Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Beyond-Planarity: Density Results for Bipartite Graphs

Beyond-planarity focuses on the study of geometric and topological graphs that are in some sense nearly-planar. Here, planarity is relaxed by allowing edge crossings, but only with respect to some local forbidden crossing configurations. Early research dates back to the 1960s (e.g., Avital and Hanani 1966) for extremal problems on geometric graphs, but is also related to graph drawing problems where visual clutter by edge crossings should be minimized (e.g., Huang et al. 2008) that could negatively affect the readability of the drawing. Different types of forbidden crossing configurations give rise to different families of nearly-planar graphs. Most of the literature focuses on Tur\'an-type problems, which ask for the maximum number of edges a nearly-planar graph can have. Here, we study this problem for bipartite topological graphs, considering several types of nearly-planar graphs, i.e., 1-planar, 2-planar, fan-planar, and RAC graphs. We prove bounds on the number of edges that are tight up to small additive constants; some of them are surprising and not along the lines of the known results for non-bipartite graphs. Our findings lead to an improvement of the leading constant of the well-known Crossing Lemma for bipartite graphs, as well as to a number of interesting research questions on topological graphs.
Portion control plate for weight loss in obese patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: a controlled clinical trial.

BACKGROUND Portion size is an important determinant of energy intake. To our knowledge, no randomized controlled trial has evaluated the efficacy of portion control tools to induce weight loss. In patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus, weight reduction improves glycemic control. METHODS We randomly assigned 130 obese patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (including 55 patients taking insulin) to the daily use of a commercially available portion control plate for 6 months (intervention group) vs to usual care in the form of dietary teaching (usual care control group). RESULTS Follow-up was 93.8%. Patients in the intervention group lost significantly more weight than control subjects (mean+/-SD, 1.8%+/-3.9% vs 0.1%+/-3.0%, P=.006). Compared with controls, more patients in the intervention group required a decrease in their diabetes medications at 6 months (26.2% vs 10.8%, P=.04). CONCLUSIONS Compared with usual care, the portion control tool studied was effective in inducing weight loss. The portion control plate also enabled patients with diabetes mellitus to decrease their hypoglycemic medications without sacrificing glycemic control. TRIAL REGISTRATION clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00254124.
Mucosal Healing in Clinical Practice: A Single-Center Pediatric IBD Experience

Background: Mucosal healing (MH) is associated with improved clinical outcomes in patients with Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). MH as a target for treatment has been suggested, although there is little pediatric data. The goal of this study was to evaluate MH in clinical practice in pediatric patients with inflammatory bowel disease in clinical remission. Methods: A retrospective review of electronic health record data was performed on all patients with CD or UC who underwent at least 2 colonoscopies from 2010 through 2016. Only patients in clinical remission undergoing a scope for MH were included in our study. The incidence of MH and histologic healing (HH) was analyzed, along with cumulative rates of MH in each group. MH was defined by both physician assessment of MH and an endoscopic score of zero for CD and UC. Results: A total of 76 patients with CD and 28 patients with UC underwent at least one MH scope while in clinical remission. Of the 76 patients with CD, 51 patients (67%) demonstrated MH by physician assessment, 34 patients (45%) demonstrated MH by a simple endoscopic score for CD of zero, and 35 patients (46%) demonstrated HH. Of the 28 patients with UC, 20 patients (71%) demonstrated MH by physician assessment, 10 patients (36%) demonstrated MH by a Mayo score of zero, and 10 patients (36%) demonstrated HH. Nineteen patients underwent a second MH scope and 11 (58%) demonstrated MH by physician assessment, 7 patients (37%) demonstrated MH by simple endoscopic score for CD or Mayo scores of zero, and 5 patients (26%) demonstrated HH. Of those patients with active disease, 21 of 25 patients with CD underwent escalation of therapy, whereas 8 of 8 patients with UC underwent escalation of therapy. Cumulative rates of MH when defined by physician assessment were 79% (60 of 76 patients) in CD and 79% (22 of 28 patients) in UC. Conclusions: MH is feasible in pediatric CD and UC, and rates of cumulative MH in pediatric patients are similar to previously published adult data. In children with inflammatory bowel disease in clinical remission, approximately one-third demonstrate active disease at endoscopy.
Lean Production in Construction

In manufacturing, great gains in performance have been realized by a new production philosophy, which leads to "lean production". This new production philosophy is a generalization of such partial approaches as JIT, TQM, time-based competition, and concurrent engineering. In construction, lean production is little known. The concepts, principles and methods of lean production are reviewed, and their applicability in construction is analyzed. The implications of lean production to construction practice and research are considered.
C-reactive protein levels, haplotypes, and the risk of incident chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

RATIONALE Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is characterized by substantial chronic inflammation in the pulmonary compartment as well as in the systemic circulation. OBJECTIVES To investigate potentially causal association, we examined whether serum levels of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) and variations in the CRP gene are associated with the risk of developing COPD. METHODS This study is part of the Rotterdam Study, a prospective population-based cohort study among subjects aged 55 years or older. At baseline, 6,836 subjects without COPD had a blood sample available for assessment of hsCRP serum levels and haplotypes of the CRP gene. We analyzed the association between hsCRP levels, CRP gene haplotypes, and incident COPD with Cox proportional hazard models, adjusted for age, sex, and other confounders. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS High levels of hsCRP (>3 mg/L) were associated with a significantly increased risk of incident COPD (hazard ratio [HR], 1.7; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.16-2.49) compared with persons with low levels (<1 mg/L). The risk remained increased after adjusting for potential confounders and introducing a latency period of 3 years. The risk was most pronounced in former smokers (HR, 2.2; 95% CI, 1.12-3.74). hsCRP was not a risk factor in never smokers. No CRP single nucleotide polymorphism or haplotype was associated with a significantly increased or decreased COPD risk. CONCLUSIONS Increased hsCRP levels are predictive for the occurrence of COPD in smokers. However, haplotypes of the CRP gene, which influence hsCRP levels, are not associated with an altered risk of developing COPD.
Influence of particle solubility on the delivery of inhaled manganese to the rat brain: manganese sulfate and manganese tetroxide pharmacokinetics following repeated (14-day) exposure.

Dissolution rate can influence the pulmonary clearance of a metal and thus affect its delivery to the brain and other organs. The goal of this study was to determine the exposure-response relationship for the relatively soluble sulfate (MnSO(4)) and insoluble tetroxide (Mn(3)O(4)) forms of inhaled manganese in adult male CD rats. Rats were exposed 6 h/day for 7 days/week (14 exposures) to either MnSO(4) or Mn(3)O(4) at 0, 0.03, 0.3, or 3 mg Mn/m(3). End-of-exposure olfactory bulb, striatum, cerebellum, bile, lung, liver, femur, serum, and testes (n = 6 rats/concentration/chemical) manganese concentrations and whole-body (54)Mn elimination were then determined. Increased whole-body (54)Mn clearance rates were observed in animals from the high-dose (3 mg Mn/m(3)) MnSO(4) and Mn(3)O(4) exposure groups. Elevated manganese concentrations in the lung were observed following MnSO(4) and Mn(3)O(4) exposure to > or=0.3 mg Mn/m(3). Increased olfactory bulb and femur manganese concentrations were also observed following MnSO(4) exposure at > or=0.3 mg Mn/m(3). Elevated striatal, testes, liver, and bile manganese concentrations were observed following exposure to MnSO(4) at 3 mg Mn/m(3). Elevated olfactory bulb, striatal, femur, and bile manganese concentrations were observed following exposure to Mn(3)O(4) at 3 mg Mn/m(3). Animals exposed to MnSO(4) (3 mg Mn/m(3)) had lower lung and higher olfactory bulb and striatal manganese concentrations compared with levels achieved following similar Mn(3)O(4) exposures. Our results suggest that inhalation exposure to soluble forms of manganese results in higher brain manganese concentrations than those achieved following exposure to an insoluble form of manganese.
Transport protocol dependent communications in different packet switch architectures

We investigated the joint influence of different packet switch architectures, controlled and uncontrolled transport layer protocols and transport flow characteristics on the packet switching performance. In network simulator ns2, three packet switch architectures were implemented and combined with UDP and TCP transport. This multilayer model thus combines mechanisms of L1-2 and L4. Additionally, flows with different mean flow size and flow size distribution were applied and the impact transport flow characteristic was analyzed. In particular, the heavy-tail distributed flows were compared to constant flow size. The switching performance measured in terms of packet loss probability and packet delay were analyzed under different traffic loads and buffer sizes. The purpose of the research was thus to understand in more detail a possible impact of new IP traffic patterns (e.g. caused by predominant share of peer-to-peer traffic and corresponding applications) on packet switching systems. The results indicate that the intrinsic characteristics of packet switch architectures reflect in the performance under different transport protocols and flows. The influence of the load or buffer space change is more manageable or predictable, even if we consider the differences among architectures. On the other hand, keeping the same overall load and just replacing the TCP transport with UDP or loading the network with heavy-tail distributed flow sizes or increasing the mean flow size results in more aggressive traffic patterns that may result in a severe deterioration of switching performance
The Human 26 S and 20 S Proteasomes Generate Overlapping but Different Sets of Peptide Fragments from a Model Protein Substrate*

Intracellular protein degradation is a major source of short antigenic peptides that can be presented on the cell surface in the context of major histocompatibility class I molecules for recognition by cytotoxic T lymphocytes. The capacity of the most important cytosolic protease, the 20 S proteasome, to generate peptide fragments with an average length of 7–8 amino acid residues has been thoroughly investigated. It has been shown that the cleavage products are not randomly generated, but originate from the commitment of the catalytically active subunits to complex recognition motifs in the primary amino acid sequence. The role of the even larger 26 S proteasome is less well defined, however. It has been demonstrated that the 26 S proteasome can bind and degrade ubiquitin-tagged proteins and minigene translation products in vivo and in vitro, but the nature of the degradation products remains elusive. In this study, we present the first analysis of cleavage products from in vitro digestion of the unmodified model substrate β-casein with both the 26 S and 20 S proteasome. The data we obtained show that 26 S and 20 S proteasomes generate overlapping, but at the same time substantially different, sets of fragments by following very similar instructions.
India's Trade Openness

The dramatic trade policy shifts of early 1990s have brought in considerable changes in India's foreign trade scenario. The paper is an attempt to analyse India's policy shifts and to examine changes in trade performances following the major reforms in 1991. It tries to have a picture of India's trade status and trade growth in 1990s as compared to the pre-openness period, and also relative to some selected developing economies. The analyses revealed that India became more open in 1990s, and its volume off oreign trade registered considerable growth in the post-openness period. However, India has been maintaining higher trade barriers compared to almost all economies of the comparison group, and its share in the global trade remained negligible. The empirical analyses also show that there has been positive and strong association between India's foreign trade and economic growth over the period under study, however, there is no indication that openness has been contributing in improving the productivity of domestic capital in India.
How best to teach women breast self-examination. A randomized controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE To compare three methods for teaching breast self-examination. DESIGN Randomized controlled trial with factorial design. SETTING A general medicine group practice in a university hospital. PATIENTS Continuing-care patients from 40 to 68 years of age. Of 456 eligible women, 156 refused participation, 300 were randomly assigned, 269 completed assigned interventions, and 260 completed the post-test 1 year later. INTERVENTIONS One third of patients received nurse instruction stressing tactile skills (Mammacare group) (Mammatech Corporation, Gainesville, Florida); one third, traditional nurse instruction emphasizing technique (traditional group); and one third, no nurse instruction (control group). Half of each group received physician encouragement. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS One year later, women in the Mammacare group found more lumps (mean, 57%; 95% CI, 54% to 60%) in manufactured breast models than did those in the traditional (mean, 47%; CI, 44% to 51%) and control (mean, 45%; CI, 42% to 48%) groups. Lump detection specificity was unaffected. Self-reported examination frequency rose in all groups, to 5.1 times per 6 months in the traditional group, 4.2 in the Mammacare group, and 3.9 in the control group. Physician encouragement did not improve sensitivity, specificity, or overall frequency. Women in the Mammacare group used more of seven examination techniques (4.9) than did those in the traditional (3.9) or control (3.2) groups (P less than 0.001). No group increased health care use or reported more overall worry about breast cancer. CONCLUSIONS Mammacare instruction resulted in more long-term improved lump detection and examination technique use than did traditional instruction or physician encouragement. Breast self-examination instruction should emphasize lump detection skills.
OPTICAL REVOLUTION IN COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS AND ITS SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC IMPACT

Емкость оптических систем связи возросла более чем в 100 000 раз за 40 лет своего существования. К настоящему времени емкость коммерческих систем достигла примерно 10 Тбит/с по одному волокну (~100 DWDM-каналов со скоростью 100 Гбит/с в каждом). Основные причины роста трафика – экономическая доступность персональных электронных устройств с камерами и экранами высокого разрешения, развитие сетей широкополосного доступа и подключение к ним все большего количества абонентов, индивидуализация видеоконтента, развитие дата-центров и «интернета вещей». Скоростные сети связи являются технической основой для социальных сетей, которые трансформируют общество, и уже превратились в мощные инструменты связи и пропаганды. Меняется структура самих телекоммуникационных сетей связи (от жесткой иерархии ко все более широкому развитию «горизонтальных» связей), растет скорость клиентских портов (впервые в истории она сравнялась с емкостью магистральных оптических каналов и вскоре, вероятно, превысит ее). Быстрый рост трафика продолжается, что требует разработки когерентных систем с канальной скоростью 400G и 1T, включая технологию суперканалов на нескольких поднесущих, а также активизирует исследования многомодовых и многосердцевинных волкон. Ключевые слова: DWDM, история, волоконно-оптическая сеть связи, трансформация общества, гаджет, визуальный образ, видеоконтент, «интернет вещей», дата-центр, рост трафика, когерентная система, суперканал.
Implementation of digital stimulus generation system for a passive programmable medical implant

Electrical stimulation by means of a medical implant is used as a means of restoring the lost functionality of different physiological organs. An active implant which works on a battery or a passive implant which works on power wirelessly transferred to it, could be used for this purpose. The future developments and applications will be in passive implants because of their smaller size and greater implantability. At the moment Manchester encoding is utilized as the data encoding scheme in medical implants. But this work proposes an alternative encoding scheme called Pulse Interval Encoding(PIE) for application in a passive implant. PIE offers the advantage of a simpler decoding methodology and greater power transferred to the implant. A PIE decoder that is resilient to data jitter to the tune of 2.5 μs and that works with clock frequency between 1.52 MHz and 1.76 MHz is implemented in this work. The electrical stimulation patterns that the implant generate will vary according to the application. This work also presents the design of an universal digital stimulus generator which can be programmed to generate the stimuli patterns for a variety of applications like pain relief and bladder control.
Real-Time Visual Respiration Rate Estimation with Dynamic Scene Adaptation

In this paper, we present a vision based method for respiration rate estimation which can automatically adapt to the scene changes. We capture a video of the subjects thoraco-abdominal region and compute optical flow field at each video frame. The optical flow field changes periodically with the periodic chest wall motion. The pattern of the chest wall motion is captured through the estimation of a principal flow field. The principal flow field is automatically updated with time to cope with the scene changes. Thus, our method can adapt itself to the changes of the posture of a subject. Besides, in our method we do not need to select any region of interest unlike other methods. Yet our method is computationally very inexpensive and simple to implement. We test our method on many human volunteers with a wide variety of their clothing. We compare our method against the gold standard method of impedance pneumography and have found a very high accuracy.
Avascular Necrosis after Minimally Displaced Talus Fracture in a Child

This is a case report of a delayed diagnosis in a 5 year old child who sustained a minimally displaced fracture of the proximal or posterior aspect of the talar neck of the left fot with no subluxation at the subtalar or ankle joint of his left talus. Avascular necrosis (AVN) appeared 6 months after the injury. The further course was protracted with another 12 months of non-weight bearing. The case was followed until 36 months after the injury with nearly full functional recovery. An extensive literature review revealed a calculated incidence of AVN after reportedly non-displaced talus fractures in children of 16 per cent which is considerably more than is reported in adults. Nearly half of all reported cases occurred after the fracture had been missed initially. 8 of 11 cases with reported age occurred between 1 and 5 years. No child was older than 9 years, which indicates that the immature talus may be more prone to AVN. Some possible causes for the higher incidence of AVN in children with non-displaced talus fractures are discussed. Prolonged non weightbearing cannot be recommended, since it reportedly does not alter the course of the disease.
Cloning, expression and characterization of endo‐β‐1,4‐mannanase from Aspergillus fumigatus in Aspergillus sojae and Pichia pastoris

To be utilized in biomass conversion, including ethanol production and galactosylated oligosaccharide synthesis, namely prebiotics, the gene of extracellular endo‐β‐1,4‐mannanase (EC 3.2.1.78) of Aspergillus fumigatus IMI 385708 (formerly known as Thermomyces lanuginosus IMI 158749) was expressed first in Aspergillus sojae and then in Pichia pastoris under the control of the glyceraldehyde triphosphate dehydrogenase (gpdA) and the alcohol oxidase (AOX1) promoters, respectively. The highest production of mannanase (352 U mL−1) in A. sojae was observed after 6 days of cultivation. In P. pastoris, the highest mannanase production was observed 10 h after induction with methanol (61 U mL−1). The fold increase in mannanase production was estimated as ∼12‐fold and ∼2‐fold in A. sojae and P. pastoris, respectively, when compared with A. fumigatus. Both recombinant enzymes showed molecular mass of about 60 kDa and similar specific activities (∼350 U mg−1 protein). Temperature optima were at 60°C and 45°C, and maximum activity was at pH 4.5 and 5.2 for A. sojae and P. pastoris, respectively. The enzyme from P. pastoris was more stable retaining most of the activity up to 50°C, whereas the enzyme from A. sojae rapidly lost activity above 40°C. © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog. , 2009
Mechanisms of [3H]glycine release from mouse spinal cord synaptosomes selectively labeled through GLYT2 transporters

Glycine release has been rarely studied. The aim of this work was to characterize the release of the amino acid from spinal cord glycinergic nerve endings selectively pre‐labeled through glycine transporters of the GLYT2 type. Purified mouse spinal cord synaptosomes were incubated with [3H]glycine in the presence of the GLYT1 blocker N‐[(3R)‐3‐([1,1′‐biphenyl]‐4‐yloxy)‐3‐(4‐fluorophenyl)propyl]‐N‐methylglycine hydrochloride and exposed in superfusion to varying concentrations of KCl, 4‐aminopyridine (4‐AP), or veratridine. KCl (≤ 15 mmol/L), 4‐AP (up to 1 mmol/L), and veratridine (≤ 0.3 μmol/L)‐provoked [3H]glycine release by external Ca2+‐dependent, botulinum toxin C1‐sensitive, exocytosis. The overflows evoked by higher concentrations of K+ or veratridine involved external Ca2+‐independent mechanisms of different nature. Only the overflow evoked by 3 or 10 μmol/L veratridine occurred totally (3 μmol/L) or in part (10 μmol/L) by transporter reversal, being sensitive to the GLYT2 blockers 4‐benzyloxy‐3,5‐dimethoxy‐N‐[1‐(dimethylaminociclopentyl)‐methyl] benzamide or O‐[(2‐benzyloxyphenyl‐3‐flurophenyl)methyl]‐l‐serine; in contrast, the external Ca2+‐independent [3H]glycine overflow provoked by 50 mmol/L K+ was transporter‐independent. This component of K+‐evoked overflow and the GLYT2‐independent portion of the 10 μmol/L veratridine‐evoked overflow, were largely sensitive to the vesicle depletor bafilomycin or BAPTA‐AM and were prevented by blocking the mitochondrial Na+/Ca2+ exchanger with 7‐chloro‐5‐(2‐chlorophenyl)‐1,5‐dihydro‐4,1‐benzothiazepin‐2(3H)‐one, indicating the involvement of exocytosis triggered by intraterminal mitochondrial Ca2+ ions.