Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A diabetes outcome progression trial (ADOPT): an international multicenter study of the comparative efficacy of rosiglitazone, glyburide, and metformin in recently diagnosed type 2 diabetes.

OBJECTIVE Therapies with metformin, sulfonylureas, or insulin improve glycemic control in the short term but do not prevent progressive islet beta-cell failure or long-term deterioration in glycemia. Our goal was to evaluate, in patients recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes (<3 years), the long-term efficacy of monotherapy with rosiglitazone on glycemic control and on the progression of pathophysiological abnormalities associated with type 2 diabetes as compared with metformin or glyburide monotherapy. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS A Diabetes Outcome Progression Trial (ADOPT) is a randomized, double-blind, parallel-group study consisting of a screening visit, a 4-week placebo run-in, a 4-year treatment period, and an observational follow-up of approximately 3,600 drug-naïve patients with type 2 diabetes diagnosed within the previous 3 years. After run-in, patients will be randomized to rosiglitazone, glyburide, or metformin titrated to the maximum effective daily doses (8 mg rosiglitazone, 15 mg glyburide, or 2 g metformin). The primary outcome is time to monotherapy failure, defined as the time following titration to the maximal effective or tolerated dose when fasting plasma glucose exceeds 180 mg/dl (10 mmol/l). Secondary outcomes include measures of islet beta-cell function, insulin sensitivity, dyslipidemia, changes in urinary albumin excretion, plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 antigen, fibrinogen, and C-reactive protein. Safety and tolerability will also be evaluated. Patient-reported outcomes and resource utilization data will be collected and analyzed. CONCLUSIONS ADOPT will provide data on the effect of mechanistically differing treatment options on metabolic control, beta-cell function, and markers of macrovascular disease risk in type 2 diabetes.
Judging Expertise

This article develops a framework for understanding the role of gender in negotiations of expert authority and tests the new approach with an analysis of legal disputes about expert witness credibility (N = 435). Content-coded data from patent infringement, civil rights, and medical malpractice lawsuits in U.S. district courts indicate that lawyers’ challenges to expert witnesses’ credibility reflect widely held cultural beliefs about gender and certain kinds of expertise: whereas women are more likely than men to be challenged as unqualified to testify, men are more likely than women to be contested as irrelevant to the case. Furthermore, although highly credentialed women and men have equal chances of overcoming credibility challenges, women with fewer credentials are substantially more likely than men to be excluded from court. Overall, findings suggest that women must clear a higher bar than men to demonstrate their credibility as expert witnesses. Moreover, this study indicates that disputes about expert witness credibility are a site where stereotypes about gender and expertise are reproduced in the justice system.
Host Cell Factors and Functions Involved in Vesicular Stomatitis Virus Entry

ABSTRACT Vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) is an animal virus that based on electron microscopy and its dependence on acidic cellular compartments for infection is thought to enter its host cells in a clathrin-dependent manner. The exact cellular mechanism, however, is largely unknown. In this study, we characterized the entry kinetics of VSV and elucidated viral requirements for host cell factors during infection in HeLa cells. We found that endocytosis of VSV was a fast process with a half time of 2.5 to 3 min and that acid activation occurred within 1 to 2 min after internalization in early endosomes. The majority of viral particles were endocytosed in a clathrin-based, dynamin-2-dependent manner. Although associated with some of the surface-bound viruses, the classical adaptor protein complex AP-2 was not required for infection. Time-lapse microscopy revealed that the virus either entered preformed clathrin-coated pits or induced de novo formation of pits. Dynamin-2 was recruited to plasma membrane-confined virus particles. Thus, VSV can induce productive internalization by exploiting a specific combination of the clathrin-associated proteins and cellular functions.
The ICDAR2011 Arabic Writer Identification Contest

Arabic writer identification is a very active research field. However, no standard benchmark is available for researchers in this field. The aim of this competition is to gather researchers and compare recent advances in Arabic writer identification. This competition was hosted by Kaggle, it has attracted thirty participants from both academia and industry. This paper gives details on this competition, including the evaluation procedure, description of participating methods and their performances.
Sparse Penalized Forward Selection for Support Vector Classification

We propose a new binary classification and variable selection technique especially designed for high-dimensional predictors. Among many predictors, typically, only a small fraction of them have significant impact on prediction. In such a situation, more interpretable models with better prediction accuracy can be obtained by variable selection along with classification. By adding an ℓ1-type penalty to the loss function, common classification methods such as logistic regression or support vector machines (SVM) can perform variable selection. Existing penalized SVM methods all attempt to jointly solve all the parameters involved in the penalization problem altogether. When data dimension is very high, the joint optimization problem is very complex and involves a lot of memory allocation. In this article, we propose a new penalized forward search technique that can reduce high-dimensional optimization problems to one-dimensional optimization by iterating the selection steps. The new algorithm can be regarded as a forward selection version of the penalized SVM and its variants. The advantage of optimizing in one dimension is that the location of the optimum solution can be obtained with intelligent search by exploiting convexity and a piecewise linear or quadratic structure of the criterion function. In each step, the predictor that is most able to predict the outcome is chosen in the model. The search is then repeatedly used in an iterative fashion until convergence occurs. Comparison of our new classification rule with ℓ1-SVM and other common methods show very promising performance, in that the proposed method leads to much leaner models without compromising misclassification rates, particularly for high-dimensional predictors.
Agent Division and Fusion for Task Execution in Undependable Multiagent Systems

In multiagent systems, agents with limited capacity often cooperate in order to accomplish various types of tasks. Due to the openness of multiagent systems, agents may run the risk of their cooperations to accomplish tasks because of some involved undependable agents. The state of the art for handling this problem concentrates on the phase of task allocation, which aims to allocate tasks to more dependable agents (task allocation-oriented). In fact, accomplishing a task in a multiagent system requires two phases: i) task allocation, and ii) task execution. Hence, this paper, on the contrary, focuses on managing the phase of task execution to guarantee the performance of task accomplishment (task execution-oriented). To reduce the performance loss caused by undependable agents, the proposed agent division and fusion mechanism enables agents to autonomously divide themselves into sub-agents for executing tasks with different risks (more resources will be assigned to the sub-agent with lower risk in task execution), then the sub-agents can also fuse together and make a re-division to fit the current task environments. This work is also expected to be able to complement the existing state of the art (task allocation-oriented) for guaranteeing the performance of task accomplishment in undependable multiagent systems from task execution-oriented perspective.
Staphylococcus aureus Resistance to Human Defensins and Evasion of Neutrophil Killing via the Novel Virulence Factor Mprf Is Based on Modification of Membrane Lipids with l-Lysine

Defensins, antimicrobial peptides of the innate immune system, protect human mucosal epithelia and skin against microbial infections and are produced in large amounts by neutrophils. The bacterial pathogen Staphylococcus aureus is insensitive to defensins by virtue of an unknown resistance mechanism. We describe a novel staphylococcal gene, mprF, which determines resistance to several host defense peptides such as defensins and protegrins. An mprF mutant strain was killed considerably faster by human neutrophils and exhibited attenuated virulence in mice, indicating a key role for defensin resistance in the pathogenicity of S. aureus. Analysis of membrane lipids demonstrated that the mprF mutant no longer modifies phosphatidylglycerol with l-lysine. As this unusual modification leads to a reduced negative charge of the membrane surface, MprF-mediated peptide resistance is most likely based on repulsion of the cationic peptides. Accordingly, inactivation of mprF led to increased binding of antimicrobial peptides by the bacteria. MprF has no similarity with genes of known function, but related genes were identified in the genomes of several pathogens including Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Enterococcus faecalis. MprF thus constitutes a novel virulence factor, which may be of general relevance for bacterial pathogens and represents a new target for attacking multidrug resistant bacteria.
DIFICULDADES DE LINGUAGEM E DE APRENDIZAGEM NA INTERFACE GRAMÁTICA/PRAGMÁTICA / Language and learning difficulties at the grammar/pragmatics interface

PraSLI is presented as an impairment in the syntaxpragmatics interface in the light of a model of on-line computation, grounded on minimalist assumptions, and in the Relevance Theory, as far as ostension is concerned. Learning impaired (LI) 7-11-year-old children were evaluated by means of an elicited narrative production task. This evaluation aimed at verifying the extent to which LI and PraSLI share symptoms. Results suggest that LI may include manifestations of PraSLI.
The Power-Oriented Graphs technique: System modeling and basic properties

In this paper the Power-Oriented Graphs (POG) technique is introduced and its basic graphical properties are compared with those of the Bond Graph (BG) technique. The two techniques are based on the same concepts, are equivalent from a mathematical point of view and use two different graphical representations for modeling physical systems. The BG schemes are quite compact and more flexible in the exact description of all the power connections within the system. The POG schemes are easier to use for beginners and use vectorial compact forms when the system complexity increases. The paper ends describing some “dissipative” properties of the POG state space models.
Discovering Items with Potential Popularity on Social Media

Predicting the future popularity of online content is highly important in many applications. Under preferential attachment influence popular items get more popular thereby resulting in long tailed distribution problem. Consequently, new items which can be popular (potential ones), are suppressed by the already popular items. This paper proposes a novel model which is able to identify potential items. It identifies the potentially popular items by considering the number of links or ratings it has received in recent past along with it's popularity decay. For obtaining an efficient model we consider only temporal features of the content, avoiding the cost of extracting other features. Prediction accuracy is measured on three industrial data sets namely Movielens, Netflix and Facebook wall post. We have found the recent gain in link formation are a good predictor for future link formation as compare to total links, in other words we can say people follow the recent behaviours of their peers, considering the fact that collective attention makes something popular. Experimental results show that compare to state-of-the-art model our model have better prediction accuracy.
Using item mapping to evaluate alignment between curriculum and assessment

In educational testing, it is critical that the content of a test is aligned with the curriculum the test is designed to measure. Most methods for evaluating test-curriculum alignment rely on the subjective judgment of content made by experts who focus on how well the items on a test match curricular objectives. However, it is also important to ensure educational test items align with their expected levels of difficulty, which is much harder for experts to judge. In this study, test-curriculum alignment was evaluated by assessing the degree to which observed item difficulty aligned with intended item difficulty as determined by the test specifications. Using student response data for the Massachusetts Adult Proficiency Test (MAPT) for math, Item Response Theory (IRT) was used to locate items on the proficiency scale using two criterion response probability (RP) values. Item mapping results were compared to the item writers’ classifications of the items, and degree of agreement between the two sets of data were statistically compared. In general, higher alignment was observed using RP50 than RP67, and for items assessing lower cognitive levels. Subject matter experts concluded cognitive demand, item clarity, and language complexity were viable reasons for misalignment.
Skinny and fleshy failures of relative completeness

The notion of relative completeness of logics of programs was delineated almost ten years ago, in particular by Wand, Cook and Clarke. More recently, it has been felt that Cook's notion hinges on a fragile balance between the semantics of a programming language and first-order expressiveness in structures. This fragility underlies the negative results about relative completeness. The main negative result in this area, Clarke's Theorem, states that for a programming language with a sufficiently rich control structure there is no effective formalism for partial-correctness that is both sound and relatively complete (in the sense of Cook). A conclusion often drawn from this result is that the non-existence of an adequate Cook-complete formalization of the partial-correctness theory of a programming language is an indicator of the complexity of that language. Our most novel result is that this is not always the case. We exhibit a programming language whose control structure is trivial, and yet for which no Cook-complete Hoare logic exists. The poverty of the language is precisely what permits certain structures to be expressive, structures which would not be expressive had the program constructs been used more freely. We also discuss the failure of relative completeness for “fleshy” programming languages, of the kind of Clarke's. We point out the relevance of the Lambda Calculus here, from which we derive the failure of Cook-completeness for a programming language orthogonal (i.e. incomparable) to Clarke's, whose control-structure complexity resides to a great extent in a modest use of generic procedures. A variant of the same idea also provides an alternative proof of non-relative-completeness for (a variant of) Clarke's language. Finally, we note in passing a simple proof of Wand's Theorem, which states the failure of local completeness (without Cook's expressiveness condition) for while programs. Our proof uses rudimentary facts from Mathematical Logic. Its interest, compared with previous proofs [Wan78, BT82, Apt81] is that it refers to a structure whose first-order theory is not decidable. Moreover, our proof shows that the failure of local completeness for while programs is not necessarily due to a tension between first-order definability and definability by program looping, as one might have been tempted to conclude from previous proofs.
Role of subendocardial Purkinje network in triggering torsade de pointes arrhythmia in experimental long QT syndrome.

AIMS The present study addresses the controversy regarding the 'primary' role of the subendocardial Purkinje network in triggering torsade de pointes (TdP) ventricular tachyarrhythmia (VAs) in the long QT syndrome (LQTS). METHODS AND RESULTS We investigated the well-established canine anthopleurin-A (AP-A) surrogate model of LQT3 to study the role of the subendocardial Purkinje network in triggering VAs. Three-dimensional activation and repolarization patterns were analysed from unipolar extracellular electrograms utilizing 64 plunge needle electrodes. In 6 dogs, the animals were placed on cardiopulmonary bypass and chemical ablation of the endocardial Purkinje network was obtained using Lugol's solution. Spontaneous VAs consistently developed in response to AP-A infusion and were triggered by a subendocardial focal activity acting on a substrate of spatial three-dimensional dispersion of repolarization. Endocardial ablation was considered successful by the development of complete atrioventricular block in the absence of ventricular escape rhythm. Following endocardial ablation spontaneous VAs were no longer observed. However, an appropriately coupled premature stimulus consistently induced re-entrant VAs. CONCLUSION The present study strongly suggests that in the LQTS, focal activity generated in subendocardial Purkinje tissue is the primary, if not the only, trigger for TdP VAs by acting on a substrate of three-dimensional dispersion of myocardial repolarization to induce re-entrant excitation.
Exploring Subliminal Channels in Pairing-Based Signatures

The prisoners’ problem, introduced by Simmons in 1983, describes how two individuals attempt to communicate covertly by exploiting subliminal channels without alerting a ”warden” who controls the communication. Via subliminal channels it is possible to transmit covert messages by embedding them into cryptographic digital data (traditionally by exploiting randomness that is used in probabilistic signature schemes). In this paper, we propose a formal framework to analyze the so called subliminal-freeness requirement. We explore some well known pairing-based probabilistic digital signatures and check their subliminal freeness in our proposed framework.
Unilateral Renal Ischemia-Reperfusion as a Robust Model for Acute to Chronic Kidney Injury in Mice

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is an underestimated, yet important risk factor for development of chronic kidney disease (CKD). Even after initial total recovery of renal function, some patients develop progressive and persistent deterioration of renal function and these patients are more likely to progress to end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Animal models are indispensable for unravelling the mechanisms underlying this progression towards CKD and ESRD and for the development of new therapeutic strategies in its prevention or treatment. Ischemia (i.e. hypoperfusion after surgery, bleeding, dehydration, shock, or sepsis) is a major aetiology in human AKI, yet unilateral ischemia-reperfusion is a rarely used animal model for research on CKD and fibrosis. Here, we demonstrate in C57Bl/6J mice, by both histology and gene expression, that unilateral ischemia-reperfusion without contralateral nephrectomy is a very robust model to study the progression from acute renal injury to long-term tubulo-interstitial fibrosis, i.e. the histopathological hallmark of CKD. Furthermore, we report that the extent of renal fibrosis, in terms of Col I, TGFβ, CCN2 and CCN3 expression and collagen I immunostaining, increases with increasing body temperature during ischemia and ischemia-time. Thus, varying these two main determinants of ischemic injury allows tuning the extent of the long-term fibrotic outcome in this model. Finally, in order to cover the whole practical finesse of ischemia-reperfusion and allow model and data transfer, we provide a referenced overview on crucial technical issues (incl. anaesthesia, analgesia, and pre- and post-operative care) with the specific aim of putting starters in the right direction of implementing ischemia in their research and stimulate them, as well as the community, to have a critical view on ischemic literature data.
Rescaling clustering trees using impact ratios for robust hierarchical speaker clustering

We present a novel method for improving hierarchical speaker clustering in the tasks of speaker diarization and speaker linking. In hierarchical clustering, a tree can be formed that demonstrates various levels of clustering. We propose a ratio that expresses the impact of each cluster on the formation of this tree and use this to rescale cluster scores. This provides score normalisation based on the impact of each cluster. We use a state-of-the-art speaker diarization and linking system across the SAIVT-BNEWS corpus to show that our proposed impact ratio can provide a relative improvement of 16% in diarization error rate (DER).
Chebyshev approximations to the histogram χ2 kernel

The random Fourier embedding methodology can be used to approximate the performance of non-linear kernel classifiers in linear time on the number of training examples. However, there still exists a non-trivial performance gap between the approximation and the nonlinear models, especially for the exponential χ2 kernel, one of the most powerful models for histograms. Based on analogies with Chebyshev polynomials, we propose an asymptotically convergent analytic series of the χ2 measure. The new series removes the need to use periodic approximations to the χ2 function, as typical in previous methods, and improves the classification accuracy when used in the random Fourier approximation of the exponential χ2 kernel. Besides, out-of-core principal component analysis (PCA) methods are introduced to reduce the dimensionality of the approximation and achieve better performance at the expense of only an additional constant factor to the time complexity. Moreover, when PCA is performed jointly on the training and unlabeled testing data, further performance improvements can be obtained. The proposed approaches are tested on the PASCAL VOC 2010 segmentation and the ImageNet ILSVR-C 2010 datasets, and shown to give statistically significant improvements over alternative approximation methods.
International Cross-listing and Corporate Disclosure Policy

We investigate whether cross-listing in the U.S contributes to impound more earnings information into stock prices. Our results indicate that exchange cross-listings are associated with more future earnings news reflected in current stock prices. The improvement in stock price informativeness is concentrated in developed markets. On the other hand, the cross-listing decision seems to have no impact on the information environment of emerging markets firms. Further, we find strong positive association between stock price informativeness and U.S exchange cross-listings after the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) act in 2002, which is consistent with the bonding hypothesis. Finally, consistent with their minimal incremental disclosure requirements, non-exchange ADRs (Level I/Rule 144a) experience an insignificant change in their price
Design of Narrow Band Reject Filter

Microstrip filters are widely used in microwave circuit, This paper briefly describes the design principle of microstrip band stop filters. This paper presents novel millimeter wave filter structures by creation of some slots on the strip. This paper presents the design and simulation of a narrow band stop filter using microstrip which is designed to have a central frequency of 1.273 GHz which provides and improved bandwidth of 869MHz with return loss of -57.07db and another cutoff frequency obtained at 2.7Ghz with return loss of -22db. The simulation is done using the commercial software IE3D 14.1. Index TermMicrostrip Line, Band stop filter(BSF),open stub ——————————  ——————————