Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Combined Analysis of 48 Type 2 Diabetes Genetic Risk Variants Shows No Discriminative Value to Predict Time to First Prescription of a Glucose Lowering Drug in Danish Patients with Screen Detected Type 2 Diabetes

Objective To investigate the genetic influence of 48 type 2 diabetes susceptibility variants on disease progression measured as risk of early prescription redemption of glucose lowering drugs in screen-detected patients with type 2 diabetes. Methods We studied type 2 diabetes progression in 1,480 patients with screen-detected type 2 diabetes from the ADDITION-Denmark study using information of redeemed prescriptions from the Register of Medicinal Products Statistics from 2001–2009 in Denmark. Patients were cluster randomized by general practitioners, who were randomized to treat type 2 diabetes according to either a conventional or a multifactorial intensive treatment algorithm. We investigated the genetic influence on diabetes progression by constructing a genetic risk score (GRS) of all 48 validated type 2 diabetes susceptibility variants, a GRS of 11 variants linked to β-cell function and a GRS of 3 variants linked to insulin sensitivity and assessed the association between number of risk alleles and time from diagnosis until first redeemed prescription of either any glucose lowering drug or an insulin drug. Results The GRS linked to insulin sensitivity only nominally increased the risk of an early prescription redemption with an insulin drug by 39% (HR [95% C.I.] = 1.39 [1.09–1.77], p = 0.009] in patients randomized to the intensive treatment group. Furthermore, the strongest univariate predictors of diabetes progression for the intensive treatment group (measured as time to first insulin) were younger age (HR [95% C.I.] = 0.96 [0.93–0.99]), increased BMI (1.05 [1.01–1.09]), increased HbA1c (1.50 [1.36–.66]), increased TG (1.24 [1.11–1.39]) and reduced fasting serum HDL (0.37 [0.17–0.80]) at baseline. Similar results were obtained for the conventional treatment group. Conclusion Higher levels of HbA1c, fasting circulating levels of triglyceride, lower HDL, larger BMI and younger age are significant determinants of early pharmacological intervention in type 2 diabetes. However, known common type 2 diabetes-associated gene variants do not appear to significantly affect disease progression.
Correlates of Weight Loss Behaviors Among Low-Income African-American, Caucasian, and Latina Women

OBJECTIVE: To examine the prevalence and correlates of weight reduction behaviors among low-income women. METHODS: A total of 1,709 Caucasian, African-American, and Latina women aged 12–58 years attending a federally funded family planning clinic reported their weight loss behaviors during the past 30 days, including using diet pills, exercising, purging (vomiting, laxatives, diuretics), and dieting. Approximately 60% (n = 999) had a body mass index of 25 or greater. RESULTS: Overall, 35.3% (n = 603) of women dieted, 43.7% (n = 746) exercised, 15.1% (n = 258) used diet pills, and 4.3% (n = 69) purged. Only 14.8% (n = 253) of the sample reported both dieting and exercising. The odds of exercising for weight loss decreased as parity increased. Those who smoked currently or in the past were more likely than nonsmokers to report purging (odds ratio [OR] 2.5; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.2, 5.4). African Americans were least likely to diet or exercise compared with Caucasians and Latinas. Exposure to family members using diet pills (OR 4.6; 95% CI 3.2, 6.5), dieting (OR 2.1; 95% CI 1.6, 2.8), or purging (OR 5.6; 95% CI 2.7, 11.9) was associated with increased odds of performing these behaviors oneself. CONCLUSION: This research demonstrates that low-income women frequently use maladaptive strategies, such as diet pills and purging, to lose weight. Obesity and family exposure to these behaviors places women at increased risk of unhealthy behaviors. Interventions designed to reduce obesity must include precautions regarding the dangers of these practices. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: III
Generalized SURE for Exponential Families: Applications to Regularization

Stein's unbiased risk estimate (SURE) was proposed by Stein for the independent, identically distributed (i.i.d.) Gaussian model in order to derive estimates that dominate least squares (LS). Recently, the SURE criterion has been employed in a variety of denoising problems for choosing regularization parameters that minimize an estimate of the mean-squared error (MSE). However, its use has been limited to the i.i. d. case which precludes many important applications. In this paper we begin by deriving a SURE counterpart for general, not necessarily i.i. d. distributions from the exponential family. This enables extending the SURE design technique to a much broader class of problems. Based on this generalization we suggest a new method for choosing regularization parameters in penalized LS estimators. We then demonstrate its superior performance over the conventional generalized cross validation and discrepancy approaches in the context of image deblurring and deconvolution. The SURE technique can also be used to design estimates without predefining their structure. However, allowing for too many free parameters impairs the estimate's performance. To address this inherent tradeoff, we propose a regularized SURE objective, and demonstrate its use in the context of wavelet denoising.
Influence of Aerosol on Cloud Dynamics: A Regional Case Study using MODIS

Aerosol distribution and its impact on cloud properties have always remained as an unsolved problem. The complexity lies due to both direct and indirect effect of aerosol on cloud and the atmosphere. The development of satellite meteorology has empowered the studies in atmospheric science and has opened the doors for a more novel and path breaking research in this field. In this work, we attempt to study the correlation of seasonal variations in the anomaly of aerosol and cloud dynamics. The region of this study is chosen over New Delhi and four consecutive years (2014-2017) of MODIS cloud and aerosol retrieved products are considered for this work.
Designing porous scaffolds for tissue engineering

Biomaterials are either modified natural or synthetic materials, with an appropriate response in the host tissue, which find application in a wide spectrum of implants and prostheses used in reconstructive medicine. The subsequent integration and longevity of the implanted device depends on the effectiveness of the associated biological repair. Hence, there has been considerable interest in the development of novel, second generation, biomaterials, which are favourably bioactive in terms of promoting the desired cellular response in vivo. Such biomaterials in a porous form can also act as cellular scaffolds and allow in vitro, as well as in vivo incorporation of the appropriate tissue cells, with potential control of the sequence of cell attachment, proliferation and the production of extra-cellular matrix. Such generic tissue engineering depends critically on the porous architecture of the biomaterial scaffold so as to allow both the cellular ingress and vascularization required to create a living tissue. The particular requirements of tissue-engineering scaffolds with respect to macro- and micro-porosity, as well as chemistry, are reviewed.
Impact of imperfect channel knowledge on transmit processing concepts

Common transmit processing concepts are either based on complete, partial, or no channel state information (CSI). But the quality of CSI is crucial for a fair comparison. Therefore, we derive an explicit expression of the bit error probability (binary modulation) for the transmit matched filter, beamforming, and Alamouti space-time block code in case of linear estimation and prediction of the channel coefficients or a delay of the channel estimates. Uncorrelated as well as correlated frequency flat channels are considered. Based on the analytical expressions a comparison for these three representatives for all three types of CSI is made. The break even point between the three schemes is computed numerically, which can serve as a switching point between the concepts.
Resource Selection for Autonomic Database Tuning

Database administrators should be aware of resource usages to maintain database system performance. As database applications become more complex and diverse, managing database systems becomes too costly and prone to error. Autonomic database tuning becomes more important than ever. This paper starts with an analysis on how resource usages respond by changing resource sizes in database systems. Then, we present a simple method that automatically selects resources that affect the system performance. An experiment using the TPC-C and TPC-W workloads has been carried out with a commercial database system. A preliminary analysis shows that our method works.
Planck-Scale Structure of Spacetime and Some Implications for Astrophysics and Cosmology

I briefly review some scenarios for the role of the Planck length in quantum gravity. In particular, I examine the differences between the schemes in which quantum gravity is expected to introduce a maximum acceleration and the schemes in which the Planck length sets the minimum value of wavelengths (maximum value of momentum). I also comment on some pictures for the structure of spacetime at the Planck scale, such as spacetime discretization and spacetime noncommutativity. I stress that some of these proposals can have significant implications in astrophysics and cosmology.
Geographic patterns of cigarette butt waste in the urban environment

Background This reports the initial phase of a study to quantify the spatial pattern of cigarette butt waste in an urban environment. Methods Geographic Information Systems (GIS) was used to create a weighted overlay analysis model which was then applied to the locations of businesses where cigarettes are sold or are likely to be consumed and venues where higher concentrations of butts may be deposited. The model's utility was tested using a small-scale litter audit in three zip codes of San Diego, California. Results We found that cigarette butt waste is highly concentrated around businesses where cigarettes are sold or consumed. The mean number of butts for predicted high waste sites was 38.1 (SD 18.87), for predicted low waste sites mean 4.8 (SD 5.9), p<0.001. Conclusions Cigarette butt waste is not uniformly distributed in the urban environment, its distribution is linked to locations and patterns of sales and consumption. A GIS and weighted overlay model may be a useful tool in predicting urban locations of greater and lesser amounts of cigarette butt waste. These data can in turn be used to develop economic cost studies and plan mitigation strategies in urban communities.
HW/SW partitioning for region-based dynamic partial reconfigurable FPGAs

With dynamic partial reconfigurable (DPR) capability, an FPGA fabric is no longer static; some of its regions can be dynamically reused for different tasks. Hence current software/hardware (HW/SW) partitioning approaches are no longer applicable to such reconfigurable hardware. This paper incorporates reconfiguration optimization into HW/SW partitioning targeting advanced region-based DPR design flow. Instead of analyzing the tasks for each time step, we introduce a new task graph representation with additional reconfiguration nodes so that the HW/SW partitioning for region-based DPR designs can be optimally solved efficiently by a novel mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) formulation. Experimental results show that our approach can obtain the optimal solutions 10 times faster than the current time-step based approach. For large designs which cannot be handled by the current approaches, our approach can achieve the optimum efficiently in reasonable runtime.
Fault Detection Likelihood of Test Sequence Length

Testing of graphical user interfaces is important due to its potential to reveal faults in operation and performance of the system under consideration. Most existing test approaches generate test cases as sequences of events of different length. The cost of the test process depends on the number and total length of those test sequences. One of the problems to be encountered is the determination of the test sequence length. Widely accepted hypothesis is that the longer the test sequences, the higher the chances to detect faults. However, there is no evidence that an increase of the test sequence length really affect the fault detection. This paper introduces a reliability theoretical approach to analyze the problem in the light of real-life case studies. Based on a reliability growth model the expected number of additional faults is predicted that will be detected when increasing the length of test sequences.
An application of Entropy weight and Super-efficiency models on financial performance of Taiwanese listed food companies

While facing the phenomena of the rapid development of the global economy and rising international competition simultaneously, the operating environment of the food industry has changed tremendously. How to increase food production and its added value and improving companies' international competiveness has become an urgent issue for the food industry. Financial performance shows not only how a company is managed, but it also relates to the future of a company's development. The purpose of this study is to utilize Entropy weight and Super-Efficiency methods to evaluate twenty-two Taiwanese listed food companies' financial performances in order to provide investors information for their future investments. According to this study's outcome of the twenty-two food companies, sample F16 ranks first in 2008 annual financial performance, and sample F18 ranks last.
The steepness of the dose response curve both for tumor cure and normal tissue injury

At the Christie Hospital in Manchester, 4 MeV radiation was introduced in 1955. In consequence of a lack of knowledge of absolute dose definition and R.B. E. factor, patients were treated over a range of dosage. Three hundred fourteen patients with laryngeal cancer, treated over a time interval of three weeks, received doses over a range of 5,000 rads to 5,800 rads. Recurrence, morbidity and necrosis rates are plotted against dose. In T1 tumors there is very little variation in recurrence rate, and such tumors may be safely treated at the lower doses thus avoiding morbidity and necrosis. T3 tumors, however, show a considerable variation in recurrence rate being 68 percent at the lower end of the range, dropping to 30 percent at the high end. Necrosis nil at the lower end rises to some 8 percent at the high end. The balance of advantage of tumor sterilization versus the disadvantage of normal tissue damage is discussed.
Natural resistance to intracellular infections: Nramp1 encodes a membrane phosphoglycoprotein absent in macrophages from susceptible (Nramp1 D169) mouse strains.

The mouse Nramp1 gene (Bcg/Ity/Lsh) controls innate defense to infection with intracellular parasites such as Mycobacterium, Salmonella, and Leishmania. Sequence analysis of Nramp1 predicts a hydrophobic, membrane-associated protein expressed exclusively in monocyte/macrophage lineages. A single G169D substitution within the fourth predicted transmembrane domain of Nramp1 is associated with susceptibility to infection (Bcg) in inbred mouse strains. To initiate the biochemical characterization of the Nramp1 protein and to analyze the molecular basis of susceptibility associated with the Nramp1(D169) allele, oligopeptides derived from Nramp1 and two fusion proteins containing the first 54 and the last 35 residues of Nramp1 were used to raise specific anti-Nramp1 antisera. In addition, a c-Myc epitope (EQKLISEEDL) was introduced in-frame at the C terminus of Nramp1 to follow its expression in a yeast heterologous system. Western analysis of crude membrane fractions from yeast demonstrated that Nramp1 is indeed an integral membrane protein (resistant to urea extraction). In resident Bcg(r) (129sv, Nramp1(G169)) macrophages, one of the anti-Nramp1 antisera identified by immunoprecipitation a protein of 90,000 to 100,000 apparent m.w. that was absent in macrophages from knockout mice bearing a null mutation at Nramp1. The Nramp1 protein could be metabolically labeled with orthophosphate and was sensitive to glycosylase treatment, verifying that Nramp1 is an integral membrane phosphoglycoprotein. Parallel analysis of macrophage extracts from Bcg(s) mouse strains (C57BL6/J and BALB/c, Nramp1(D169)) failed to detect mature Nrampl protein in these cells, suggesting that the G169D mutation at Nramp1 prevents proper maturation or membrane integration of the protein, resulting in its rapid degradation.
A new analysis of the Poincar dodecahedral space model

Context. The full three-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe results (hereafter WMAP3) reinforce the absence of large-angle correlations at scales greater than 60 ◦ . The Poincare dodecahedral space model, which may naturally explain such features, thus remains a plausible cosmological model, despite recent controversy about whether matched circle searches would or would not push the topology beyond the horizon. Aims. We have used new eigenmode calculations of the dodecahedral space to predict the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropies in such a model, with an improved angular resolution. Methods. We have simulated CMB maps and exhibited the expected self intersection of the last scattering surface along six pairs of circles. For a set of plausible cosmological parameters, we have derived the angular power spectrum of the CMB up to large wavenumbers. Results. Comparison of the angular power spectrum with the WMAP3 observations leads to an optimal fit with the Poincare dodecahedral space model, for a value Ωtot = 1.018 of the total energy density parameter.
Philosophy of Language

1. Frege: Semantic Value and Reference 2. Frege and Russell: Sense and Definite Descriptions 3. Sense and Verificationism: Logical Positivism 4. Scepticism about Sense (I): Quine on Analyticity and Translation 5. Scepticism about Sense (II):Kripke's Wittgenstein 6. Saving Sense: Responses to the Sceptical Paradox 7. Sense, Intention and Speech Acts: Grice's Programme 8. Sense and Truth: Tarski and Davidson 9. Sense, World and Metaphysics
On the Algorithmics and Applications of a Mixed-norm based Kernel Learning Formulation

Motivated from real world problems, like object categorization, we study a particular mixed-norm regularization for Multiple Kernel Learning (MKL). It is assumed that the given set of kernels are grouped into distinct components where each component is crucial for the learning task at hand. The formulation hence employs l∞ regularization for promoting combinations at the component level and l1 regularization for promoting sparsity among kernels in each component. While previous attempts have formulated this as a non-convex problem, the formulation given here is an instance of non-smooth convex optimization problem which admits an efficient Mirror-Descent (MD) based procedure. The MD procedure optimizes over product of simplexes, which is not a well-studied case in literature. Results on real-world datasets show that the new MKL formulation is well-suited for object categorization tasks and that the MD based algorithm outperforms state-of-the-art MKL solvers like simpleMKL in terms of computational effort.
Neural activation during selective attention to subjective emotional responses

WE examined neural activity associated with selectively attending to subjective emotional responses in a study where subjects viewed emotional picture sets. During picture viewing when subjects attended to their subjective emotional responses, highly significant increased neural activity was elicited in rostral anterior cingulate (BA 32) (Z = 6.87, p < 0.001, corrected). By contrast, under the same stimulus conditions when subjects attended to spatial aspects of identical picture sets activation was observed in the parieto-occipital cortex bilaterally (Z = 5.71, p < 0.001, corrected). The findings indicated a specific role for the anterior cingulate cortex in representing subjective emotional responses and are consistent with a suggested role for associated medial prefrontal structures in representing states of mind.
Producción agroecológica de leche en el trópico de altura: sinergia entre restauración ecológica y sistemas silvopastoriles

Climate change and the inequality of the global trade of dairy products have seriously affected small milk producers who have adopted an artificial model based on industrial inputs and the extreme genetic specialization of livestock. Although the application of agroecological principles and the growing demand for natural foods indicate an escape route for these producers, agroecological milk production is not easy because the transition requires making difficult decisions that can affect short term productivity. This article summarizes the agroecological transition of a small dairy farm in the central Andes of Colombia.The starting point was the conventional model typical of many mountain dairies in Latin America, based on grass monocultures fertilized with urea and the supplementation of cows with feedstuffs made from imported cereals and soy cake. By adopting increasingly complex silvopastoral systems and phasing out farm chemical inputs this farm managed to reduce the production costs and increase the quality and price of its milk while improving food security and energy efficiency. Adding value to the organic milk is the final challenge that will improve the profitability of the farming system.
Symptomatic improvement in achalasia after botulinum toxin injection of the lower esophageal sphincter.

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to assess the long term clinical outcome of patients with achalasia after treatment with botulinum toxin. METHODS Sixty five patients with achalasia (60 idiopathic, five secondary) were treated with injection of botulinum toxin at the gastroesophageal junction. Dysphagia, chest pain, and regurgitation were scored (0 = no symptoms, 1 = mild, 2 = moderate, 3 = severe, 4 = very severe), with the sum representing the total symptom score, at 0, 7, 30, 120, 240, and 365 days posttreatment. Responders were defined as patients with a 50% decrease in total symptom score at 1 month posttreatment. RESULTS The 60 patients with idiopathic achalasia had significant improvement in symptoms of dysphagia, chest pain, and regurgitation at 1 and 4 wk posttreatment. At 1 month posttreatment, 42 of 60 patients (70%) were classified as responders. Of 33 patients with at least 1 yr follow-up, 36% continued to have a good or excellent response, whereas 39% underwent a subsequent treatment with botulinum toxin, pneumatic dilation, or myotomy. When symptoms recurred after an initial response, patients responded to a second injection of botulinum toxin in six of seven cases. In four of five patients with secondary achalasia, there was no response to botulinum toxin. CONCLUSIONS Botulinum toxin injection at the gastroesophageal junction significantly improved symptoms in 70% of patients with idiopathic achalasia at 1 month. Recurrent symptoms responded to repeat botulinum toxin treatment in initially responsive patients. In contrast, most patients with secondary achalasia did not improve after botulinum toxin injection.