Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Periodontal treatment during pregnancy decreases the rate of adverse pregnancy outcome: a controlled clinical trial

Objectives The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of non-surgical treatment of periodontal disease during the second trimester of gestation on adverse pregnancy outcomes. Material and Methods Pregnant patients during the 1st and 2nd trimesters at antenatal care in a Public Health Center were divided into 2 groups: NIG – "no intervention" (n=17) or IG- "intervention" (n=16). IG patients were submitted to a non-surgical periodontal treatment performed by a single periodontist consisting of scaling and root planning (SRP), professional prophylaxis (PROPH) and oral hygiene instruction (OHI). NIG received PROPH and OHI during pregnancy and were referred for treatment after delivery. Periodontal evaluation was performed by a single trained examiner, blinded to periodontal treatment, according to probing depth (PD), clinical attachment level (CAL), plaque index (PI) and sulcular bleeding index (SBI) at baseline and 35 gestational weeks-28 days post-partum. Primary adverse pregnancy outcomes were preterm birth (<37 weeks), low birth weight (<2.5 kg), late abortion (14-24 weeks) or abortion (<14 weeks). The results obtained were statistically evaluated according to OR, unpaired t test and paired t test at 5% significance level. Results No significant differences were observed between groups at baseline examination. Periodontal treatment resulted in stabilization of CAL and PI (p>0.05) at IG and worsening of all periodontal parameters at NIG (p<0.0001), except for PI. Significant differences in periodontal conditions of IG and NIG were observed at 2nd examination (p<0.001). The rate of adverse pregnancy outcomes was 47.05% in NIG and 6.25% in IG. Periodontal treatment during pregnancy was associated to a decreased risk of developing adverse pregnancy outcomes [OR=13.50; CI: 1.47-123.45; p=0.02]. Conclusions Periodontal treatment during the second trimester of gestation contributes to decrease adverse pregnancy outcomes.
Shared norms can lead to the evolution of ethnic markers

Most human populations are subdivided into ethnic groups which have self-ascribed membership and are marked by seemingly arbitrary traits such as distinctive styles of dress or speech. Existing explanations of ethnicity do not adequately explain the origin and maintenance of group marking. Here we develop a mathematical model which shows that groups distinguished by both differences in social norms and in arbitrary markers can emerge and remain stable despite significant mixing between them, if (1) people preferentially interact in mutually beneficial social interaction with people who have the same marker as they do, and (2) they acquire their markers and social behaviors by imitating successful individuals. We also show that the propensity to interact with people with markers like oneself may be favored by natural selection under plausible conditions.
Working set-based access control for network file systems

Securing access to files is an important and growing concern in corporate environments. Employees are increasingly accessing files from untrusted devices, including personal home computers and mobile devices, such as smart phones, which are not under the control of the corporation, and may be infected with viruses, worms, and other malware. In such cases, it is crucial to protect the confidentiality and integrity of corporate data from malicious accesses. This paper proposes a novel scheme called Working Set-Based Access Control (WSBAC) to restrict network file system accesses from untrusted devices. The key idea is to continuously observe and extract working sets for users when they access files from trusted devices and use the working sets to restrict user file accesses from untrusted devices. This paper reports on the design and implementation of tools to automatically extract working sets, and transparently enforce WSBAC without requiring changes to the file system. Our experiments with realistic network file system traces lead us to conclude that WSBAC offers a flexible yet secure way to restrict access from untrusted devices, and that the runtime overheads of WSBAC enforcement are negligible.
Voice Controlled PDA Customised for Indian Community in Conjunction with Indian Requirements

Personal digital assistants (PDA) are designed to ease and enrich user's day-to-day life experiences by responding to their queries and commands that are usually voice driven. However, to be effective in Indian context and address a large portion of Indian users it is required that these personal digital assistants be ‘Indianized’ i.e. able to answer queries for users that will be relevant in Indian context and in a user's native language preferably. Our work presents development of a system that implements such a functionality as skill sets which are relevant in the context of an Indian user in their everyday activities. Further our system supports voice or text interaction in many Indian languages. Our system also encapsulates the ability to converse smoothly by learning from the context of user's previous queries. Furthermore, it empowers the user to communicate with the system from a remote device in a secured way. Thus, our proposed model is well suited to increase the penetration of personal digital assistants in Indian community.
Advancements in magnetic resonance imaging‐based biomarkers for muscular dystrophy

Recent years have seen steady progress in the identification of genetic muscle diseases as well as efforts to develop treatment for these diseases. Consequently, sensitive and objective new methods are required to identify and monitor muscle pathology. Magnetic resonance imaging offers multiple potential biomarkers of disease severity in the muscular dystrophies. This Review uses a pathology‐based approach to examine the ways in which MRI and spectroscopy have been used to study muscular dystrophies. Methods that have been used to quantitate intramuscular fat, edema, fiber orientation, metabolism, fibrosis, and vascular perfusion are examined, and this Review describes how MRI can help diagnose these conditions and improve upon existing muscle biomarkers by detecting small increments of disease‐related change. Important challenges in the implementation of imaging biomarkers, such as standardization of protocols and validating imaging measurements with respect to clinical outcomes, are also described.
Renin in dog brain.

GANTEN, DETLEV, ANA MARQUIZ-JULIO, PIERRE GRANGER, KARL HAYDUK, KLAUS PETER KARSWNKY,ROGER BOUCWER, AND JACQUES GENEST. Renz'n ilz dog brain. Am. J. Physiol. 221(6): 17331737. 1971 . -Brain tissue of dogs contains high renin activity. After peritoneal dialysis in nephrectomized dogs for up to 12 days, levels of renin activity remain as high as in control dogs. Kenin substrate and angiotensin are present in brain after nephrectomy. Plasma renin and substrate do not pass the blood-cerebrospinal Auid barrier. Thus a renin-angiotensin system, independent of that of the kidney, is present in brains of nephrectomized dogs.
Rigid vs non-rigid face and head motion in phone and tone perception

There is recent evidence that the visual concomitants, not only of the articulation of phones (consonants & vowels), but also of tones (fundamental frequency variations that signal lexical meaning in tone languages) facilitate speech perception. Analysis of speech production data from a Cantonese speaker suggests that the source of this perceptual information for tones involve rigid motion of the head rather than non-rigid face motion. A perceptual discrimination study was conducted using OPTOTRAK output in which rigid or non-rigid motion of the head could be presented independently, using two conditions: one in which words to be discriminated only differed in tone, and another in which they only differed in phone. The results suggest that non-rigid motion is the critical determinant for successful discrimination of phones, whereas both non-rigid and rigid motion are required for the discrimination of tones.
Community Detection on Last.fm Artist Data CS224W Project Report

Much like with other media, one of the most exciting results of music consumption transferring into the digital online marketplace is the explosion of user data that is generated as a result. In the tech world, the domain of personalized music recommendation has been developing and expanding rapidly over the past decade. It is most strongly associated with Pandora, which began in 2000 but didn’t achieve much popularity until several years later. Since then, dozens of other similar services have been launched with the goal of bringing personalized music recommendations to a user. One such service in particular, Last.fm, provides anonymized data publicly available through a free API; datasets procured through this API are the main inspiration for and subject matter of my project.
Features and Partial Derivatives of Bertalanffy-Richards Growth Model in Forestry

The Bertalanffy-Richards growth model is employed more than any other models for forest growth and yield modelling. However, its fea- tures have not completely been recognised. As a result, misunderstanding of the model still appears in some papers published in forest journals. A study by (1) is cited here as an evidence of the misunderstanding. This paper tries to explain different features of the Bertalanffy-Richards growth model based on the different conditions of the allometric parameter and introduces an assessment software to easily get the partial derivatives w ith respect to each parameter when more complex techniques (e.g., the Marquardt method) are employed to estimate parameters of any nonlinear models. This paper indicates that (1) study appears some unreasonable evidences of nonlinear growth models from a forestry perspective.
Scaling of olfactory antennae of the terrestrial hermit crabs Coenobita rugosus and Coenobita perlatus during ontogeny

Although many lineages of terrestrial crustaceans have poor olfactory capabilities, crabs in the family Coenobitidae, including the terrestrial hermit crabs in the genus Coenobita, are able to locate food and water using olfactory antennae (antennules) to capture odors from the surrounding air. Terrestrial hermit crabs begin their lives as small marine larvae and must find a suitable place to undergo metamorphosis into a juvenile form, which initiates their transition to land. Juveniles increase in size by more than an order of magnitude to reach adult size. Since odor capture is a process heavily dependent on the size and speed of the antennules and physical properties of the fluid, both the transition from water to air and the large increase in size during ontogeny could impact odor capture. In this study, we examine two species of terrestrial hermit crabs, Coenobita perlatus H. Milne-Edwards and Coenobita rugosus H. Milne-Edwards, to determine how the antennule morphometrics and kinematics of flicking change in comparison to body size during ontogeny, and how this scaling relationship could impact odor capture by using a simple model of mass transport in flow. Many features of the antennules, including the chemosensory sensilla, scaled allometrically with carapace width and increased slower than expected by isometry, resulting in relatively larger antennules on juvenile animals. Flicking speed scaled as expected with isometry. Our mass-transport model showed that allometric scaling of antennule morphometrics and kinematics leads to thinner boundary layers of attached fluid around the antennule during flicking and higher odorant capture rates as compared to antennules which scaled isometrically. There were no significant differences in morphometric or kinematic measurements between the two species.
Natural killer cells suppress full cycle HCV infection of human hepatocytes

Summary. The role of natural killer (NK) cells in controlling hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and replication has not been fully delineated. We examined NK cell‐mediated noncytolytic effect on full cycle HCV infection of human hepatocytes. Human hepatocytes (Huh7.5.1 cells) co‐cultured with NK cells or treated with supernatants (SN) from NK cells cultures had significantly lower levels of HCV RNA and protein than control cells. This NK cell‐mediated anti‐HCV activity could be largely abolished by antibody to interferon‐gamma (IFN‐γ). The investigation of the mechanisms for NK cell‐mediated anti‐HCV activity showed that NK SN‐treated hepatocytes expressed higher levels of IFN‐α/β than the control cells. NK SN also enhanced IFN regulatory factor‐3 and 7 expression in the hepatocytes. In addition, NK SN enhanced the expression of signal transducer and activator of transcription 1 and 2, the nuclear factors that are essential for the activation of IFN‐mediated antiviral pathways. These data provide direct evidence at cellular and molecular levels that NK cells have a key role in suppressing HCV infection of and replication in human hepatocytes.
Support vector machines for computing action mappings in learning classifier systems

XCS with computed action, briefly XCSCA, is a recent extension of XCS to tackle problems involving a large number of discrete actions. In XCSCA the classifier action is computed with a parameterized function learned in a supervised fashion. In this paper, we introduce XCSCAsvm that extends XCSCA using support vector machines to compute classifier action. We compared XCSCAsvm and XCSCA on the learning of several binary functions. The experimental results show that XCSCAsvm reaches the optimal performance faster than XCSCA.
An Integrative Study of Insect Adhesion: Mechanics and Wet Adhesion of Pretarsal Pads in Ants1

Abstract Many animals that locomote by legs possess adhesive pads. Such organs are rapidly releasable and adhesive forces can be controlled during walking and running. This capacity results from the interaction of adhesive with complex mechanical systems. Here we present an integrative study of the mechanics and adhesion of smooth attachment pads (arolia) in Asian Weaver ants (Oecophylla smaragdina). Arolia can be unfolded and folded back with each step. They are extended either actively by contraction of the claw flexor muscle or passively when legs are pulled toward the body. Regulation of arolium use and surface attachment includes purely mechanical control inherent in the arrangement of the claw flexor system. Predictions derived from a ‘wet’ adhesion mechanism were tested by measuring attachment forces on a smooth surface using a centrifuge technique. Consistent with the behavior of a viscid secretion, frictional forces per unit contact area linearly increased with sliding velocity and the increment strongly decreased with temperature. We studied the nature and dimensions of the adhesive liquid film using Interference Reflection Microscopy (IRM). Analysis of ‘footprint’ droplets showed that they are hydrophobic and form low contact angles. In vivo IRM of insect pads in contact with glass, however, revealed that the adhesive liquid film not only consists of a hydrophobic fluid, but also of a volatile, hydrophilic phase. IRM allows estimation of the height of the liquid film and its viscosity. Preliminary data indicate that the adhesive secretion alone is insufficient to explain the observed friction and that rubbery deformation of the pad cuticle is involved.
Fair Matching Algorithm: Fixed-Length Frame Scheduling in All-Photonic Networks

Internal switches in all-photonic networks do not perform data conversion into the electronic domain, thereby eliminating a potential capacity bottleneck, but they introduce network scheduling challenges. In this paper we focus on scheduling fixed-length frames in all-photonic star-topology networks. We describe the Fair Matching (FMA) and Equal Share (ESA) algorithms, novel scheduling procedures that result in maxmin fair allocation of extra demand and achieve zero rejection for admissible demands. We analyze through simulation the delay and throughput performance.
ICOS Regulates the Generation and Function of Human CD4+ Treg in a CTLA-4 Dependent Manner

Inducible co-stimulator (ICOS) is a member of CD28/Cytotoxic T-lymphocyte Antigen-4 (CTLA-4) family and broadly expressed in activated CD4+ T cells and induced regulatory CD4+ T cells (CD4+ iTreg). ICOS-related signal pathway could be activated by the interaction between ICOS and its ligand (ICOSL). In our previous work, we established a cost-effective system to generate a novel human allo-antigen specific CD4hi Treg by co-culturing their naïve precursors with allogeneic CD40-activated B cells in vitro. Here we investigate the role of ICOS in the generation and function of CD4hi Treg by interrupting ICOS-ICOSL interaction with ICOS-Ig. It is found that blockade of ICOS-ICOSL interaction impairs the induction and expansion of CD4hi Treg induced by allogeneic CD40-activated B cells. More importantly, CD4hi Treg induced with the addition of ICOS-Ig exhibits decreased suppressive capacity on alloantigen-specific responses. Dysfunction of CD4hi Treg induced with ICOS-Ig is accompanied with its decreased exocytosis and surface CTLA-4 expression. Through inhibiting endocytosis with E64 and pepstatin A, surface CTLA-4 expression and suppressive functions of induced CD4hi Treg could be partly reversed. Conclusively, our results demonstrate the beneficial role of ICOS-ICOSL signal pathway in the generation and function of CD4hi Treg and uncover a novel relationship between ICOS and CTLA-4.
Landskepticism: or Why Effective Potentials Don't Count String Models

This paper is a synthesis of talks I gave at the Cargese Workshop in June 2004 and the Munich Conference on Superstring Vacua in November 2004. I present arguments which show that the landscape of string theory is not a well established feature of the theory, as well as a brief discussion of the phenomenological prospects of the landscape and the use of the anthropic principle.
Rationalization of Freeform Surfaces

An ever broader availability of freeform designs together with an increasing demand for product customization has lead to a rising interest in efficient physical realization of such designs, the trend toward personal fabrication. Not only large-scale architectural applications are (becoming increasingly) popular but also different consumer-level rapid-prototyping applications, including toy and 3D puzzle creation. In this work we present a method for do-it-yourself reproduction of freeform designs without the typical limitation of state-of-the-art approaches requiring manufacturing custom parts using semi-professional laser cutters or 3d printers. Our idea is based on a popular mathematical modeling system (Zometool) commonly used for modeling higher dimensional polyhedra and symmetric structures such as molecules and crystal lattices. The proposed method extends the scope of Zometool modeling to freeform, disktopology surfaces. While being an efficient construction system on the one hand (consisting only of a single node type and 9 different edge types), this inherent discreteness of the Zometool system, on the other hand gives rise to a hard approximation problem. We base our method on a marching front approach, where elements are not added in a greedy sense, but rather whole regions on the front are filled optimally, using a set of problem specific heuristics to keep complexity under control.
Impact Assessment on an Invasive Species, Lantana camara on Indigenous Species Composition and Socio-economic Environment around Adama and Bishofitu Areas, Ethiopia

The research is financed by Addis Ababa University School of Post Graduate Studies Abstract Impact assessment of Lantana camara L. on indigenous species composition and socioeconomic environment was carried around Aroge Adama, Soloqe and Bishfitu areas, Ethiopia. Fifty-four 5m x 5m releve’s were systematically sampled across 3 main transects laid 50m from the left side of the main road. In order to reduce the effects of human interference, the sites selected were, as much as possible, far away from the mainroad.There leve’s were equally distributed for the three study sites. In each site equal number of releve’s with & without Lantana camara were sampled from the same habitat types. All indigenous species in all non-invaded and along with Lantana camara in all invaded releve’s were counted, identified & recorded. Diversity & richness was analyzed using Shannon-Weiner species diversity & richness index. Herbivory was found to be the most prevalent form of disturbance. ANOVA results at p<0.05 level of sig. showed that levels of disturbances were variable but are higher in the invaded releve’s as compared to the non-invaded releve’s. Independent sample t-test & one-way ANOVA showed significance difference at p<0.05 level. To asses invasion impact Spearman correlation coefficient was calculated for altitude, disturbance, density of Lantana and diversity of native plants. Disturbance and density of Lantana were highly correlated to diversity of native plants. ANOVA results showed significance difference in disturbance, density of Lantana and altitude in invaded releve’s and only disturbance showed insignificance difference in the non-invaded releve’s. The study revealed disturbance as the major factor, which facilitated the invasion of Lantana camara. Different respondents have different views on its introduction & current status. Fifty six percent of them agree with its deliberate while 44% with its accidental introduction. Seventy-four percent of the key informants admitted the benefits obtained from it even though they maintained the disadvantage outweighs its advantages. Thirty seven percent of the key informants responded as there are methods to minimize the detrimental effects & use it to improve biophysical & socio economic condition of the areas.
Tracking in molecular bioimaging

This paper aims to simulate the application of more advanced computer vision techniques to tracking in biological molecular imaging by surveying the literature and sketching the current state of affairs in the field for a signal and image processing audience. After describing the basic principles of visualizing molecular dynamics in living cells and giving some examples of biological molecular dynamics studies, the paper summarizes the problems and limitations intrinsic to imaging at this scale. The paper then discusses the main ingredients of the commonly used tracking paradigm and subsequently reconsider its competence by comparing it to certain aspects of visual motion perception in human beings, keeping in mind the complexity and variability of biological image data. Finally, it summarizes the main points of attention for future research and the challenges that lie ahead.