies conducted in two 1st-grade classrooms in different school districts in Pennsylvania. Small-group reading instruction was observed over the course of one year in each classroom, and teacher interviews were conducted to elicit information regarding beliefs about teaching and learning. Through their findings, the authors link the discourse patterns to teacher beliefs and discuss implications for student literacy acquisition.
IMPROVED PERFORMANCE OF CIRCULARLY POLARIZED ANTENNA USING SEMI-PLANAR CHIRAL METAMATERIAL COVERS

The in∞uence of semi-planar chiral metamaterial (CMM) structures on the important characteristics of circularly polarized (CP) antennas is investigated in this paper. Based on this idea, CP planar two-arm Archimedean spiral (ARSPL) antenna and helical antenna are designed and the efiects of chiral covers on their gain (or directivity), axial-ratio (AR), and return loss are considered. The results demonstrate that this method is greatly efiective and the addition of a semi-planar CMM cover at an optimized distance over the CP antenna, signiflcantly improves its gain and axial ratio.
CD47-Independent Effects Mediated by the TSP-Derived 4N1K Peptide

4N1K is a peptide fragment derived from the C-terminal, globular domain of thrombospondin which has been shown to mediate integrin-dependent cell adhesion and promote integrin activation acting via the cell-surface receptor, CD47. However, some studies found that 4N1K could act independently of CD47, putting in question the specificity of 4N1K for CD47. This led us to characterize the cellular and non-cellular effects of 4N1K. We found that 4N1K stimulated a potent increase in binding of a variety of non-specific IgG antibodies to cells in suspension. We also found that these same antibodies, as well as CD47-deficient cells, could bind substrate-immobilized 4N1K significantly better than a control peptide, 4NGG. Furthermore, we found that cells treated with 4N1K at higher concentrations inhibited, while lower concentrations promoted cell adhesion to immobilized fibronectin as an integrin substrate. Importantly, both the stimulatory and the inhibitory activity of 4N1K occurred as efficiently in the CD47-deficient JinB8 cells, as it did in the CD47-expressing parental or in JinB8 cells reconstituted with CD47 expression. Given these results, we suggest that 4N1K interacts non-specifically with epitopes commonly found on the cell surface, and conclude that it is not a suitable peptide for use to study the consequences of CD47 receptor ligation.
Mobile augmented reality: video prototyping

As mobile devices become more powerful, new features and user experiences become possible. A good example of such experiences is Augmented reality (AR). Achieved through the combination of current smart- phones processing capabilities and their embedded cameras, AR is a growing trend that offers an interesting approach for a wide variety of applications. However, coupling this new approach to the already demanding design process that characterizes mobile devices, further extends challenges to designers and developers. In this paper we present a preliminary study on prototyping and evaluation techniques for mobile AR. A short experiment within the context of an ongoing design project and initial results are presented along with some resulting guidelines.
Comparing Class- and Task-Level Measures of Achievement Goals

ABSTRACT Models of achievement goals suggest that different tasks and contexts influence the goals students adopt at a given time. However, many studies of achievement goals rely on measures assessed at the class level, analyze results with a variable-centered approach, and employ self-report questionnaires, which may reduce understanding of the contextual factors that arise as students interact with tasks. We compared a behavioral, task-level measure of middle school students' achievement goals to a self-reported, class-level measure and analyzed both measures' relations to task performance and quarterly grades using both variable-centered and person-centered approaches. Task-level goals predicted task performance but not quarterly grades, while class-level goals predicted grades but not task performance. The two measures of achievement goals were not related. This work demonstrates the importance of measuring goals at multiple levels and suggests opportunities for changing students' behaviors and achievement through motivation at the task level.
Ethanol oxidation in the living brain.

AIM The examination of the possibility of ethanol oxidation in the brain in vivo and the evaluation of the enzyme catalase in this process. METHODS We anesthetized rats and perfused the brain with ethanol solutions through the lateral ventricle and collected the perfusate from the Cisterna magna. We determined ethanol and acetaldehyde in the perfusate by gas chromatography. RESULTS It was found that the passage of ethanol solution (85 and 90 mM) through the ventricular system of the rat brain (6-43 microl/min) results in the significant (up to 98%) elimination of ethanol from the perfusing fluid and in the appearance of acetaldehyde (up-to 60 microM) in the perfusate. The addition of the catalase inhibitor, aminotriazole, (10 mM) to the perfusing fluid decreased ethanol elimination significantly. CONCLUSIONS The ethanol oxidation and AA accumulation take place in the living brain. The enzyme catalase is involved in this process.
Brief report: Parent's health literacy among high-risk adolescents with insulin dependent diabetes.

OBJECTIVE To describe the health literacy of parents of high-risk adolescents with insulin dependent diabetes and to examine the relation of parent's health literacy with treatment adherence. METHODS Participants were 93 adolescents in poor metabolic control diagnosed with insulin dependent diabetes and their primary caregivers. RESULTS All parents had adequate health literacy as defined by the S-TOFHLA. Better parent reading comprehension scores were significantly related to family structure, race, and treatment regimen. Reading comprehension in turn significantly predicted adherence for adolescents on an intensive insulin regimen but not for those on conventional regimens. CONCLUSIONS Parents with low health literacy may struggle to help their children adhere to the increasingly complex diabetes regimens being used at present. Such families may benefit from more intensive diabetes education or different approaches to teaching diabetes management skills.