Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fertility of patients with schizophrenia, their siblings, and the general population: a cohort study from 1950 to 1959 in Finland.

OBJECTIVE Genetic factors are the most important risk factors for schizophrenia. However, despite the fact that patients with schizophrenia have significantly fewer offspring than the general population, schizophrenia persists. The authors investigated whether the siblings of patients with schizophrenia produce more offspring, thereby compensating for the low fertility of the affected individuals. METHOD From all 870,093 individuals born in Finland from 1950 to 1959, the authors determined how many had schizophrenia or were siblings of schizophrenia patients and how many offspring they had. The population data were obtained from the Population Register Center of Finland, and the National Hospital Discharge Register was used to identify all persons who had been hospitalized because of schizophrenia. Appropriate regression models were used to model age at the birth of the first child, number of children, and proportion of males among offspring. RESULTS Of the total population, 1.3% were patients with schizophrenia, and 2.8% were their siblings. The mean number of offspring among female siblings was slightly but significantly higher than among women in the general population (1.89 versus 1.83), while the opposite was true for the male siblings (1.57 versus 1.65 among men in the general population). The mean number of offspring among patients with schizophrenia was 0.83 for women and 0.44 for men. CONCLUSIONS Lower than average fertility among patients with schizophrenia is not compensated for by higher fertility among their siblings. Thus, the persistence of schizophrenia in the general population is not explained by this simple evolutionary mechanism.
Angular distributions of plasma edge velocity and integrated intensity: Update on specific impulse for Ablative Laser Propulsion

This work concludes our discussion of the image processing technique developed earlier for determination of specific impulse (Isp) for Ablative Laser Propulsion (ALP). The plasma plumes are recorded with a time‐resolved intensified charge‐coupled device (ICCD) camera. The plasma was formed in vacuum (∼ 3×10−3 Torr) by focusing output pulses of a laser system (100‐ps pulsewidth at 532 nm wavelength and ∼35 mJ energy) on surfaces of C (graphite), Al, Si, Fe, Cu, Zn, Sn, and Pb elements. Angular profiles for integrated intensity and plasma expansion velocity were determined for the tested elements. Such profiles were used further for assessment of specific impulse. Specific impulses derived from angular distributions of plasma expansion velocity and integral intensity appeared in excellent agreement with the data derived earlier from force measurements.
Assessment of the Effectiveness of Clay Soil Covers as Engineered Barriers in Waste Disposal Facilities with Emphasis on Modeling Cracking Behavior

Abstract : Abstract: This research investigated the nature of cracking behavior in compacted clay liners used for nuclear waste disposal facilities. A literature review found that, in all documented in-place clay liner studies, cracking occurred in the clay liner within 10 years, leading to failure of the liner system. Further, all moisture-flow models studied failed to capture clay cracking and the resultant high permeability associated with these failed liner systems. A laboratory investigation was undertaken to define the mechanics of the clay cracking process for a numerical model. Visual and numerical observations of cracking during drying of a highly expansive clay showed that crack formations are very diverse along the surface layer and as they migrate downward. Shapes of cracks are neither uniform nor symmetric, evolving from thin webs of microcracks to a select number of wide primary cracks that, in turn, can seal off existing microcracks. A finite element model of the soil shrinkage process was then developed, which included crack formation. Stresses within intact soil are caused by self weight (gravity stresses) and changes in water content, which induce shrinkage as a result of suction-induced tensile stresses. Two numerical simulations were run on a digital test bed similar to the laboratory study. The simulations agreed well with laboratory experimental observations, capturing all the relevant crack phenomena. The report concludes that a change in the current design criteria for clay liner systems is necessary to enable the clay to remain in a fixed, as-compacted state.
Transport of thiamin in rat renal brush border membrane vesicles.

BACKGROUND Unlike intestinal absorption, renal transport of thiamin has received little attention. This study was designed to investigate the reabsorptive steps of thiamin transport in brush border membrane vesicles (BBMVs) from rat kidney proximal tubules using tritiated thiamin with a high specific activity. METHODS BBMVs prepared from the cortex kidney of rats were suspended in different media, controlling the composition of the intravesicular fluid by prolonged equilibration at 4 degrees C in preincubation buffers of desired composition. Then they were held on ice until used, when they were warmed at 25 degrees C for the uptake experiments. The amount of radioactivity taken up by the vesicles was measured radiometrically after separation with a rapid-filtration procedure. RESULTS The time course profile of thiamin uptake was Na+ independent; 53% of thiamin taken up was membrane bound. The concentration curve had a biphasic course that was nonlinear (saturable) at physiological concentrations (<1.25 micromol/L) and linear at higher ones. Thiamin uptake was stimulated several-fold by an outwardly directed H+ gradient (pHin 6:pHout 7.5), which caused a transient accumulation of thiamin inside BBMVs against a concentration gradient. The enhanced thiamin uptake was only due to the H+ gradient, which made thiamin binding virtually negligible compared with translocation, and maintained the biphasic course of the concentration curve. The saturable component, however, had kinetic constants 12-fold higher than those in the absence of gradient. Moreover, the saturable component was inhibited by nonlabeled thiamin and its structural analogues, by inhibitors of intestinal thiamin/H+, renal guanidine/H+, and Na+/H+ antiporters, while it remained unmodified by some typical organic cations transported in renal BBMVs. CONCLUSION The results provide strong evidence for the presence in renal BBMVs of a thiamin/H+ antiport having a 1:1 stoichiometric ratio.
Research of MMSE and LS channel estimation in OFDM systems

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) technique has received a lot of interest in mobile communication research lately. For wideband mobile communication systems, the radio channel is usually frequency selective and time variant. Hereafter, in OFDM systems, the channel transfer function of radio channel appears unequal in both frequency and time domains. Therefore, a dynamic estimation of the channel is necessary for the demodulation of OFDM signals. The channel estimation methods for OFDM systems based on pilot-aided are investigated. In view of the contradiction of LS and MMSE estimators between performance and computational complexity, two simplified estimator for LS and MMSE were presented. The simulation results show that the LS estimator algorithm has preferable performance and lower complexity. The simulation results also show that comparing to the LS channel estimation algorithm, the MMSE estimate of pilot signals algorithm provides better performance and requires reduce the computations.
Role-Activity Diagrams Modeling Based on Workflow Mining

Role-activity diagram (RAD) is a basic role-oriented process model, but there lacks of an objective role identification method during RAD modeling. By means of the analysis of workflow logs--workflow mining, the ratio of activities performed by actors is used to describe their work. The role is, therefore, identified by regarding actors with similar activities, who undertaking the same responsibility. On the basis of role identification, social network diagrams among actors are analyzed by considering activity dependence between them and their interactions are discussed. In this way, we can get role-activity diagrams. Experiments show that the proposed method is viable.
A Distributed Congestion Control Strategy for Differentiated-Services Network

In this paper, a new robust congestion control strategy is proposed for a multi-services architecture, namely a Differentiated-Services (DiffServ) network. In virtue of their robustness capabilities, Sliding Mode-based Variable Structure Control (SM-VSC) techniques are utilized to design our proposed controller on the basis of an inaccurate/uncertain Fluid Flow Model (FFM). Developed for an interconnected network as a hop-by-hop distributed control scheme, the proposed algorithm is shown to achieve the desired performance specifications and requirements. Moreover, the error dynamics of the overall time delay dependent network is analytically shown to be L2 stable.
Can Purified Omega-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids Supplementation Act Blood Pressure Levels in Untreated Normal-High Blood Pressure Subjects with Hypertriglyceridemia?

Omega-3 (ω-3) polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) from fish and fish oils appear to protect against coronary heart disease: their dietary intake is in fact inversely associated with cardiovascular disease morbidity/mortality in population studies. Recent evidence suggests that at least a part of this protective effect is mediated by a relatively small but significant decrease in blood pressure (BP) level. In fact, omega-3 PUFAs exhibit wide-ranging biological actions that include regulating both vasomotor tone and renal sodium excretion, partly competing with omega-6 PUFAs for common metabolic enzymes and thereby decreasing the production of vasoconstrictor rather than vasodilator and anti-inflammatory eicosanoids. PUFAs also reduce angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) activity, angiotensin II formation. We retrospectively evaluated the long-term effect of a omega-3 PUFAs supplementation on the blood pressure level of 91 hypertriglyceridemic subjects with untreated normal-high blood pressure that were prescribed a 3 grams omega-3 PUFAs supplementation in order to improve their plasma lipid pattern. After 24 months of treatment, systolic blood pressure (SBP) meanly decreased by 2.6 +/- 2.5 mmHg (p = 0.001) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) by 1.4 +/- 3.1 mmHg (p < 0.001), while basal heart rate decreased by 4.1 +/- 4.6 bpm (p < 0.001). Both SBP and DBP reduction were significantly related to the baseline SBP (p < 0.001) and DBP (p < 0.001), respectively. Diastolic blood pressure change was also inversely related to the patient’s age (p = 0.004). No significant difference was perceived in the metabolic syndrome subgroup. In our retrospective study, highly purified omega-3 PUFAs long-term supplementation is associated with a significant reduction in SBP, DBP, and basal heart rate in hypertriglyceridemic patients with normal-high blood pressure. The main determinants of the omega-3 PUFAs anti-hypertensive effect appear to be the basal blood pressure level and age. Future research will clarify if omega-3 PUFAs supplementation could improve the antihypertensive action of specific blood pressure lowering drug classes and of statins.
Unintentional injuries in infants in Singapore.

INTRODUCTION To describe the risk factors, causes and outcome of infant injuries so as to guide the formulation of injury prevention strategies specific for Singapore babies less than one year old. METHODS Demographical, socio-economic data, and data on the circumstances of injury, nature, severity of injury and clinical outcome of all infants less than one year old and who sought medical attention for or died from unintentional childhood injuries or poisoning, at the Emergency Departments of three SingHealth hospitals, two SingHealth primary care polyclinics and the Forensic Medicine Department, Health Sciences Authority during a six-month period, were extracted from a larger Childhood Injuries Surveillance database and analysed. RESULTS 405 cases of accidental injury and poisoning in infants aged less than one year were seen from February to July 2002. 40.5 percent of injuries occurred when infants were left alone. Most infants were aged between nine months to one year (37 percent), male (57.3 percent), first-born (57.3 percent) and Chinese (69 percent), with no past medical history (96.1 percent). 91 percent of the injuries occurred at home, of which 60.5 percent occurred in the bedroom. Falls were the major mechanism of injury (77 percent). A total of 431 injuries were sustained. 63 percent were head injuries - mainly stable head injuries, which made up 93.1 percent of all the head injuries. 67.5 percent of the cases were discharged without follow-up, while 17.9 percent required hospital admission, mostly to the general ward (98.6 percent of total admissions), and to the neurosurgery department (84.9 percent of total admissions). There were two fatalities in this study population. The mechanisms and patterns of injury changed with increasing motor ability of the infants. CONCLUSION Parents and caregivers of infants should be taught and reminded about the age specific measures in injury prevention as their wards go through the various developmental stages in the first year of life. Emphasis should be placed on close caregiver supervision, identifying potential injury hazards in the home, fall prevention, adopting safe infant care practices and the safe use of infant care products.
Incidence and prevalence of abnormal liver associated enzymes in patients with atrial fibrillation in a routine clinical care population

The prevalence of elevated liver enzymes has not been described in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) who may be more likely to develop these abnormalities due to comorbidities and medications. As signals of liver injury lead to termination of drug development programs, an attempt to better define the background prevalence would aid in interpreting these elevations in the setting of exposure to a new drug. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence and incidence of alanine aminotransferase (ALT) elevations in a cohort with AF.
Conventional and Single-step Pretreatment Process of Cotton Woven Fabric

I n this experiment grey fabrics (woven) were treated by using various concentrations of multifunctional scouring agent (M.F.S.A.) and H2O2 in case of single-step process. Also optimized required number of chemical used for whole process; here only two chemicals have been used. No additional chemicals used for water treatment and washing of treated fabric. After process only cold wash were done. After process quality of bleached fabric were tested by testing various test e.g. tensile strength and absorbency of bleached fabric. Conventional pretreatment process were also studi ed and compared with single step pretreatment process. Dyeability of bleached fabric also studied. Fabric pretreated by single step process have significant effect on dyeability that is comparatively better than conventional pretreatment process. Absorbency and tensile strength of bleached fabric were found significantly better in case of single-step process compared to conventional pretreatment process.
The Multivalent PDZ Domain-containing Protein CIPP Is a Partner of Acid-sensing Ion Channel 3 in Sensory Neurons*

Acid-sensing ion channels (ASICs) are cationic channels activated by extracellular pH. They are present in the brain, where they are thought to participate in signal transduction associated with local pH variations, and in sensory neurons, where they have been involved in pain perception associated with tissue acidosis and in mechanoperception. The ASIC3 subunit is mainly expressed in dorsal root ganglion neurons. Its expression is associated with a rapidly inactivating current followed by a slowly activating sustained current thought to be required for the tonic sensation of pain caused by acids. We report here the interaction of this channel subunit with the multivalent PDZ (PSD-95 Drosophila discs-large protein,Zonula occludens protein 1) domain-containing protein CIPP. This interaction requires the C-terminal region of ASIC3 and the fourth PDZ domain of CIPP. Co-expression of CIPP and ASIC3 in COS cells increases the maximal ASIC3 peak current density by a factor of 5 and slightly shifts the pH0.5 for activation from pH 6.2 to pH 6.4. CIPP mRNA is found at a significant level in the same dorsal root ganglion neuronal cell population that expresses the ASIC3 subunit, i.e. mainly in the small nociceptive neurons. CIPP is thus a scaffolding protein that could both enhance the surface expression of ASIC3 and bring together ASIC3 and functionally related proteins in the membrane of sensory neurons.
atTic110 Functions as a Scaffold for Coordinating the Stromal Events of Protein Import into Chloroplasts*

The translocon of the inner envelope membrane of chloroplasts (Tic) mediates the late events in the translocation of nucleus-encoded preproteins into chloroplasts. Tic110 is a major integral membrane component of active Tic complexes and has been proposed to function as a docking site for translocation-associated stromal factors and as a component of the protein-conducting channel. To investigate the various proposed functions of Tic110, we have investigated the structure, topology, and activities of a 97.5-kDa fragment of Arabidopsis Tic110 (atTic110) lacking only the amino-terminal transmembrane segments. The protein was expressed both in Escherichia coli and Arabidopsis as a stable, soluble protein with a high α-helical content. Binding studies demonstrate that a region of the atTic110-soluble domain selectively associates with chloroplast preproteins at the late stages of membrane translocation. These data support the hypothesis that the bulk of Tic110 extends into the chloroplast stroma and suggest that the domain forms a docking site for preproteins as they emerge from the Tic translocon.
A novel linear induction motor equivalent-circuit with optimized end effect model

A new method to model the end effect for single-sided short-primary linear induction motors (LIMs) is developed by considering the effect of nonzero leakage inductance of the secondary. The well-established equivalent circuit model-introduced by Duncan in the 1980s-is improved by taking nonzero leakage inductance into account. This new approach closes the gap between predictions and test results of a transit LIM. It also allows for reliable model utilization in engineering practice. The analytical predictions are verified with the field test data collected from a full-scale LIM designed for public transit systems.
View synthesis with depth information based on graph cuts for FTV

In three dimensional television (3DTV), an interactive free viewpoint selection application has received more attention so far. This paper presents a novel method that synthesizes a free-viewpoint based on multiple textures and depth maps in multi-view camera configuration. This method solves the cracks and holes problem due to sampling rate by performing an inverse warping to retrieve texture images. This step allows a simple and accurate re-sampling of synthetic pixel. To enforce the spatial consistency of color and remove the pixels wrapped incorrectly because of inaccuracy depth maps, we propose some processing steps. The warped depth and warped texture images are used to classify pixels as stable, unstable and disoccluded pixels. The stable pixels are used to create an initial new view by weighted interpolation. To refine the new view, Graph cuts is used to select the best candidates for each unstable pixel. Finally, the remaining disoccluded regions are filled by our inpainting method based on depth information and texture neighboring pixel value. Our experiment on several multi-view data sets is encouraging in both subjective and objective results. Furthermore, our proposal can flexibly use more than two views in multi-view system to create a new view with higher quality.
Inflammatory/Antiinflammatory Properties of High-Density Lipoprotein Distinguish Patients From Control Subjects Better Than High-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol Levels and Are Favorably Affected by Simvastatin Treatment

Background—The inflammatory/antiinflammatory properties of HDL were compared with HDL cholesterol in 2 groups of patients and in age- and sex-matched control subjects. Methods and Results—Group 1 consisted of 26 patients not yet taking a statin who presented with coronary heart disease (CHD) or CHD equivalents by National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III criteria studied before and 6 weeks after 40 mg/d of simvastatin. Group 2 consisted of 20 patients with documented CHD and HDL cholesterol ≥84 mg/dL. The inflammatory/antiinflammatory properties of HDL were determined by the ability of the subject’s HDL to alter LDL-induced monocyte chemotactic activity (MCA) in a human artery wall coculture. Induction of MCA by a control LDL was determined in the absence or presence of the subject’s HDL. Values in the absence of HDL were normalized to 1.0. Values >1.0 after the addition of HDL indicated proinflammatory HDL; values <1.0 indicated antiinflammatory HDL. Group 1 values before simvastatin were LDL cholesterol, 118±24 mg/dL; HDL cholesterol, 57±13 mg/dL; triglycerides, 125±64 mg/dL; and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), 1.7±1.9 mg/L; and MCA values were 1.38±0.91, compared with 0.38±0.14 for control subjects (P =1.5×10−5). After simvastatin, values were LDL cholesterol, 73±24 mg/dL; HDL cholesterol, 61±14 mg/dL; triglycerides, 99±52 mg/dL; and hs-CRP, 1.3±1.3 mg/L; and MCA values were 1.08±0.71. In group 2, values were LDL cholesterol, 108±34 mg/dL; HDL cholesterol, 95±14 mg/dL; triglycerides, 89±44 mg/dL; and hs-CRP, 0.8±0.7 mg/L; and MCA values were 1.28±0.29, compared with 0.35±0.11 for control subjects (P =1.7×10−14). Similar results were obtained with the cell-free assay. Conclusions—The inflammatory/antiinflammatory properties of HDL distinguished patients from control subjects better than HDL cholesterol and were improved with simvastatin.
Target Q-Coverage Problem with Bounded Service Delay in Directional Sensor Networks

Maximizing network lifetime is an important objective for the target-coverage problem. With practicable manufacture and cost reduction, directional sensor has been widely used in wireless sensor networks to save energy. In this paper, we address the target Q-coverage (TQC) problem to prolong the network lifetime with bounded service delay constraint in directional sensor networks. We propose a protocol to find a collection of coverage sets that satisfy the coverage quality requirement and the bounded service delay constraint, where the target in each coverage set may not be served continuously but can be served with tolerant service delay. By steering some sensors' directional antennas, our protocol could deal with the changes of network topology or monitoring tasks. Simulation results show that the performance of our protocol is close to the upper bound of the optimal solution.
A spur-reduction frequency synthesizer for WIMAX applications

A spur-reduction frequency synthesizer proposed in 0.18-um CMOS technology is developed for WIMAX applications. It incorporates a random charge pump to randomize the reference spur so as to accomplish a low spur level or a relatively smooth spectrum and a fast lock synthesizer. This frequency synthesizer achieves the phase noise of −124dBc/Hz at 1MHz offset frequency and reference spurs below −70dBc. The spur tones of the frequency synthesizer are greatly in frequency domain and the power consumption is 28mW.