Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Continuity of care and hypertension control in a university-based practice.

OBJECTIVES We describe the relationship between continuity of care and control of hypertension. DESIGN Retrospective longitudinal cohort study of adults with hypertension. SETTING University of North Carolina Family Medicine Center. PATIENTS Hypertensive patients making at least four visits to the Center during a two-year period, 1999-2001. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Longitudinal blood pressure level and dichotomous (<140 systolic and <90 systolic) blood pressure control. Independent variables include continuity of care, race and other demographic information, type of primary provider, and insurance type. RESULTS Both systolic and diastolic BP fell over the two years (systolic 2.2 mm Hg/year and diastolic 2.8 mm Hg/year). Lower systolic blood pressure was not associated with continuity of care, sex or provider type (faculty vs. resident). Lower diastolic blood pressure had a borderline association with continuity of care (2.2 mm Hg/year, 95% CI -4.7, 0.4). Higher vs. lower continuity of care showed a trend toward better BP control, but the results were not significant (OR 0.84, 95% CI 0.65, 1.09). Lower blood pressures were associated with Caucasian race (vs African American race). CONCLUSIONS Continuity of care was not related to control of hypertension at our center. The factors related to hypertension control need further research.
100 Tbit/s free-space data link using orbital angular momentum mode division multiplexing combined with wavelength division multiplexing

Multiplexing/demultiplexing of 1008 data channels using orbital angular momentum (OAM) mode-division-multiplexing combined with wavelength-division-multiplexing is demonstrated. 24 OAM modes, each carrying 42 wavelengths, and each wavelength transporting a 100 Gbit/s QPSK signal, are multiplexed, with an aggregated capacity of 100.8 Tbit/s.
Analysis of papers from twenty-five years of SIGIR conferences: what have we been doing for the last quarter of a century?

As part of the celebration of twenty-five years ofACM SIGIR conferences we performed a content analysis of all papers published in the proceedings of SIGIR conferences, including those from 2002. From this we determined, using information retrieval approaches of course, which topics had come and gone over the last two and a half decades, and which topics are currently "hot". We also performed a co-authorship analysis among authors of the 853 SIGIR conference papers to determine which author is the most "central" in terms of a co-authorship graph and is our equivalent of Paul Erd6s in Mathematics. In the first section we report on the content analysis, leading to our prediction as to the most topical paper likely to appear at SIGIR2003. In the second section we present details of our co-authorship analysis, revealing who is the "Christopher Lee" of SIGIR, and in the final section we give pointers to where readers who are SIGIR conference paper authors may find details of where they fit into the coauthorship graph.
Prevalence of Germline Mutations in Genes Engaged in DNA Damage Repair by Homologous Recombination in Patients with Triple-Negative and Hereditary Non-Triple-Negative Breast Cancers

Purpose This study sought to assess the prevalence of common germline mutations in several genes engaged in the repair of DNA double-strand break by homologous recombination in patients with triple-negative breast cancers and hereditary non-triple-negative breast cancers. Tumors deficient in this type of DNA damage repair are known to be especially sensitive to DNA cross-linking agents (e.g., platinum drugs) and to poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors. Methods Genetic testing was performed for 36 common germline mutations in genes engaged in the repair of DNA by homologous recombination, i.e., BRCA1, BRCA2, CHEK2, NBN, ATM, PALB2, BARD1, and RAD51D, in 202 consecutive patients with triple-negative breast cancers and hereditary non-triple-negative breast cancers. Results Thirty five (22.2%) of 158 patients in the triple-negative group carried mutations in genes involved in DNA repair by homologous recombination, while 10 (22.7%) of the 44 patients in the hereditary non-triple-negative group carried such mutations. Mutations in BRCA1 were most frequent in patients with triple-negative breast cancer (18.4%), and mutations in CHEK2 were most frequent in patients with hereditary non-triple-negative breast cancers (15.9%). In addition, in the triple-negative group, mutations in CHEK2, NBN, and ATM (3.8% combined) were found, while mutations in BRCA1, NBN, and PALB2 (6.8% combined) were identified in the hereditary non-triple-negative group. Conclusions Identifying mutations in genes engaged in DNA damage repair by homologous recombination other than BRCA1/2 can substantially increase the proportion of patients with triple-negative breast cancer and hereditary non-triple-negative breast cancer who may be eligible for therapy using PARP inhibitors and platinum drugs.
The CORSAR project: Can Polarimetric SAR Interferometry improve Forest Biomass Estimation?

RESUME The main limitation in the application of spaceborne SAR to large-scale forest biomass mapping is the variability in canopy structure and vegetation density. It causes signal saturation and a large residual error in the parameter estimates. A problem in defining retrieval algorithms for forest biomass is that microwaves respond to the shapes, sizes, orientations and dielectric properties of all the illuminated scatterers including the ground. Microwave backscatter models have revealed that the effect of variation in canopy structure on the signal can be higher than the effect of biomass. Polarimetric SAR interferometry potentially offers a means of improving SAR-based estimates of forest biomass by quantifying canopy structural variability. The polarisation information is dependent on the scattering mechanisms, and the interferometric information can be used to determine the vertical location of these scattering events in the canopy. The CORSAR project (Carbon Observation and Retrieval from SAR), which is supported by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), has the objective to examine polarimetric decomposition and polarimetric SAR interferometry methods for estimating the effects of canopy structure in biomass-backscatter relationships. We present results of the polarimetric coherence optimisation of L-band E-SAR data acquired during the SAR and Hyperspectral Airborne Campaign (SHAC 2000) analysed in relationship to expected tree height.
Arsenic Metabolism in Children Differs From That in Adults

Arsenic toxicity in adults is associated with methylation efficiency, influenced by factors such as gender, genetics, and nutrition. The aim of this study was to evaluate influencing factors for arsenic metabolism in children. For 488 children (9 years), whose mothers participated in a study on arsenic exposure during pregnancy (nested into the MINIMat trial) in rural Bangladesh, we measured urinary concentrations of inorganic arsenic (iAs) and its metabolites methylarsonic acid (MMA) and dimethylarsinic acid (DMA) by HPLC-HG-ICPMS. Methylation efficiency was assessed by relative amounts (%) of the metabolites. We evaluated the impact of factors such as maternal urinary metabolite pattern, arsenic exposure, gender, socioeconomic status, season of sampling, and nutritional factors, including erythrocyte selenium (Ery-Se), and plasma folate and vitamin B12. Children had higher %DMA and lower %iAs in urine compared to their mothers, unrelated to their lower exposure [median urinary arsenic (U-As) 53 vs 78 µg/l]. Surprisingly, selenium status (Ery-Se) was strongly associated with children’s arsenic methylation; an increase in Ery-Se from the 5–95th percentile was associated with: +1.8 percentage points (pp) for %iAs (P = .001), +1.4 pp for %MMA (P = .003), and −3.2 pp for %DMA (P < .001). Despite this, Ery-Se was positively associated with U-As (5–95th percentile: +41 µg/l, P = .026). As expected, plasma folate was inversely associated with %iAs (5–95th percentile: −1.9 pp, P = .001) and positively associated with %DMA (5–95th percentile: +2.2 pp, P = .008). Children methylated arsenic more efficiently than their mothers. Also influencing factors, mainly selenium and folate, differed. This warrants further research.
Women's Ways of Knowing Bloom's Taxonomy.

Bloom's taxonomy must have exceeded even the wildest expectations its creators had for this classification of educational goals. In 1981, Edward Furst, a fatherturned-critic of the taxonomy, commented that since its original publication in 1954 a million copies of the handbook had been sold, it had been translated into several languages and cited thousands of times. Furst stated that uses of it included: developing curriculum materials, planning curriculum and instruction, upgrading instruction, developing test materials and building testitem banks, and conducting research on the structure of learning outcomes (Furst 1981, 448-449). In 1985 Richard W. Paul, of the critical thinking movement, commented that "it would be difficult to find a more influential work in education today" (1985, 36). An ERIC search of the period 1981-1992 turns up nearly two hundred entries, the vast majority of which describe applications and adaptations of the scheme in a variety of settings. Teachers colleges since the late 1950's have been teaching the taxonomy to generations of classroom teachers, who are challenged in inservice meetings to include its six goals in their instruction. Through the doors of the educational establishment dozens of shortlived fashionable ideas have come and gone, but Bloom's taxonomy seems to have settled in for a long tenure. To be sure, critics of the scheme from the educational, philosophical, and psychological standpoints have not been lacking (Sockett 1971; Stedman 1973; Seddon 1978; Furst 1981; Paul 1985). None of these assessments, however, uses gender as a category of analysis in making its critique. If there is sex-bias in Bloom's taxonomy, the harm that it can do in the educational process for girls and women can be measured by the extent of the immense influence it wields. The approaches and perspectives established by Women's Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind (Belenky, et al. 1986) suggest a standpoint from which tendencies within the Bloom scheme that are indeed prejudicial to female learners come clearly into view. As is so often the case, it turns out that those tendencies lead not only to practices disadvantageous to girls but also to procedures potentially hurtful to all learners.
Phonetic segmentation of singing voice using MIDI and parallel speech

When analyzing singing voice signal, it is required to know the boundaries of each phonetic unit in the singing voice samples. However, due to prolonged vowels in the singing voice, it is not easy to accurately align a singing voice with the phonetic sequence of its lyrics by conventional speech recognition approach. This paper proposes a solution for the phonetic annotation of the singing voice with the provision of a MIDI file and a parallel speech recording of the lyrics. The MIDI file consisting of notation and lyric information is used to locate lyrics in the singing voice. The recording of parallel speech data is used to generate a reference phonetic annotation by forced aligning it with lyrics with a speech recognizer. The singing voice is then aligned with the speech, which has phonetic annotation, and the phonetic boundaries are mapped to the singing voice. The result shows that we are able to get an accurate annotation of phonetic boundaries in singing voice.
On Wireless Power Transfer and Max Flow in Rechargeable Wireless Sensor Networks

In rechargeable or energy harvesting wireless sensor networks (WSNs), a key concern is the max flow or data rate at one or more sinks. However, this data rate is constrained by the available energy at each node as well as link capacity. To date, in order to increase the amount of data extracted from a WSN, past works have considered routing approaches or they optimize the location of sinks. In contrast, we take a novel approach whereby we aim to “upgrade” the recharging rate of a finite number of “bottleneck” nodes using the so called auxiliary chargers (ACs) equipped with wireless power transfer capability. We formulate a mixed integer linear program (MILP) for the NP-hard problem at hand and propose three novel solutions to place ACs: 1) Path, which preferentially upgrades nodes on the shortest path among paths from sources to sinks, 2) Tabu, a meta-heuristic that first uses Path as the initial solution. It then searches for a neighboring solution that yields a higher max flow rate, and 3) LagOP, which approximates the said MILP using Lagrangian and sub-gradient optimization. Our results show that Tabu has the best performance, where it is able to achieve 99.40% of the max flow rate derived by MILP in tested scenarios.
Building blocks for continuous experimentation

Development of software-intensive products and services increasingly occurs by continuously deploying product or service increments, such as new features and enhancements, to customers. Product and service developers need to continuously find out what customers want by direct customer feedback and observation of usage behaviour, rather than indirectly through up-front business analyses. This paper examines the preconditions for setting up an experimentation system for continuous customer experiments. It describes the building blocks required for such a system. An initial model for continuous experimentation is analytically derived from prior work. The model is then matched against empirical case study findings from a startup company and adjusted. Building blocks for a continuous experimentation system and infrastructure are presented. A suitable experimentation system requires at least the ability to release minimum viable products or features with suitable instrumentation, design and manage experiment plans, link experiment results with a product roadmap, and manage a flexible business strategy. The main challenges are proper and rapid design of experiments, advanced instrumentation of software to collect, analyse, and store relevant data, and the integration of experiment results in both the product development cycle and the software development process.
Sortase A localizes to distinct foci on the Streptococcus pyogenes membrane

Cell wall peptidoglycan-anchored surface proteins are essential virulence factors in many gram-positive bacteria. The attachment of these proteins to the peptidoglycan is achieved through a transpeptidation reaction, whereby sortase cleaves a conserved C-terminal LPXTG motif and covalently attaches the protein to the peptidoglycan precursor lipid II. It is unclear how the sorting reaction is regulated spatially and what part sortase localization plays in determining the distribution of surface proteins. This is mainly the result of inadequate immunofluorescence techniques required to resolve these issues in certain bacterial pathogens. Here we describe the utilization of the phage lysin PlyC to permeabilize the cell wall of Streptococcus pyogenes to antibodies, thereby allowing the localization of sortase A using deconvolution immunofluorescence microscopy. We find that sortase localizes within distinct membranal foci, the majority of which are associated with the division septum and colocalize with areas of active M protein anchoring. Sortase distribution to the new septum begins at a very early stage, culminates during septation, and decays after division is completed. This implies that the sorting reaction is a dynamic, highly regulated process, intimately associated with cell division. The ability to study cytoplasmic and membrane antigens using deconvolution immunofluorescence microscopy will facilitate further study of cellular processes in S. pyogenes.
Neurocognitive Effects of Antiepileptic Drugs Frequently Used in Long-Term Treatment of Epilepsies: A Review

Antiepileptic drugs (AED) alter neuronal excitation levels and may lead to neurocognitive changes. In recent years, several new AEDs have been introduced which are additionally used to treat mood disorders, neuropathic pain and migraine. Generally, very few controlled trials have systematically examined the cognitive side effects of AEDs. In particular, polytherapy with the newer AEDs is under-investigated. In this paper we review the most relevant data pertaining to neurocognitive side effects of AEDs that are currently prescribed in Switzerland for the long-term treatment of epilepsies.
Structural-Based Power-Aware Assignment of Don't Cares for Peak Power Reduction during Scan Testing

Scan architectures, though widely used in modern designs for testing purpose, are expensive in power consumption. In this paper, we first discuss the issues of excessive peak power consumption during scan testing. We next show that taking care of high current levels during the test cycle (i.e. between launch and capture) is highly relevant so as to avoid noise phenomena such as IR-drop or Ground Bounce. Then, we propose a solution based on power-aware assignment of don't care bits in deterministic test patterns that considers structural information of the circuit under test. Experiments have been performed on ISCAS'89 and ITC'99 benchmark circuits with the proposed structural-based power-aware X-filling technique. These results show that the proposed technique provides the best tradeoff between peak power reduction and increase of test sequence length
Domain-retargetable reverse engineering. III. Layered modeling

For pt. II see International Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM '94), p. 336-342. The paper describes ongoing work on a domain-retargetable reverse engineering environment which is used to aid the structural understanding of large information spaces. In particular, it presents a layered modeling approach to representing three classes of artifacts manipulated during the reverse engineering process. The approach provides a practical and extensible method of integrating existing tools and techniques into a reverse engineering environment by leveraging results from other areas, such as relational databases, hypertext, and conceptual modeling.
ETECTION BY M ODIFIED OTSU M ETHOD

In this paper a novel edge detection method has been proposed which outperform Otsu method [1]. The proposed detection algorithm has been devised using the concept of genetic algorithm in spatial domain. The key of edge detection is the choice of threshold; which determines the results of edge detection. GA has been used to determine an optimal threshold over the image. Results are compared with existing Otsu technique which shows better performances.
Modulation of spontaneous transmitter release during depression and posttetanic potentiation of Aplysia sensory-motor neuron synapses isolated in culture

An Aplysia motor neuron cocultured with a single presynaptic sensory neuron exhibits spontaneous miniature EPSPs or EPSCs (“minis”) that can be used to assay the release process directly, independent of the presynaptic action potential. Sensory-motor synapses in culture undergo homosynaptic depression with low frequency stimulation (< 1 Hz) and posttetanic potentiation (PTP) with high-frequency stimulation (20 Hz) much as they do in intact ganglia, except that PTP does not occur in culture when sensory neurons are impaled. We measured spontaneous release during each of these two forms of homosynaptic plasticity as a way of testing whether they involve depletion or mobilization of synaptic vesicles (Gingrich and Byrne, 1985). We find that PTP is accompanied by an increase in mini frequency that decays with a time course parallel to the decay of evoked EPSP facilitation. In contrast, depression is not paralleled by a reduction of mini frequency, although extensive stimulation reduces mini frequency for a brief period immediately following stimulation. Neither form of plasticity altered miniature EPSP or miniature EPSC amplitude, corroborating previous evidence that both are presynaptically mediated. These findings suggest that PTP is mediated by a presynaptic mechanism independent of the action potential, such as vesicle mobilization. This presumably Ca(2+)- dependent mechanism does not involve protein kinase C, since we found that the inhibitor H7 does not specifically block PTP. In contrast to PTP, depression appears to involve changes unique to excitation- secretion coupling, such as reduced Ca2+ influx during the action potential (Klein et al., 1980).
Online maneuver recognition and multimodal trajectory prediction for intersection assistance using non-parametric regression

Maneuver recognition and trajectory prediction of moving vehicles are two important and challenging tasks of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) at urban intersections. This paper presents a continuing work to handle these two problems in a consistent framework using non-parametric regression models. We provide a feature normalization scheme and present a strategy for constructing three-dimensional Gaussian process regression models from two-dimensional trajectory patterns. These models can capture spatio-temporal characteristics of traffic situations. Given a new, partially observed and unlabeled trajectory, the maneuver can be recognized online by comparing the likelihoods of the observation data for each individual regression model. Furthermore, we take advantage of our representation for trajectory prediction. Because predicting possible trajectories at urban intersection involves obvious multimodalities and non-linearities, we employ the Monte Carlo method to handle these difficulties. This approach allows the incremental prediction of possible trajectories in situations where unimodal estimators such as Kalman Filters would not work well. The proposed framework is evaluated experimentally in urban intersection scenarios using real-world data.
Privatization Matters: Bank Efficiency in Transition Countries

To investigate the impact of bank privatization in transition countries, we take the largest banks in six relatively advanced countries, namely, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Poland and Romania. Income and balance sheet characteristics are compared across four bank ownership types. Efficiency measures are computed from stochastic frontiers and used in ownership and privatization regressions having dummy variables for bank type. Our empirical results support the hypotheses that foreign-owned banks are most efficient and government-owned banks are least efficient. In addition, the importance of attracting a strategic foreign owner in the privatization process is confirmed. However, counter to the conjecture that foreign banks cream skim, we find that domestic banks have a local advantage in pursuing fee-for-service business. Finally, we show that both the method and the timing of privatization matter to efficiency; specifically, voucher privatization does not lead to increased efficiency and early-privatized banks are more efficient than later-privatized banks even though we find no evidence of a selection effect.
Stable periodic motions of inertia wheel pendulum via virtual holonomic constraints

We present a new control strategy for an underactuated two-link robot, called inertia wheel pendulum. The system consists of a free planar rotational pendulum and a symmetric disk, attached to its end and directly controlled by a DC-motor. The goal is to create stable oscillations of the pendulum, which is not directly actuated. We exploit a recently proposed feedback control design strategy, based on motion planning via virtual holonomic constraints. This strategy is shown to be useful for design of regulators for achieving orbitally exponentially stable oscillatory motions. The main contribution is a step-by-step recipe on how to achieve oscillations with pre-specified amplitude from a given range and an arbitrary independently chosen period.