Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Anaerobic Treatment of Polyethylene Glycol of Different Molecular Weights

Biodegradation of high molecular weight polyethylene glycol has been found difficult under aerobic conditions. The use of a chemical treatment prior to the aerobic one was necessary to remove high molecular weight of polyethylene glycol. Anaerobic treatment of polyethylene glycol may present an alternative to integrated chemical and biological treatment for the elimination of this compound. Anaerobic biodegradation of polyethylene glycol from 200 to 10000 molecular weight was studied. It showed that, unlike aerobic treatment, the size of the molecule up to 10000 does not affect the process efficiency. The critical retention time and the optimum retention time were estimated and ranged from 10 to 14 and from 16 to 19 days, respectively. Under these operational conditions percentage of removal ranged from 85 to 90%. Thus, anaerobic degradation of polyethylene glycol presents removal percentages and hydraulic retention times similar to those of biodegradable compounds tested at the same operational conditions.
Electrocardiography and prognosis of patients with acute pulmonary embolism.

BACKGROUND To assess the influence of electrocardiographic (ECG) pattern on prognosis and complications of patients hospitalized with acute pulmonary embolism (APE). METHODS We performed a retrospective analysis of 292 patients who had confirmed APE. There were 183 females and 109 males, the age range was 17 to 89 years, and the mean age was 65.4 ± 15.5 years. RESULTS In our study group, there were 33 deaths (mortality rate, 11.3%), and 73 (25%) patients developed complications during hospitalization. Based on European Society of Cardiology risk stratification, we classified 75 (25.7%) patients as high risk, 163 (55.8%) patients as intermediate risk, and 54 (18.5%) patients as low risk. A comparison between patients with complicated APE and those with no complications during hospitalization indicated that the following ECG parameters were more common in patients who had complications: atrial fibrillation, S1Q3T3 sign, negative T waves in leads V2-V4, ST segment depression in leads V4-V6, ST segment elevation in leads III, V1 and aVR, qR in lead V1, complete right bundle branch block (RBBB), greater number of leads with negative T waves, and greater sum of the amplitude of negative T waves. In multivariate analysis, the sum of negative T waves (OR 0.88; p = 0.22), number of leads with negative T waves (OR 1.46; p = 0.001), RBBB (OR 2.87; p = 0.02) and ST segment elevation in leads V1 (OR 3.99; p = 0.00017) and aVR (OR 2.49; p = 0.011) were independent predictors of complications during hospitalization. In turn, in multivariate analysis, only the sum of negative T waves (OR 0.81; p = 0.0098), number of leads with negative T waves [OR 1.68; p = 0.00068] and ST segment elevation in lead V1 (OR 4.47; p = 0.0003) were independent predictors of death during hospitalization. CONCLUSIONS In our population of APE patients, the sum of negative T waves, the number of leads with negative T waves and the ST segment elevation in lead V1 were independent predictors of death during hospitalization. In turn, the sum of negative T waves, the number of leads with negative T waves, and RBBB and ST segment elevation in leads V1 and aVR were independent predictors of complications during hospitalization. We conclude that ECG analysis may be a useful noninvasive method for risk stratification of patients with APE.
Clinical Significance of Expression of Human Cytomegalovirus pp67 Late Transcript in Heart, Lung, and Bone Marrow Transplant Recipients as Determined by Nucleic Acid Sequence-Based Amplification

ABSTRACT Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection was monitored retrospectively by qualitative determination of pp67 mRNA (a late viral transcript) by nucleic acid sequence-based amplification (NASBA) in a series of 50 transplant recipients, including 26 solid-organ (11 heart and 15 lung) transplant recipients (SOTRs) and 24 bone marrow transplant recipients (BMTRs). NASBA results were compared with those obtained by prospective quantitation of HCMV viremia and antigenemia and retrospective quantitation of DNA in leukocytes (leukoDNAemia). On the whole, 29 patients were NASBA positive, whereas 10 were NASBA negative, and the blood of 11 patients remained HCMV negative. NASBA detected HCMV infection before quantitation of viremia did but after quantitation of leukoDNAemia and antigenemia did. In NASBA-positive blood samples, median levels of viremia, antigenemia, and leukoDNAemia were significantly higher than the relevant levels detected in NASBA-negative HCMV-positive blood samples. By using the quantitation of leukoDNAemia as the “gold standard,” the analytical sensitivity (47.3%), as well as the negative predictive value (68.3%), of NASBA for the diagnosis of HCMV infection intermediate between that of antigenemia quantitation (analytical sensitivity, 72.3%) and that of viremia quantitation (analytical sensitivity, 28.7%), while the specificity and the positive predictive value were high (90 to 100%). However, with respect to the clinically relevant antigenemia cutoff of ≥100 used in this study for the initiation of preemptive therapy in SOTRs with reactivated HCMV infection, the clinical sensitivity of NASBA reached 100%, with a specificity of 68.9%. Upon the initiation of antigenemia quantitation-guided treatment, the actual median antigenemia level was 158 (range, 124 to 580) in SOTRs who had reactivated infection and who presented with NASBA positivity 3.5 ± 2.6 days in advance and 13.5 (range, 1 to 270) in the group that included BMTRs and SOTRs who had primary infection (in whom treatment was initiated upon the first confirmation of detection of HCMV in blood) and who presented with NASBA positivity 2.0 ± 5.1 days later. Following antiviral treatment, the durations of the presence of antigenemia and pp67 mRNA in blood were found to be similar. In conclusion, monitoring of the expression of HCMV pp67 mRNA appears to be a promising, well-standardized tool for determination of the need for the initiation and termination of preemptive therapy. Its overall clinical impact should be analyzed in future prospective studies.
Mobile agent in the intelligent space which can learn human walking behavior

The knowledge of human walking behavior has primary importance for mobile agent in order to operate in the human shared space, with minimal disturbance of other humans. This paper introduces such an observation and learning framework, which can acquire the human walking behavior from observation of human walking, using CCD cameras of the intelligent space. The proposed behavior learning framework applies fuzzy-neural network to approximate observed human behavior, with observation data clustering in order to extract important training data from observation. Preliminary experiment is shown to demonstrate the merit of the introduced behavior
Multiframe Super-Resolution Reconstruction Using Sparse Directional Regularization

We present a variational approach to obtain high-resolution images from multiframe low-resolution video stills. The objective functional for the variational approach consists of a data fidelity term and a regularizer. The fidelity term is formed by adaptively mimicking l1 and l2 norms. The regularization uses the l1 norm of the framelet coefficients of a high-resolution image with a geometric tight framelet system constructed in this paper. The tight framelet system has abilities to detect multi-orientation and multi-order variations of an image. A two-phase iterative method for super-resolution reconstruction is proposed to construct a high-resolution image. The first phase is to get an approximation of the solution (i.e., the ideal image) using the steepest descent method. The second phase is to enhance the sparsity of the approximate solution by using the soft thresholding operator with variable thresholding parameters. Numerical results based on both synthetic data and real videos show that our algorithm is efficient in terms of removing visual artifacts and preserving edges in restored images.
On hypergraph coloring and 3-uniform linear hypergraph set-indexers of a graph

For a graph G = (V, E) and a nonempty set X, a linear hypergraph set-indexer (LHSI) is a function f : V(G) → 2X satisfying the following conditions: (i) f is injective (ii) the ordered pair Hf(G) = (X, f(V)), where f(V) = {f(v) : v ∈ V(G)}, is a linear hypergraph (iii) the induced function f⊕ : E → 2X defined by f⊕(uv) = f(u) ⊕ f(v), for all uv ∈ E is injective and (iv) Hf⊕(G) = (X, f⊕(E)), where f⊕(E) = {f⊕(e) : e ∈ E}, is a linear hypergraph. It is shown that a 3-uniform LHSI of a graph, corresponding to upper LHSI number, is unique up to isomorphism and possible relations between the coloring numbers of a given graph and the two linear set-indexing hypergraphs are established. Also, we show that the two hypergraphs associated with an extremal 3-uniform LHSI of a graph are 2-colorable and the corresponding induced edge hypergraphs are self-dual.
Japanese Sentiment Classification using a Tree-Structured Long Short-Term Memory with Attention

Previous approaches to training syntax-based sentiment classification models required phrase-level annotated corpora, which are not readily available in many languages other than English. Thus, we propose the use of tree-structured Long Short-Term Memory with an attention mechanism that pays attention to each subtree of the parse tree. Experimental results indicate that our model achieves the state-of-the-art performance in a Japanese sentiment classification task.
Un modelo simple para la detección del juicio de implicación textual entre sentencias

Resumen En el presente trabajo se propone un modelo para descubrir el juicio de implicación textual entre sentencias que incluye el juicio de contradicción. Se propone la selección de un conjunto de características léxicas, sintácticas y semánticas para la conformación de un modelo de clasificación. Los datos tanto de prueba como de entrenamiento fueron ofrecidos en el marco de la conferencia internacional Semeval 2014.
Constitutive GITR Activation Reduces Atherosclerosis by Promoting Regulatory CD4+ T-Cell Responses—Brief Report

Objective—Glucocorticoid-induced tumor necrosis factor receptor family-related protein (GITR) is expressed on CD4+ effector memory T cells and regulatory T cells; however, its role on these functionally opposing cell types in atherosclerosis is not fully understood. Approach and Results—Low-density lipoprotein receptor–deficient mice (Ldlr−/−) were lethally irradiated and reconstituted with either bone marrow from B-cell–restricted Gitrl transgenic mice or from wild-type controls and fed a high-cholesterol diet for 11 weeks. Chimeric Ldlr−/− Gitrltg mice showed a profound increase in both CD4+ effector memory T cells and regulatory T cells in secondary lymphoid organs. Additionally, the number of regulatory T cells was significantly enhanced in the thymus and aorta of these mice along with increased Gitrl and Il-2 transcript levels. Atherosclerotic lesions of Ldlr−/− Gitrltg chimeras contained more total CD3+ T cells as well as Foxp3+ regulatory T cells overall, leading to significantly less severe atherosclerosis. Conclusions—These data indicate that continuous GITR stimulation through B cell Gitrl acts protective in a mouse model of atherosclerosis by regulating the balance between regulatory and effector memory CD4+ T cells.
Evaluation of the Effect of Surface Treatments on Shear Bond Strength of Repaired Silorane-based Composites

Introduction: This study aimed to evaluate the shear bond strength (SBS) of silorane-based and methacrylate-based composites repaired by silorane-based composites after different surface treatments. Materials & Methods: In total, 32 composite cylinders were provided from each of the two composites types (e.g., P90: P and Z350: Z). Cylinders were allocated to four different groups as follows: no surface treatments (Z1 and P1), silane application (Z2, P2), erbium laser irradiation (Z3, P3) and sandblasting with alumina particles (Z4, P4). Afterwards, the bonding component of P90 adhesive system was applied to all the prepared composite surfaces, followed by the repairing of all the samples with P90 cylinders. Moreover, SBS of the repaired surface was evaluated using the universal testing machine (UTM). Data analysis was performed using the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Tukey HSD (honest significant difference) test (P≤0.05). Results: In this study, the highest SBS values in each group (P and Z) were observed in the groups of P4 (40.23 MPA) and Z4 (51.19 MPA). However, the groups of P3 (20 MPA) and Z3 (46.16 MPA) obtained lower ranks. Silane application led to lower bond strength, compared to the other mentioned groups, and this difference was statistically significant (P<0.05). In addition, evaluation of the groups corresponding to two composites revealed a significant difference between the groups of Z4 and P4 (P=0.026). Conclusion: Silorane-based composites could be used to repair either methacrylate- or silorane-based composites by choosing proper surface treatments. In this study, while sandblasting and laser irradiation significantly improved bond strength of two composites, silane application indicated no such influence on bond strength.
The Stranger Effect

What happens when affective displays deviate from normative expectations? In this study, participants evaluated target individuals displaying flat, incongruent, or congruent expressions seemingly in response to pictures eliciting positive, neutral, or negative affect. Relative to targets who displayed normative reactions, those who violated affective norms (affective deviants) were rated more negatively on various dimensions of social judgment. Participants also preferred greater social distance from affective deviants, reported more moral outrage in response to them, and inferred that these targets did not share their moral values. Incongruent affect resulted in more negative social judgment than did flat affect, and this relationship was moderated by stimulus valence. Finally, the relationship between targets’ affective expressions and participants’ avoidant intentions was mediated by the extent to which participants thought the targets shared their moral values. These findings demonstrate the interpersonal costs of affective deviance, revealing the pervasiveness and force of affective norms.
Differential Impact of Age, Sex, and Hypertension on Aortic Atherosclerosis: The Framingham Heart Study

Objective—The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of age, sex, and hypertension (HTN) on aortic atherosclerotic burden using cardiovascular MRI (CMR) in a free-living longitudinally followed cohort. Methods and Results—1763 participants (829 M and 934 F; 38 to 88 years of age) of the Framingham Heart Study Offspring cohort underwent CMR of the thoracoabdominal aorta using an ECG-gated 2D T2-weighted black-blood sequence. Of these, 1726 subjects (96%) with interpretable CMR were characterized by sex, age-quartile, and presence or absence of HTN and clinical cardiovascular disease (CVD). Aortic plaque prevalence and volume increased with increasing age in both sexes. For the nonhypertensive (no-HTN) group, plaque was identified in 702 (46%) with greater prevalence in women than in men (P<0.006). HTN was associated with greater aortic plaque burden (P<0.02). The 200 subjects with clinical CVD had greater plaque burden than subjects without CVD (P<0.0001). Conclusions—In this free-living longitudinally followed cohort, subclinical aortic atherosclerosis was seen in nearly half of subjects and increased with advancing age. HTN was associated with increased aortic plaque burden. Among no-HTN subjects, women had greater plaque burden than men. These data suggest that subclinical atherosclerosis is more common in no-HTN women and emphasize the importance of focusing on preventive measures in both sexes.
Oxygen Sensing in Retinal Health and Disease

The retina has a uniquely high metabolic demand for oxygen that is normally met by a highly efficient vascular supply. Oxygen plays an essential role in oxidative phosphorylation as an electron acceptor in the mitochondrial respiratory chain in the synthesis of adenosine triphosphate required to support the metabolic demand, including that of the visual cycle. Maintenance of normal retinal function depends on a continuous supply of oxygen and on the capability to detect and respond rapidly to local oxygen deficiency (hypoxia). The functional reserve of oxygen is small and retinal hypoxia can cause neuroretinal dysfunction and degeneration that lead directly to vision loss. Local oxygen sensing mechanisms control adaptive responses that can help protect against ischaemic injury. In the retina, powerful oxygen sensing mechanisms rapidly detect alterations in intracellular oxygen tension and respond with adaptive changes that redress the balance between oxygen supply and demand. These responses include rapid changes in blood flow, protective metabolic adaptations and angiogenesis. In the eye, however, the angiogenic response to hypoxia is typically associated with oedema, haemorrhage and fibrosis that can exacerbate hypoxic neuroretinal injury, causing severe vision loss. This aberrant response is the target of novel therapies including inhibitors of vascular endothelial growth factor. However, non-specific angiostatic agents fail to consider appropriate beneficial adaptive responses to hypoxia, and risk compromising neuroprotective mechanisms. In this review, we discuss the current understanding of retinal oxygenation and oxygen sensing in health and disease, focussing on the central role of hypoxia-inducible transcription factors, and suggest that therapeutic strategies may be improved by considering more targeted interventions.
Managing and querying transaction-time databases under schema evolution

The old problem of managing the history of database information is now made more urgent and complex by fast spreading web information systems, such as Wikipedia. Our PRIMA system addresses this difficult problem by introducing two key pieces of new technology. The first is a method for publishing the history of a relational database in XML, whereby the evolution of the schema and its underlying database are given a unified representation. This temporally grouped representation makes it easy to formulate sophisticated historical queries on any given schema version using standard XQuery. The second key piece of technology is that schema evolution is transparent to the user: she writes queries against the current schema while retrieving the data from one or more schema versions. The system then performs the labor-intensive and error-prone task of rewriting such queries into equivalent ones for the appropriate versions of the schema. This feature is particularly important for historical queries spanning over potentially hundreds of different schema versions and it is realized in PRIMA by (i) introducing Schema Modification Operators (SMOs) to represent the mappings between successive schema versions and (ii) an XML integrity constraint language (XIC) to efficiently rewrite the queries using the constraints established by the SMOs. The scalability of the approach has been tested against both synthetic data and real-world data from the Wikipedia DB schema evolution history.
Service demand analysis using customer-choice behavior modeling, with consideration of awareness and perception

This paper presents a method of customer-choice behavior modeling for analyzing demand for telecommunication and Internet services. We have proposed a framework for analyzing service demand, which can be used to simulate scenarios under various assumed conditions. It consists of a customer behavior model, a service model, an environment model, and scenario simulation functions. A customer behavior model is constructed for each customer segment in order to improve the accuracy of the overall model. Customers are classified into several segments according to not only their preferences or attributes but also their knowledge of services, including existing services and their specifications. This paper examines customer-choice behavior modeling using awareness and perception of services. It shows service demand analysis for providers of various Internet access line services as an application example. It also demonstrates that the proposed method effectively improves the accuracy of modeling demand.
Identifying meaningful locations-Poster Abstract

Petteri Nurmi, Johan Koolwaaij 1 Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 68, FI-00014, Finland 2 Telematica Instituut P.O. Box 589, NL-7500 AN Enschede, the Netherlands petteri.nurmi@cs.helsinki. fi, johan.koolwaaij@telin.nl In context-aware mobile computing, location information has been, without doubt, the most widely studied source of contextual information [1, 2, 4]. The main reason for the situation is that current terminal devices can readily access location related information whereas other sources of contextual information are harder to gather and process. For example, mobile phones can access the GSM cell identifier and PDAs can use information about WiFi access points. In addition, prices of GPS devices with Bluetooth capabilities have decreased significantly and the amount of PDAs that have GPS modules integrated to them has increased rapidly, which makes enriching location information using a GPS a feasible option. Different sources of location information have their peculiarities. GSM cell tower identifiers give coarse estimates of the location, the numbering of the identifiers is seemingly random and even though operators allow obtaining the current cell identifier they do not offer services to convert cell identifiers into geographic locations. On the other hand, GSM cell tower identifier information is available also indoors, whereas GPS measurements are not. Another weakness in GPS is that, e.g., buildings, trees and glass coatings in cars and trains can cause signal shadowing. Finally, WiFi access point information can be used for positioning only when the exact locations of access points are known (see e.g. [3]). Regardless of the source of location information, the raw measurements are usually meaningless to the user. As a consequence, much work has been conducted on identifying significant locations, places, from the raw data. A place is defined to be a location that is meaningful to the user and to which the user can attach some (meaningful) semantics. For example, home, work and airport are places whereas SomeStreet 42, (60.42, 42.36) or 4287 are not. A problem in existing work is that most approaches are not well suited to large scale mobile environments. Namely, users seldom have access to GPS information and GSM cell identifiers do not allow separating important places that are near each other, i.e. that are mainly covered by the same cells. In our talk, we consider a setting where we log GSM cell transitions and enrich the information using the GPS coordinates of the transition point whenever a GPS device that has a fix is present. To our best knowledge, this kind of setting has not