Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A prospective observational study to investigate the association between abnormal hand movements and delirium in hospitalised older people.

OBJECTIVE to examine the relationship between carphology (aimlessly picking at bedclothes), floccillation (plucking at the air) and delirium in older patients admitted to specialist elderly care wards. DESIGN daily observation for behaviours of carphology and floccillation embedded within a 'before' and 'after' study. SETTING three specialist elderly care wards in a general hospital. SUBJECTS older people admitted to hospital as emergencies. METHODS patients recruited into a delirium prevention study were observed daily for delirium using the confusion assessment method (CAM). Occurrences of carphology and/or floccillation were also recorded. Sensitivity, specificity and positive and negative predictive values for carphology/floccillation for the diagnosis of delirium were calculated. Inpatient mortality rates were compared for patients who did, and did not exhibit features of carphology and/or floccillation. RESULTS four hundred and thirty-seven patients were recruited into the study. One hundred and ten participants experienced an episode of delirium, 21 exhibited behaviours of carphology and/or floccillation. The sensitivity and specificity of carphology and/or floccillation for the diagnosis of delirium were 14 and 98%, respectively; positive likelihood ratio 6.8. Carphology and floccillation were associated with both hyper- and hypo-active delirium subtypes, and occurred early during incident delirium (67% within 2 days of delirium onset). The inpatient mortality rate in patients with carphology/floccillation was double the rate in patients without the behaviours (23.8 versus 11.2%, Fisher's exact test P = 0.16). CONCLUSIONS carphology and floccillation are uncommon physical signs, but their presence is highly suggestive of delirium. The behaviours are unrelated to delirium subtype making their presence particularly useful in the diagnosis of hypo-active delirium.
Adaptive SSL: Design, Implementation and Overhead Analysis

Adaptive security is based on the observation that the security requirements of a system or service heavily depend on the environment in which they operate and should therefore be dynamically adjusted to best operate within that environment as the environment changes. In this paper we are concerned with adapting the choice of cryptographic algorithms applied to client-server interactions. To that end, we design and implement an adaptation controller for SSL (Secure Socket Layer), called Adaptive SSL.
Herding and contrarian behavior in financial markets : an experimental analysis

We analyze and confirm the existence and extent of rational informational herding and rational informational contrarianism in a financial market experiment, and compare and contrast these with equivalent irrational phenomena. In our study, subjects generally behave according to benchmark rationality. Traders who should herd or be contrarian in theory are the significant sources of both within the data. Correcting for subjects who can be identified as less rational increases our ability to predict herding or contrarian behavior considerably.
Use of GPC Chromatograms to Characterize Aged Asphalt Cements

This study attempted to find correlations between physical properties and chromatograms, define characteristics of asphalt cements based on chromatograms, and determine whether GPC analysis could reflect the effects of aging. The details of the experimental procedure are described, and the research results are presented and discussed. It was found that physical properties of asphalt cement were significatnly changed by artificial aging, and increasing viscosity and hardness resulted from continued artificial aging. Models were used that estasblished relationships betwen viscosity and penetration and the molecular-size distrubution of asphalt cements. The models demonstrated the general applicability of using GPC analysis to characterize asphalt cements, predict physical properties, and identify the aging of asphalt cements.
Cyclooxygenase-2 Promotes Early Atherosclerotic Lesion Formation in LDL Receptor–Deficient Mice

Background—Atherosclerosis has features of an inflammatory disease. Because cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 is expressed in atherosclerotic lesions and promotes inflammation, we tested the hypotheses that selective COX-2 inhibition would reduce early lesion formation in LDL receptor–deficient (LDLR−/−) mice and that macrophage COX-2 expression contributes to atherogenesis in LDLR−/− mice. Methods and Results—Treatment of male LDLR−/− mice fed the Western diet with rofecoxib or indomethacin for 6 weeks resulted in significant reductions in atherosclerosis in the proximal aorta (25% and 37%) and in the aorta en face (58% and 57%), respectively. Rofecoxib treatment did not inhibit platelet thromboxane production, a COX-1–mediated process, but it significantly reduced the urinary prostacyclin metabolite 2,3-dinor-6-keto-PGF1&agr;. Fetal liver cell transplantation was used to generate LDLR−/− mice null for expression of the COX-2 gene by macrophages. After 8 weeks on the Western diet, COX-2−/−→LDLR−/− mice developed significantly less (33% to 39%) atherosclerosis than control COX-2+/+→LDLR−/− mice. In both the inhibitor studies and the transplant studies, serum lipids did not differ significantly between groups. Conclusions—The present studies provide strong pharmacological and genetic evidence that COX-2 promotes early atherosclerotic lesion formation in LDLR−/− mice in vivo. These results support the potential of anti-inflammatory approaches to the prevention of atherosclerosis. (Circulation. 2002;105:1816-1823.)
Trends in delivery with no one present in Nigeria between 2003 and 2013

Purpose Skilled attendance at birth is a proven intervention to improve maternal and newborn health outcomes. Unfortunately, in Nigeria there are many women who give birth alone, with no one present (NOP). The purpose of this study was to document trends in women delivering with NOP between 2003 and 2013, and to identify the characteristics of women who are engaging in this risky practice. Methods We utilized pooled data sets from the 2003, 2008, and 2013 Nigerian Demographic and Health Surveys. Married women, who had given birth in the 5 years before each survey were included, resulting in a sample size of 38,949 women. We used logistic regression to assess the unadjusted and adjusted odds of a woman delivering with NOP over time, by socio-demographic characteristics. Results Prevalence of delivery with NOP in Nigeria declined by 30% between 2003 and 2013. The largest declines occurred in Sokoto State, where the number of women giving birth with NOP declined by almost 100% between 2003 and 2013. In the North West of the country, however, there was a 27% increase in the number of women giving birth alone over this time period. Older, poorer, less educated, higher parity, Muslim women residing in the Northern regions were significantly more likely to give birth with NOP. Women, who were involved in decisions surrounding their own health, and who had accessed antenatal care were significantly less likely to give birth with NOP. Conclusion Although there have been improvements in Nigeria’s Maternal Mortality Ratio since 1990, recent estimates suggest a stagnation in this trend. One reason for this protracted decline may be lack of access to skilled delivery care. The 2013 national prevalence of Nigerian women giving birth with NOP was 14%, equivalent to over 1 million births in 2013. Nigeria must implement interventions to ensure every woman’s timely access to, and use of skilled care to reduce preventable maternal mortality and morbidity.
Routing policies for a partially observable two-server queueing system

We consider a queueing system controlled by decisions based on partial state information. The motivation for this work stems from road traffic, in which drivers may, or may not, be subscribed to a smartphone application for dynamic route planning. Our model consists of two queues with independent ex-ponential service times, serving two types of jobs. Arrivals occur according to a Poisson process; a fraction of the jobs (type X) is observable and controllable. At all times the number of X jobs in each queue and their individual po-sitions are known. Upon its arrival a router decides which queue the next X job should join. Y jobs are non-observable and non-controllable. They randomly join a queue according to some static routing probability. We address the following main research questions: 1) what penetration level is needed for effective control, 2) which policy should be implemented at the router, and 3) what is the added value of having more system information (e.g., average service times)? An extensive simulation study re-veals that for heavily loaded systems a low penetration level suucces and that the performance (in terms of the average sojourn time) of a simple policy that relies on little system information is close to w-JSQ (weighted join-the-shortest- queue policy) which is optimal in a fully controllable and observable system. The latter result is confirmed by the analysis of deterministic uid models that approximate the stochastic evolution under large loads.
Retrieving Meaning-equivalent Sentences for Example-based Rough Translation

Example-based machine translation (EBMT) is a promising translation method for speech-to-speech translation because of its robustness. It retrieves example sentences similar to the input and adjusts their translations to obtain the output. However, it has problems in that the performance degrades when input sentences are long and when the style of inputs and that of the example corpus are different. This paper proposes a method for retrieving "meaning-equivalent sentences" to overcome these two problems. A meaning-equivalent sentence shares the main meaning with an input despite lacking some unimportant information. The translations of meaning-equivalent sentences correspond to "rough translations. " The retrieval is based on content words, modality, and tense.
Low resource lip finding and tracking algorithm for embedded devices

One of the best challenges in Lip Reading is to apply this technology to an embedded device. In the current solutions the high use of resources, especially in reference to visual processing, makes the implementation in a small device very difficult. In this article a new, efficient and straightforward algorithm for detection and tracking of lips is presented. Lip Finding and Tracking is the first step in visual processing for Lip Reading. In our approach the Lip Finding is performed between a small amount of blobs, which should fulfill a geometric restriction. In terms of computational power and memory the proposed algorithm meets the requirements of an embedded device; on average less than 4 MHz 1 of CPU is required. This algorithm shows promising results in a realistic environment accomplishing successful lip finding and tracking in 94.2% of more than 4900 image frames.
Closed-loop control of a polymerisation plant using production performance indicators (PIs)

The synthesis of plant-wide control structures is recognised as one of the most important production-management design problems in the process industries. This article proposes a closed-loop control structure utilising production performance indicators (pPIs) as a possible solution to simplify this problem. pPIs represent the translation of operating objectives, such as the minimisation of production costs, to a set of measurable variables that can then be used in a feedback control. The idea of closed-loop control at the production-management level using pPIs as referenced controlled variables was implemented on the procedural model of a production process for a polymerisation plant, and two types of controllers were tested: an experimental controller based on look-up tables, and an advanced model predictive controller (MPC). Preliminary results show the usefulness of the proposed methodology.
Reduced CX3CL1 Secretion Contributes to the Susceptibility of Oral Leukoplakia-Associated Fibroblasts to Candida albicans

Candida leukoplakia (OLK) is a kind of oral leukoplakia combined with chronic candidal infection, which plays an important role in the malignant transformation of OLK. However, little is known about the etiology, including susceptibility of leukoplakia to candidal adhesion, invasion and infection. Some antimicrobial peptides secreted by oral epithelial cells or fibroblasts potentially have antifungal activities against Candida albicans (C. albicans). In this study, we established three co-culture models to simulate different C. albicans-fibroblasts interactions during progression of candida leukoplakia. The susceptibility of oral leukoplakia-associated fibroblasts (LKAFs) to C. albicans and its underlying mechanism were determined. Samples of 14 LKAFs and 10 normal fibroblasts (NFs) were collected. The co-culture models showed that LKAFs had promoted the adhesion, invasion, and survival of C. albicans compared with NFs. CX3CL1, a chemokine with antifungal activity, was less abundant in LKAFs than NFs. Overexpression of CX3CL1 via transfection in LKAFs could partly restore the resistance to C. albicans. We also showed that inhibition of ERK could suppress CX3CL1 secretion. While phosphor-ERK was inhibited in LKAFs compared with NFs. Besides, the mRNA expression of a shedding enzyme for CX3CL1, disintegrin and metalloproteinase domain (ADAM) 17 was decreased in LKAFs than NFs. In conclusion, LKAFs produced and secreted less CX3CL1 by inhibiting the ERK signaling pathway, thereby contributing to impaired cell resistance to C. albicans.
Efficient Frequent Directions Algorithm for Sparse Matrices

This paper describes Sparse Frequent Directions, a variant of Frequent Directions for sketching sparse matrices. It resembles the original algorithm in many ways: both receive the rows of an input matrix An x d one by one in the streaming setting and compute a small sketch B ∈ Rl x d. Both share the same strong (provably optimal) asymptotic guarantees with respect to the space-accuracy tradeoff in the streaming setting. However, unlike Frequent Directions which runs in O(ndl) time regardless of the sparsity of the input matrix A, Sparse Frequent Directions runs in Õ(nnz(A)l + nl2) time. Our analysis loosens the dependence on computing the Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) as a black box within the Frequent Directions algorithm. Our bounds require recent results on the properties of fast approximate SVD computations. Finally, we empirically demonstrate that these asymptotic improvements are practical and significant on real and synthetic data.
Exploiting the 'Web of Trust' to improve efficiency in collaborative networks

Maintaining high quality content is one of the foremost objectives of any web-based collaborative service that depends on a large number of users. In such systems, it is nearly impossible for automated scripts to judge semantics as it is to expect all editors to review the content. This catalyzes the need for trust-based mechanisms to ensure quality of an article immediately after an edit. In this paper, we build on previous work and develop a framework based on the ‘web of trust’ concept to calculate satisfaction scores for all users without the need for perusing the article. We derive some bounds for systems based on our mechanism and show that the optimization problem of selecting the best users to review an article is NP-Hard. Extensive simulations validate our model and results, and show that trust-based mechanisms are essential to improve eciency in any online collaborative editing platform.
Constitutive and stimulus-induced phosphorylation of CD11/CD18 leukocyte adhesion molecules

The leukocyte CD11/CD18 adhesion molecules (beta 2 integrins) are a family of three heterodimeric glycoproteins each with a distinct alpha subunit (CD11a, b, or c) and a common beta subunit (CD18). CD11/CD18 mediate crucial leukocyte adhesion functions such as chemotaxis, phagocytosis, adhesion to endothelium, aggregation, and cell-mediated cytotoxicity. The enhanced cell adhesion observed upon activation of leukocytes is associated with increased surface membrane expression of CD11/CD18, as well as a qualitative upregulation of CD11/CD18 functions. To elucidate the nature of the qualitative modifications that occur, we examined the phosphorylation status of these molecules in resting human leukocytes and upon activation with PMA or with the chemotactic peptide F-met-leu-phe (FMLP). In unstimulated cells, all three CD11 subunits were found to be constitutively phosphorylated. In contrast, phosphorylation of the common CD18 subunit was minimal. PMA induced rapid and sustained phosphorylation of CD18 that occurred at high stoichiometry, but had only minimal effects on phosphorylation of the associated CD11 subunits. FMLP also induced rapid phosphorylation of CD18, but the effect was of short duration. FMLP-induced phosphorylation of CD18 was not related to its Ca++-mobilizing effect, as CD18 phosphorylation was not observed upon treatment of leukocytes with the Ca++ ionophore, ionomycin. Phosphoamino acid analysis of CD11/CD18 in PMA- or FMLP-treated monocytes revealed a predominance of phosphoserine residues in all CD11/CD18 subunits. A small component of phosphothreonine was present in CD11c and CD18 and a minor component of phosphotyrosine was also detected in CD18 upon leukocyte activation may regulate the adhesion functions mediated by the CD11/CD18 family of molecules.
Deposition of High-Efficiency Microcrystalline Silicon Solar Cells Using SiF $_{\bf 4}$/H$_{\bf 2}$ /Ar Mixtures

In this paper, we present results on microcrystalline silicon solar cells that are deposited from SiF4/H2/Ar mixtures, on which efficiencies exceeding 9% have already been obtained. Structural characterizations of the cells indicate a fully crystalline material with no preferential crystallographic orientation. This suggests that, as opposed to microcrystalline silicon cells deposited using silane, an amorphous phase is not required to passivate defects at column boundaries. These results are discussed in light of the specific growth mechanism and structural properties associated with film deposition using SiF4. They pave the way toward low-cost, high-performance polycrystalline cells on glass.
On Efficiently Integrating Boolean and Theory-Specific Solving Procedures

Efficient decision procedures have been conceived in different communities for a very heterogeneous collection of expressive decidable theories. However, despite in the last years we have witnessed an impressive advance in the efficiency of SAT procedures, techniques for efficiently integrating boolean reasoning and theory-specific decision procedures have been deeply investigated only recently, producing impressive performance improvements when applied. The goal of this paper is to analyze, classify and represent within a uniform framework the most effective techniques which have been proposed in various communities in order to maximize the efficiency of boolean reasoning within decision procedures.
Structure Effect on Antioxidant Activity of Catecholamines toward Singlet Oxygen and Other Reactive Oxygen Species in vitro

The reactivity of catecholamine neurotransmitters and the related metabolites were precisely investigated toward 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radicals and reactive oxygen species. Catecholamines reacted immediately with DPPH radicals, their reactivity being stronger than that of ascorbic acid as a reference. Superoxide scavenging activities of catecholamines determined by WST-1 and electron spin resonance (ESR) spin trapping methods were also high. Whereas tyrosine, the dopamine precursor showed no reactivity toward superoxide. The reactivity toward singlet oxygen was evaluated by observing specific photon emission from singlet oxygen. The results revealed that reactivity of catecholamines was markedly higher than that of sodium azide, and catechin as catechol reference. The reaction of catecholamines and singlet oxygen was further studied by ESR using 55-dimethyl-1-pyrroline N-oxide (DMPO) as a spin trapping reagent and rose bengal as photosensitizer. DMPO-OH signal of epinephrine was significantly small compared to other catecholamines, catechin, and 4-methylcatechol as a reference compound and was as small as that of tyrosine. The signal formation was totally dependent on singlet oxygen, and the presence of catechol compounds. These results indicated that epinephrine is the most potent singlet oxygen quencher than other catecholamines, and the secondary amino group in its alkyl side chain could play a role in unique singlet oxygen quenching property of epinephrine.
Wide temperature range operation of 10.7 Gbit/s uncooled DFB-LD TOSA with extremely high eye-mask margin

We report a wide temperature range operation of a 1.3-mum 10.7-Gbit/s directly modulated distributed feedback (DFB) LD transmitter optical sub-assembly (TOSA) with a TO-can package. With a 20-GHz relaxation oscillation frequency (fr) DFB-LD chip and a brand-new optimum TOSA design, high eye-mask margin over 15 % for SONET forward error correction (FEC) application even at the case temperature from -5 degC to 90 degC is firstly achieved. Drastic improvement of mask margins over 18% under 9.95 Gbit/s SONET operation, and over 41% at 11.1 Gbit/s Ethernet FEC application are also demonstrated. Furthermore, we have confirmed stable operation through an accelerated aging test on the DFB-LD chip and mechanical tests on the TOSA
Cytochrome c-554 from Methylosinus trichosporium OB3b; a Protein That Belongs to the Cytochrome c2 Family and Exhibits a HALS-Type EPR Signal

A small soluble cytochrome c-554 purified from Methylosinus trichosporium OB3b has been purified and analyzed by amino acid sequencing, mass spectrometry, visible, CD and EPR spectroscopies. It is found to be a mono heme protein with a characteristic cytochrome c fold, thus fitting into the class of cytochrome c 2, which is the bacterial homologue of mitochondrial cytochrome c. The heme iron has a Histidine/Methionine axial ligation and exhibits a highly anisotropic/axial low spin (HALS) EPR signal, with a g max at 3.40, and ligand field parameters V/ξ = 0.99, Δ/ξ = 4.57. This gives the rhombicity V/Δ = 0.22. The structural basis for this HALS EPR signal in Histidine/Methionine ligated hemes is not resolved. The ligand field parameters observed for cytochrome c-554 fits the observed pattern for other cytochromes with similar ligation and EPR behaviour.
Phase-change random access memory: A scalable technology

Nonvolatile RAM using resistance contrast in phase-change materials [or phase-change RAM (PCRAM)] is a promising technology for future storage-class memory. However, such a technology can succeed only if it can scale smaller in size, given the increasingly tiny memory cells that are projected for future technology nodes (i.e., generations). We first discuss the critical aspects that may affect the scaling of PCRAM, including materials properties, power consumption during programming and read operations, thermal cross-talk between memory cells, and failure mechanisms. We then discuss experiments that directly address the scaling properties of the phase-change materials themselves, including studies of phase transitions in both nanoparticles and ultrathin films as a function of particle size and film thickness. This work in materials directly motivated the successful creation of a series of prototype PCRAM devices, which have been fabricated and tested at phase-change material cross-sections with extremely small dimensions as low as 3 nm × 20 nm. These device measurements provide a clear demonstration of the excellent scaling potential offered by this technology, and they are also consistent with the scaling behavior predicted by extensive device simulations. Finally, we discuss issues of device integration and cell design, manufacturability, and reliability.