Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gender differences in the associations between perceived environment and walking for recreation in Taiwanese adults

ABSTRACT This study examined gender differences in the associations between perceived environmental factors and walking for recreation in Taiwanese adults. In 2014, a telephone-based, cross-sectional survey targeting Taiwanese adults (20–64 years) was conducted. Data on nine items about environmental perception, time spent in walking for recreation, and socio-demographic variables were obtained from 1,065 adults using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire-long version and its environmental module. Adults who perceived good aesthetics (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 1.74; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.36–2.23) and reported seeing people being active (AOR = 1.58; 95% CI: 1.21–2.06) were more likely to perform 150 minutes of recreational walking per week. Furthermore, significant interactions regarding walking for recreation were observed between gender and five environmental correlates: access to shops (p = .046), the presence of sidewalks (p < .001), access to recreational facilities (p = .02), seeing people being active (p = .001), and aesthetics (p < .001). These five perceived environmental factors were positively associated with recreational walking in women but not in men. Gender is a potential modifier between perceived environment and walking for recreation in adults. Perceived environmental factors appear to be more critical for women in performing health-enhancing levels of recreational walking than they are for men.
Primary Hyperparathyroidism and Thyroid Cancer : A Case Series

Primary hyperparathyroidism (PHTP) is the most common cause of outpatient hypercalcemia and has a prevalence of about one to seven cases per 1,000 adults. Concurrent thyroid disease and PHPT has been reported in 20% to 84% of the cases, although no causal relationship has been established. Malignant tumors of the thyroid are identified in approximately 2% to 20% of these cases. Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is the most common thyroid malignancy. Certain situations undoubtedly contribute to the development of both of these diseases, such as the use of therapeutic neck radiation for various clinical indications used in the past. Outside of these special situations with a clear etiology, the wide variation in reports of concomitant parathyroid and thyroid disease fuel debate as to the necessity and extent of thyroid evaluation prior to surgical treatment of PHPT. We report on 5 patients with thyroid cancer that was detected or suspected during work-up for surgical treatment of PHPT. In this case series, we aim to emphasize the need for preoperative evaluation of the thyroid gland in patients who will undergo surgical treatment for PHPT, as it is crucial to minimize reoperation rates and complications.
geman . in Dimensionality Reduction Via Proximal Manifolds *

The focus of this article is on studying the descriptive proximity of manifolds in images useful in digital image pattern recognition. Extraction of lowdimensional manifolds underlying high-dimensional image data spaces leads to efficient digital image analysis controlled by fewer parameters. The end result of this approach is dimensionality reduction, important for automatic learning in pattern recognition.
Whole cell vaccination for meningococcus: Lessons from an idea whose time has gone

Endotoxin in vaccines has long been recognized as a cause of adverse events and is generally regarded as a contaminant. However there are now a number of vaccine candidates that contain endotoxin as either antigen or adjuvant, particularly vaccines for Neisseria meningitidis based on native outer membrane vesicles (NOMV). Vaccines containing meningococcal endotoxin are not new. From 1907 to 1939 approximately 400,000 individuals were immunized with whole cell vaccines against meningococcus. We reviewed reports of meningococcal vaccinations from this period to characterize the adverse events to draw a baseline for evaluating meningococcal NOMV vaccines. The majority of these investigators conclude that whole cell vaccination was well tolerated with an adverse event profile comparable to other whole cell vaccines for Gram negative pathogens. There is insufficient data to draw conclusions on the duration of protection, if any, induced by whole cell meningococcal vaccines.
Novel spatiotemporal patterns of epithelial tumor invasion in Drosophila discs large egg chambers

Loss of Discslarge (Dlg) in early Drosophila egg chambers causes invasion of tumor follicle cells from the anterior epithelium, a pattern that resembles developmental border cell migration during mid‐oogenesis. Here, we have analyzed novel spatial and temporal patterns of dlg invasion. Even though Dlg is ubiquitously expressed in all follicle cells, invasions are biased at the anterior and posterior termini. The patterns of invasion correlate with both a higher rate of follicle cell proliferation and with a greater frequency of loss of epithelial polarity at the termini compared with central regions of the egg chamber. Nonetheless, the average number of cells that invade per invasion event from terminal vs. central regions is approximately equal. Of interest, patterns of dlg invasion appear to coincide with boundaries established by proto‐oncogene signals responsible for anterior–posterior patterning. The Drosophila egg chamber may thus be a useful model for exploring how epithelial tumor invasion might be a neomorphogenetic process organized by signals essential for developmental pattern formation. Developmental Dynamics 232:855–864, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Contextual Representation using Recurrent Neural Network Hidden State for Statistical Parametric Speech Synthesis

In this paper, we propose to use hidden state vector obtained from recurrent neural network (RNN) as a context vector representation for deep neural network (DNN) based statistical parametric speech synthesis. While in a typical DNN based system, there is a hierarchy of text features from phone level to utterance level, they are usually in 1-hot-k encoded representation. Our hypothesis is that, supplementing the conventional text features with a continuous frame-level acoustically guided representation would improve the acoustic modeling. The hidden state from an RNN trained to predict acoustic features is used as the additional contextual information. A dataset consisting of 2 Indian languages (Telugu and Hindi) from Blizzard challenge 2015 was used in our experiments. Both the subjective listening tests and the objective scores indicate that the proposed approach performs signiﬁcantly better than the baseline DNN system.
Serum free light chain analysis in B-cell dyscrasias.

In a recent issue of this journal, Abadie et al [1] reported on the use of serum free light chain (FLC) assays in the diagnosis of B-cell dyscrasias in a veteran’s hospital population. Although we are in general agreement with their findings, we wish to present additional data that are relevant to the clinical interpretation of serum FLC results. Prior publications have shown the diagnostic utility of monoclonal serum FLC assays for identifying monoclonal gammopathies in patients with primary systemic amyloidosis (AL), nonsecretory multiple myeloma (NSMM), and light chain myeloma (LCM) [2]. The FLC ratio (the ratio of free kappa (κ) to free lambda chains (λ)) has been included as part of a risk assessment panel, which predicts progression to malignant conditions in patients with monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) [3]. A previous article has supported the use of FLC measurements in the follow-up of patients with intact monoclonal immunoglobulin multiple myeloma (IMM) [4], while another report has expressed reservations about the use of the assay in the routine laboratory [5]. The International Myeloma Working Group [6] recommends serum light chain assay as a sensitive method of detecting light chain disease, NSMM, AL, or solitary plasmacytoma. Myeloma management guidelines [7] recommend the use of serum FLC for serial monitoring but require the additional measurement of Bence-Jones protein. The UK Myeloma Forum and Nordic Myeloma Study Group state that quantification of serum FLC levels and computation of the κ/λ ratio can be used as an alternative to quantifying urinary light chains [8]. Some authors comment that the clinical utility of serum FLC measurement to monitor IMM remains to be demonstrated [9,10]. In this letter we present the results of a 2-yr prospective study on the use of serum FLC, in addition to serum protein electrophoresis, in the follow-up of patients with B-cell dyscrasias.
Serial order in an acting system: A multidimensional dynamic neural fields implementation

Learning and generating serially ordered sequential behavior in a real, embodied agent that is situated in a partially unknown environment requires that noisy sensory information is used both to control appropriate motor actions and to determine that a particular action has been successfully terminated. While most current models do not address these conditions of embodied sequence generation, we have earlier proposed a neurally inspired model based on Dynamic Field Theory that enables sequences in which each action may take unpredictable amounts of time. Here we extend this earlier work to accommodate heterogeneous sets of actions. We show that a set of matching conditions-of-satisfaction can be used to stably represent the terminal condition of each action and trigger the cascade of instabilities that switches the system from one stable state to the next. A robotic implementation on a vehicle with a camera and a simple robot arm demonstrates the stability of the resulting scheme.
PSO based single strategy risk programming problem for virtual enterprise

Virtual enterprise will be the main organization mode for enterprises in information society of twenty-one century. Focus on the fuzzy characteristics and project organization mode of virtual enterprises, the risk programming methods for virtual enterprise are studied in this paper. As we all known, the classical particle swarm optimization (PSO) is a powerful method for finding the optimum of a numerical function on a continuous definition space, however, the study in discrete space is seldom. The single strategy risk programming problem for virtual enterprise is solved by PSO in this paper and the global risk level of the virtual enterprise estimated by fuzzy synthetic evaluation method. Simulation result suggests that the method is simple and effective
Testing fluvial erosion models using the transient response of bedrock rivers to tectonic forcing in the Apennines, Italy

The transient response of bedrock rivers to a drop in base level can be used to discriminate between competing fluvial erosion models. However, some recent studies of bedrock erosion conclude that transient river long profiles can be approximately characterized by a transport‐limited erosion model, while other authors suggest that a detachment‐limited model best explains their field data. The difference is thought to be due to the relative volume of sediment being fluxed through the fluvial system. Using a pragmatic approach, we address this debate by testing the ability of end‐member fluvial erosion models to reproduce the well‐documented evolution of three catchments in the central Apennines (Italy) which have been perturbed to various extents by an independently constrained increase in relative uplift rate. The transport‐limited model is unable to account for the catchments’response to the increase in uplift rate, consistent with the observed low rates of sediment supply to the channels. Instead, a detachment‐limited model with a threshold corresponding to the field‐derived median grain size of the sediment plus a slope‐dependent channel width satisfactorily reproduces the overall convex long profiles along the studied rivers. Importantly, we find that the prefactor in the hydraulic scaling relationship is uplift dependent, leading to landscapes responding faster the higher the uplift rate, consistent with field observations. We conclude that a slope‐ dependent channel width and an entrainment/erosion threshold are necessary ingredients when modeling landscape evolution or mapping the distribution of fluvial erosion rates in areas where the rate of sediment supply to channels is low.
Development of 13 microsatellite markers in the endangered Sinai primrose (Primula boveana, Primulaceae)1

Premise of the study: We developed microsatellite markers for the endangered plant Primula boveana, the Sinai primrose, and assessed the cross-transferability of these markers to six related taxa. Methods and Results: DNA sequences containing microsatellites were isolated from a microsatellite-enriched library. We obtained successful amplification of 13 microsatellite primer pairs, seven of which were polymorphic in P. boveana. Eleven of these primers successfully cross-amplified to related taxa. Conclusions: The markers reported herein will be useful to characterize the genetic diversity of the endangered P. boveana and to evaluate its mating system, and have the potential to be useful for similar studies in close relatives.
SATB1-Binding Sequences and Alu-Like Motifs Define a Unique Chromatin Context in the Vicinity of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Integration Sites

ABSTRACT Retroviral integration has recently been shown to be nonrandom, favoring transcriptionally active regions of chromatin. However, the mechanism for integration site selection by retroviruses is not clear. We show here the occurrence of Alu-like motifs in the sequences flanking the reported viral integration sites that are significantly different from those obtained from the randomly picked sequences from the human genome, suggesting that unique primary sequence features exist in the genomic regions targeted by human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). Additionally, these sequences were preferentially bound by SATB1, the T lineage-restricted chromatin organizer, in vitro and in vivo. Alu repeats make up nearly 10% of the human genome and have been implicated in the regulation of transcription. To specifically isolate sequences flanking the viral integration sites and also harboring both Alu-like repeats and SATB1-binding sites, we combined chromatin immunoprecipitation with sequential PCRs. The cloned sequences flanking HIV-1 integration sites were specifically immunoprecipitated and amplified from the pool of anti-SATB1-immunoprecipitated genomic DNA fragments isolated from HIV-1 NL4.3-infected Jurkat T-cell chromatin. Moreover, many of these sequences were preferentially partitioned in the DNA associated tightly with the nuclear matrix and not in the chromatin loops. Strikingly, many of these regions were disfavored for integration when SATB1 was silenced, providing unequivocal evidence for its role in HIV-1 integration site selection. We propose that definitive sequence features such as the Alu-like motifs and SATB1-binding sites provide a unique chromatin context in vivo which is preferentially targeted by the HIV-1 integration machinery.
Train positioning based on strap-down inertial system

The positioning method based on beacon combination with speed sensor in vehicle is widely adopted in train operation. In this method, however, there is large erro due to the interval of two adjacent beacons and slip/slide of speed sensor. A train positioning method based on SINS technology used to calculate the running trajectory of train is present in this paper. In order to work out the trajectory in real-time, the average filter was utilized to remove the DC component of acceleration signals in SINS and the double integral filter based Simpson's rule was applied to transform the acceleration signals to displacement signals. Experiment shows that this method is capable of getting the trajectory of a running train with high precision and good repeatability.
Near-optimal power allocation for MIMO channels with mean or covariance feedback

With mean or covariance channel feedback, the input covariance matrix can be designed to achieve the ergodic capacity of a MIMO fading channel. It is known that the eigenvectors of the optimal input covariance matrix are the same as the eigen-vectors of the channel mean or covariance matrix. However, the optimal power allocation across the eigen-vectors is much less understood. In this paper, two scenarios are investigated: (1) Rician MIMO channels with mean channel feedback, and (2) Rayleigh MIMO channels with covariance channel feedback. We first derive a suboptimal power allocation algorithms in the spatial domain for expected mutual information maximization for two transmit antennas systems, based on an upper bound for the ergodic capacity of a MIMO channel with either channel mean or covariance information at the transmitter. Then, we extend heuristically the results to systems with multiple antennas at both the transmitter and receiver side. The proposed power allocation solution permits a closed-form expression and has a water-filling interpretation. Simulation results reveal that the proposed method performs nearly the same as the optimal solution (which requires highly complex optimization routines over random processes) with inappreciable difference.
A Modified Activation Function with Improved Run-Times For Neural Networks

In this paper we present a modified version of the Hyperbolic Tangent Activation Function as a learning unit generator for neural networks. The function uses an integer calibration constant as an approximation to the Euler number, e, based on a quadratic Real Number Formula (RNF) algorithm and an adaptive normalization constraint on the input activations to avoid the vanishing gradient. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed modification using a hypothetical and real world dataset and show that lower run-times can be achieved by learning algorithms using this function leading to improved speed-ups and learning accuracies during training.
Time-frequency ESPRIT method for near-field source localization

In this paper, a passive source localization technique for estimating the range and bearing of near field sources is proposed. The algorithm utilizes spatial time-frequency matrices and ESPRIT method to estimate parameters of the near-field sources. It is shown that the high estimation performance for the range and bearing of near-field sources are achieved by the proposed method (time-frequency ESPRIT) even when the signal-to-noise ration is low or sources are close in space. The new algorithm also doesn't need an additional parameters pairing procedure when all sources don't share the same time-frequency signatures.
Fine structural morphometry on biopsy specimens of human lung. 1. Normal lung.

Stereologic techniques were applied to an electronmicroscopic study of random samples of normal lung tissue obtained from nine patients during thoracotomy. Relative fractional volumes of lung components, alveolar and capillary surface areas, surface-to-volume ratios, and arithmetic and harmonic mean thicknesses of the alveolar-capillary membranes were determined and compared with values previously obtained by others for inflated whole lung. Values for fractional volumes and absolute surface area were significantly influenced by changes in lung Inflation imposed by the sampling technique and the use of predicted normal lung volumes for purposes of calculation. However, parameters for alveolar septal structures agreed closely with those obtained for inflated whole lung. Distribution in a volume could not be assessed, but within the limits of this study, there did not appear to be a significant difference in the width of the blood-air barrier between inflated and noninflated states.
Blind equalization in wavelet domain

In this paper we propose and analyze an approach to improve the convergence rate of blind equalizers for nonstationary signals using wavelet transformation. Transform domain adaptive filters are famous for their improved convergence rate over the conventional least mean square (LMS) algorithm and also facilities for noise reduction without giving much increase in the computational cost; on the other hand, blind equalizers suffer from the poor convergence rate. We propose a wavelet domain (WD) equalization method to improve the convergence rate and discuss its advantage over other transform domain adaptive filters. This discussion is performed on two important categories of blind equalization; the stochastic gradient descent approach and cyclostationary based approach that is used in the case of blind fractionally spaced equalization (FSE) of channels.
Judging the Veracity of Claims and Reliability of Sources with Fact-Finders

The Information Age has made publishing, distributing and collecting information easier, resulting in the exponential growth of information available to us. Databases were once ledgers written by hand by a single person; today they can be vast stores of data agglomerated from a myriad of disparate sources. The mass media, formerly limited to newspapers and television programs held to strict journalistic standards, has expanded to include collaborative content such as blogs, wikis, and message boards. Documents covering nearly every topic abound on the Internet, but the authors are often anonymous and the accuracy uncertain. To cope with this new abundance, we employ information retrieval to suggest documents, and information extraction to tell us what they say, but how can we determine what we should actually believe? Not all information sources are equally trustworthy, and simply accepting the majority view often leads to errors: a Google search for “water runs downhill” returns 17.5K documents, while “water runs uphill” yields 116K. When we consider a collection of data with various authorship, we may view it as a set of information sources each making one or more claims. Sources often make claims that are contradictory (“Shakespeare was born on April 26th, 1564” and “Shakespeare was born on April 23rd, 1564”) and, even in the absence of contradiction, we have no guarantee that the sole presented claim is true. How, then, can we know which claims to believe, and which sources to trust? The typical approach is simple: take a vote and choose the claim made by the largest number of sources. However, this implicitly (and implausibly) assumes that all sources are equally trustworthy and, moreover, ignores the wealth of other claims being made by both these and other sources that could inform our belief in the particular claim at hand. For example, if we can ascertain that John’s other claims of birthdays for historic figures were correct, his claim about Shakespeare should (ceteris paribus) carry more weight. A diverse class of algorithms collectively known as fact-finders does just this, using the full network of sources and claims to jointly estimate both the trustworthiness of the sources and the believability of the claims. This is useful not just in judging the assertions made by authors in articles, but also in areas such as sensor networks and crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing of information–where information is polled from a wider population–can be done via direct voting, the most famous being reCaptcha (Von Ahn, Maurer, McMillen, Abraham, & Blum, 2008), which uses humans to solve difficult OCR problems as a Turing test and accepts the text for a candidate word image once it has accrued enough votes. Similarly, the ESP Game (Von Ahn & Dabbish, 2004) obtains image labelings, presenting the task as a game. In both cases, the annotators are presented with examples