Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
First Record of Leptospira borgpetersenii Isolation in the Amami Islands, Japan

In 2003, a Leptospira survey was performed on Yoroshima Island of the Amami Islands located in the southwestern part of Japan. Seven Leptospira strains were isolated from the field rat Rattus rattus, which were identified as L. borgpetersenii by flaB sequencing, 16S rDNA sequencing and gyrB sequencing, and serovar Javanica was determined by a microscopic agglutination test. NotI‐long restriction fragment analysis indicated that these isolates were genetically indistinguishable from an isolate from the Okinawa Islands. The present results suggest that L. borgpetersenii is migrating into the Amami Islands in Japan.
Mining scenario-based specifications with value-based invariants

There have been a number of studies on mining candidate specifications from execution traces. Some extract specifications corresponding to value-based invariants, while others work on inferring ordering constraints. In this work, we merge our previous work on mining scenario-based specifications, extracting ordering constraints in the form of live sequence charts (LSC), a visual specification language, with Daikon, a tool for mining value-based invariants. The resulting approach strengthens the expressive power of the mined scenarios by enriching them with scenario-specific value-based invariants. The concept is illustrated using a preliminary case study on a real application.
Narrow Versus Wide Tuning Curves: What's Best for a Population Code?

Neurophysiologists are often faced with the problem of evaluating the quality of a code for a sensory or motor variable, either to relate it to the performance of the animal in a simple discrimination task or to compare the codes at various stages along the neuronal pathway. One common belief that has emerged from such studies is that sharpening of tuning curves improves the quality of the code, although only to a certain point; sharpening beyond that is believed to be harmful. We show that this belief relies on either problematic technical analysis or improper assumptions about the noise. We conclude that one cannot tell, in the general case, whether narrow tuning curves are better than wide ones; the answer depends critically on the covariance of the noise. The same conclusion applies to other manipulations of the tuning curve profiles such as gain increase.
Antioxidant Intervention Attenuates Myocardial Neovascularization in Hypercholesterolemia

Background—Hypercholesterolemia (HC) and atherosclerosis can elicit oxidative stress, coronary endothelial dysfunction, and myocardial ischemia, which may induce growth-factor expression and lead to myocardial neovascularization. We tested the hypothesis that chronic antioxidant intervention in HC would attenuate neovascularization and preserve the expression of hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF)-1&agr; and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Methods and Results—Three groups of pigs (n= 6 each) were studied after 12 weeks of normal or 2% HC diet or HC+ antioxidant supplementation (100 IU/kg vitamin E and 1 g vitamin C daily). Myocardial samples were scanned ex vivo with a novel 3D micro-CT scanner, and the spatial density and tortuosity of myocardial microvessels were determined in situ. VEGF mRNA, protein levels of VEGF and VEGF receptor-1, HIF-1&agr;, nitrotyrosine, and superoxide dismutase (SOD) were determined in myocardial tissue. The HC and HC+ antioxidant groups had similar increases in serum cholesterol levels. HC animals showed an increase in subendocardial spatial density of microvessels compared with normal (160.5± 11.8 versus 95.3± 8.2 vessels/cm2, P < 0.05), which was normalized in HC+ antioxidant (92.5± 20.5 vessels/cm2, P < 0.05 versus HC), as was arteriolar tortuosity. In addition, HC induced upregulation of VEGF, HIF-1&agr;, and nitrotyrosine expression and decreased SOD expression and activity, all of which were preserved by antioxidant intervention. Conclusions—Changes in myocardial microvascular architecture invoked by HC are accompanied by increases in HIF-1&agr; and VEGF expression and attenuated by antioxidant intervention. This underscores a role of increased oxidative stress in modulating myocardial microvascular architecture in early atherogenesis.
Trends in Time to Confirmation and Recognition of New-Onset Hypertension, 2002-2006

Achieving full benefits of blood pressure control in populations requires prompt recognition of previously undetected hypertension. In 2003, the Seventh Report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure provided definitions of hypertension and recommended that single elevated readings be confirmed within 1 to 2 months. We sought to determine whether the time required to confirm and recognize (ie, diagnose and/or treat) new-onset hypertension decreased from 2002 to 2006 for adult members of 2 large integrated healthcare delivery systems, Kaiser Permanente Northern California and Colorado. Using electronically stored office blood pressure readings, physician diagnoses, and pharmacy prescriptions, we identified 200 587 patients with new-onset hypertension (2002-2006) marked by 2 consecutive elevated blood pressure readings in previously undiagnosed, untreated members. Mean confirmation intervals (time from the first to second consecutive elevated reading) declined steadily from 103 to 89 days during this period. For persons recognized within 12 months after confirmation, the mean interval to recognition declined from 78 to 61 days. However, only 33% of individuals were recognized within 12 months. One third were never recognized during observed follow-up. For these patients, most subsequent blood pressure recordings were not elevated. Higher initial blood pressure levels, history of previous cardiovascular disease, and older age were associated with shorter times to recognition. Times to confirmation and recognition of new-onset hypertension have become shorter in recent years, especially for patients with higher cardiovascular disease risk. Variability in office-based blood pressure readings suggests that further improvements in recognition and treatment may be achieved with more specific automated approaches to identifying hypertension.
Stimulation and maintenance of ejaculated bovine spermatozoan respiration and motility by caffeine.

on ejaculates from bullsdemonstratedthatspermatozoa in the presence of caffeine (6 mM) maintained the initial percentage of motility for at least 4 hr at 37C, whereas in the untreated sperm samples, 50% of sperm that were motile initially became immotile during 4 hr storage. Comparison of bulls yielding semen of original low motility with bulls yielding originally high motilityspermatozoa indicatedthatan immediate stimulation of sperm motilityby caffeine occurred inthelow motilityspecimens (32.2-49.3% motile) but not inthoseofhighmotility. Itispostulated that the effect of caffeine on spermatozoan motility and respiration is mediatedby one ofthecyclic nucleotides. This results in a somewhat unique effect, because sperm activity and sperm life, asjudgedby motility, areboth increasedwithcaffeineaddition.
Adjustment Costs in a Two-Capital Growth Model

The paper analyzes the convergence dynamics of a log-linearized open-economy neoclassical growth model under the assumptions of large adjustment costs for human capital investment, moderate adjustment costs for physical capital investment, and perfect capital mobility. The model can be calibrated for sufficiently slow conditional convergence. The model's dynamics turn out to be richer than the dynamics of the basic neoclassical model due to the imbalance effect between human and physical capital.
SHORTEST PATH ESTIMATION FOR GRAPH DATA USING A RELATIONAL TECHNIQUE

Recently graph data rises in many applications and there is need to manage such large amount of data by performing various graph operations over graphs using some graph search queries. Many approaches and algorithms serve this purpose but continuously require improvement over it in terms of stability and performance. Such approaches are less efficient when large and complex data is involved. Applications need to execute faster in order to improve overall performance of the system and need to perform many advanced and complex operations. Shortest path estimation is one of the key search queries in many applications. Here we present a system which will find the shortest path between nodes and contribute to performance of the system with the help of different shortest path algorithms such as bidirectional search and AStar algorithm and takes a relational approach using some new standard SQL queries to solve the problem, utilizing advantages of relational database which solves the problem efficiently.
Greater Beta-Adrenergic Receptor Mediated Vasodilation in Women Using Oral Contraceptives

Background: β-adrenergic receptors play an important role in mitigating the pressor effects of sympathetic nervous system activity in young women. Based on recent data showing oral contraceptive use in women abolishes the relationship between muscle sympathetic nervous system activity and blood pressure, we hypothesized forearm blood flow responses to a β-adrenergic receptor agonist would be greater in young women currently using oral contraceptives (OC+, n = 13) when compared to those not using oral contraceptives (OC–, n = 10). Methods: Women (18–35 years) were studied during the early follicular phase of the menstrual cycle (days 1–5) or placebo phase of oral contraceptive use. Forearm blood flow (FBF, Doppler ultrasound) and mean arterial blood pressure (MAP, brachial arterial catheter) were measured at baseline and during graded brachial artery infusion of the β-adrenergic receptor agonist, Isoproterenol (ISO), as well as Acetylcholine (ACH, endothelium-dependent vasodilation) and Nitroprusside (NTP, endothelium-independent vasodilation). Forearm vascular conductance was calculated (FVC = FBF/MAP, ml/min/100 mmHg) and the rise in FVC from baseline during infusion quantified vasodilation (ΔFVC = FVCinfusion − FVCbaseline). Results: ISO increased FVC in both groups (p < 0.01) and ISO-mediated ΔFVC was greater in OC+ compared to OC– (Main effect of group, p = 0.02). Expressing data as FVC and FBF resulted in similar conclusions. FVC responses to both ACH and NTP were also greater in OC+ compared to OC–. Conclusions: These data are the first to demonstrate greater β-adrenergic receptor-mediated vasodilation in the forearm of women currently using oral contraceptives (placebo phase) when compared to those not using oral contraceptives (early follicular phase), and suggest oral contraceptive use influences neurovascular control.
Unitary space-time codes from Alamouti's scheme with APSK signals

Unitary space-time codes have been used in differential space-time modulation, when neither the transmitter nor the receiver of a multiple antenna system knows the channel state information in Rayleigh fading channels. Among the codes in literature, unitary orthogonal space-time codes, constructed from Alamouti's scheme, have the advantage of fast maximum likelihood (ML) decoding but they require signal constellations to be phase-shift keying (PSK). In this paper, unitary space-time codes are constructed from Alamouti's scheme with amplitude/phase-shift keying (APSK) constellations. We show that the unitary space-time codes from Alamouti's scheme with APSK signals have larger diversity products than those with PSK signals while the complexity of their ML decoding algorithm is comparable. Our newly proposed 4 b/s/Hz code has about 2 dB gain over the same rate code with PSK signals at bit-error rate (BER) of 10/sup -3/ with one receive antenna. We also propose a noncoherent scheme of rate 5 b/s/Hz, which has the same BER performance as the 4 b/s/Hz unitary orthogonal space-time code in DSTM while having comparable decoding complexity.
The association between C-reactive protein and delirium in 710 acute elderly hospital admissions

ABSTRACT Background: Delirium is a common neuropsychiatric syndrome associated with poor outcomes. Evidence supports a neuroinflammatory etiology, but the role of the inflammatory marker C-reactive protein (C-RP) remains unclear. We investigated the relationship between C-RP and delirium and its severity as well as interaction with medical diagnosis. Methods: From an existing database (710 patients over 70 years old admitted to a Medical Acute Admissions Unit) we analyzed data which included C-RP levels, delirium (using the Confusion Assessment Method), and other clinical and demographic factors. Primary diagnoses were grouped (cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, infection, metabolic, and other). Results: There was a strong association between elevated C-RP and delirium (t = 5.09; p < 0.001), independent of other potential risk factors for delirium (odds ratio (OR) = 1.32 (95% CI: 1.10–1.58) p = 0.003). There was no significant association between C-RP and delirium severity, and between C-RP and delirium in the populations with cardiovascular disease, infection upon admission, or from the metabolic group despite an OR of 2.24 (95% CI: 0.92–5.45). There was an association in the musculoskeletal group (OR 2.19 (95% CI: 1.19–4.02)). Conclusions: There is an association between elevated C-RP and delirium. This is strongest in patients admitted with musculoskeletal disease but not in others, implying that C-RP is involved in the genesis of delirium in musculoskeletal disease, but that other factors or processes may be more important in those with cardiovascular disease or infection.
Morphological characterisation and microstructure of silver films prepared by electrodeposition method

The electrodeposition method is used to prepare silver films at different thickness. In order to characterise the films, scaling law analysis was done using concept of fractal. We obtained a growth exponent, β = 0.61 and average roughness exponent, α = 0.62 using root mean square roughness and height–height correlation function. The results indicate that the films with higher thickness have higher surface roughness. However the fractal analysis using height–height correlation shows that the value of fractal dimension decreases from 2.45 to 2.33 depending on the thickness of films. On the other hand the increase of thickness influenced the lateral correlation length strongly. Thus, these features may be controlled by choosing an optimum film thickness.
A Survey of Recent Approach in Congestion Control for Multicast Protocol

In this term paper, we present recent issues on congestion control mechanism for multicast protocol. Multicast is sending packets from one or more senders to a group of receivers, rather than dedicating their resources to only one receiver, and thus utilizing limited bandwidth efficiently. End-to-end multicast is one of the most important research areas in distributed systems because many applications will depend on it largely. One of the most difficult issues in end-to-end multicast is congestion control which is providing fair resource allocation in a network, and operating at an acceptable level when there are more requests than the capacity, which the network can handle. Congestion control is an important issue in multicast environment because congestion is more common. Moreover, error free transmission should be guaranteed in case of reliable multicast. In addition, we need to guarantee fairness between best-effort connections and we are likely to see congestion collapses in the absence of proper congestion control mechanism.
Effects of a cognitive-enhancement group training program on daily living activities, cognition, and depression in the demented elderly

[Purpose] The effects of a cognitive enhancement group training program on daily living activities, cognition, and depression in the demented elderly population of a local Korean community were investigated. [Subjects and Methods] The study included 22 elderly subjects who were 65 years of age or older, had been diagnosed with dementia, and were attending a daily care center in K City, Republic of Korea. Eleven subjects participated in the program, which was conducted twice a week for 8 weeks for a total of 16 sessions. Eleven subjects in a non-training group did not receive any interventions. [Results] The MMSE-K, MBI and KDS scores of all of the eleven subjects who participated in the program improved, and the improvements were statistically significant. [Conclusion] Cognitive enhancement group training programs may have positive effects on daily living activities, cognition, and depression.
Citation Parsing Using Maximum Entropy and Repairs

This thesis presents ParsCit, a system which parses citations from a publication or article, and label parts of citations with their corresponding field names. As citation styles differ between disciplines, publishers and authors, the task of citation parsing is difficult and inherently ambiguous. Whereas traditional citation parsers use a manually compiled set of rules to perform parsing, ParsCit adopts the framework of machine learning, learning rules for parsing from annotated data. A maximum entropy framework is employed to create a basic citation parse, and a series of repairs is performed to improve system accuracy. Given as few as 500 training examples, ParsCit is able to achieve a token accuracy of 94.20%, comparable to related machine learning approaches which lack the use of features applicable to the context of citation parsing. In this paper, I shall also emphasize the efficiency of the system’s set of repairs, which is absent in citation parsers seen to date. Subject Descriptors: I.2. 6 Learning I.2. 7 Natural Language Processing
Structure, Elastic and Electrical Properties of Polyethylene (PE) / Carbon Nanotube (CNT) Nanocomposites

In the paper results of an investigation of properties of polyethylene (PE) modified with multiwall carbon nanotubes (CNT) are presented. Two types of modifiers were used: multiwall CNTs and polymer concentrate containing 31.6 wt. % of nanotubes in the polyethylene matrix. Results on the influence of CNTs on the structural (crystallinity), thermal (thermal stability), electrical (AC conductivity) and mechanical properties (yield stress, strength, elastic modulus and ultimate elongation) of PE matrix composites were obtained. A theoretical analysis of elastic properties of the PE/CNT composite was carried out by using the Mori–Tanaka theory of an equivalent medium. The calculation results were compared with experimental data.
3DTouch and HOMER-S: intuitive manipulation techniques for one-handed handheld augmented reality

Existing interaction techniques for mobile AR often use the multi-touch capabilities of the device's display for object selection and manipulation. To provide full 3D manipulation by touch in an integral way, existing approaches use complex multi finger and hand gestures. However, they are difficult or impossible to use in one-handed handheld AR scenarios and their usage requires prior knowledge. Furthermore, a handheld's touch screen offers only two dimensions for interaction and limits manipulation to physical screen size. To overcome these problems, we present two novel intuitive six degree-of-freedom (6DOF) manipulation techniques, 3DTouch and HOMER-S. While 3DTouch uses only simple touch gestures and decomposes the degrees of freedom, Homer-S provides full 6DOF and is decoupled from screen input to overcome physical limitations. In a comprehensive user study, we explore performance, usability and accuracy of both techniques. Therefore, we compare 3DTouch with HOMER-S in four different scenarios with varying transformation requirements. Our results reveal both techniques to be intuitive to translate and rotate objects. HOMER-S lacks accuracy compared to 3DTouch but achieves significant performance increases in terms of speed for transformations addressing all 6DOF.
Staffing a Call Center with Uncertain Arrival Rate and Absenteeism

This paper proposes simple methods for staffing a single‐class call center with uncertain arrival rate and uncertain staffing due to employee absenteeism. The arrival rate and the proportion of servers present are treated as random variables. The basic model is a multi‐server queue with customer abandonment, allowing non‐exponential service‐time and time‐to‐abandon distributions. The goal is to maximize the expected net return, given throughput benefit and server, customer‐abandonment and customer‐waiting costs, but attention is also given to the standard deviation of the return. The approach is to approximate the performance and the net return, conditional on the random model‐parameter vector, and then uncondition to get the desired results. Two recently‐developed approximations are used for the conditional performance measures: first, a deterministic fluid approximation and, second, a numerical algorithm based on a purely Markovian birth‐and‐death model, having state‐dependent death rates.
Resource Based View, Core Competence and Innovation: A Research on Turkish Manufacturing Industry

The importance of organizational resources and capabilities are realized by business practitioners and researchers as they support organizational performance and competitive advantage. However, what exactly core competence is not clearly understood since terms such as resource, capability and competence are used interchangeably by researchers. From this point forth, this article provides a framework for separating organization's core competencies from resource and capability. According to the research and analysis framework, the first step is to explain the relations and interactions among resource, capability and competence. Second we propose three empirical determiners such as uniqueness, inimitability and extendibility to the research model. Third, the proposed core competence framework serves as a tool for assessing the relationship between core competencies and innovation. IndexTerms—Core Competence Determiners, Innovation, Resource-based view
Length of Latency with Preterm Premature Rupture of Membranes before 32 Weeks' Gestation

Abstract Objective The objective of the article is to describe latency for patients with preterm premature membrane rupture (PPROM) between 240/7 and 316/7 weeks' gestation. Study Design Secondary analysis of data collected prospectively in a multicenter clinical trial of magnesium sulfate for cerebral palsy prevention. Women with PPROM and fewer than six contractions per hour at enrollment who were candidates for expectant management (n = 1,377) were included in this analysis. Length of latency was calculated in days by subtracting the time of delivery from the time of membrane rupture. Results At each week of gestation, median latency between 24 and 28 weeks was similar at approximately 9 days, but it was significantly shorter with PPROM at 29, 30, and 31 weeks (p < 0.001). In addition, the percentage of patients remaining undelivered at 7 days and 14 days was similar for PPROM between 24 and 28 weeks, but it decreased significantly after that. For each gestational age, the proportion of patients remaining pregnant declined in a fashion similar to an exponential pattern. Conclusion Median latency after PPROM is similar from 24 to 28 weeks' gestation, but it shortens with PPROM at and after 29 weeks.