Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Regional Differences of Leptospirosis in Sri Lanka: Observations from a Flood-Associated Outbreak in 2011

Leptospirosis is known to be an important cause of weather disaster-related infectious disease epidemics. In 2011, an outbreak of leptospirosis occurred in the relatively dry district of Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka where diagnosis was resisted by local practitioners because leptospirosis was not known in the area and the clinical presentation was considered atypical. To identify the causative Leptospira associated with this outbreak, we carried out a cross-sectional study. Consecutive clinically suspected cases in this district were studied during a two-and-a-half-month period. Of 96 clinically suspected cases, 32 (33.3%) were confirmed by qPCR, of which the etiological cause in 26 cases was identified using 16S rDNA sequencing to the species level. Median bacterial load was 4.1×102/mL (inter-quartile range 3.1–6.1×102/mL). In contrast to a 2008 Sri Lankan leptospirosis outbreak in the districts of Kegalle, Kandy, and Matale, in which a predominance of Leptospira interrogans serovars Lai and Geyaweera was found, most cases in the 2011 outbreak were caused by Leptospira kirschneri. Seven (21.9%) confirmed cases had acute renal failure; five (15.6%) had myocarditis; severe thrombocytopenia (<20,000/uL) was seen in five (15.6%) cases. This outbreak of leptospirosis in the relatively dry zone of Sri Lanka due primarily to L. kirschneri was characterized by markedly different clinical presentations and low leptospiremia. These observations and data demonstrate the public health relevance of molecular diagnostics in such settings, possibly related to the microgeographic variations of different Leptospira species, but of particular value to public health intervention in what appears to have been a regionally neglected tropical disease.
An Investigation on Initialization Schemes for Multilayer Perceptron Training Using Multilingual Dat

In this paper we present our latest investigation on initialization schemes for Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) training using multilingual data. We show that the overall performance of a MLP network improves significantly by initializing it with a multilingual MLP. We propose a new strategy called “open target language” MLP to train more flexible models for language adaptation, which is particularly suited for small amounts of training data. Furthermore, by applying Bottle-Neck feature (BN) initialized with multilingual MLP the ASR performance increases on both, on those languages which were used for multilingual MLP training, and on a new language. Our experiments show a word error rate improvements up to 16.9% relative on a range of tasks for different target languages (Creole and Vietnamese) with manual and automatic transcribed training data.
Handling data sparsity in collaborative filtering using emotion and semantic based features

Collaborative filtering (CF) aims to recommend items based on prior user interaction. Despite their success, CF techniques do not handle data sparsity well, especially in the case of the cold start problem where there is no past rating for an item. In this paper, we provide a framework, which is able to tackle such issues by considering item-related emotions and semantic data. In order to predict the rating of an item for a given user, this framework relies on an extension of Latent Dirichlet Allocation, and on gradient boosted trees for the final prediction. We apply this framework to movie recommendation and consider two emotion spaces extracted from the movie plot summary and the reviews, and three semantic spaces: actor, director, and genre. Experiments with the 100K and 1M MovieLens datasets show that including emotion and semantic information significantly improves the accuracy of prediction and improves upon the state-of-the-art CF techniques. We also analyse the importance of each feature space and describe some uncovered latent groups.
Real Time Control for Autonomous Mobile Robots

Control of autonomous mobile robots in dynamical environments is interesting from a cognitive point of view as well as under application view points. Stimulus response controls are often favored for fast reactions to the environment. On the other hand, goals and plans are needed to guide long term behavior by deliberative control. Layered architectures are used for combination, but they inherit advantages as well as problems from both approaches. The paper proposes the Double Pass Architecture with hierarchically structured options/behaviors providing fast reactions on all levels.
Cytotoxic chemotherapy for pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors

Advanced neuroendocrine tumors are incurable, and most patients will succumb to the disease. Chemotherapies with cytotoxic agents such as streptozocin, 5‐fluorouracil, or temozolomide have been frequently used as drug therapies for neuroendocrine tumors. Streptozocin, which is the only approved cytotoxic agent available for the treatment of this disease in many countries, has been considered a key agent for the treatment of advanced neuroendocrine tumors based on the results of phase III studies. However, the widespread acceptance of streptozocin‐based chemotherapy for this indication has been limited by concerns regarding toxicity. Recent prospective and retrospective studies showed the promising activity of a temozolomide‐based regimen, although an adequate prospective controlled study defining the role of temozolomide in the treatment of neuroendocrine tumors is lacking. The promising activity of cytotoxic agents awaits confirmation; solid evidence‐based recommendations and treatment decisions are needed for the optimal use of chemotherapy against this disease.
A modelling and simulation approach to assessment of a negative binomial approximation in a multi-echelon inventory system

Some studies in the multi-echelon inventory systems literature have used a negative binomial distribution to approximate a critical random variable arising in the model. Graves (1996) developed a multi-echelon inventory model with fixed replenishment intervals, where each site follows a base stock policy. He proposed in the one-warehouse, N-retailer case a negative binomial distribution to approximate a random variable he referred to as ‘uncovered demand’. Computational evidence was provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approximation. Graves then suggested search procedures for approximately optimal base stock levels at the warehouse and N identical retailers under two customer service criteria: 1) probability of no stockout; 2) fill rate. A separate analytical evaluation of the negative binomial approximation has been preliminarily reported elsewhere. In the current study, we apply a modelling and simulation approach to assess whether the approximation-based search procedures, in fact, lead to optimal or near-optimal stock levels.
Approach to evaluation of the overall strengthening and toughening effect of continuous fiber-reinforced ceramic matrix composites

Abstract Continuous fiber-reinforced ceramic matrix composites (CFCCs) are considered to be very promising thermal structural materials due to their strength and toughness. An approach for describing the strength and toughness of CFCCs based on knowledge of the toughening and strengthening mechanisms of CFCCs and analyses of the related energies during loading of CFCCs is proposed in the present work. Comparative analyses were undertaken on the mechanical properties of different CFCCs and the results of the proposed approach. Results showed that the proposed approach could be adopted simply and conveniently to evaluate the overall strengthening and toughening effect of CFCCs.
Genetically Encoded Indicators of Cellular Calcium Dynamics Based on Troponin C and Green Fluorescent Protein*

Genetic calcium probes offer tremendous potential in the fields of neuroscience, cell biology, and pharmaceutical screening. Previously, ratiometric and non-ratiometric indicators of cellular calcium dynamics have been described that consist of mutants of the green fluorescent protein (GFP) as fluorophores and calmodulin as calcium-binding moiety in several configurations. However, these calmodulin-based types of probes have a series of deficiencies, such as reduced dynamic ranges, when expressed within transgenic organisms and lack of calcium sensitivity in certain targetings. We developed novel types of calcium probes based on troponin C variants from skeletal and cardiac muscle. These indicators have ratio changes up to 140%, Kds ranging from 470 nm to 29 μm, and improved subcellular targeting properties. We targeted the indicators to the plasma membrane of HEK293 cells and primary hippocampal neurons. Upon long lasting depolarization, submembrane calcium levels in hippocampal neurons were found to be in equilibrium with bulk cytosolic calcium levels, suggesting no standing gradient persists from the membrane toward the cytosol. We expect that such novel indicators using specialized calcium sensing proteins will be minimally interacting with the cellular biochemical machinery.
Hypernatremia in neonatal elk calves: 30 cases (1988-1998).

OBJECTIVE To characterize hypernatremia in neonatal elk calves, including clinical signs, incidence, physical examination findings, and possible causes. DESIGN Retrospective case series. ANIMALS 26 neonatal elk calves were examined; 4 calves were evaluated twice, for a total of 30 examinations. PROCEDURE Medical records were reviewed for signalment, history, physical examination findings, results of diagnostic tests, and response to treatment. Hypernatremia was defined as serum sodium concentration > 153 mEq/L. RESULTS Hypernatremia was diagnosed in 14 calves and was significantly associated with diarrhea, high WBC count, high anion gap, and high serum concentrations of albumin, chloride, creatinine, and urea. Hypernatremia was not significantly associated with survival, but high serum albumin concentration and rectal temperature were significantly associated with survival of calves. Animals given antibiotics and electrolyte solutions orally prior to evaluation were significantly more likely to die than those untreated. Dehydration was a common reason for evaluation but was not significantly associated with survival. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Hypernatremia was significantly associated with diarrhea. Treatment of diarrheic elk calves is often the same as that used in bovine calves with diarrhea; however, bovine calves are commonly hypo- or normonatremic. Our experience suggests that treatment protocols used in bovine calves are unsatisfactory for elk calves. The rate at which serum sodium concentration is reduced should be < 1.7 mEq Na/L/h to avoid development of neurologic signs associated with iatrogenically induced cerebral edema.
Thread Scheduling for Multi-Core Platforms

As multi-core processors with tens or hundreds of cores begin to proliferate, system optimization issues once faced only by the high-performance computing (HPC) community will become important to all programmers. However, unlike with HPC, the focus of the multicore programmer will be on programming productivity and portability as much as performance. We introduce in this paper a novel scheduling framework for multicore processors that strikes a balance between control over the system and the level of abstraction. Our framework uses high-level information supplied by the user to guide thread scheduling and also, where necessary, gives the programmer fine control over thread placement.
An Analysis of issues against the adoption of Dynamic Carpooling

Using a private car is a transportation system very common in industrialized countries. However, it causes different problems such as overuse of oil, traffic jams causing earth pollution, health problems and an inefficient use of personal time. One possible solution to these problems is carpooling, i.e. sharing a trip on a private car of a driver with one or more passengers. Carpooling would reduce the number of cars on streets hence providing worldwide environmental, economical and social benefits. The matching of drivers and passengers can be facilitated by information and communication technologies. Typically, a driver inserts on a web-site the availability of empty seats on his/her car for a planned trip and potential passengers can search for trips and contact the drivers. This process is slow and can be appropriate for long trips planned days in advance. We call this static carpooling and we note it is not used frequently by people even if there are already many web-sites offering this service and in fact the only real open challenge is widespread adoption. Dynamic carpooling, on the other hand, takes advantage of the recent and increasing adoption of Internet-connected geo-aware mobile devices for enabling impromptu trip opportunities. Passengers request trips directly on the street and can find a suitable ride in just few minutes. Currently there are no dynamic carpooling systems widely used. Every attempt to create and organize such systems failed. This paper reviews the state of the art of dynamic carpooling. It identifies the most important issues against the adoption of dynamic carpooling systems and the proposed solutions for such issues. It proposes a first input on solving the problem of mass-adopting dynamic carpooling systems.
Striatum forever, despite sequence learning variability: A random effect analysis of PET data

This PET study is concerned with the what, where, and how of implicit sequence learning. In contrast with previous studies imaging the serial reaction time (SRT) task, the sequence of successive locations was determined by a probabilistic finite‐state grammar. The implicit acquisition of statistical relationships between serially ordered elements (i.e., what) was studied scan by scan, aiming to evidence the brain areas (i.e., where) specifically involved in the implicit processing of this core component of sequential higher‐order knowledge. As behavioural results demonstrate between‐ and within‐subjects variability in the implicit acquisition of sequential knowledge through practice, functional PET data were modelled using a random‐effect model analysis (i.e., how) to account for both sources of behavioural variability. First, two mean condition images were created per subject depending on the presence or not of implicit sequential knowledge at the time of each of the 12 scans. Next, direct comparison of these mean condition images provided the brain areas involved in sequential knowledge processing. Using this approach, we have shown that the striatum is involved in more than simple pairwise associations and that it has the capacity to process higher‐order knowledge. We suggest that the striatum is not only involved in the implicit automatization of serial information through prefrontal cortex‐caudate nucleus networks, but also that it plays a significant role for the selection of the most appropriate responses in the context created by both the current and previous stimuli, thus contributing to better efficiency and faster response preparation in the SRT task. Hum. Brain Mapping 10:179–194, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) enhances palmitic acid- and glucose-induced murine beta cell dysfunction and destruction in vitro

Although several reports suggest a potentially deleterious role of macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) in type 2 diabetes (T2D) pathology, it is still unclear how this pro-inflammatory cytokine acts on pancreatic beta cells. The aim of the present study was to evaluate MIF effects on murine beta cells in the in vitro settings mimicking T2D-associated conditions. Results indicate that recombinant MIF further increased apoptosis of pancreatic islets or MIN6 cells upon exposure to palmitic acid or glucose. This was accompanied by upregulation of several pro-apoptotic molecules. Furthermore, MIF potentiated nutrient-induced islet cell dysfunction, as revealed by lower glucose oxidation rate, ATP content, and depolarized mitochondrial membrane. The final outcome was potentiation of mitochondrial apoptotic pathway. The observed upregulation of nutrient-induced islet cell dysfunction and apoptosis by MIF implicates that silencing MIF may be beneficial for maintaining integrity of endocrine pancreas in obesity-associated T2D.
Deoxycorticosterone Acetate–Salt Rats: Hypertension and Sympathoexcitation Driven by Increased NaCl Levels

Using deoxycorticosterone acetate (DOCA)–salt rats, we tested the hypothesis that increased plasma NaCl concentration supports sympathetic activity and blood pressure (BP) during salt-sensitive hypertension. One day before experimentation, femoral catheters and an electrode for measurement of lumbar sympathetic nerve activity (LSNA) probe were surgically positioned in DOCA-salt and Sham-salt rats. DOCA-salt rats exhibited increased (P<0.05) BP and NaCl concentration (BP, 163±8 mm Hg; NaCl, 260.8±3.3 mEq/L [DOCA-salt]: BP, 106.3±4.2 mm Hg; NaCl, 254.3±1.7 mEq/L [Sham-salt]). After V1 vasopressin blockade (Manning compound, 5 &mgr;g IV), infusion (0.12 mL/min) of 5% dextrose in water decreased NaCl concentrations, BP (−28±7 mm Hg), and LSNA (−39±5%) in DOCA-salt but not Sham-salt rats. To explain how such small (≈2%) increases in plasma NaCl could underlie the hypertension, we hypothesized that DOCA augments the pressor and sympathoexcitatory actions of NaCl. To address this hypothesis, animals with equally elevated NaCl but no DOCA (Sham-1.7% salt) and animals with increased DOCA but normal NaCl levels (DOCA-water) were prepared and administered the infusion of 5% dextrose in water. BP and LSNA were not altered in DOCA-water rats. In the Sham-1.7% salt rats, BP fell (P<0.05), but not LSNA, and the responses were significantly smaller than that observed in the DOCA-salt animals. Collectively, these data suggest that increased NaCl levels contribute to sympathoexcitation and hypertension in DOCA-salt rats because of amplification of the NaCl signal by DOCA.
Predicting biopsychosocial outcomes for heroin users in primary care treatment: a prospective longitudinal cohort study.

BACKGROUND Opiate substitution treatment for heroin users reduces mortality, illicit drug use, crime, and risk-taking behaviour, and improves physical, mental and social functioning. Few extended studies have been carried out in UK primary care to study factors predicting recovery. AIM To establish whether primary care opiate substitution treatment is associated with improvements in outcomes over 11 years, in delivering recovery, and to identify predictive factors. DESIGN AND SETTING A prospective longitudinal cohort study, with repeated measures in the Primary Care Addiction Service, Sheffield, 1999-2011. METHOD A total of 123 eligible patients were assessed using the Opiate Treatment Index at entry to treatment and at 1, 5, and 11 years. Clinical records were used to assess factors including employment and discharge status. RESULTS At 11 years, there was a high rate of drug-free discharge (22.0%) and medically-assisted recovery (30.9%), and low mortality (6.5%). Continuous treatment was associated with being discharged drug free (P = 0.005). For those still in treatment, there were highly significant reductions in heroin use and injecting, and significantly improved psychosocial functioning. There were strong positive correlations between mental health, physical health, and social functioning. Patients in employment had significantly better psychological and social functioning (P = 0.017, P = 0.007, respectively). CONCLUSION Opiate substitution treatment is associated over 11 years with full recovery, drug-free discharge and medically-assisted recovery. There is a strong association between the psychosocial variables, suggesting that intervention in any one of these areas may have extended benefits, by impacting on related variables and employment. The best predictor of a drug-free discharge was continuous uninterrupted treatment.
Long-Term Results of the Radial Artery Used for Myocardial Revascularization

Background—No information is available on the long-term results of radial artery (RA) grafts used as coronary artery bypass conduits. Methods and Results—In this report, we describe the long-term (105±9 months) angiographic results of a series of 90 consecutive patients in whom the RA was used as a coronary artery bypass conduit directly anastomosed to the ascending aorta. The long-term patency and perfect patency rates of the RA were 91.6% and 88%, respectively, versus 97.5% and 96.3% for internal thoracic artery grafts. The severity of stenosis of the target vessel clearly influenced long-term RA patency, whereas location of the target vessel and long-term use of calcium channel blockers did not influence angiographic results. Preserved endothelial function and absence of flow-limiting, fibrous, intimal hyperplasia were also documented. Conclusions—Ten years after surgery, RA grafts have excellent patency and perfect patency rates. Appropriate surgical technique and correct indication are the key factors for long-term RA patency.
@Science: a network about science accessibility for university students

At present, visually impaired students are strongly discouraged to attend university scientific studies, especially because of the lack of scientific resources fully accessible through assistive technologies, the difficulty to attend scientific university lectures based on explanations employing transparencies with mathematical expressions as well as graphical representations and the tools to work on mathematical expressions, which are often partially usable or incomplete for advanced subjects. Furthermore, the variety all over Europe of national braille codes to represent mathematical expressions and the language dependence of audio books recorded by human readers make difficult a cross country exchange of knowledge and resources. Some universities have been working on the improvement of assistive technologies in science learning for many years and they have collected best experiences, tools, accessible scientific resources and effective and efficient methods. Unfortunately, up to now many of these best practices and educational resources haven't got widespread all over Europe. In order to share knowledge among universities about science accessibility by visually impaired people and to produce guidelines and to document best practices, the @Science thematic network was established. It is supported for two years by the European Union eContentPlus Programme. It involves six founding members from five European countries: Italy, Austria, Slovakia, Belgium and France. In the project lifetime, collaboration actions will be undertaken so as to involve in the thematic network other universities, software and hardware manufacturers, publishers, associations for visually impaired persons and students themselves. In so doing, each group will contribute with its experience and will gain knowledge from other experiences. Moreover, the guidelines and best practices will be the result of a two years exchange of knowledge among experts and end users. At first, this paper will introduce the main barriers which affect blind students in going through scientific studies. Then, it will present the objectives and the methodology of the @Science network.