Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Diabetic Kidney Disease: A Report From an ADA Consensus Conference

The incidence and prevalence of diabetes mellitus have grown significantly throughout the world, due primarily to the increase in type 2 diabetes. This overall increase in the number of people with diabetes has had a major impact on development of diabetic kidney disease (DKD), one of the most frequent complications of both types of diabetes. DKD is the leading cause of end-stage renal disease (ESRD), accounting for approximately 50% of cases in the developed world. Although incidence rates for ESRD attributable to DKD have recently stabilized, these rates continue to rise in high-risk groups such as middle-aged African Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanics. The costs of care for people with DKD are extraordinarily high. In the Medicare population alone, DKD-related expenditures among this mostly older group were nearly $25 billion in 2011. Due to the high human and societal costs, the Consensus Conference on Chronic Kidney Disease and Diabetes was convened by the American Diabetes Association in collaboration with the American Society of Nephrology and the National Kidney Foundation to appraise issues regarding patient management, highlighting current practices and new directions. Major topic areas in DKD included 1) identification and monitoring, 2) cardiovascular disease and management of dyslipidemia, 3) hypertension and use of renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system blockade and mineralocorticoid receptor blockade, 4) glycemia measurement, hypoglycemia, and drug therapies, 5) nutrition and general care in advanced-stage chronic kidney disease, 6) children and adolescents, and 7) multidisciplinary approaches and medical home models for health care delivery. This current state summary and research recommendations are designed to guide advances in care and the generation of new knowledge that will meaningfully improve life for people with DKD.
Conditional limit theorems for ordered random walks

In a recent paper of Eichelsbacher and Koenig (2008) the model of ordered random walks has been considered. There it has been shown that, under certain moment conditions, one can construct a $k$-dimensional random walk conditioned to stay in a strict order at all times. Moreover, they have shown that the rescaled random walk converges to the Dyson Brownian motion. In the present paper we find the optimal moment assumptions for the construction proposed by Eichelsbacher and Koenig, and generalise the limit theorem for this conditional process.
Relationship of the changes of cervical MRI, TCD and BAEP in patients with "isolated" vertigo.

OBJECTIVE To study the relationship and changes of cervical MRI, TCD and BAEP in patients with "isolated" vertigo. METHODS The relationship and changes of cervical MRI, TCD and BAEP were investigated respectively in 125 patients with "isolated" vertigo and 100 healthy controls. RESULTS There were statistically significant differences between two groups for overall abnormalities of TCD (X(2) = 61.96, P<0.01), BAEP (X(2) = 97.99, P<0.01), and cervical MRI severity scale (Z = -8.71, P<0.01). In vertigo group, results showed significant correlations between TCD and cervical MRI, TCD and BAEP as well. And analysis on TCD PI and some items of BAEP demonstrated positive linear correlations. There were no statistical differences or correlations in control group. CONCLUSIONS TCD is a sensitive method of "isolated" vertigo screening. A combined test protocol of cervical MRI, TCD and BAEP has superiorities to assess "isolated" vertigo.
Hypotension during gradual blood loss: waveform variables response and absence of tachycardia.

BACKGROUND Variation in arterial pressure and plethysmographic waveforms has been shown to be predictors of cardiac output response to fluid challenge. The objective of this study was to evaluate the ability of arterial and plethysmographic waveform variables to predict hypotension during blood loss. METHODS Patients undergoing autologous haemodilution were studied. After anaesthesia induction, blood was withdrawn in steps of 2% of estimated circulating blood volume (ECBV). Arterial and plethysmographic waveforms were recorded and analysed offline at each step of blood withdrawal. RESULTS Thirty-four (29%) out of 118 studied patients tolerated 20% ECBV withdrawal without hypotension. Patients who tolerated 20% ECBV withdrawal were younger than those who did not [mean (sd): 53.8 (11.1) vs 62.7 (10.7); P<0.0001]. Patients with hypertension developed hypotension earlier than healthier patients did. There were no differences at the baseline in arterial and plethysmographic waveform variables between those who did and those who did not tolerate 20% of ECBV withdrawal. All values of variables increased significantly from the baseline after the withdrawal of 4% of ECBV (P<0.005). There were no changes in heart rate (HR), 73 (12) at the baseline and 76 (13) after 20% of ECBV withdrawal (P=0.4). CONCLUSIONS Arterial and plethysmographic waveform variables were augmented with increasing blood loss in all patients. Older patients, patients who received anti-hypertensive drugs, or both developed hypotension earlier than others. Baseline values were weak predictors of hypotension during stepwise blood withdrawal. No clinically significant increase in HR was observed, regardless of tolerance of arterial pressure to blood withdrawal.
Entwicklung und Evaluation der virtuellen Lern- und Arbeitsumgebung VILA

Im Beitrag wird von der theoriegestutzten Entwicklung und Evaluation der virtuellen Lern- und Arbeitsumgebung VILA berichtet. VILA wurde fur die berufliche Aus- und Weiter­bildung von Fachkraften im industriellen Dienstleistungsbereich entwickelt. Die Ergebnisse der mit (angehenden) Servicetechnikern in gewerblich-technischen Domanen (n = 62) und Berufs- und Technikpadagogen (n = 72) durchgefuhrte Evaluation lassen darauf schliesen, dass die virtuelle Lern- und Arbeitsumgebung VILA mit ihren technologischen und funktionalen Optionen sowie ihrem methodisch-didaktischen Konzept zentrale Anforderun­gen an ein situiertes und flexibles Lernen erfullt und von den Befragten im Hinblick auf Usability, raumliche Prasenz und Flow-Erleben positiv wahrgenommen wird. In einem Strukturmodell zeigt sich, dass vor allem die wahrgenommene raumliche Prasenz das Flow-Erleben im virtuellen Setting determiniert. Schlusselworter: Virtuelles Lernen, Usability, raumliche Prasenz, Flow-Erleben, Evaluation
The first sign change of Fourier coefficients of cusp forms

Let $f=\sum_{n>o} a(n)q^{n}, a(n)$ real, be an arbitrary nonzero cusp form of even integral weight $k\geq 2$ on $\Gamma_0(N),$ square free $N. $ We obtain an effective bound that the first sign change of $a(n)$ occurs.
On-Line Diagnosis and Recovery: On the Choice and Impact of Tuning Parameters

A sequenced process of Fault Detection followed by the erroneous node's Isolation and system Reconfiguration (node exclusion or recovery), that is, the FDIR process, characterizes the sustained operations of a fault-tolerant system. For distributed systems utilizing message passing, a number of diagnostic (and associated FDIR) approaches, including our prior algorithms, exist in literature and practice. Invariably, the focus is on proving the completeness and correctness (all and only the faulty nodes are isolated) for the chosen fault model, without explicitly segregating permanent from transient faulty nodes. To capture diagnostic issues related to the persistence of errors (transient, intermittent, and permanent), we advocate the integration of count-and-threshold mechanisms into the FDIR framework. Targeting pragmatic system issues, we develop an adaptive online FDIR framework that handles a continuum of fault models and diagnostic protocols and comprehensively characterizes the role of various probabilistic parameters that, due to the count-and-threshold approach, influence the correctness and completeness of diagnosis and system reliability such as the fault detection frequency. The FDIR framework has been implemented on two prototypes for automotive and aerospace applications. The tuning of the protocol parameters at design time allows a significant improvement with respect to prior design choices.
Opinion of French nephrologists on renal replacement therapy: survey on their personal choice

Background In France, like in most developed countries, peritoneal dialysis (PD) is less used than haemodialysis (HD). This is not based on medical evidence supporting HD superiority. As the practitioner's opinion is important to patients and may influence their treatment choice, we conducted a survey among French nephrologists to determine which renal replacement therapy (RRT) they would choose if they had end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Methods We e-mailed a self-administered questionnaire to all members of the French-speaking Nephrology Society between 19 October 2008 and 12 January 2009. We then selected from the French Renal Epidemiology and Information Network (REIN) registry a reference population of 20- to 64-year-old patients with ESRD who began RRT [HD, PD or pre-emptive transplantation, (PT)] in 2008. Results The survey response rate was 17.8%. Results showed that 59.6% of respondents chose early inscription on the transplantation waiting list in view of PT, 20.2% selected HD and 20.2% selected PD. When dialysis was the only choice, 50.2% chose HD and 49.8% chose PD. Younger nephrologists (≤44 years old) selected PD more frequently than older nephrologists (≥45 years old) (58.9 versus 40.5%; P < 0.01). Similarly, PD was chosen more often by nephrologists from regions with ‘more PD’ than from regions with ‘less PD’ (79.0 versus 48.8%; P < 0.05). The nephrologists' choices were different from the RTT distribution among the reference population: 81.7% HD, 10.1% PD and 8.2% PT. Conclusion Our survey on the theoretical choice of RTT suggests that the low PD rate in France cannot be explained by a negative opinion of PD among French nephrologists.
CHARACTERIZING BAYESIAN NETWORK STRUCTURE SENSITIVITY IN CLASSIFIERS DERIVED FROM DATA

Bayesian networks are used to model causal relationships in which the network is composed of a directed acyclic graph (DAG) with corresponding probability distributions for each node. I investigated the use of DAG enumeration as a method of evaluating differences in network structures inferred for individuals when the number of variables is small. For computational efficiency, we used a DAG list that relates each DAG to a specific equivalence class via a variable permutation, which reduces classification essentially to a table look-up. Additionally, we mapped the enumeration results to a circle to allow visualization of the entire hypothesis space in one graph. To evaluate our approach, we applied our methodology to data from the field of sleep and circadian rhythms. Our results suggest that this approach is an effective method of data analysis for inferring relationships among variables when the number of variables is small. Characterizing Model Structure Sensitivity ii Para mi esposa Deirdre Pierotti Characterizing Model Structure Sensitivity iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank Dr. Gary Livingston for helping to make this thesis a reality. Over the last year, we critically discussed the advantages and short-comings of machine learning both in and out of the classroom. Dr. Elizabeth Klerman helped me to coordinate my professional duties with my academic goal. By making completion of my graduate studies a priority within the lab, she has afforded me the opportunity to combine my academic and professional research so that I can begin a path towards an academic position. I am thankful to Dr. George Grinstein for agreeing to be on the committee after just seeing a one-page abstract. Dr. Grinstein’s comments helped to focus my efforts. Scientific research requires regular interactions. I am indebted to the many discussions I have had within the Machine Learning Group (MLG) at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, the Bio-mathematical Modeling UnitDivision of Sleep MedicineBrigham and Women’s Hospital, and Members and Faculty of the Division of Sleep Medicine. I would like to thank Dr. Charles Czeisler, Chief of the Division of Sleep Medicine-Harvard Medical School, for providing me with countless opportunities to grow and to represent the Division. Dr. Laura Barger, as a Post Doctoral Fellow and now as an Instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, has provided me access to the experimental data used in this thesis. Most important, I must thank my wife Deirdre and my family for supporting my quest for learning. Portions of this work have been supported by US AFOSR F49620-95-1-0388 and F49620-95-1-0388; NASA-NSBRI cooperative agreements NCC9-58 and NCC2-1; and NIH R01NS36590. EBK was supported by NIH K02-HD045459. Characterizing Model Structure Sensitivity iv Table of
Parent training: effectiveness of the Parents Plus Early Years programme in community preschool settings

Evidenced based parent training (PT) programmes offer an important intervention strategy to improve early behavioural and emotional difficulties for young children. Initial research highlights the benefits of incorporating PT within local community services such as preschools. The present study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the Parents Plus Early Years (PPEY) programme when delivered by preschool practitioners in their communities. Parents of 277 preschool children completed a seven week PPEY programme, with outcome measures collected pre- and post-intervention. The results indicate parents completing the PPEY reported reduced parental stress and child difficulties as well as improved parenting satisfaction and parenting goal achievement. The results demonstrate the unique attributes and potential that preschool PPEY programmes can offer as a cost effective and sustainable resource for early intervention with young children and their families.
Heme Levels Switch the Function of Hap1 of Saccharomyces cerevisiae between Transcriptional Activator and Transcriptional Repressor

ABSTRACT Changes in oxygen levels cause widespread changes in gene expression in organisms ranging from bacteria to humans. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, this response is mediated in part by Hap1, originally identified as a heme-dependent transcriptional activator that functions during aerobic growth. We show here that Hap1 also plays a significant and direct role under hypoxic conditions, not as an activator, but as a repressor. The repressive activity of Hap1 controls several genes, including three ERG genes required for ergosterol biosynthesis. Chromatin immunoprecipitation experiments showed that Hap1 binds to the ERG gene promoters, while additional experiments showed that the corepressor Tup1/Ssn6 is recruited by Hap1 and is also required for repression. Furthermore, mutational analysis demonstrated that conserved Hap1 binding sites in the ERG5 5′ regulatory region are required for repression. The switch of Hap1 from acting as a hypoxic repressor to an aerobic activator is determined by heme, which is synthesized only in the presence of oxygen. The ability of Hap1 to function as a ligand-dependent repressor and activator is a property shared with mammalian nuclear hormone receptors and likely allows greater transcriptional control by Hap1 in response to changing oxygen levels.
ERS/ESTS clinical guidelines on fitness for radical therapy in lung cancer patients (surgery and chemo-radiotherapy)

A collaboration of multidisciplinary experts on the functional evaluation of lung cancer patients has been facilitated by the European Respiratory Society (ERS) and the European Society of Thoracic Surgery (ESTS), in order to draw up recommendations and provide clinicians with clear, up-to-date guidelines on fitness for surgery and chemo-radiotherapy. The subject was divided into different topics, which were then assigned to at least two experts. The authors searched the literature according to their own strategies, with no central literature review being performed. The draft reports written by the experts on each topic were reviewed, discussed and voted on by the entire expert panel. The evidence supporting each recommendation was summarised, and graded as described by the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network Grading Review Group. Clinical practice guidelines were generated and finalised in a functional algorithm for risk stratification of the lung resection candidates, emphasising cardiological evaluation, forced expiratory volume in 1 s, systematic carbon monoxide lung diffusion capacity and exercise testing. Contrary to lung resection, for which the scientific evidences are more robust, we were unable to recommend any specific test, cut-off value, or algorithm before chemo-radiotherapy due to the lack of data. We recommend that lung cancer patients should be managed in specialised settings by multidisciplinary teams.
Implementing a clock synchronization protocol on a multi-master Switched Ethernet network

The interest to use Switched Ethernet technologies in real-time communication is increasing due to its absence of collisions when transmitting messages. Nevertheless, using COTS switches affect the timeliness guarantee inherent in potentially overflowing internal FIFO queues. In this paper we focus on a solution, called the FTT-SE protocol, which is developed based on a master-slave technique. Recently, an extension of the FTT-SE protocol has been proposed where the transmission of messages are controlled using multiple master nodes. In order to guarantee the correctness of the protocol, the masters should be timely synchronized. Therefore, in this paper we investigate the possibility of using a clock synchronization protocol, based on the IEEE 1588 standard, among master nodes. Moreover, we evaluate the overhead that is imposed by the clock synchronization protocol to the FTT-SE protocol. Finally, we present a formal verification of this solution by means of model checking technique to prove the correctness of the FTT-SE protocol when the clock synchronization protocol is applied.
Correlation between the SERT binding densities in hypothalamus and amygdala in Cloninger type 1 and 2 alcoholics.

UNLABELLED Serotonin plays a role in the regulation of emotional states in amygdala which in turn affect the function of hypothalamus. The physiological effects of emotions are mediated to autonomic nervous system by the hypothalamus, also innervated by the serotonergic Raphe nuclei. AIMS We evaluated the putative alterations of the serotonin transporter (SERT) density in the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) of hypothalamus of Cloninger type 1 and 2 (early onset, anti-social) alcoholics and controls. METHODS The study was performed by human whole-hemisphere auto-radiography with [3H]citalopram. RESULTS Substantially sparser SERT density (-26%) with a moderate effect size (0.53) was observed in the hypothalamus of alcoholic subjects in relation to non-alcoholic comparison subjects, although the result failed to reach statistical significance. In type 2 alcoholics, there was a trend towards decreased SERT binding with large effect size (0.88), and no correlation between the SERT binding and the age at the time of death. There was a strong positive correlation between the SERT binding in amygdala and in PVN in type 2 alcoholics (P = 0.001), and negative correlation in type 1 alcoholics (P = 0.05), and no correlation in the control subjects. The difference between the groups was significant (chi2 = 16.75, P = 0.0002). CONCLUSIONS Taken together, these preliminary results support the hypothesis that the serotonergic regulation in the hypothalamus and amygdala are defected especially in type 2 alcoholics.
Plasma Brain Natriuretic Peptide to Detect Preclinical Ventricular Systolic or Diastolic Dysfunction: A Community-Based Study

Background— Preclinical systolic or diastolic dysfunction is associated with increased morbidity and mortality. We postulated that plasma brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) might serve as a biomarker for preclinical ventricular dysfunction (PCVD) but that the discriminatory values for BNP may vary with age and sex. Methods and Results— We measured BNP, systolic and diastolic ventricular function, and clinical parameters in 2042 randomly selected residents of Olmsted County, Minn, aged 45 years or older. For preclinical systolic dysfunction, the areas under the receiver operating characteristics curve were higher for those with more severe (0.82 to 0.92) than any (0.51 to 0.74) systolic dysfunction and were similar in men and women and in younger and older persons. For preclinical diastolic dysfunction, the areas under the receiver operating characteristics curve were higher for those with moderate-to-severe (0.74 to 0.79) than any (0.52 to 0.68) diastolic dysfunction and were similar regardless of age or sex. Optimal discriminatory values of BNP varied with age and sex. Considering the prevalence of preclinical systolic or diastolic dysfunction and the predictive characteristics observed, using BNP to screen for PCVD would necessitate echo in 10% to 40% of those screened, with most confirmatory echocardiograms being negative, and would miss 10% to 60% of those affected. Conclusions— BNP is a suboptimal screening test for PCVD in the population.
Interpretation of inconsistencies via context consistency diagrams

Pervasive context-aware systems base their responses on information about the environment collected from ubiquitous sensors. The inevitable drawback of such systems is that raw data collected from sensors is often noisy, corrupted, and imprecise. Erroneous sensor readings create uncertainties and ambiguous interpretations. Thus creating an interpretation challenge for the context-aware system that needs to reason about possible states of only partially observable subjects. We propose a mechanism for pervasive context-aware systems to process the information gathered from sensors so to obtain knowledge about possible environment states. This includes both the ability to reason about a situation with incomplete knowledge and to cope with erroneous contexts. We present a probabilistic approach to reason about the likelihood of each particular situation, state of a variable, and variable interdependence. The evaluation shows that the proposed approach is applicable to real-time context inference problems.
Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Is Independently Associated With an Increased Incidence of Chronic Kidney Disease in Patients With Type 1 Diabetes

OBJECTIVE There is no information about the role of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in predicting the development of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in type 1 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We studied 261 type 1 diabetic adults with preserved kidney function and with no macroalbuminuria at baseline, who were followed for a mean period of 5.2 years for the occurrence of incident CKD (defined as estimated glomerular filtration rate [eGFR] <60 mL/min/1.73 m2 and/or macroalbuminuria). NAFLD was diagnosed by ultrasonography. RESULTS At baseline, patients had a mean eGFR of 92 ± 23 mL/min/1.73 m2; 234 (89.7%) of them had normoalbuminuria and 27 (10.3%) microalbuminuria. NAFLD was present in 131 (50.2%) patients. During follow-up, 61 subjects developed incident CKD. NAFLD was associated with an increased risk of incident CKD (hazard ratio [HR] 2.85 [95% CI 1.59–5.10]; P < 0.001). Adjustments for age, sex, duration of diabetes, hypertension, A1C, and baseline eGFR did not appreciably attenuate this association (adjusted HR 2.03 [1.10–3.77], P < 0.01). Results remained unchanged after excluding those who had microalbuminuria at baseline (adjusted HR 1.85 [1.03–3.27]; P < 0.05). Addition of NAFLD to traditional risk factors for CKD significantly improved the discriminatory capability of the regression models for predicting CKD (e.g., with NAFLD c statistic 0.79 [95% CI 0.73–0.86] vs. 0.76 [0.71–0.84] without NAFLD, P = 0.002). CONCLUSIONS This is the first study to demonstrate that NAFLD is strongly associated with an increased incidence of CKD. Measurement of NAFLD improves risk prediction for CKD, independently of traditional cardio-renal risk factors, in patients with type 1 diabetes.