Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Beyond viruses: clinical profiles and etiologies associated with encephalitis.

BACKGROUND Encephalitis is a complex syndrome, and its etiology is often not identified. The California Encephalitis Project was initiated in 1998 to identify the causes and further describe the clinical and epidemiologic characteristics of encephalitis. METHODS A standardized report form was used to collect demographic and clinical data. Serum, cerebrospinal fluid, and respiratory specimens were obtained prospectively and were tested for the presence of herpesviruses, arboviruses, enteroviruses, measles, respiratory viruses, Chlamydia species, and Mycoplasma pneumoniae. The association between an identified infection and encephalitis was defined using predetermined, organism-specific criteria for confirmed, probable, or possible causes. RESULTS From 1998 through 2005, a total of 1570 patients were enrolled. Given the large number of patients, subgroups of patients with similar clinical characteristics and laboratory findings were identified. Ten clinical profiles were described. A confirmed or probable etiologic agent was identified for 16% of cases of encephalitis: 69% of these agents were viral; 20%, bacterial; 7%, prion; 3%, parasitic; and 1%, fungal. An additional 13% of cases had a possible etiology identified. Many of the agents classified as possible causes are suspected but have not yet been definitively demonstrated to cause encephalitis; these agents include M. pneumoniae (n=96), influenza virus (n=22), adenovirus (n=14), Chlamydia species (n=10), and human metapneumovirus (n=4). A noninfectious etiology was identified for 8% of cases, and no etiology was found for 63% of cases. CONCLUSIONS Although the etiology of encephalitis remains unknown in most cases, the recognition of discrete clinical profiles among patients with encephalitis should help focus our efforts toward understanding the etiology, pathogenesis, course, and management of this complex syndrome.
The MDM2 309T>G Polymorphism and Ovarian Cancer Risk: A Meta-Analysis of 1534 Cases and 2211 Controls

Background Recently, there have been a number of studies on the association between MDM2 (Murine Double Minute 2) 309 polymorphism and ovarian cancer risk. However, the results of previous reports remain controversial and ambiguous. Thus, we performed a meta-analysis to explore more precisely the association between MDM2 309 polymorphism and the risk of ovarian cancer. Methods A meta-analysis was performed to examine the association between MDM2 309T>G polymorphism and ovarian cancer risk. Odds ratio (OR) and its 95% confidence interval (CI) were used for statistical analysis. Results Our publication search identified a total of 6 studies with 1534 cases and 2211 controls. No significant association was found between MDM2 309T>G polymorphism and ovarian cancer risk in total population analysis. In the subgroup meta-analysis by ethnicity, a negative association was shown in Asian subgroup (G vs. T OR = 0.774, 95% CI = 0.628–0.955, P = 0.017, P het = 0.327; GG vs. TT: OR = 0.601, 95% CI = 0.395–0.914, P = 0.017, P het = 0.417; dominant model TG+GG vs. TT: OR = 0.661, 95% CI = 0.468–0.934, P = 0.019, P het = 0.880), and no significant association in any genetic models among Caucasians was observed. Conclusions This meta-analysis provides evidence for the association between MDM2 309 polymorphism and ovarian cancer risk, supporting the hypothesis that MDM2 SNP309 G allele acts as an important ovarian cancer protective factor in Asians but not in Caucasians.
Cell-to-cell activity prediction for smart cities

In this paper, we analyze data from a large mobile phone provider in Europe, pertaining to time series of aggregate communication volume Ai,j(t) > 0 between cells i and j, for all pairs of cells in a city over a month. We develop a methodology for predicting the future (in particular whether two cells will talk to each other Ai,j(t) > 0) based on past activity. Our data set is sparse, with 80% of the values being zero, which makes prediction challenging. We formulate the problem as binary classification and, using decision trees and random forests, we are able to achieve 85% accuracy. By giving higher weight to false positives, which cost more to network operators, than false negatives, we improved recall from 40% to 94%. We briefly outline potential applications of this prediction capability to improve network planning, green small cells, and understanding urban ecology, all of which can inform policies and urban planning.
Feature Detection in Ajax-Enabled Web Applications

In this paper we propose a method for reverse engineering the features of Ajax-enabled web applications. The method first collects instances of the DOM trees underlying the application web pages, using a state-of-the-art crawling framework. Then, it clusters these instances into groups, corresponding to distinct features of the application. The contribution of this paper lies in the novel DOM-tree similarity metric of the clustering step, which makes a distinction between simple and composite structural changes. We have evaluated our method on three real web applications. In all three cases, the proposed distance metric leads to a number of clusters that is closer to the actual number of features and classifies web page instances into these feature-specific clusters more accurately than other traditional distance metrics. We therefore conclude that it is a reliable distance metric for reverse engineering the features of Ajax-enabled web applications.
Stability, the NIP, and the NSOP: model theoretic properties of formulas via topological properties of function spaces

We study and characterize stability, the negation of the independence property (NIP) and the negation of the strict order property (NSOP) in terms of topological and measure theoretical properties of classes of functions. We study a measure theoretic property, Talagrand's stability, and explain the relationship between this property and the NIP in continuous logic. Using a result of Bourgain, Fremlin, and Talagrand, we prove almost definability and Baire 1 definability of coheirs assuming the NIP. We show that a formula φ(x,y) has the strict order property if and only if there is a convergent sequence of continuous functions on the space of φ‐types such that its limit is not continuous. We deduce from this a theorem of Shelah and point out the correspondence between this theorem and the Eberlein‐Šmulian theorem.
Real time monitoring for nowcasting and forecasting ionospheric space weatherin Europe with ground digisondes

The Earth's ionosphere largely determines space weather effects on radio wave communications, navigation and surveillance systems. Lately there has been an increasing demand for ionospheric nowcast and accurate forecast services by various groups of users, including European industry. The paper reviews research activities in Europe based on the exploitation of real-time ground digisondes for the provision of nowcasting and forecasting ionospheric space weather information and useful products and services to support operational applications. During the last few years, important progress in databasing, modelling and forecasting ionospheric disturbances based on real-time data from ground digisondes was achieved in the frames of COST Action 271 «Effects of the Upper Atmosphere on Terrestrial and Earth-Space Communications». Further developments are expected to be deployed with the new COST Action 724 on «Developing the basis for monitoring, modelling and predicting space weather», as well as through the Space Weather Pilot Project of the European Space Agency and through projects funded by the European Commission programmes.
ZeTA-Zero-Trust Authentication: Relying on Innate Human Ability, Not Technology

Reliable authentication requires the devices and channels involved in the process to be trustworthy, otherwise authentication secrets can easily be compromised. Given the unceasing efforts of attackers worldwide such trustworthiness is increasingly not a given. A variety of technical solutions, such as utilising multiple devices/channels and verification protocols, has the potential to mitigate the threat of untrusted communications to a certain extent. Yet such technical solutions make two assumptions: (1) users have access to multiple devices and (2) attackers will not resort to hacking the human, using social engineering techniques. In this paper, we propose and explore the potential of using human-based computation instead of solely technical solutions to mitigate the threat of untrusted devices and channels. ZeTA (Zero Trust Authentication on untrusted channels) has the potential to allow people to authenticate despite compromised channels or communications and easily observed usage. Our contributions are threefold: (1) We propose the ZeTA protocol with a formal definition and security analysis that utilises semantics and human-based computation to ameliorate the problem of untrusted devices and channels. (2) We outline a security analysis to assess the envisaged performance of the proposed authentication protocol. (3) We report on a usability study that explores the viability of relying on human computation in this context.
Automatic screening of Obstructive Sleep Apnea from single-lead Electrocardiogram

Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is traditionally diagnosed using multiple channel physiological signal. This often leads to incorrect apnea event detection and weakens the performance of OSA diagnosis. Furthermore, there is a dire need of an automatic OSA screening system in order to alleviate the burden of the clinicians and to make a portable home sleep monitoring system feasible. In this work, an algorithm that uses single lead Electrocardiogram (ECG) to detect OSA events is propounded. The contribution of this work is twofold. First, it proposes an automatic OSA detection algorithm using Empirical Mode Decomposition, higher order statistical features and Extreme Learning Machine (ELM). Second, ELM is introduced in this work and this is the first time ELM has been applied to OSA detection. Experimental outcomes backed by statistical validation evinces that the proposed algorithm is superior to existing ones in accuracy.
Phosphodiesterase inhibitors for the treatment of pulmonary hypertension

The pulmonary vascular bed is both a source of and target for a number of vasoactive factors. Among the most important for pulmonary vascular homeostasis are factors that utilise cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) as an intracellular second messenger. These include nitric oxide and the natriuretic peptide family (atrial, brain and C-type natriuretic peptides). In the search for therapeutic strategies that engage the cGMP signalling pathway for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), inhibition of cGMP metabolism by phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5)-targeted compounds has proven most successful to date. One PDE5 inhibitor, sildenafil, has been shown to improve pulmonary haemodynamics and exercise capacity in patients with PAH and is now an approved treatment. Others are under investigation. An interesting, although still tentative, observation is the potential of sildenafil to reduce pulmonary vascular resistance without adversely affecting ventilation–perfusion matching. Another is the expression of phosphodiesterase type 5 in the hypertrophied right ventricle. These data suggest that phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors may have effects that distinguish them from other treatments for pulmonary hypertension and merit further study.
Wake and be fine? : The effect of sleep on emotional memory

The aim of this thesis was to examine the effect of sleep on emotional memories. The first two studies examined the role of sleep in the generalization of fear learning and the third study examined how sleep affected the forgetting of unwanted emotional memories.In study 1, participants first underwent fear conditioning with a small and a large circle as the CS+ and the CS-. Next, after either a nap or an equal amount of time spent awake, participants viewed these two circles again, as well as eight novel circles that gradually varied in size in-between the former two. The results showed that fear conditioning was successful and that that there was a tendency towards the larger responses to the CS+ as compared to the CS- having been preserved during the delay interval but that there was no group difference. Analyzing responses to the novel stimuli revealed that fear responses increased as a function of their similarity to the CS+. This increase did however not differ between the groups, thus there was no support for that sleep or wake would differently affect the generalization of fear learning.In study 2, a similar design was used, but with electric shocks instead of the aversive sound, in order to elicit a stronger fear response. The results revealed that in the wake group, fear responses were larger to the CS+ compared to the CS-, whereas no such effect was observed after sleep. Similar results were evident for fear responses to the novel circles, indicating that after sleep, similarity to the CS+ was no longer a predictor of the degree of fear responding. The groups did not differ in general responsivity, but only in how their responses were distributed across the stimuli.In study 3, participants first learned associations between neutral words and images that were either negative or neutral. Then, in the Think/No-Think phase, a subset of these words were shown without the images, and participants were asked to either try to think of the image that they had previously been associated with (Think items) or to avoid all thoughts of the associated image (No-Think items). Then, memory was tested for all the items. Results revealed significant below baseline forgetting of the No-Think items in the group that was tested right after the conclusion of the No-Think phase. This forgetting effect had however disappeared after a longer delay interval, regardless of if it had contained sleep or wake, regardless of the emotionality of the images. Thus, we found no support that sleep and wake would differently affect the duration of this forgetting effect. (Less)
Off-line Model Simplification for Interactive Rigid Body Dynamics Simulations Satyandra

Rigid body dynamics simulations require use of accurate computation of contacts among bodies. Often collision detection algorithms are used for determining the contact between moving bodies. Mechanical parts have a large number of features and hence collision detection with the detailed part models often slows down the rigid body dynamics simulations. In many simulation scenarios, all the parts participating in the simulation are known in advance. In such cases, the simulation context (i.e., a priori knowledge of parts) can be exploited to simplify the part geometries such that the contact points among parts do not change. For example, parts with significant concavities may have regions on their boundaries that will be inaccessible to other parts in the simulation and hence contact points cannot lie on such inaccessible regions. Removing such regions from the parts can simplify the model and hence speed up the simulation. In this paper, we describe an off-line simplification algorithm that performs part simplification based on accessibility considerations. Our algorithm ensures that the potential contact points among parts do not change as a result of the simplification process and hence it preserves the underlying physics.
Performance Analysis of Tyler's Covariance Estimator

This paper analyzes the performance of Tyler's M-estimator of the scatter matrix in elliptical populations. We focus on the non-asymptotic setting and derive estimation error bounds depending on the number of samples n and the dimension p. We show that under mild conditions the squared Frobenius norm of the error of the inverse estimator decays like p2/n with high probability.
Emphasis does not always coincide with phrasal boundaries in spontaneous spoken French

________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The prosodic structure of French involves a tight connection between the location of prominent syllables and locations where the flow of speech is divided into prosodic units. Researchers agree that the final (full) syllable of the smallest prosodic unit is prominent. The possibility remains that other syllables or words may be emphasized that do not precede a prosodic boundary. This paper examines cases from two radio broadcasts where emphasis is found without a boundary, and illustrates some prosodic modifications that speakers use to create emphasis with or without boundaries. The data demonstrate that emphasis is not tied to a specific phrasal position, even though words preceding a boundary are more prominent than other words. MOTS-CLÉS : syntagmes prosodiques, proéminence, perception de la prosodie, français.
Speech Enhancement Using Pitch Detection Approach For Noisy Environment

Acoustical mismatch among training and testing phases degrades outstandingly speech recognition results. This problem has limited the development of real-world nonspecific applications, as testing conditions are highly variant or even unpredictable during the training process. Therefore the background noise has to be removed from the noisy speech signal to increase the signal intelligibility and to reduce the listener fatigue. Enhancement techniques applied, as pre-processing stages; to the systems remarkably improve recognition results. In this paper, a novel approach is used to enhance the perceived quality of the speech signal when the additive noise cannot be directly controlled. Instead of controlling the background noise, we propose to reinforce the speech signal so that it can be heard more clearly in noisy environments. The subjective evaluation shows that the proposed method improves perceptual quality of speech in various noisy environments. As in some cases speaking may be more convenient than typing, even for rapid typists: many mathematical symbols are missing from the keyboard but can be easily spoken and recognized. Therefore, the proposed system can be used in an application designed for mathematical symbol recognition (especially symbols not available on the keyboard) in schools.
The Clinical and Pathological Significance of Nectin-2 and DDX3 Expression in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinomas

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a highly malignant disease, but the genetic basis of PDAC is still unclear. In this study, Nectin-2 and DDX3 expression in 106 PDAC, 35 peritumoral tissues, 55 benign pancreatic lesions, and 13 normal pancreatic tissues were measured by immunohistochemical methods. Results showed that the percentage of positive Nectin-2 and DDX3 expression was significantly higher in PDAC tumors than in peritumoral tissues, benign pancreatic tissues, and normal pancreatic tissues (P < 0.01). The percentage of cases with positive Nectin-2 and DDX3 expression was significantly lower in PDAC patients without lymph node metastasis and invasion and having TNM stage I/II disease than in patients with lymph node metastasis, invasion, and TNM stage III/IV disease (P < 0.05 or P < 0.01). Positive DDX3 expression is associated with poor differentiation of PDAC. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that positive Nectin-2 and DDX3 expression were significantly associated with survival in PDAC patients (P < 0.001). Cox multivariate analysis revealed that positive Nectin-2 and DDX3 expression were independent poor prognosis factors in PDAC patients. In conclusion, positive Nectin-2 and DDX3 expression are associated with the progression and poor prognosis in PDAC patients.
Impact of package delivery rate on the safety of highway vehicle platoons

Packet loss in block erasure channels creates a randomly switching networked system that impacts control performance significantly. This paper employs safety of highway vehicle platoons as a platform to study such impact. By autonomous inter-vehicle coordination, a platoon can potentially enhance safety, improve highway utility, increase fuel economy, and reduce emission. By comparing different information structures which utilize radar distance sensors and wireless communication channels, we are able to characterize some intrinsic relationships between communication resources and control performance. The findings of this paper provide useful guidelines on communication resource allocations and vehicle coordinations in vehicle safety problems.
A fingerprint matching method based on minutiae and ridges

Attributions including the type of minutiae, the curvature of ridge, the length ratio of 2 line segments of ridge and the relative topological relationship among minutiae and ridges were used in partial and/or nonlinear distorted fingerprint matching. Three kinds of criterions were defined to describe the pattern of fingerprint. Fingerprint was matched in steps according to the criterions consist of attributions of and topological relationship among minutiae and their adjacent ridges. The final matching result was synthetically judged by the matching results in step-matching. Experiments show that the algorithm presented can achieve excellent matching result in partial and/or distorted fingerprint matching.
Hepatoprotective and antioxidant effect of Sphaeranthus indicus against acetaminophen–induced hepatotoxicity in rats.

The flower heads of Sphaeranthus indicus Linn (Asteraceae) a traditional Indian medicinal plant is commonly used to nourish and improve the liver conditions. This study was designed to evaluate the hepatoprotective and antioxidant effect of aqueous (AQS) and methanolic (MES) extract of flower heads of Sphaeranthus indicus on Acetaminophen (APAP)-induced heptotoxicity in rat’s in-vivo. Activities of liver marker enzymes ,glutamate-oxaloacetate transaminase (SGOT) glutamate pyruvate transaminase (SGPT), acid phosphatase (ACP) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) bilirubin and total protein at an oral dose of MES (300mg/kg) showed a significant hepatoprotective effect in comparison with the same dose of aqueous extract. This fact was also confirmed by studying the liver histopathology of treated animals. As Regards the antioxidant activity, MES exhibited a significant effect showing increasing levels of superoxide dismutase (SOD), Catalase (CAT), and glutathione peroxides (GPX) by reducing malondialdehyde (MDA) levels.
Definable Encodings in the Computably Enumerable Sets

The purpose of this communication is to announce some recent results on the computably enumerable sets. There are two disjoint sets of results; the first involves invariant classes and the second involves automorphisms of the computably enumerable sets. What these results have in common is that the guts of the proofs of these theorems uses a new form of definable coding for the computably enumerable sets. We will work in the structure of the computably enumerable sets. The language is just inclusion, ⊆. This structure is called ε. All sets will be computably enumerable non-computable sets and all degrees will be computably enumerable and non-computable, unless otherwise noted. Our notation and definitions are standard and follow Soare [1987]; however we will warm up with some definitions and notation issues so the reader need not consult Soare [1987]. Some historical remarks follow in Section 2.1 and throughout Section 3. We will also consider the quotient structure ε modulo the ideal of finite sets, ε*. ε* is a definable quotient structure of ε since “Χ is finite” is definable in ε; “Χ is finite” iff all subsets of Χ are computable (it takes a little computability theory to show if Χ is infinite then Χ has an infinite non-computable subset). We use A* to denote the equivalent class of A under the ideal of finite sets.