Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cardiac Steatosis in Diabetes Mellitus: A 1H-Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Study

Background— The risk of heart failure in type 2 diabetes mellitus is greater than can be accounted for by hypertension and coronary artery disease. Rodent studies indicate that in obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus, lipid overstorage in cardiac myocytes produces lipotoxic intermediates that cause apoptosis, which leads to heart failure. In humans with diabetes mellitus, cardiac steatosis previously has been demonstrated in explanted hearts of patients with end-stage nonischemic cardiomyopathy. Whether cardiac steatosis precedes the onset of cardiomyopathy in individuals with impaired glucose tolerance or in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus is unknown. Methods and Results— To represent the progressive stages in the natural history of type 2 diabetes mellitus, we stratified 134 individuals (age 45±12 years) into 1 of 4 groups: (1) lean normoglycemic (lean), (2) overweight and obese normoglycemic (obese), (3) impaired glucose tolerance, and (4) type 2 diabetes mellitus. Localized 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy and cardiac magnetic resonance imaging were used to quantify myocardial triglyceride content and left ventricular function, respectively. Compared with lean subjects, myocardial triglyceride content was 2.3-fold higher in those with impaired glucose tolerance and 2.1-fold higher in those with type 2 diabetes mellitus (P<0.05). Left ventricular ejection fraction was normal and comparable across all groups. Conclusions— In humans, impaired glucose tolerance is accompanied by cardiac steatosis, which precedes the onset of type 2 diabetes mellitus and left ventricular systolic dysfunction. Thus, lipid overstorage in human cardiac myocytes is an early manifestation in the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes mellitus and is evident in the absence of heart failure.
Using crowdsourcing to support pro-environmental community activism

Community activist groups typically rely on core groups of highly motivated members. In this paper we consider how crowdsourcing strategies can be used to supplement the activities of pro-environmental community activists, thus increasing the scalability of their campaigns. We focus on mobile data collection applications and strategies that can be used to engage casual participants in pro-environmental data collection. We report the results of a study that used both quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate the impact of different motivational factors and strategies, including both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators. The study compared and provides empirical evidence for the effectiveness of two extrinsic motivation strategies, pointification - a subset of gamification - and financial incentives. Prior environmental interest is also assessed as an intrinsic motivation factor. In contrast to previous HCI research on pro-environmental technology, much of which has focused on individual behavior change, this paper offers new insights and recommendations on the design of systems that target groups and communities.
A generalized metric distance between hierarchically partitioned images

This article presents a generalized metric distance, called Δ-distance, between images represented by a tree structure resulting from a recursive image partition. This distance is used to perform content-based image retrieval queries in databases. Δ-distance allows to retrieve images globally similar to a query image. This distance takes into account the location of the image visual features. It can be performed using a multi-level filtering algorithm. Moreover, Δ-distance allows region-based queries. In this case, the resulting images contain quadrants similar to the quadrants selected by the user in the query image or contain quadrants similar to the entire query image. Because it is a generalized distance function, some particular cases of the Δ-distance appear in existing content-based image retrieval systems.
Cardiac Angiotensin II Type 2 Receptor Activates the Kinin/NO System and Inhibits Fibrosis

Abstract—We have previously demonstrated that stimulation of the angiotensin (Ang) II type 2 receptor in vascular smooth muscle cells caused bradykinin production by activating kininogenase in transgenic mice. The aim of this study was to determine whether overexpression of AT2 receptors in cardiomyocytes attenuates Ang II–induced cardiomyocyte hypertrophy or interstitial fibrosis through a kinin/nitric oxide (NO)-dependent mechanism in mice. Ang II (1.4 mg/kg per day) or vehicle was subcutaneously infused into transgenic mice and wild-type mice for 14 days. The amount of cardiac AT2 receptor relative to AT1 receptor in transgenic mice was 22% to 37%. Ang II caused similar elevations in systolic blood pressure (by ≈45 mm Hg) in transgenic mice and wild-type mice. Myocyte hypertrophy assessed by an increase in myocyte cross-sectional area, left ventricular mass, and atrial natriuretic peptide mRNA levels were similar in transgenic and wild-type mice. Ang II induced prominent perivascular fibrosis of the intramuscular coronary arteries, the extent of which was significantly less in transgenic mice than in wild-type mice. Inhibition of perivascular fibrosis in transgenic mice was abolished by cotreatment with HOE140, a bradykinin B2 receptor antagonist, or L-NAME, an inhibitor of NO synthase. Cardiac kininogenase activity was markedly increased (≈2.6-fold, P <0.001) after Ang II infusion in transgenic mice but not in wild-type mice. Immunohistochemistry indicated that both bradykinin B2 receptors and endothelial NO synthase were expressed in the vascular endothelium, whereas only B2 receptors were present in fibroblasts. These results suggest that stimulation of AT2 receptors present in cardiomyocytes attenuates perivascular fibrosis by a kinin/NO-dependent mechanism. However, the effect on the development of cardiomyocyte hypertrophy was not detected in this experimental setting.
Single-center experience with 250 tunnelled pleural catheter insertions for malignant pleural effusion.

INTRODUCTION Malignant pleural effusions (MPEs) are a common cause of dyspnea in patients with advanced cancer. Tunnelled pleural catheters (TPCs) can be used in patients with this condition, but the published experience with them is limited. OBJECTIVE To describe the use of TPCs in the management of MPE in a large group of patients in a clinical setting. METHODS Retrospective analysis of 250 sequential TPC insertions in patients with MPEs in a single center. RESULTS Two hundred fifty TPC procedures for MPE were performed in 223 patients (19 contralateral procedures and 8 repeat ipsilateral procedures) during a 3-year period. Symptom control was complete following 97 procedures (38.8%), was partial in 125 procedures (50%), and was absent in 9 procedures (3.6%); in addition, there were 10 failed TPC insertions (4.0%) and 9 TPC insertions (3.6%) without assessment of symptoms at the 2-week follow-up visit. Spontaneous pleurodesis occurred following 103 of the 240 successful TPC procedures (42.9%) and was more frequent when < or = 20% of the hemithorax contained fluid at the 2-week follow-up visit (57.2% vs 25.3%, respectively; p < 0.001). Catheters stayed in place for a median duration of 56 days. Following successful TPC placement, no further ipsilateral pleural procedures were required in 90.1% of cases. The overall median survival time following TPC insertion was 144 days. Complication rates were low and compared favorably with those seen with other treatment options. CONCLUSIONS TPC placement is an effective method of palliation for MPE that allows outpatient management and low complication rates. The insertion of a TPC should be considered as a first-line treatment option in the management of patients with MPE.
FX-SCORE: A Framework for Fixed-Point Compilation of SPICE Device Models Using Gappa++

Automated, offline precision-analysis of dataflow computation containing elementary functions (e.g. exp) and if-then-else control flow operations enables accurate fixed-point FPGA implementation of SPICE device equations. We perform interval analysis of these equations using Gappa++ to statically compare error bounds of fixed-point and double-precision implementations. This is possible due to the limited dynamic range of physical voltage, current and conductance quantities in a SPICE simulation of real-world circuits. In contrast to previous custom-precision SPICE device mappings, our fixed-point implementation has the same accuracy as double-precision implementation when compared to ideal arithmetic (reals). To deliver these implementations we develop FX-SCORE, a high-level framework based on the SCORE streaming FPGA framework, that automatically generates Gappa++ scripts and AutoESL circuits to explore the cost-quality tradeoffs of Fixed-point FPGA implementations. Using our methodology, we can determine whether fixed-point is always better than a double-precision implementation at the same relative error. We demonstrate 35% geometric mean area improvement for different SPICE device models such as Diode, Level-1 MOSFET and an Approximate MOSFET when comparing custom fixed-point implementations with standard double-precision realizations.
Mining emotions in short films: user comments or crowdsourcing?

Short films are regarded as an alternative form of artistic creation, and they express, in a few minutes, a whole gamma of different emotions oriented to impact the audience and communicate a story. In this paper, we exploit a multi-modal sentiment analysis approach to extract emotions in short films, based on the film criticism expressed through social comments from the video-sharing platform YouTube. We go beyond the traditional polarity detection (i.e., positive/negative), and extract, for each analyzed film, four opposing pairs of primary emotions: joy-sadness, anger-fear, trust-disgust, and anticipation-surprise. We found that YouTube comments are a valuable source of information for automatic emotion detection when compared to human analysis elicited via crowdsourcing.
VOLCANOGENIC MASSIVE SULPHIDE DEPOSITS

Volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposits, also known as volcanic-associated, volcanic-hosted, and volcanosedimentary-hosted massive sulphide deposits, are major sources of Zn, Cu, Pb, Ag, and Au, and significant sources for Co, Sn, Se, Mn, Cd, In, Bi, Te, Ga, and Ge. They typically occur as lenses of polymetallic massive sulphide that form at or near the seafloor in submarine volcanic environments, and are classified according to base metal content, gold content, or host-rock lithology. There are close to 350 known VMS deposits in Canada and over 800 known worldwide. Historically, they account for 27% of Canada’s Cu production, 49% of its Zn, 20% of its Pb, 40% of its Ag, and 3% of its Au. They are discovered in submarine volcanic terranes that range in age from 3.4 Ga to actively forming deposits in modern seafloor environments. The most common feature among all types of VMS deposits is that they are formed in extensional tectonic settings, including both oceanic seafloor spreading and arc environments. Most ancient VMS deposits that are still preserved in the geological record formed mainly in oceanic and continental nascent-arc, riftedarc, and back-arc settings. Primitive bimodal mafic volcanic-dominated oceanic rifted arc and bimodal felsic-dominated siliciclastic continental back-arc terranes contain some of the world’s most economically important VMS districts. Most, but not all, significant VMS mining districts are defined by deposit clusters formed within rifts or calderas. Their clustering is further attributed to a common heat source that triggers large-scale subseafloor fluid convection systems. These subvolcanic intrusions may also supply metals to the VMS hydrothermal systems through magmatic devolatilization. As a result of large-scale fluid flow, VMS mining districts are commonly characterized by extensive semi-conformable zones of hydrothermal alteration that intensifies into zones of discordant alteration in the immediate footwall and hanging wall of individual deposits. VMS camps can be further characterized by the presence of thin, but areally extensive, units of ferruginous chemical sediment formed from exhalation of fluids and distribution of hydrothermal particulates.
LTCC Fold-Back Bandpass Filter Designed with Capacitively Loaded Stubs

This study presents a design of a compact stub-type bandpass fllter with capacitively loaded stubs and a fold-back structure. This paper employed the fabrication process of low- temperature co-flred ceramic (LTCC) for fllter realization of a multi- layer structure. The proposed fllter structure required adding end capacitors to stubs to extend their electrical length, while achieving a length reduction of 30%. This study provided design curves to determine the dimensions of the end capacitor for reaching maximum electrical length extension. In addition, a fold-back conflguration was applied to halve the fllter size. An experimental fllter operating at 5.8GHz was fabricated and measured to validate the design concept, achieving a highly compact size of 14:3 £ 8:2 £ 0:76mm 3 .
Changing Epidemiology of Hepatitis C Virus Genotype among Patients with Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Hepatitis C Virus Co-Infection in China

Background Co-infection with hepatitis C virus (HCV) has become the most common cause of death in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infected patients on antiretroviral therapy. The distribution of HCV genotypes varies with geographical regions and time, and limited studies have focused on the HCV genotype in HIV/HCV co-infection. Methods The distribution of HCV genotypes was evaluated in 414 patients with HIV/HCV co-infection in three regions (South, Central and Northwest) of China from 2008 to 2010. The NS5B region of HCV was characterized using nested reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. Nucleotide sequences obtained were subjected to phylogenetic analysis, and genotypes were assigned using published reference genotypes. Results Genotype 3 was the most prevalent HCV strain (36.2%), followed by genotype 6 (30.0%), genotype 1 (28.5%), genotype 2 (5.1%), and genotype 5 (0.2%). The distribution varied geographically. Genotype 6 (37.6%) was the predominant strain while genotype 1 (20.2%) was less common in the South compared to the Central and Northwest regions (all P < 0.001). The distribution also varied temporally. There was no significant difference in genotype distribution in Guangdong (a province in the South region), between patient cohorts from 2005–2008 and 2009–2010. However, outside Guangdong, genotypes 3 and 6a became significantly more prevalent (22.4% vs.42.2%, P< 0.001; 8.0% vs. 19.8%, P = 0.004), and genotype 1 less prevalent (54.4% vs.26.6%, P< 0.001) over time. Conclusion The most dramatic shift in genotypic distribution was the movement of HCV genotypes 3 and 6a outside of Guangdong in HIV/HCV co-infected patients. This movement appeared closely associated with transmission via injected drug use.
Explaining the Usage Intentions of Exergames

Different kinds of digital gaming concepts that combine exercise and games, commonly referred to as exergames, have become increasingly common in recent years. These games, which can be used because of both hedonic and utilitarian reasons, have also become a subject of growing interest among academic researchers. However, the factors that explain their usage remain vaguely understood. This study aims to find out what kinds of factors explain the intentions to use exergames as part of one’s exercise. To do this, we first propose a new theoretical model for explaining the usage intentions of exergames and then empirically test this model by analyzing an online survey sample collected from 271 Finnish console-based exergame owners through structural equation modeling (SEM). We find the model to perform exceptionally well and to propose several interesting and important implications for both the development and marketing of exergames.
Scenario-Driven Role Engineering

Access control deals with eliciting, specifying, enforcing, and maintaining access control policies in software-based systems. Recently, role-based access control (RBAC)-together with various extensions-has developed into a de facto standard for access control. Scenario-driven role engineering is a systematic approach for defining customized RBAC models, including roles, permissions, constraints, and role hierarchies. Since its first publication in 2002, the author gained considerable experience with scenario-driven role engineering, and several consulting firms and international projects have adopted the approach. Based on these experiences, the author enhanced the approach and now has a much deeper understanding of the relations between different role-engineering artifacts, the need for process tailoring, and the use of preexisting documents in role-engineering activities.
Demographic Connectivity for Ursid Populations at Wildlife Crossing Structures in Banff National Park

Wildlife crossing structures are one solution to mitigating the fragmentation of wildlife populations caused by roads, but their effectiveness in providing connectivity has only been superficially evaluated. Hundreds of grizzly (Ursus arctos) and black bear (Ursus americanus) passages through under and overpasses have been recorded in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. However, the ability of crossing structures to allow individual and population‐level movements across road networks remains unknown. In April 2006, we initiated a 3‐year investigation into whether crossing structures provide demographic connectivity for grizzly and black bears in Banff National Park. We collected hair with multiple noninvasive methods to obtain genetic samples from grizzly and black bears around the Bow Valley. Our objectives were to determine the number of male and female grizzly and black bears that use crossing structures; examine spatial and temporal patterns of crossings; and estimate the proportions of grizzly and black bear populations in the Bow Valley that use crossing structures. Fifteen grizzly (7 female, 8 male) and 17 black bears (8 female, 9 male) used wildlife crossing structures. The number of individuals detected at wildlife crossing structures was highly correlated with the number of passages in space and time. Grizzly bears used open crossing structures (e.g., overpasses) more often than constricted crossings (e.g., culverts). Peak use of crossing structures for both bear species occurred in July, when high rates of foraging activity coincide with mating season. We compared the number of bears that used crossings with estimates of population abundance from a related study and determined that substantial percentages of grizzly (15.0% in 2006, 19.8% in 2008) and black bear (17.6% in 2006, 11.0% in 2008) populations used crossing structures. On the basis of our results, we concluded wildlife crossing structures provide demographic connectivity for bear populations in Banff National Park.
A GROUP -BASED METHOD FOR CONTEXT -AWARE SERVICE DISCOVERY IN PERVASIVE COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT

A Pervasive Computing Environment includes a variety of communication networks and service systems and has places suitable for providing variety of services to client. One of the most important problems in such environments is service discovery, i.e. how a client can use his service of interest. In a Pervasive Computing Environment Context, information plays an important role for providing more suitable services to the client. So in this paper, we present a method context aware service discovery with use of context source in the form of an advertisement board for services. A context source with an information register of new entry services and, in addition, forwarding packets, acts like a billboard advertising service. In this context source method, it provides help in registering and advertising services but is not a directory and, if the context source fails, our method can undertake service discovery with other nodes in environment. To evaluate this method a simulation has been carried out. Its statistics and outputs show our suggested method, with its dynamic environment, client movement, directory less, and use of a context source is a suitable method for service discovery which has better results and costs less money and time.
MULTIPHOTON IONIZATION AS TIME-DEPENDENT TUNNELING

A new semiclassical approach to ionization by an oscillating field is presented. For a delta-function atom, an asymptotic analysis is performed with respect to a quantity h, defined as the ratio of photon energy to ponderomotive energy. This h appears formally equivalent to Planck's constant in a suitably transformed Schroedinger equation and allows semiclassical methods to be applicable. Systematically, a picture of tunneling wave packets in complex time is developped, which by interference account for the typical ponderomotive features of ionization curves. These analytical results are then compared to numerical simulations and are shown to be in good agreement.
Symmetrization and over tting in probabilistic latent semantic analysis

Àííîòàöèÿ An algorithm is proposed for revealing latent user's interests from the observable protocol of users behavior, e.g., site visits. The algorithm combines the ideas of analysis of users' media and probabilistic latent semantic analysis. A quality criterion based on the classication of preliminarily labeled sites is introduced to optimize the algorithm parameters and compare algorithms. The experiments show that the quality has an optimum by the essential parameters of the algorithm, however the attempt of too precise optimization can lead to overtting.
Rates of Mutation and Recombination in Siphoviridae Phage Genome Evolution over Three Decades

Abstract The evolution of asexual organisms is driven not only by the inheritance of genetic modification but also by the acquisition of foreign DNA. The contribution of vertical and horizontal processes to genome evolution depends on their rates per year and is quantified by the ratio of recombination to mutation. These rates have been estimated for bacteria; however, no estimates have been reported for phages. Here, we delineate the contribution of mutation and recombination to dsDNA phage genome evolution. We analyzed 34 isolates of the 936 group of Siphoviridae phages using a Lactococcus lactis strain from a single dairy over 29 years. We estimate a constant substitution rate of 1.9 × 10‐4 substitutions per site per year due to mutation that is within the range of estimates for eukaryotic RNA and DNA viruses. The reconstruction of recombination events reveals a constant rate of five recombination events per year and 4.5 × 10‐3 nucleotide alterations due to recombination per site per year. Thus, the recombination rate exceeds the substitution rate, resulting in a relative effect of recombination to mutation (r/m) of ˜24 that is homogenous over time. Especially in the early transcriptional region, we detect frequent gene loss and regain due to recombination with phages of the 936 group, demonstrating the role of the 936 group pangenome as a reservoir of genetic variation. The observed substitution rate homogeneity conforms to the neutral theory of evolution; hence, the neutral theory can be applied to phage genome evolution and also to genetic variation brought about by recombination.