Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Systematic review and meta-analysis: bezafibrate in patients with primary biliary cirrhosis

Background and aim Ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) is the standard treatment for primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC), but not all cases respond well. Evidence has shown that combination therapy of UDCA with bezafibrate significantly improved liver function. A meta-analysis was performed to assess the efficacy and safety of UDCA and bezafibrate combination therapy in the treatment of PBC. Results Nine trials, with a total of 269 patients, were included in the analysis. The bias risk of these trials was high. Compared with UDCA alone, the combination with bezafibrate improved the Mayo risk score (mean difference [MD], 0.60; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.25–0.95; P=0.0008) and liver biochemistry: alkaline phosphatase (MD, −238.21 IU/L; 95% CI, −280.83 to −195.60; P<0.00001); gamma-glutamyltransferase (MD, −38.23 IU/L; 95% CI, −50.16 to −25.85; P<0.00001); immunoglobulin M (MD, −128.63 IU/L; 95% CI, −151.55 to −105.71; P<0.00001); bilirubin (MD, −0.20 mg/dL; 95% CI, −0.33 to −0.07; P=0.002); triglycerides (MD, −26.84 mg/dL; 95% CI, −36.51 to −17.17; P<0.0001); total cholesterol (MD, −21.58 mg/dL; 95% CI, −30.81 to −12.34; P<0.0001), and serum alanine aminotransferase (MD, −10.24 IU/L; 95% CI, −12.65 to −78.5; P<0.00001). However, combination therapy showed no significant differences in the incidence of all-cause mortality or pruritus, and may have resulted in more adverse events (risk ratio [RR], 0.22; 95% CI, 0.07–0.67; P=0.008). Conclusion Combination therapy improved liver biochemistry and the prognosis of PBC, but did not improve clinical symptoms or incidence of death. Attention should be paid to adverse events when using bezafibrate.
Outage-Optimal Power Allocation for Hybrid ARQ with Incremental Redundancy

We consider the optimization of power in incremental redundancy (IR) based hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) schemes when the maximum number of (re)transmissions is fixed. We formulate two optimization problems: (i) minimizing the packet drop probability (PDP) under a total average transmit power constraint, and (ii) minimizing the average transmit power under a fixed PDP constraint. We consider in detail the special case of only two allowed transmissions, and we prove that the two optimization problems are equivalent. For this special case, we also provide a sub-optimal root-finding solution and compare its performance with the optimal solution obtained through an exhaustive search. The results show that the optimal power allocation can provide significant gains over the equal power solution in terms of average transmit power spent. The performance of the proposed root-finding solution is practically the same as that of the optimal solution.
CD14-Deficient Mice Are Protected Against Lipopolysaccharide-Induced Cardiac Inflammation and Left Ventricular Dysfunction

Background—The molecular mechanisms responsible for sepsis-induced myocardial dysfunction remain undefined. CD14 mediates the inflammatory response to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in various organs including the heart. In this study we investigated the role of CD14 in LPS-induced myocardial dysfunction in vivo. Methods and Results—Wild-type and CD14-deficient (CD14-D) mice were challenged with Escherichia coli LPS. Myocardial tumor necrosis factor, interleukin-1&bgr; (IL-1&bgr;), and NOS2 induction was measured before and 6 hours after LPS challenge. Echocardiographic parameters of left ventricular function were measured before and 6 hours after LPS administration. LPS challenge induced a significant increase in myocardial tumor necrosis factor and IL-1&bgr; mRNA and protein expression in wild-type mice. In contrast, mRNA and protein levels for TNF and IL-1&bgr; were significantly blunted in CD14-D mice. An increase in NOS2 protein was noted within 6 hours of LPS provocation only in the hearts of wild-type mice. This was associated with an increase in ventricular cGMP levels. Activation of nuclear factor-&kgr;B was observed within 30 minutes of LPS in the hearts of wild-type mice but not in CD14-D mice. In wild-type mice, LPS significantly decreased left ventricular fractional shortening, velocity of circumferential shortening, and dP/dtmax. LPS-treated CD14-D mice maintained normal cardiac function. Conclusions—These results suggest that CD14 is important in mediating the proinflammatory response induced by LPS in the heart and that CD14 is necessary for the development of left ventricular dysfunction during LPS-induced shock in vivo.
Random Walks for Vector Field Denoising

In recent years, several devices allow to directly measure real vector fields, leading to a better understanding of fundamental phenomena such as fluid simulation or brainwater movement. This turns vector field visualization and analysis important tools for many applications in engineering and in medicine. However, real data is generally corrupted by noise, puzzling the understanding provided by those tools.Those tools thus need a denoising step as preprocessing, although usual denoising removes discontinuities, which are fundamental for vector field analysis. This paper proposes a novel method for vector field denoising based on random walks which preserve those discontinuities. It works in a meshless setting; it is fast, simple to implement, and shows a better performance than the traditional gaussian denoising technique.
In which ways and to what extent do English and Shanghai students understand linear function?

ABSTRACT This study investigates how students in England and Shanghai understand linear function. Understanding is defined theoretically in terms of five hierarchical levels: Dependent Relationship; Connecting Representations; Property Noticing; Object Analysis; and Inventising. A pilot study instrument presented a set of problems to both cohorts, showing that the English cohort generally operated at the levels of Property Noticing and Object Analysis, whereas the Shanghai cohort reached the higher level of Inventising. The main study explored understanding levels and students’ errors within each cohort in detail, in order to gain insights into reasons for apparent differences. The instrument used in the main study included two overlapping items, which were the same for both cohorts, while others were pitched at levels of understanding revealed in the pilot. Analysis of students’ solutions revealed that the English students’ errors were manifested in a lack of basic skills including dealing with negative numbers, while the Shanghai students showed weaknesses in their ability to use graphs. The discussion highlights different views of understanding as a possible background reason for the contrasts observed. Errors and apparent difficulties suggest implications for teaching linear function in each context.
Simulation platform for cooperative vehicle systems

Road accidents is one of the major cause of deaths worldwide. Traffic is also one of the main problems in large cities. The development of intelligent transportation systems may contribute to the solution of both problems. Autonomous vehicles have been addressed by the academic community for decades and recently have been obtaining a considerable attention from the industry. One of the next steps for such technology is the development of communication systems that allow cooperative driving, which could improve the traffic efficiency. This paper proposes a simulation framework for the development of cooperative driving systems. Our framework is capable of accurate simulation of vehicles, sensors, complex environments, and wireless communication between vehicles. It is also compatible to well known robotic control middlewares, allowing portability of the develop code between real and simulated test vehicles. Results of cooperative adaptive cruise control with multiple vehicles are presented to validate the framework proposed.
MULTI-STAGE OMP sparse coding using local matching pursuit atoms selection

A new multi-stage approach based on component extraction is proposed to more efficiently address the sparse representation problem. In each stage a pre-set number of coefficients are chosen for reconstructing each signal component. A global search is performed to extract a lower dimensional sub-dictionary consisting of a sorted set of candidate atoms to represent the signal component, corresponding to the stage. The best representing atoms are then selected from the sub dictionary using the Matching Pursuit (MP) method. Afterwards, the sparse coefficients are updated in the same manner in which the Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (OMP) operates. The proposed method is more efficient that the conventional OMP methods. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, it is compared to OMP and Stagewise OMP (StOMP), which are conceptually the most similar to the proposed approach. The results illustrate the proposed method is more time efficient than OMP and more robust and sparser than the StOMP.
Error-tolerant Exemplar Queries on RDF Graphs

Edge-labeled graphs are widely used to describe relationships between entities in a database. We study a class of queries, referred to as exemplar queries, on edge-labeled graphs where each query gives an example of what the user is searching for. Given an exemplar query, we study the problem of efficiently searching for similar subgraphs in a large data graph, where the similarity is defined in terms of the well-known graph edit distance. We call these queries error-tolerant exemplar queries since matches are allowed despite small variations in the graph structure and the labels. The problem in its general case is computationally intractable but efficient solutions are reachable for labeled graphs under well-behaved distribution of the labels, commonly found in knowledge graphs and RDF databases. In this paper, we propose two efficient exact algorithms, based on a filtering-and-verification framework, for finding subgraphs in a large data graph that are isomorphic to a query graph under some edit operations. Our filtering scheme, which uses the neighbourhood structure around a node and the presence or absence of paths, significantly reduces the number of candidates that are passed to the verification stage. We analyze the costs of our algorithms and the conditions under which one algorithm is expected to outperform the other. Our cost analysis identifies some of the variables that affect the cost, including the number and the selectivity of the edge labels in the query and the degree of nodes in the data graph, and characterizes the relationships. We empirically evaluate the effectiveness of our filtering schemes and queries, the efficiency of our algorithms and the reliability of our cost models on real datasets.
e‐VLBI observations of GHz‐peaked spectrum radio sources in nearby galaxies from the AT20G survey

Gigahertz-peaked spectrum (GPS) radio sources are thought to be young objects which later evolve into Fanaro-Riley type I (FR I) and FR II radio galaxies. We have used the Australia Telescope 20 GHz (AT20G) survey catalogue to select a uniform sample of GPS sources with spectral peaks above 5 GHz, which should represent the youngest members of this class. In this paper, we present e-VLBI observations of 10 such objects which are associated with nearby (z < 0.15) galaxies and so represent a new population of local, low-power GPS sources. Our e-VLBI observations were carried out at 4.8 GHz with the Australia Telescope Long Baseline Array (LBA) using a real-time software correlator. All 10 sources were detected, and were unresolved on scales of ~100 mas, implying that they are typically less than 100 pc in linear size.
Glial Cells and Their Function in the Adult Brain: A Journey through the History of Their Ablation

Glial cells, consisting of microglia, astrocytes, and oligodendrocyte lineage cells as their major components, constitute a large fraction of the mammalian brain. Originally considered as purely non-functional glue for neurons, decades of research have highlighted the importance as well as further functions of glial cells. Although many aspects of these cells are well characterized nowadays, the functions of the different glial populations in the brain under both physiological and pathological conditions remain, at least to a certain extent, unresolved. To tackle these important questions, a broad range of depletion approaches have been developed in which microglia, astrocytes, or oligodendrocyte lineage cells (i.e., NG2-glia and oligodendrocytes) are specifically ablated from the adult brain network with a subsequent analysis of the consequences. As the different glial populations are very heterogeneous, it is imperative to specifically ablate single cell populations instead of inducing cell death in all glial cells in general. Thanks to modern genetic manipulation methods, the approaches can now directly be targeted to the cell type of interest making the ablation more specific compared to general cell ablation approaches that have been used earlier on. In this review, we will give a detailed summary on different glial ablation studies, focusing on the adult mouse central nervous system and the functional readouts. We will also provide an outlook on how these approaches could be further exploited in the future.
Color-Magnitude Sequence in the Clusters at z ~ 1.2 near the Radio Galaxy 3C 324

We have investigated the optical and near-infrared colors of K'-selected galaxies in clusters at z ~ 1.2 near to the radio galaxy 3C 324 using images obtained with the Subaru telescope and archival HST data. The distribution of colors of the galaxies in the cluster region is found to be fairly broad, and it may imply significant scatter in their star-formation histories, although the effect of contamination of field galaxies is uncertain. The red sequence of galaxies whose R-K colors are consistent with passive evolution models for old galaxies is found to be truncated at K' ~ 20 mag, and there are few fainter galaxies with similar red colors in the cluster region. We find that the bulge-dominated galaxies selected by quantitative morphological classification form a broad sequence in the color-magnitude diagram, whose slope is much steeper than that expected from metallicity variations within a passively evolving coeval galaxy population. We argue that the observed color-magnitude sequence can be explained by metallicity and age variations, and the fainter galaxies with K' > 20 mag may be 1-2 Gyr younger than the brighter galaxies. Some spatial segregation of the color and K'-band luminosity is seen in the sky distribution; the redder and the brighter objects tend to be located near 3C 324.
Predictive QoS for AOMDV protocol based on AutoRegressive Moving Average processes

Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANET) are wireless networks consisting of a collection of mobile nodes with no fixed infrastructure or centralized administration. With this dynamic topology, ad hoc network presents many specific problems which had influence on solution that assure QoS such as multimedia applications. However, the rapid growth in number and diversity of real-time network applications has made it imperative to consider the impact of end-to-end delay requirements of traffic on network. The main problems are: node mobility and link failure. Hence, there is a need for efficient routing protocols to allow the nodes to communicate with some QoS guarantee. In this work, the AutoRegressive Moving Average (ARMA) model is used to forecasting resources to meet the QoS requirements in ad hoc networks. We apply this model in Ad hoc On demand Multipath Distance Vector (AOMDV) protocol. The results obtained show that the combination of the AOMDV protocol with the time QoS forecasting mechanisms for real-time service support based on ARMA processes performs better than based on AR processes and the conventional AOMDV.
Vehicle Number Plate Detection using Sobel Edge Detection Technique

In this paper we detect the number on vehicle plates in the input image. We use simple color conversion ,edge detection and connector measurement technique. Throughout the whole work, we use masking and smoothing operation. The median filter is used as one of the operators. The best results can be obtained by getting the value of connector components more than 17.Various other methods have been proposed so far but we here present simplest of all and with lesser complexity to detect the numbers. The image is stored in the form of a matrix and the output is displayed in the form of detected numbers. The crux of the work is to use Sobel Edge Detection technique. We present a detection algorithm that employs a novel image descriptor and detects license plate. Using covariance matrix for the same purpose to find out statistical and spatial properties could lead to complexity(3) that arises due to neural network. Instead of these methods and techniques, we have used filter convolution and masking operation to detect the number out of the image(as in vehicle's number plate). To minimize complexity( as in covariance matrix), local variance scores have been used and the unique coefficients have been restructured into a feature vector form and multi-layer neural network(3- 4),(8). Since no explicit similarity or distance computation is required in this framework, it is very easily possible to keep the computational load of the detection process low. Moreover, the complexity involved is very less as compared to that in template matching done by using genetic algorithms(5-6)and neural networks. In the current work, first of all the input image is converted into its corresponding RGB format (2)and appropriate filters are applied onto it. In order to smoothen the edges, the technique of convolution is used. Thereafter, the connected components (mx) are detected. The crux of the work lies in extracting exactly all the characters in the number plate when the number of connected components are more than number 17. Finally, the image is stored in the form of a matrix and the output is displayed in the form of detected numbers.
Development and Validation of Difference Spectrophotometric Method for the Estimation of Fluvastatin Sodium and Bulk Dosage Form

A new simple, accurate, precise, highly sensitive and reproducible difference spectrophotometric method for the determination of Fluvastatin in bulk and pharmaceutical dosage form is described. Difference spectroscopic method is based on the principle that Fluvastatin exhibit two different forms; in acidic and basic medium which differs in their absorption spectra. The difference spectra were obtained by reading the absorbance of Fluvastatin in 0.1N HCl in the reference cell and the absorbance of Fluvastatin in 0.1N NaOH in the sample cell and vice versa; in the difference spectrum maxima and minima were seen at 229nm and at 304nm respectively. The amplitude values were calculated, which was plotted against concentration. The method was found to be linear in the concentration range of 10-50 μg/ml. The percentage recovery was found to be between the ranges from 99.44 % to 100.45 %. The LOD & LOQ was found to be 0.215 μg/ml & 0.652 μg/ml respectively. The proposed method was statistically validated and successfully applied for analysis of Fluvastatin in capsule dosage forms. As per ICH guidelines the results of the analysis were validated statistically and were found to be satisfactory.
Factors Oriented Test Case Prioritization Technique in Regression Testing using Genetic Algorithm

Test case prioritization involves scheduling test cases in an order that increases the effectiveness in achieving some performance goals. One of the most important performance goals is the rate of fault detection. Test cases should run in an order that increases the possibility of fault detection and also that detects the most severe faults at the earliest in its testing life cycle. In this paper, we develop and validate requirement based system level test case prioritization scheme to reveal more severe faults at an earlier stage and to improve customer-perceived software quality using Genetic Algorithm (GA). For this, we propose a set of prioritization factors to design the proposed system. In our proposed technique, we refer to these factors as Prioritization Factors (PF). These factors may be concrete, such as test case length, code coverage, data flow, and fault proneness, or abstract, such as perceived code complexity and severity of faults, which prioritizes the system test cases based on the six factors: customer priority, changes in requirement, implementation complexity, completeness, traceability and fault impact. The goodness of these orderings was measured using an evaluation metric called APFD and PTR that will also be calculated.
A new PPM model for quality score compression

Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) platforms generate nucleotide sequences with header data and quality information. These platforms may produce gigabyte-scale datasets. The biggest problem of NGS technology is the storage of these datasets. Nucleotide sequences, supporting information and quality scores are stored in FASTQ format. In this paper, we consider the compression of quality scores and propose an algorithm for lossless compression of quality scores. We try to find a model that gives the lowest entropy on quality score data. We combine our powerful statistical model with arithmetic coding to compress the quality score data the smallest. We compare its performance to text compression utilities such as bzip2, gzip and ppmd and existing compression algorithms for quality scores. We show that the performance of our compression algorithm is superior to that of both systems.
A novel sleepy stack 6-T SRAM cell design for reducing leakage power in submicron technologies

Static power dissipation is a dominant field in deep sub-micron technologies. Technology scaling down into submicron technology to achieve higher operating speed of CMOS circuits, the leakage power becomes more and more. As process geometrics move to finer technologies, device consistency and threshold voltage becomes much smaller. When decreasing the supply voltage intends to its decreasing the threshold voltage and oxide thickness. Tremendous increasing in device density and reducing threshold voltage result it vigorously increases the leakage power. The main motivation of this article is to reduce leakage power and to maintain the logic state. We propose a new technique by combine of older technique in accordance with leakage power, critical path delay and feasibility issues. The proposed technique simulated in Tanner-SPICE using 180nm, 90nm and 45nm process technology and convincing power reduction is achieved with minimum critical path delay.