Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of systemic steroids in patients with severe community-acquired pneumonia

The benefit of systemic steroids as adjunctive treatment in patients with severe community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) remains unclear. The present study aimed to evaluate the impact of corticosteroid treatment on mortality in patients with severe CAP. A retrospective, observational study of a cohort of patients hospitalised with severe CAP, classes IV and V of the Prognostic Severity Index score, was carried out. Information on epidemiological, clinical and laboratory data, and 30-day mortality was collected from medical charts. Of the 308 patients evaluated, 238 (77%) were treated with standard antimicrobial therapy and 70 (23%) received both antibiotics and systemic steroids. Clinical characteristics were similar between steroid and nonsteroid groups, except in the prevalence of male sex and the presence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Systemic steroids were independently associated with a decreased mortality (odds ratio 0.287; 95% confidence interval 0.113–0.732), while severity of CAP (2.923; 1.262–6.770) was the only independent factor associated with increased mortality. Mortality decreased in the patients with severe CAP who received simultaneous administration of systemic steroids along with antibiotic treatment. Severity of community-acquired pneumonia remains the most important risk factor associated with increased mortality.
SWAT : An Error Resilient System

As devices continue to scale, future shipped hardware is more likely to fail due to in-the-field hardware faults. As traditional redundancy-based hardware reliability solutions are too expensive to be broadly deployable, recent research has focused on low-overhead reliability so lutions. One approach is to employ low-overhead detection (always-on) techniques that catch high-level symptoms and pay a higher overhead for diagnosis (rarely invoked). To this end, we are developing SWAT (SoftWare Anomaly Treatment) – a low-cost reliability solution that effectively handles multiple sources of faults by detectin g anomalous software behavior. At the last SELSE, we motivated SWAT and presented a preliminary detection component that detects hardware failures by monitoring simple software level symptoms. This paper presents two significant enhancements to the SWAT system over the last year: (1) an effective diagnosis strategy that identifi es the faulty microarchitectural unit by exploiting a checkpoint/replay based recovery mechanism and analyzing the faulty core’s instruction trace, and (2) a sophisticated detection mechanism that specifically targets silent data corruptions by using compiler-inserted range-based invar iants to further improve detection coverage and latency. The detection strategy leverages the online diagnosis strateg y in a novel way to enable aggressive use of invariants while minimizing the impact of false positives at runtime.
A Lightweight Approach to Program Specialization ⋆

Within the imperative programming paradigm, program slicing has been widely used as a basis to solve many software engineering problems, like debugging, testing, differencing, specialization, and merging. In this work, we present a lightweight approach to program specialization of lazy functional logic programs which is based on dynamic slicing. The kind of specialization performed by our approach cannot be achieved with other related techniques like partial evaluation.
An efficient method of language identification using LVQ network

This paper presents a new method to identify languages. A LVQ (learning vector quantization) network aimed at language identification is introduced. The presence of particular characters, words and the statistical information of word lengths are used as a feature vector. The new classification technique is faster than the conventional N-gram based classification approach, but it performs similarly in correct classification rate. In an identification experiment with 8 Roman alphabet languages, the LVQ network achieved 97.6% correct classification rate with 500 bytes, but it is five times faster than N-gram based approach.
Do Media Sentiments Reflect Economic Indices

Forecasting economic indices on the basis of information extracted from text documents, like newspaper articles is an attractive idea. With the help of text mining techniques, in particular sentiment analysis, we evaluate the tone of individual New York Times (NYT) articles and compare our results to the Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI). In this paper, we present a simple, intuitive framework to derive sentiment scores from text documents. In particular articles are tagged based on terms and their connotated sentiment. Subsequently, we forecast the CFNAI movements via support vector machines (SVM) trained on a subset of the observed sentiment scores. We apply our model into two different data sets, the whole NYT articles and the articles categorized as NYT business news. On both data sets, we applied a simple performance measure to evaluate forecasting accuracy of the CFNAI.
CaBP1, a neuronal Ca2+ sensor protein, inhibits inositol trisphosphate receptors by clamping intersubunit interactions

Calcium-binding protein 1 (CaBP1) is a neuron-specific member of the calmodulin superfamily that regulates several Ca2+ channels, including inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptors (InsP3Rs). CaBP1 alone does not affect InsP3R activity, but it inhibits InsP3-evoked Ca2+ release by slowing the rate of InsP3R opening. The inhibition is enhanced by Ca2+ binding to both the InsP3R and CaBP1. CaBP1 binds via its C lobe to the cytosolic N-terminal region (NT; residues 1–604) of InsP3R1. NMR paramagnetic relaxation enhancement analysis demonstrates that a cluster of hydrophobic residues (V101, L104, and V162) within the C lobe of CaBP1 that are exposed after Ca2+ binding interact with a complementary cluster of hydrophobic residues (L302, I364, and L393) in the β-domain of the InsP3-binding core. These residues are essential for CaBP1 binding to the NT and for inhibition of InsP3R activity by CaBP1. Docking analyses and paramagnetic relaxation enhancement structural restraints suggest that CaBP1 forms an extended tetrameric turret attached by the tetrameric NT to the cytosolic vestibule of the InsP3R pore. InsP3 activates InsP3Rs by initiating conformational changes that lead to disruption of an intersubunit interaction between a “hot-spot” loop in the suppressor domain (residues 1–223) and the InsP3-binding core β-domain. Targeted cross-linking of residues that contribute to this interface show that InsP3 attenuates cross-linking, whereas CaBP1 promotes it. We conclude that CaBP1 inhibits InsP3R activity by restricting the intersubunit movements that initiate gating.
Inter-trial priming does not affect attentional priority in asymmetric visual search

Visual search is considerably speeded when the target's characteristics remain constant across successive selections. Here, we investigated whether such inter-trial priming increases the target's attentional priority, by examining whether target repetition reduces search efficiency during serial search. As the study of inter-trial priming requires the target and distractors to exchange roles unpredictably, it has mostly been confined to singleton searches, which typically yield efficient search. We therefore resorted to two singleton searches known to yield relatively inefficient performance, that is, searches in which the target does not pop out. Participants searched for a veridical angry face among neutral ones or vice-versa, either upright or inverted (Experiment 1) or for a Q among Os or vice-versa (Experiment 2). In both experiments, we found substantial intertrial priming that did not improve search efficiency. In addition, intertrial priming was asymmetric and occurred only when the more salient target repeated. We conclude that intertrial priming does not modulate attentional priority allocation and that it occurs in asymmetric search only when the target is characterized by an additional feature that is consciously perceived.
Information technology and labour productivity growth : an empirical analysis for Canada and the United States

Over the past two decades, most industrialized economies have become more information technology (IT) intensive as spending on IT-related goods increased dramatically. All sectors of the economy are experiencing significant changes in the way goods and services are produced and delivered as a result of the increased diffusion and use of information technologies. Two inter-related forces have contributed to these developments. First, communications and information processing costs have fallen dramatically, and this has spurred and deepened globalization. Secondly, globalization, in turn, has advanced technological change by intensifying competition and expediting the diffusion of technology through international trade and foreign direct investment (FDI). In a parallel development, productivity growth in OECD economies has slowed significantly since the early 1970s. The decline has been especially noticeable in the service sector which consumes over 80 per cent of IT goods. This has raised questions related to the implications of IT investments. Until recently, there has been little empirical evidence that IT capital has contributed to increases in output and productivity growth. In this regard, two 2
The State of the Art of Lethal Oviposition Trap-Based Mass Interventions for Arboviral Control

The intensifying expansion of arboviruses highlights the need for effective invasive Aedes control. While mass-trapping interventions have long been discredited as inefficient compared to insecticide applications, increasing levels of insecticide resistance, and the development of simple affordable traps that target and kill gravid female mosquitoes, show great promise. We summarize the methodologies and outcomes of recent lethal oviposition trap-based mass interventions for suppression of urban Aedes and their associated diseases. The evidence supports the recommendation of mass deployments of oviposition traps to suppress populations of invasive Aedes, although better measures of the effects on disease control are needed. Strategies associated with successful mass-trap deployments include: (1) high coverage (>80%) of the residential areas; (2) pre-intervention and/or parallel source reduction campaigns; (3) direct involvement of community members for economic long-term sustainability; and (4) use of new-generation larger traps (Autocidal Gravid Ovitrap, AGO; Gravid Aedes Trap, GAT) to outcompete remaining water-holding containers. While to the best of our knowledge all published studies so far have been on Ae. aegypti in resource-poor or tropical settings, we propose that mass deployment of lethal oviposition traps can be used for focused cost-effective control of temperate Ae. albopictus pre-empting arboviral epidemics and increasing participation of residents in urban mosquito control.
Superoxide dismutases (SOD) activity responses in the hemolymph of Litopenaeus vannamei exposed to high concentrations of F−, Fe3+

SOD activity varieties in the hemolymph of Litopenaeus vannamei as the acute change of F<sup>−</sup> and Fe<sup>3+</sup> were studied in this test. The results showed that the SOD activity in hemolymph did not show dramatically changes in controlled groups (0mg/L). Compared with control, SOD activity in 10mg/L F<sup>−</sup> group increased at the beginning 24 hour, then, decreased until its normal level in following 3 days. SOD activity in 20mg/L F<sup>−</sup> group decreased significantly from 48h post-transfer. In 50mg/L F<sup>−</sup> group, SOD activity was prohibited all the time; SOD activity was increased in 0∼24h in 0.5mg/L and 1mg/L Fe<sup>3+</sup> group. Compared to this, SOD activities between 0∼48h were significantly decreased in 2mg/L Fe<sup>3+</sup> group, and then increased to the beginning level. This study revealed that the rule of SOD activity varieties according to the effects of F<sup>−</sup> and Fe<sup>3+</sup> changes on the SOD activity in the hemolymph of Litopenaeus vannamei.
Statistical latency analysis of carbon nanotube interconnects due to contact resistance variations

Single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and bundled CNTs have emerged as promising candidates for future VLSI interconnects material due to their excellent inherent electrical and thermal properties. The work in this paper attempts to statistically analyse the effect of process variation in contact resistance on the interconnect delay by using Monte-Carlo method. The work in this paper attempts to statistically analyse the effect of process variation in contact resistance on the latency of CNT interconnect using Monte-Carlo method. This paper makes an effort to evaluate the suitability of SWCNTs and bundled CNTs as futuristic VlSI interconnects in par with ITRS predictions with its inherent process variations in the contact resistance value. It is found that bundled CNTs can offer better performance than prediction and the performance of SWCNTs are getting highly limited by contact resistance variations.
Assortative Mating and Personality Evolutionary Psychology of Personality Mate Preferences Goals of Studies of Dating and Married Couples

Personality characteristics figure prominently in unstmctured nominations of what people want in a mate (Langhome & Secord, 1955). Both women and men say they want a mate who is kind, understanding , dependable, sociable, stable, and intelligent. Personality traits such as these have made their way onto more stmctured instmments designed to assess mate preferences but not in a systematic fashion. A few personality descriptors have been sprinkled throughout mate preference instm-ments designed to assess an array of qualities, such as physical appearance, economic resources, and education level. No prior studies have undertaken a systematic evaluation of what men and women desire in a broad array of personality characteristics, such as that represented by the five-Two theoretical orientations provide some preliminary hypotheses about the role of personality in mate selection and marital happiness— one stemming from conceptions of assortative mating and one stemming from evolutionary psychology. Perhaps the most well-documented theory of human mating is that likes attract likes—^that men and women become coupled with those who are similar to themselves (Buss, 1985; Thiessen & Gregg, 1980). This notion has received voluminous support in dozens of studies that show that people positively assort on age, ethnicity, religious background , height, weight, socioeconomic status, values, political orientation , and even nose breadth and earlobe length. When it comes to personality characteristics, however, there is little evidence for positive assortment, at least for the two traits that have been examined most commonly—^Extraversion and Neuroticism (Eysenck, 1981). Lacking, however, is a broader-gauged evaluation of assortative mating for personality that encompasses not just these two factors, but an array of personality factors, such as that captured by the five-factor model. A key question with any finding of assortative mating is this: What causal processes lead to assortment? Many causal processes have been proposed as candidates. One is propinquity, the notion that one tends to marry those that are near at hand. Regardless of conceptions of romantic love, the "one and only" typically lives within driving distance (Buss, 1985). Cultural institutions such as colleges and universities Personality and Mate Preferences 109 may promote assortative mating by preferentially admitting those who are similar with respect to certain variables such as intelligence, motivation , and in some cases social skills. Little is known, however, about one potentially powerful cause of assortative mating: Do men and women actively desire those who are similar to themselves? And do people's …
A Flexible Scheduling Framework Supporting Multiple Programming Models with Arbitrary Semantics in Linux

We present a hierarchic scheduling framework for Linux called Group Scheduling that facilitates the creation of arbitrary thread schedulers. Traditional approaches to developing new scheduling semantics require semantic mappings onto existing schedulers, such as static-priority. Group Scheduling allows for a direct implementation of semantics, allowing clear mappings at any level a developer desires. In order to effectively support scheduling semantics, integration with concurrency control is necessary (e.g. priority inheritance). However, when considering arbitrary scheduling semantics hard-wired solutions such as PI can’t adapt. We present Proxy Execution as a general mechanism to resolving policy conflicts that arise as tasks from different scheduling domains interact through the RT-Mutex primitive.
Expression of hurP, a Gene Encoding a Prospective Site 2 Protease, Is Essential for Heme-Dependent Induction of bhuR in Bordetella bronchiseptica

ABSTRACT Expression of the hurIR bhuRSTUV heme utilization locus in Bordetella bronchiseptica is coordinately controlled by the global iron-dependent regulator Fur and the extracytoplasmic function sigma factor HurI. Activation of HurI requires transduction of a heme-dependent signal via HurI, HurR, and BhuR, a three-component heme-dependent regulatory system. In silico searches of the B. bronchiseptica genome to identify other genes that encode additional participants in this heme-dependent regulatory cascade revealed hurP, an open reading frame encoding a polypeptide with homology to (i) RseP, a site 2 protease (S2P) of Escherichia coli required for modifying the cytoplasmic membrane protein RseA, and (ii) YaeL, an S2P of Vibrio cholerae required for modification of the cytoplasmic membrane protein TcpP. A mutant of B. bronchiseptica defective for hurP was incapable of regulating expression of BhuR in a heme-dependent manner. Furthermore, the hurP mutant was unable to utilize hemin as a sole source of nutrient Fe. These defects in hemin utilization and heme-dependent induction of BhuR were restored when recombinant hurP (or recombinant rseP) was introduced into the mutant. Introduction of hurP into a yaeL mutant of V. cholerae also complemented its S2P defect. These data provided strong evidence that protease activity and cleavage site recognition was conserved in HurP, RseP, and YaeL. The data are consistent with a model in which HurP functionally modifies HurR, a sigma factor regulator that is essential for heme-dependent induction of bhuR.
Hands Free Browser-‘An Interactive Speech Browser for Visually Handicapped’

These days the technology of browsing through voice is increasing rapidly. The paper concentrate on voice based approach of browsing rather than operating on textual mode, which uses speech recognition and speech synthesis methods or algorithms to implement speech technology. Now-a-days the learning over the web has become an important mode of education. However, the persons with no vision i.e. blind persons who represent a major population can’t access the content over the web efficiently in the current browsers, as they are unable to see the different links which are present in the web pages. This paper propose a system which allows these people to access the web, it comprises of various modules, such as: Speech Recognition, Speech Synthesis, Text to Braille and Braille to Text conversion. The paper also summarizes the algorithms used for above modules.
Adaptive neural network control for uncertain MIMO robotic systems with time-varying delay and unknown backlash-like hysteresis

This paper proposes an adaptive neural network control scheme for uncertain nonlinearly multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) robotic systems with time-varying delay and unknown backlash-like hysteresis. The radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) is used to approximate the unknown nolinear function term of the uncertain MIMO robotic systems and the unknown backlash-like hysteresis nonlinearity. To compensate the time-varying delays and unknown backlash-like hysteresis, a new version of high dimensional integral Lyapunov function is presented to construct a Lyapunov-based adaptive control structure. By combining the high dimensional integral-type Lyapunov function and RBFNN, the global stability of the considered systems is ensured and the tracking errors converge to the origin. Simulation studies on 2-DOF robotic manipulators demonstrate the proposed method is effective.
Persistent Sepsis-Induced Hypotension without Hyperlactatemia: A Distinct Clinical and Physiological Profile within the Spectrum of Septic Shock

Introduction. A subgroup of septic shock patients will never develop hyperlactatemia despite being subjected to a massive circulatory stress. Maintenance of normal lactate levels during septic shock is of great clinical and physiological interest. Our aim was to describe the clinical, hemodynamic, perfusion, and microcirculatory profiles associated to the absence of hyperlactatemia during septic shock resuscitation. Methods. We conducted an observational study in septic shock patients undergoing resuscitation. Serial clinical, hemodynamic, and perfusion parameters were registered. A single sublingual microcirculatory assessment was performed in a subgroup. Patients evolving with versus without hyperlactatemia were compared. Results. 124 septic shock patients were included. Patients without hyperlactatemia exhibited lower severity scores and mortality. They also presented higher platelet counts and required less intensive treatment. Microcirculation was assessed in 45 patients. Patients without hyperlactatemia presented higher PPV and MFI values. Lactate was correlated to several microcirculatory parameters. No difference in systemic flow parameters was observed. Conclusion. Persistent sepsis-induced hypotension without hyperlactatemia is associated with less organ dysfunctions and a very low mortality risk. Patients without hyperlactatemia exhibit less coagulation and microcirculatory derangements despite comparable macrohemodynamics. Our study supports the notion that persistent sepsis-induced hypotension without hyperlactatemia exhibits a distinctive clinical and physiological profile.
CoMP in heterogeneous networks: Linear transceiver design using the minimum weighted geometric-MSE criterion

Coordinated multipoint transmission (CoMP) is considered for a heterogeneous network where different kinds of base stations (BSs) are located. We focus on linear transceiver design with the goal of maximizing the weighted sum rate in the downlink of a multiple-input multiple-output orthogonal frequency division multiple access (MIMO-OFDMA) system, where each subchannel is allocated to a single user. We address this in the context of minimizing the weighted geometric mean of the mean-square-errors (MSEs), i.e., weighted geometric-MSE minimization. The problem is non-convex as in multi-user case, thus, the problem of finding the global optimum is an intrinsically intractable, NP hard problem. We propose an algorithm which divides the main problem into several convex subproblems. The proposed algorithm is shown to provide computationally efficient suboptimal solutions.