Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pulmonary infiltrates in patients receiving long-term glucocorticoid treatment: etiology, prognostic factors, and associated inflammatory response.

BACKGROUND Glucocorticoid treatment alters immunoregulatory defense mechanisms and may therefore favor the development of different pulmonary infections. METHODS The etiology, prognostic factors, and associated inflammatory response of pulmonary infiltrates in 33 patients receiving long-term glucocorticoid treatment (LTGCT) were prospectively evaluated. RESULTS Aspergillus spp (n = 9, 31%) and Staphylococcus spp (n = 6, 21%) were the most common causative agents. Using different diagnostic techniques, we obtained a specific diagnosis in 28 of 33 episodes (85%) of pulmonary infiltrates. Bronchoscopic techniques provided the diagnosis in 64% of the cases. Crude mortality was 45%. Variables associated with mortality were as follows: age > 64 years, bilateral radiographic involvement, delay in diagnosis, inappropriate empirical treatment, Simplified Acute Physiology Score (SAPS) II > or = 25, and requirement for mechanical ventilation (MV). SAPS II > or = 25 (odds ratio [OR], 16; 95% confidence interval, 1 to 260) and MV requirement (OR, 50; 95% confidence interval, 2 to 360) were also significant on multivariate analysis. Pulmonary infections were associated with an increase in the concentration of relevant inflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor-alpha and interleukin-6 both in serum and BAL. This local and systemic inflammatory response was attenuated when compared with the response observed in patients with pulmonary infections but without glucocorticoid treatment or receiving glucocorticoids for a short period of time (< 9 days). CONCLUSIONS Pulmonary infiltrates in patients receiving LTGCT are often caused by fungi and Gram-positive cocci, and are associated with attenuated local and systemic inflammatory response. Although in most cases, sputum cultures and bronchoscopic techniques are diagnostic, the associated mortality is high, particularly in those requiring MV.
A parallel algorithm for computing borders

The border concept has been introduced by Mannila and Toivonen in their seminal paper [20]. This concept finds many applications, e.g maximal frequent itemsets, minimal functional dependencies, emerging patterns between consecutive database instances and materialized view selection. For large transactions and relational databases defined on n items or attributes, the running time of any border computations are mainly dominated by the time T (for standard sequential algorithms) required to test the interestingness, in general the frequencies, of sets of candidates. In this paper we propose a general parallel algorithm for computing borders whatever the application is. We prove the efficiency of our algorithm by showing that: (i) it generates exactly the same number of candidates as the standard sequential algorithm and, (ii) if the interestingness test time of a candidate is bounded by Δ then for a multi-processor shared memory machine with p cores, we prove that the total interestingness time Tp < T/p + 2 Δ n. We implemented our algorithm in the maximal frequent itemset (MFI) mining setting and our experiments confirm our theoretical performance guarantee.
A method for data-flow analysis of business components

Separation of concerns is an important aspect of component-based development (CBD), and managing data is a primary concern in enterprise systems. In CBD methods, such as Catalysis and UML components, this concern is addressed by business components. Although a business component is self-contained, having no direct dependency on any of the other components, the data propagation between components may lead to indirect data dependencies across the business components, and grasping such dependencies at design-time is crucial to maintaining data consistency. In this paper we propose a method for data-flow analysis (DFA) of the business component model, in which the operational behavior is described using the Object Constraint Language (OCL) pre-postconditions. Traditional DFA techniques are aimed at procedural descriptions, while OCL is a declarative language whose essential properties include nondeterminism and incompleteness. In order to extract a data-flow from the OCL descriptions taking account of their semantics, our proposed method applies the idea of abstract interpretation. We also analyze the safety of our abstract interpretation technique, and discuss the usefulness and scalability of the method from a practical viewpoint. The proposed method, when used in conjunction with the inter-procedural DFA techniques, would allow us to extract the propagation and dependency of data across the business components automatically.
Susceptibility-conferring polymorphic genotypes in cardiovascular multifactorial syndromes.

In 2001, the search for gene polymorphism has become a popular challenge in every cardiovascular journal and congress, particularly concerning hypertension and myocardial infarction. These studies were aimed at detecting markers for drug efficacy and risk factors and more generally at better understanding the determinants of these complex diseases that are both multifactorial and multigenic. For the moment, however, such an approach induces more confusion than clarification. The best example of such confusion is the endless debate around the linkage with an Insertion, I/Deletion, D, polymorphism DD/ID/II of the angiotensin converting enzyme, ACE, gene. The ID polymorphism is located in position 287 on the intron 16. It follows Mendelian laws and is in linkage disequilibrium with the gene locus involved in the control of plasma ACE levels. Several studies showed that the plasma levels of ACE were significantly lower in II genotype than in DD. Since the pioneer work of F. Cambien, conflicting data regarding the association between this polymorphism and myocardial infarction have been reported almost monthly. Currently 12 articles support the association, and five, including a large meta-analysis, found no or little influence from the different genotypes. In addition, unsuccessful attempts were made by several authors to correlate this polymorphism with hypertension, restenosis or drug effects. The story is roughly the same for the two integrins, and also for other polymorphisms located on endothelial NO synthase, paraoxonase-1, aldosynthase, plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 genes, and probably several others. The search for a candidate gene in hypertension is still more depressing. The Gly460Trp polymorphism, located on ADDA, the -adducin gene, is a functional polymorphism linked to hypertension in several studies, while others were unable to confirm the linkage. Attempts to link hypertension with several functional polymorphisms of the adrenergic system, including the Gly16 variant of the 2-receptor (which exhibited enhanced isoproterenol-induced down-regulation), the 825T allele of the 3-subunit of the G-protein (which is associated with enhanced signal transduction) also resulted in pros and cons in equal measure. Two candidates have been studied in depth, the angiotensinogen, and epithelial amiloride-sensitive sodium channel (ENaC) genes. It is now clear that the 235T variant of angiotensinogen is in linkage disequilibrium with an A-6C functional variant located on the promoter of angiotensinogen. See page 325, doi:10.1053/euhj.2001. 2776 for the article to which this Editorial refers
Protein Kinase Cθ Regulates Stability of the Peripheral Adhesion Ring Junction and Contributes to the Sensitivity of Target Cell Lysis by CTL1

Destruction of virus-infected cells by CTL is an extremely sensitive and efficient process. Our previous data suggest that LFA-1-ICAM-1 interactions in the peripheral supramolecular activation cluster (pSMAC) of the immunological synapse mediate formation of a tight adhesion junction that might contribute to the sensitivity of target cell lysis by CTL. Herein, we compared more (CD8+) and less (CD4+) effective CTL to understand the molecular events that promote efficient target cell lysis. We found that abrogation of the pSMAC formation significantly impaired the ability of CD8+ but not CD4+ CTL to lyse target cells despite having no effect of the amount of released granules by both CD8+ and CD4+ CTL. Consistent with this, CD4+ CTL break their synapses more often than do CD8+ CTL, which leads to the escape of the cytolytic molecules from the interface. CD4+ CTL treatment with a protein kinase Cθ inhibitor increases synapse stability and sensitivity of specific target cell lysis. Thus, formation of a stable pSMAC, which is partially controlled by protein kinase Cθ, functions to confine the released lytic molecules at the synaptic interface and to enhance the effectiveness of target cell lysis.
Detection and Pose Estimation of People in Images

(cid:3) Abstract — Detection, feature extraction and pose estimation of people in images and video is made challenging by the variability of human appearance, the complexity of natural scenes and the high dimensionality of articulated body models and also the important field in Image, Signal and Vision Computing in recent years. In this paper, four types of people in 2D dimension image will be tested and proposed. The system will extract the size and the advantage of them (such as: tall fat, short fat, tall thin and short thin) from image. Fat and thin, according to their result from the human body that has been extract from image, will be obtained. Also the system extract every size of human body such as length, width and shown them in output.
Association of Variation in the Chromosome 9p21 Locus With Myocardial Infarction Versus Chronic Coronary Artery Disease

Background—A chromosome 9p21 locus is associated with coronary heart disease in ≥25 independent populations, but multiple clinically distinct phenotypes have been evaluated. Using angiographic coronary artery disease (CAD) phenotyping, this study evaluated whether 9p21 single-nucleotide polymorphisms predict ischemic events (eg, myocardial infarction [MI]) among CAD patients. Methods and Results—Patients undergoing coronary angiography during 1994 to 2007 (population set 1A: n=1748; set 1B: n=1014) were evaluated for association of a 9p21 tagging single-nucleotide polymorphism (rs2383206, A 224 G) with incident MI and death events among patients with angiographically significant CAD. Another hypothesis evaluated rs2383206 in 2 additional angiographic sets of both CAD and non-CAD patients (set 2A: n=2122; set 2B: n=1466) for prevalent MI versus CAD/no MI (and for MI versus non-CAD and CAD/no MI versus non-CAD). No association of rs2383206 was found with events in set 1A (odds ratio, 0.95 per G allele; P trend=0.48) and set 1B (odds ratio, 0.91 per G allele; P trend=0.28) or with MI versus CAD/no MI in set 2A (odds ratio, 0.96 per G allele; P trend=0.57) and set 2B (odds ratio, 0.89 per G allele; P trend=0.21). In contrast, rs2383206 was associated with CAD/no MI compared with non-CAD (set 2A: P trend=0.0001; set 2B: P trend=0.0008). Conclusions—The chromosome 9p21 locus was not associated with incident events or prevalent MI, although it did predict CAD diagnosis. This contradicts reports of a 9p21 association with MI, likely because of differences in phenotype assignment. This suggests that high-quality phenotyping for CAD and MI is required to dissect the specific contributions of genetic variation to each stage of coronary heart disease pathophysiology.
Thixoforming of non-dendritic AA6061 feedstock produced by low superheat casting with and without a cooling slope

Abstract Low superheat casting with and without a cooling slope was employed to produce AA6061 thixoforming feedstock. The dendritic features were more frequent in the latter, suggesting that the degeneration of the dendritic structure was promoted by the cooling slope casting process. Minor differences in the primary phase morphology in the as-cast state were no longer evident after partial melting, with nearly equiaxed polygonal grains in all ingots cast with and without a cooling slope. 5 min soaking at 640 °C was identified as the best reheating practice as it provided the smallest grains and the most complete grain boundary wetting. The slugs machined from AA6061 ingots cast from a pouring temperature of 680 °C with and without a cooling slope were both successfully thixoformed into sound parts with no signs of porosity and segregation. The T6 heat treatment produced hardness values as high as 107 HB which compare very favourably with those of the extruded products and are even better than that obtained in the thermomechanically processed feedstock.
High performance 3D CMP design with stacked hybrid memory architecture in the dark silicon era using a convex optimization model

In this article, we present a convex optimization model to design a stacked hybrid memory system to improve performance and reduce energy consumption of the chip-multiprocessor (CMP). Our convex model optimizes numbers and placement of SRAM and STT-RAM memories on the memory layer, and efficiently maps applications/threads on cores in the core layer. Power consumption that is the main challenge in the dark silicon era is represented as a power constraint in this work and it is satisfied by the detailed optimization model in order to design a dark silicon aware 3D CMP. Experimental results show that the proposed architecture considerably improves the energy-delay product (EDP) and performance of the 3D CMP compared to the Baseline memory design.
Character extraction of license plates from video

In this paper, we present a new approach to extract characters on a license plate of a moving vehicle given a sequence of perspective distortion corrected license plate images. We model the extraction of characters as a Markov random field (MRF). With the MRF modeling, the extraction of characters is formulated as the problem of maximizing the a posteriori probability based on given prior and observations. A genetic algorithm with local greedy mutation operator is employed to optimize the objective function. Experiments and comparison study were conducted. It is shown that our approach provides better performance than other single frame methods.
eat-2 and eat-18 Are Required for Nicotinic Neurotransmission in the Caenorhabditis elegans Pharynx

Mutations in eat-2 and eat-18 cause the same defect in C. elegans feeding behavior: the pharynx is unable to pump rapidly in the presence of food. EAT-2 is a nicotinic acetylcholine receptor subunit that functions in the pharyngeal muscle. It is localized to the synapse between pharyngeal muscle and the main pharyngeal excitatory motor neuron MC, and it is required for MC stimulation of pharyngeal muscle. eat-18 encodes a small protein that has no homology to previously characterized proteins. It has a single transmembrane domain and a short extracellular region. Allele-specific genetic interactions between eat-2 and eat-18 suggest that EAT-18 interacts physically with the EAT-2 receptor. While eat-2 appears to be required specifically for MC neurotransmission, eat-18 also appears to be required for the function of other nicotinic receptors in the pharynx. In eat-18 mutants, the gross localization of EAT-2 at the MC synapse is normal, suggesting that it is not required for trafficking. These data indicate that eat-18 could be a novel component of the pharyngeal nicotinic receptor.
Enhanced dynamic queries via movable filters

Traditional database query systems allow users to construct complicated database queries from specialized database language primitives. While powerful and expressive, such systems are not easy to use, especially for browsing or exploring the data. Information visualization systems address this problem by providing graphical presentations of the data and direct manipulation tools for exploring the data. Recent work in this area has reported the value of dynamic queries coupled with two-dimensional data representations for progressive refinement of user queries. However, the queries generated by these systems are limited to conjunctions of global ranges of parameter values. In this paper, we extend dynamic queries by encoding each operand of the query as a Magic Lens filter. Compound queries can be constructed by overlapping the lenses. Each lens includes a slider and a set of buttons to control the value of the filter function and to define the compostion operation generated by overlapping the lenses. We demonstrate a system that supports multiple simultaneous general real-valued queries on databases with incomplete data, while maintaining the simple visual interface of dynamic query systems.
Structural and Functional Cellular Changes Induced by Burkholderia pseudomallei Rhamnolipid

ABSTRACT In this study we report that extracellular Burkholderia pseudomallei rhamnolipid induced cytopathic changes characterized by retraction, rounding up, and, finally, detachment in phagocytic and nonphagocytic cell lines. These changes were due to a progressive reorganization of the F-actin network resulting in impaired cell cycle progression and a reduced phagocytic function of macrophages.
Formation of ultra-compact dwarf galaxies: tests of the galaxy threshing scenario in Fornax

This paper investigates the possibility that ultra-compact dwarf (UCD) galaxies in the Fornax cluster are formed by the threshing of nucleated, early-type dwarf galaxies (hereafter dwarf galaxies). Similar to the results of Cote et al. for the Virgo cluster, we show that the Fornax cluster observations are consistent with a single population in which all dwarfs are nucleated, with a ratio of nuclear to total magnitude that varies slowly with magnitude. Importantly, the magnitude distribution of the UCD population is similar to that of the dwarf nuclei in the Fornax cluster. The joint population of UCDs and the dwarfs from which they may originate is modelled and shown to be consistent with a Navarro, Frenk & White (NFW) profile with a characteristic radius of 5 kpc. Furthermore, a steady-state dynamical model reproduces the known mass profile of Fornax. However, there are a number of peculiarities in the velocity dispersion data that remain unexplained. The simplest possible threshing model is tested, in which dwarf galaxies move on orbits in a static cluster potential and are threshed if they pass within a radius at which the tidal force from the cluster exceeds the internal gravity at the core of their dark matter halo. This fails to reproduce the observed fraction of UCDs at radii greater than 30 kpc from the core of Fornax.
Using speech and gesture to explore user states in multimodal dialogue systems

Modern dialogue systems should interpret the users’ behavior and mind in the same way as human beings do. That means in a multimodal manner, where communication is not limited to verbal utterances, as is the case for most state-of-the-art dialogue systems, several modalities are involved, e.g., speech, gesture, and facial expression. The design of a dialogue system must adapt its concept to multimodal interaction and all these different modalities have to be combined in the dialogue system. This paper describes the recognition of a users internal state of mind using a prosody classifier based on artificial neural networks combined with a discrete Hidden Markov Model (HMM) for gesture analysis. Our experiments show that both input modalities can be used to identify the users internal state. We show that an improvement of up to 70 % can be achieved when fusing both modalities.
A longitudinal study of the emerging self from 9 months to the age of 4 years

The aim of this study was to investigate if children’s early responsiveness toward social partners is developmentally related to their growing concept of self, as reflected in their mirror self-recognition (MSR) and delayed self-recognition (DSR). Thus, a longitudinal study assessed infants’ responsiveness (e.g., smiling, gaze) toward social partners during the still-face (SF) task and a social imitation game and related it to their emerging MSR and DSR. Thereby, children were tested at regular time points from 9 months to 4 years of age. Results revealed significant predictive relations between children’s responsiveness toward a social partner in the SF task at 9 months and their MSR at 24 months. Further, interindividual differences in children’s awareness of and responsiveness toward being imitated in a social imitation game at 12 months proved to be the strongest predictor of children’s DSR at 4 years, while some additional variance was explained by MSR at 24 months and verbal intelligence. Overall, findings suggest a developmental link between children’s early awareness of and responsiveness toward the social world and their later ability to form a concept of self.
Accelerometer-based Human Activity Recognition and the Impact of the Sample Size

The presented study focused on the recognition of eight user activities (e.g. walking, lying, climbing stairs) basing on the measurements from an accelerometer embedded in a mobile device. It is assumed that the device is carried in a specific location of the user’s clothing. Three types of classifiers were tested on different sizes of the samples. The influence of the time window (the duration of a single trial) on selected activities and methods was investigated. A comparison with existing methods from the literature is presented. Key–Words: context awareness, event/activity detection, pervasive computing, user activities modelling, mobile communication, sensors, smart phones
Electric arc furnace model in distribution systems

This paper presents a new technique to characterize the electrical behavior of the arc furnace through the measurements of the electric power in stationary and transient imbalance of these systems. The non-stationary signals measured voltage and current in electric arc furnaces, behavior are characterized using a technique of analyzing the quality of the power in the time-frequency domain. To validate the characterization of the electric arc furnace, the program for analysis of electromagnetic transients ATPDraw and the simulation results were compared with actual measurements made in iron and steel company was used.
Frequency and predictors of metabolic syndrome in adolescents /first year medical students of a public sector medical college Quetta, Pakistan.

Objective To determine the prevalence of metabolic syndrome in medical students. METHODS This cross-sectional study was conducted at the Bolan Medical College, Quetta, Pakistan, from August 2015 to January 2016, and comprised healthy first-year medical students. Demographic data was assessed using a self-administered questionnaire. Height, weight and waist circumference were measured along with fasting blood sugar, high-density lipoprotein and triglycerides by using automated biochemistry analyser. SPSS 20 was used for data analysis. RESULTS Of the 225 participants, 127(56.4%) were females. The overall mean age was 18.80±0.426 years. Frequency of metabolic syndrome was 32(14.2%). Increased waist circumference, fasting blood sugar and triglycerides were associated with an increased likelihood of exhibiting metabolic syndrome (p<0,05 each). Male gender and high-density lipoprotein were found to be protective against metabolic syndrome (p<0.05 each). CONCLUSIONS The prevalence of metabolic syndrome is increasing in our adolescent population which demands screening from childhood and early adolescence.