Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Can volunteering in later life reduce the risk of dementia? A 5-year longitudinal study among volunteering and non-volunteering retired seniors

We propose that voluntary work, characterized by social, physical and cognitive activity in later life is associated with fewer cognitive problems and lower dementia rates. We test these assumptions using 3-wave, self-reported, and registry data from the 2010, 2012, and 2014 Swedish National Prescribed Drug Register. We had three groups of seniors in our data: 1) no volunteering (N = 531), 2) discontinuous volunteering (N = 220), and 3) continuous volunteering (N = 250). We conducted a path analysis in Mplus to investigate the effect of voluntary work (discontinuously and continuously) on self-reported cognitive complaints and the likelihood of being prescribed an anti-dementia treatment after controlling for baseline and relevant background variables. Our results indicated that seniors, who continuously volunteered, reported a decrease in their cognitive complaints over time, whereas no such associations were found for the other groups. In addition, they were 2.44 (95%CI [1.86; 3.21]) and 2.46 (95%CI [1,89; 3.24]) times less likely to be prescribed an anti-dementia treatment in 2012 and 2014, respectively. Our results largely support the assumptions that voluntary work in later life is associated with lower self-reported cognitive complaints and a lower risk for dementia, relative to those who do not engage, or only engage episodically in voluntary work.
Prognostic value of blood gas analyses in patients with idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension

Blood gas abnormalities in patients with idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH) may be related to disease severity and prognosis. The present authors performed a 12-yr retrospective analysis assessing arterialised capillary blood gases, haemodynamics, exercise variables and survival in 101 patients with IPAH. At baseline, arterial oxygen tension (Pa,O2) and carbon dioxide arterial tension (Pa,CO2) were 9.17±1.86 and 4.25±0.532 kPa, respectively. While Pa,O2 was not associated with survival, a low Pa,CO2 was a strong and independent prognostic marker. When patients were divided according to a baseline Pa,CO2 value above or below 4.25 kPa, a cut-off value determined by receiver operating characteristics analysis, survival rates were 98 and 86% at 1 yr, 82 and 69% at 2 years, 80 and 51% at 3 yrs, 77 and 41% at 5 yrs, and 65 and 12% at 8 yrs, respectively. Pa,CO2 after 3 months of medical therapy was strongly associated with survival. Hypocapnia at rest and during exercise correlated with low cardiac output, low peak oxygen uptake and reduced ventilatory efficacy. Multiple regression analysis revealed that 6-min walking distance, right atrial pressure and Pa,CO2 were independently associated with survival. In patients with idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension, hypocapnia (carbon dioxide arterial tension <4.25 kPa) is an independent marker of mortality.
Kinds, descriptions of kinds, concepts, and distributions

Within referential approaches to meaning, Carlson’s (1977) notion of kind as an entity has played an influential role not only in the analysis of generic sentences, but also in the analysis of common noun semantics within so-called “layered” approaches to the syntax and semantics of nominals (e.g. Zamparelli 2000). Within the latter approaches, two competing views of the role of kinds in the semantics of nominals have developed, neither of which is entirely satisfactory. In this paper I argue that by modeling the semantics of common nouns using distributional semantic representations and connecting them in a very specific way to an otherwise standard referential semantics, we overcome the limitations of these kind-based accounts of the semantics of common nouns while preserving their insights. Insofar as distributional representations have been proposed as ersatz conceptual representations (Lenci 2008b), the analysis also exemplifies a concrete proposal about how conceptual and referential approaches to meaning might be integrated.
Carry-over of persistent organochlorine pesticides through placenta to fetus.

OBJECTIVE As a consequence of environmental exposure, organochlorine pesticides accumulate in lipid rich-tissues such as maternal adipose tissue and partition to maternal blood serum and umbilical blood serum. To establish their distribution in the human body, the concentration gradients of organochlorine pesticides between these compartments were determined. MATERIAL AND METHODS Maternal adipose tissue, blood serum and umbilical blood serum samples from 64 volunteers admitted for cesarean delivery at Hospital Benito Coquet Lagunes were studied in Veracruz during 1997 and 1998. The pesticide residues were determined by gas chromatography and results obtained from different sample groups were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficients and simple lineal regression. RESULTS Significant results expressed on fat basis of organochlorine pesticides indicate that 1,1,1-trichloro-2,2-bis(4-chlorophenyl)ethane (DDT) levels are higher in maternal adipose tissue (4.51 mg/kg DDE and 1.27 mg/kg pp'DDT), maternal blood serum (4.45 mg/kg DDE and 0.78 mg/kg pp'DDT), and umbilical blood serum (4.70 mg/kg DDE and 0.88 mg/kg pp'DDT), due to greater affinity of DDT for lipids. CONCLUSIONS The statistical evaluation of results and the pairing of samples analyzed indicate that absorbed organochlorine pesticides cross the placental barrier and reach a balanced state between mother and fetus.
A JAK 2V 617 F activating mutation in addition to KIT and FLT 3 mutations is associated with clinical outcome in patients with t ( 8 ; 21 ) ( q 22 ; q 22 ) acute myeloid leukemia

We thank Juergen Thiele and Hans Kvasnicka for commenting on our recently published paper including 605 patients with essential thrombocythemia (ET). We provided evidence that progression to myelofibrosis (postET MF) has a prevalence of 2.8% (10-year risk of 3.9%), and that progression to acute leukemia (AL) has a prevalence of 2.3% (10-year risk of 2.6%). The first question of Thiele and Kvasnicka concerns the evolution of ET in post-ET MF and AL. They asked that the prevalence of post-ET MF and AL in patients diagnosed according to the PVSG criteria and with the WHO criteria, be evaluated separately. The analysis suggested would be strongly biased by the fact that PVSG-classified patients have longer follow-up than WHO-classified patients. In the paper, we mentioned that the longer the follow-up, the higher the risk of transformation into myelofibrosis or leukemia. We regret that their request could not be satisfied, but a direct comparison of these two cohorts with different follow-up may give a misleading message. The second question from Thiele and Kvasnicka concerns the diagnostic differentiation between ET and prefibrotic/early fibrotic phase of primary myelofibrosis (PMF), an entity recognized on the basis of bone marrow features by the WHO classification of 2001. However, the recent WHO classification requires the combination of histological picture, clonal markers and clinical parameters to diagnose PMF at prefibrotic or fibrotic phase. In our series we excluded cases of PMF (excluded combination of leukoerythroblastosis, anemia, elevated LDH, spleen enlargement). Concerning the discussion on sequential bone marrow evaluations, we perform bone marrow biopsy at diagnosis in all the patients and during follow-up when we suspect clinical progression of the disease. We are glad to know that the prevalence of myelofibrosis reported by Thiele and Kvasnicka ranges between 2.8% and 3.5%. We find that this is a reassuringly low prevalence for patients with ET. Francesco Passamonti, Elisa Rumi, Emanuela Boveri, and Mario Lazzarino Division of Hematology, and Department of Surgical Pathology, Fondazione IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo, University of Pavia, Italy Correspondence: Francesco Passamonti, Clinica Ematologica, Fondazione IRCCS Policlinico S. Matteo, viale Golgi 19, 27100 Pavia, Italy. E-mail: f.passamonti@smatteo.pv. it Citation: Passamonti F, Rumi E, Boveri E, and Lazzarino M. Myelofibrotic transformation in essential thrombocythemia. Author reply. Haematologica 2009; 94: 433-433. doi:10.3324/haematol.2008. 002071 References
Life without Perlecan Has Its Problems

Perlecan is a large heparan sulfate proteoglycan with a wide tissue distribution and multiple potential functions (see [Iozzo 1998][1]). The glycosaminoglycan chains, located in the NH2-terminal domain of the core protein, bind basic FGF-2 and have been shown to promote the mitogenic and angiogenic
Cyclin Dependent Kinase 11, Neuroinflammation and Alzheimer's Disease: A Review

Aging is the main risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). With aging, inflammation has been recognized as potential trigger for starting the neurodegenerative cascade leading to neuronal death. Before Aβ and tau accumulation, evidence has put alterations of the cell cycle at the core of these processes. Still, a number of features of the cell cycle re-entry phenotype have remained elusive to the role of ectopic protein expression in the process of neuroinflammation and consequently neuronal cell death. Recently, a novel cyclin dependent kinase CDK11 has been found to be involved in astrocyte mediated inflammatory response and Alzheimer’s disease. In this review, we aim to establish the missing part of the puzzle between neuroinflammation and APP / Aβ deregulation in AD by evaluating the role of a cyclin, CDK11. CDK11 may play a vital role in cell cycle re-entry in AD neurons in an APP-dependent manner, thus presenting an intriguing novel function of the APP signaling pathway in AD.
Researcher affiliation extraction from homepages

Our paper discusses the potential use of Web Content Mining techniques for gathering scientific social information from the homepages of researchers. We will introduce our system which seeks [affiliation, position, start year, end year] information tuples on these homepages along with preliminary experimental results. We believe that the lessons learnt from these experiments may be useful for further scientific social web mining.
Argumentação em preâmbulos constitucionais: interfaces em contextos lusófonos

This is a comparative study between argumentative strategies used in the Portuguese and Brazilian Constitutional Preambles, from 1976 and 1988, respectively, in order to verify the constructed constitutional ethos . Taking the Constitutional Preamble as an inclusive textual genre (Rastier, 1989), the analysis on the thematic and discursive components (Bronckart, 1999), provides indication to establish a comparative analysis of texts. The results obtained show that, when comparing different historical contexts, the constitutional ethos of the Portuguese Preamble seems to be pedagogical and have a more asymmetrical tone when compared with the Brazilian one, which is more protective.
2 . 3 Feature selection for grayscale texture analysis

Since more than 50 years texture in image material is a topic of research. Hereby, color was ignored mostly. This study compares 70 different configurations for texture analysis, using four features. For the configurations we used: (i) a gray value texture descriptor: the co-occurrence matrix and a color texture descriptor: the color correlogram, (ii) six color spaces, and (iii) several quantization schemes. A three classifier combination was used to classify the output of the configurations on the VisTex texture database. The results indicate that the use of a coarse HSV color space quantization can substantially improve texture recognition compared to various other gray and color quantization schemes.
A Phase Transition In Random Coin TossingDavid

Suppose that a coin with bias is tossed at renewal times of a renewal process, and a fair coin is tossed at all other times. Let be the distribution of the observed sequence of coin tosses, and let u n denote the chance of a renewal at time n. Harris and Keane (1997) showed that if P 1 n=1 u 2 n = 1, then and 0 are singular, while if P 1 n=1 u 2 n < 1 and is small enough, then is absolutely continuous with respect to 0. They conjectured that absolute continuity should not depend on , but only on the square-summability of fu n g. We show that in fact the power law governing the decay of fu n g is crucial, and for some renewal sequences fu n g, there is a phase transition at a critical parameter c 2 (0; 1): for jj < c the measures and 0 are mutually absolutely continuous, but for jj > c , they are singular. Moreover, for these sequences, the unknown bias can be recovered from the observations if it is large enough. When P 1 n=1 u 2 n = 1, the unknown bias can always be recovered.
Hierarchical XP: improving XP for large-scale projects in analogy to reorganization processes

XP is a light-weight methodology suited particularly for small-sized teams that develop software which has only vague or rapidly changing requirements. The discipline of systems engineering knows it as approach of incremental system change or also of “muddling through”. In this paper, we introduce three well known methods of reorganizing companies, namely, the holistic approach, the incremental approach, and the hierarchical approach. We show similarities between software engineering methods and company reorganization processes. In this context, we discuss the extreme programming (XP) approach and how the elements of the hierarchical approach can improve XP. We provide hints on how to scale up XP to larger projects e.g. those common in the telecommunication industry.
Diabetes Forecasting Using Supervised Learning Techniques

Diabetes Mellitus is one of the most serious health challenges affecting children, adolescents and young adults in both developing and developed countries. To predict hidden patterns of diseases diagnostic in the healthcare sector, nowadays we use various data mining techniques. In this paper, we have applied supervised machine learning techniques like Naive Bayes and J48 decision tree to identify diabetic patients. We evaluated the proposed methods on Pima Indian diabetes data sets, which is a data mining data sets from UCI machine learning laboratory. It has been observed through analysis of the experimental results that Naive Bayes performs better than the decision tree method J48.
A Review of Notifications Systems in Elder Care Environments: Challenges and Opportunities

For more than a decade, notification systems to support the care of older adults in settings such as hospitals, nursing homes, and homes have been developed. These systems aim to assist in the care process, trying to ensure the safety and wellness of the elderly, and thus to maintain or increase their quality of life. This chapter identifies challenges and areas of opportunity for the implementation of notification systems in these environments, considering a technological perspective. In this work, the authors firstly present a literature review of notification systems in the elderly care environments mentioned above. Subsequently, they propose a taxonomy to classify the reviewed works, and discuss a set of challenges and areas of opportunity that technology can offer in this environment. These areas of opportunity are projected as specific features in each of the identified healthcare environments.
GPU-based time parallel cache simulator

We present the design of time parallel trace-driven cache simulation for the purpose of evaluating different cache architectures. Due to the long simulation cycles, traditional sequential simulation methods are no longer practical. An obvious way to achieve fast parallel simulation is time parallel. It splits the whole trace into small slices which are assigned to parallel processors for concurrent simulation. In this paper, we introduce a novel time parallel multi-configuration simulation on single pass method. It exploits time partitioning as the main sources of parallelism and takes the full advantage of the computational capability offered by the Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) on the GPU. Our experimental results demonstrate that the cache simulator based on GPU platform gains 1.91× performance improvement compared to traditional serial algorithm.
Design of Time Delayed Chaotic Circuit with Threshold Controller

A novel time delayed chaotic oscillator exhibiting mono- and double scroll complex chaotic attractors is designed. This circuit consists of only a few operational amplifiers and diodes and employs a threshold controller for flexibility. It efficiently implements a piecewise linear function. The control of piecewise linear function facilitates controlling the shape of the attractors. This is demonstrated by constructing the phase portraits of the attractors through numerical simulations and hardware experiments. Based on these studies, we find that this circuit can produce multi-scroll chaotic attractors by just introducing more number of threshold values.
How Web 2.0 can Leverage Model Engineering in Practice

Today’s online model repositories offer to download and view the textual specifications of e.g. metamodels and models in the browser. For users, in order to efficiently search a model repository, a graphical visualization of the stored models is desirable. First attempts that automatically generate class diagrams as bitmaps, however, do not scale for large models and fail to present all information. In this paper, we present our Web 2.0 MetaModelbrowser, a model visualization service which provides an Ajax-based tree-viewer for efficiently browsing Ecore-based metamodels and their models. As a main contribution of this work the MetaModelbrowser is complementary to existing model repositories in that its visualization service can be integrated into them. The MetaModelbrowser, furthermore, allows zooming in and out of the details of arbitrarily sized models as necessary. Furthermore, we have done some case studies on the one hand how to extend the MetaModelbrowser, e.g., for creation, update, and deletion of model elements as well as supporting model weaving, and on the other hand how to incorporate the MetaModelbrowser in current versioning systems.
How MIMO capacity is linked with single element fading statistics

By analyzing comprehensive 8×8 MIMO measurements at 5.2 GHz in an indoor office environment, we demonstrate that MIMO capacity is mainly driven by the average receive SNR, since multipath richness does not vary a lot. We found that the channel matrix realizations measured at a single position are sufficient to predict capacity at all other positions in this specific environment. Deviations from this distinctive relation can be explained by correlation which is weakly linked to fading statistics. When the channel matrix coefficient magnitudes are Rice distributed, indicating dominant wave propagation leading to higher correlation, the capacity is typically lower than for strictly Rayleigh distributed channel matrix coefficient magnitudes (indicating rich multipath), at a given SNR.
A Gratitude Intervention in a Christian Church Community

This field experiment examined the effects of a gratefulness intervention in the context of a Christian church congregation. Two Christian congregations with comparable demographic and socio-economic characteristics were enrolled and assigned to the experimental and comparison conditions. The gratitude intervention was developed collaboratively with church leaders. Though within-subject effects were found for psychological well-being, spiritual well-being, life satisfaction, positive and negative affect, daily spiritual experiences, and favorable views of psychology and interdisciplinary collaboration, the comparison group showed similar increases to the intervention group. Thus, the effects of the gratitude intervention were supported within but not across groups. No significant changes occurred on measures of interpersonal engagement. This research represents the first quasi-experiment to study a gratitude intervention within a faith congregation. In spite of methodological limitations, it highlights the potential benefit of gratitude interventions designed in collaboration with clergy.
Performance study of a regulated switch system for double priority traffic

In this paper, we use simulation to evaluate the performance of a regulated internetworking packet switching system under various values of double priority offered load. The switch system under study uses buffers which have two regulators. One of them is called the Low Regulator and the other the High Regulator. The two regulators divide the queue into three segments in which different policies are applied. By handling the queue's two regulators we achieve traffic dynamic tuning in a backbone network by making a differentiated service. The results of this study can be used by network designers to configure their backbone networks optimally.
A Case Study on Integrating Extra-Functional Properties in Web Service Model-Driven Development

Being one of the most promising current technologies, Web services are at the crossing of distributed computing and loosely coupled systems. Although vendors provide multiple platforms for service implementation, service integrators, developers and providers demand approaches for managing service-oriented applications at all stages of development. In this sense, approaches such as model-driven development (MDD) and service component architecture (SCA) can be used jointly for modeling and integrating services regardless of the underlying platform technology. Besides, WS-policy provides a standard description for extra-functional properties, which remains independent of both the final implementation and the binding to the service in question. In this paper we show a case study in which the aforementioned MDD, SCA and WS-policy are assembled in order to develop Web services and their extra-functional properties from a platform independent model, which is later transformed into platform specific ones and then into code.
The Internal Kinematics of the Leo I Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy: Dark Matter at the Fringe of the Milky Way

We present radial velocities of 33 red giants in the Leo I dwarf spheroidal galaxy (dSph) obtained from spectra taken with the HIRES echelle spectrograph on the Keck Telescope. These data have a mean precision of 2.2 km s-1 and lead to estimates of the central velocity dispersion and systemic velocity of Leo I of 8.8 ± 1.3 km s-1 and 287.0 ± 1.9 km s-1, respectively. The systemic velocity confirms past results that Leo I has an unusually large galactocentric velocity, implying the presence of a massive dark halo in the Milky Way or an extended dark component pervading the Local Group. The V-band M/L ratio of Leo I is in the range 3.5–5.6. We have produced a set of models that accounts for the effects of stellar evolution on the global mass-to-light ratio of a composite population. Because Leo I contains a dominant intermediate-age population, we find that the V-band mass-to-light ratio of Leo I would be in the range 6–13 if it were composed exclusively of old stars such as those found in globular clusters. This suggests that Leo I probably does contain a significant dark halo. The mass of this halo is approximately 2 × 107 M☉, similar to the dark halo masses inferred for all other galactic dSph galaxies. Because Leo I is isolated and has passed the Milky Way at most once in the past, external tides could not plausibly have inflated its central dispersion to the observed value. We also considered whether modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND) could account for the internal kinematics of Leo I and conclude that this alternative gravitational model can account for the Leo I kinematics adequately without requiring a dark halo.