Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Chinese Bone Turnover Marker Study: Reference Ranges for C-Terminal Telopeptide of Type I Collagen and Procollagen I N-Terminal Peptide by Age and Gender

Background Bone formation marker procollagen I N-terminal peptide (PINP) and resorption marker C-terminal telopeptide of type I collagen (β-CTX) are useful biomarkers for differential diagnosis and therapeutic evaluation of osteoporosis, but reference values are required. Methods The multi-center, cross-sectional Chinese Bone Turnover Marker Study included 3800 healthy volunteers in 5 Chinese cities. Serum PINP, β-CTX, parathyroid hormone (PTH) and 25OHD levels were measured by chemiluminescence assay. Lumbar spine and proximal femur BMD were measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Serum PINP and β-CTX levels were assessed by age, gender, weight, recruitment latitude, levels of PTH and 25OHD. Results Subjects (n = 1436, M∶F, 500∶936; mean age 50.6±19.6 years) exhibited non-normally distributed PINP and β-CTX peaking between 15–19 years, gradually declining throughout adulthood, elevating within 10 years of postmenopause, and then declining by age 70. In women between the age of 30 and menopause, median PINP and β-CTX levels were 40.42 (95% CI: 17.10–102.15) and 0.26 (95% CI: 0.08–0.72) ng/mL, respectively. β-CTX and PINP were positively linearly correlated (r = 0.599, P<0.001). β-CTX correlated positively (r = 0.054 and 0.093) and PINP correlated negatively (r = −0.012 and −0.053) with 25OHD and PTH (P<0.05). Conclusions We established Chinese reference ranges for PINP and CTX. Chinese individuals exhibited high serum PINP and β-CTX levels between 15 and 19 years of age and at menopause, which gradually declined after 70 years of age.
Calming the excitement in ALS

The concept of excitotoxicity, first established by the pioneering work of John Olney,1 traditionally has been applied to lesions of the CNS, focusing mostly on glutamate as a neurotoxic excitatory amino acid neurotransmitter. Indeed, glutamate excitotoxicity remains one of the best-supported theories for motor neuron death in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS),2 and was the pharmacologic inspiration for riluzole, which remains the only drug proven to slow the course of ALS.3 The excitotoxic model of disease can be appropriately extended to the peripheral nervous system (PNS), where overactivity of peripheral axons leads to symptoms of fasciculations and cramping. However, the increased firing of peripheral axons could also result in antidromic stimulation of parent motor and sensory neurons, resulting in increased excitatory activity and possibly excitotoxic injury. In this model, therapeutic interventions are directed at reducing axonal firing, which can be accomplished by blocking sodium channels.
Patellofemoral Full-Thickness Chondral Defects Treated with Hyalograft-C

Background Tissue engineering has emerged as a potential therapeutic option for cartilage regeneration. Hypothesis Hyaluronan-based scaffolds seeded with autologous chondrocytes are a viable treatment for damaged articular surface of the patellofemoral joint. Study Design Case series; Level of evidence, 4. Methods Thirty-two chondral lesions with a mean size of 4.7 cm2 were treated with Hyalograft-C. Twenty-two lesions were located in the patella and 10 in the trochlea. Sixteen patients had previous trauma, 3 had osteochondritis dissecans, and 13 had degenerative changes. Transplantations were carried out arthroscopically or through a miniarthrotomy incision. Eight patients had concomitant procedures, including patellar realignment (2), lateral release (3), and meniscectomy (3). Results were evaluated using the International Cartilage Repair Society–International Knee Documentation Committee scale, EuroQol EQ-5D form, and magnetic resonance imaging scans at 12 and 24 months. Six patients had second-look arthroscopy and biopsies. Statistical analysis was performed using the paired ttest and Wilcoxon signed rank test. Results The International Cartilage Repair Society–International Knee Documentation Committee and EuroQol EQ-5D scores demonstrated a statistically significant improvement (P <. 0001). Objective preoperative data improved from 6/32 (18.8%) with International Knee Documentation Committee A or B to 29/32 (90.7%) at 24 months after transplantation. Mean subjective scores improved from 43.2 points preoperatively to 73.6 points 24 months after implantation. Magnetic resonance imaging studies at 24 months revealed 71% to have an almost normal cartilage with positive correlation to clinical outcomes. Second-look arthroscopies in 6 cases revealed the repaired surface to be nearly normal with biopsy samples characterized as hyaline-like in appearance. Conclusion Biodegradable scaffolds seeded with autologous chondrocytes can be a viable treatment for chondral lesions. The type of tissue repair achieved demonstrated histologic characteristics similar to normal articular cartilage. Long-term investigations are needed to determine the durability of the repair produced with this technique.
Effect of Number of Sprints in an SIT Session on Change in V˙O2max: A Meta-analysis

Purpose Recent meta-analyses indicate that sprint interval training (SIT) improves cardiorespiratory fitness (V˙O2max), but the effects of various training parameters on the magnitude of the improvement remain unknown. The present meta-analysis examined the modifying effect of the number of sprint repetitions in an SIT session on improvements in V˙O2max. Methods The databases PubMed and Web of Science were searched for original studies that have examined pre- and posttraining V˙O2max in adults after ≥2 wk of training consisting of repeated (≥2) Wingate-type cycle sprints, published up to May 1, 2016. Articles were excluded if they were not in English; if they involved patients, athletes, or participants with a mean baseline V˙O2max of >55 mL·kg−1·min−1 or a mean age <18 yr; and if an SIT trial was combined with another intervention or used intervals shorter than 10 s. A total of 38 SIT trials from 34 studies were included in the meta-analysis. Probabilistic magnitude-based inferences were made to interpret the outcome of the analysis. Results The meta-analysis revealed a likely large effect of a typical SIT intervention on V˙O2max (mean ± 90% confidence limits = 7.8% ± 4.0%) with a possibly small modifying effect of the maximum number of sprint repetitions in a training session (−1.2% ± 0.8% decrease per two additional sprint repetitions). Apart from possibly small effects of baseline V˙O2max and age, all other modifying effects were unclear or trivial. Conclusion We conclude that the improvement in V˙O2max with SIT is not attenuated with fewer sprint repetitions, and possibly even enhanced. This means that SIT protocols can be made more time efficient, which may help SIT to be developed into a viable strategy to impact public health.
Modular, hierarchical models of control systems in SpaceEx

The Hybrid I/O-automaton (HIOA) is a rigorous formal model designed for the analysis of complex hybrid (discrete-continuous) dynamical systems. The use of the HIOA formalism renders compositional reasoning possible, in the sense that once a property has been established for an automaton, it still holds if the automaton is composed with other automata. In this paper, it is shown how control systems can be modeled and verified in SpaceEx as HIOA in a modular fashion. Formally, HIOA models distinguish between controlled and uncontrolled variables.With examples and usage guidelines, they are related to the concepts of input/output and state/algebraic variables most control designers are familiar with. Additionally, the applicability of HIOA is enlarged by allowing variables to be controlled in more than one automaton. While this invalidates compositionality, it gives users who do not intend to use compositional reasoning more freedom in their modeling choices. Finally, it is shown how control systems given by semi-explicit differential algebraic equations can be algorithmically brought to the form understood by the SpaceEx reachability algorithm.
Load Balancing in the Non-Degenerate Slowdown Regime

We analyse Join-the-Shortest-Queue in a contemporary scaling regime known as the Non-Degenerate Slowdown regime. Join-the-Shortest-Queue (JSQ) is a classical load balancing policy for queueing systems with multiple parallel servers. Parallel server queueing systems are regularly analysed and dimensioned by diffusion approximations achieved in the Halfin-Whitt scaling regime. However, when jobs must be dispatched to a server upon arrival, we advocate the Non-Degenerate Slowdown regime (NDS) to compare different load-balancing rules. In this paper we identify novel diffusion approximation and timescale separation that provides insights into the performance of JSQ. We calculate the price of irrevocably dispatching jobs to servers and prove this to within 15% (in the NDS regime) of the rules that may manoeuvre jobs between servers. We also compare ours results for the JSQ policy with the NDS approximations of many modern load balancing policies such as Idle-Queue-First and Power-of-$d$-choices policies which act as low information proxies for the JSQ policy. Our analysis leads us to construct new rules that have identical performance to JSQ but require less communication overhead than power-of-2-choices.
An Overview of Formal Speciﬁcation Languages and their Adequacy for Formalizing the Deﬁnition of Function Points

Function point is the most widely used functional size measure in the software industry. It serves several purposes like software cost estimation, productivity management, quality management, benchmarking, outsourcing management, and several others. The goal of project FP-Formal , a research project funded by Bell Canada, is to formalize the function point measure in order to automate its calculation and to reduce measurement variance and costs. In this report, we analyse a set of formal spec-iﬁcation languages and evaluate their adequacy for specifying industrial information systems and for formalizing the function point measure.
Immersive Virtual Telepresence: Virtual Reality meets eHealth

Immersive Virtual Telepresence (IVT) tools are virtual reality environments combined with wireless multimedia facilities--real-time video and audio--and advanced input devices--tracking sensors, biosensors, brain-computer interfaces. For its features IVT can be considered an innovative communication interface based on interactive 3D visualization, able to collect and integrate different inputs and data sets in a single real-like experience. In this paper we try to outline the current state of research and technology that is relevant to the development of IVT in medicine. Moreover, we discuss the clinical principles and possible advantages associated with the use of IVT in this field.
Role of Sandwich Cu Layer in and Effect of Self-Bias on Nanomechanical Properties of Copper/Diamond-Like Carbon Bilayer Films

The role of sandwich Cu layer in and effect of self-bias on structural and nanomechanical properties of Cu/DLC bilayer films have been explored. Cu/DLC bilayer films were grown, under varied self-bias from −125 to −225 V, using hybrid system involving radio-frequency- (RF-) plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition and RF-sputtering units. Surface topography and mean roughness was studied by atomic force microscope and then correlated with mechanical properties. The addition of sandwich Cu layer in DLC reduces its residual stress and does not affect bilayer film hardness and elastic modulus. Load versus displacement was also employed to estimate various other mechanical parameters, which further correlated with self-bias and structural properties. These Cu/DLC bilayer films seem to be a potential candidate for various industrial applications such as hard and protective coating on cutting tools, solar cells, and wear resistance coating on magnetic storage media.
Pathogenic and opportunistic free-living amoebae: Acanthamoeba spp., Balamuthia mandrillaris, Naegleria fowleri, and Sappinia diploidea.

Among the many genera of free-living amoebae that exist in nature, members of only four genera have an association with human disease: Acanthamoeba spp. , Balamuthia mandrillaris, Naegleria fowleri and Sappinia diploidea. Acanthamoeba spp. and B. mandrillaris are opportunistic pathogens causing infections of the central nervous system, lungs, sinuses and skin, mostly in immunocompromised humans. Balamuthia is also associated with disease in immunocompetent children, and Acanthamoeba spp. cause a sight-threatening infection, Acanthamoeba keratitis, mostly in contact-lens wearers. Of more than 30 species of Naegleria, only one species, N. fowleri, causes an acute and fulminating meningoencephalitis in immunocompetent children and young adults. In addition to human infections, Acanthamoeba, Balamuthia and Naegleria can cause central nervous system infections in animals. Because only one human case of encephalitis caused by Sappinia diploidea is known, generalizations about the organism as an agent of disease are premature. In this review we summarize what is known of these free-living amoebae, focusing on their biology, ecology, types of disease and diagnostic methods. We also discuss the clinical profiles, mechanisms of pathogenesis, pathophysiology, immunology, antimicrobial sensitivity and molecular characteristics of these amoebae.
Measuring Hypnosis : Relating the Subjective Experience to Systematic Physiological Changes

Clinical hypnosis is a mind-body technique that operates at the intersection of subjective perceptions and objective physiological changes. A fundamental problem with hypnosis research is that the subjective mental state of patients during hypnosis cannot be measured directly. Experimental paradigms that neglect to measure changes in mental state at best yield a correlation between the treatment procedure and outcomes but cannot demonstrate a causal link. Current practices rely on the subjective reports of the subject to distinguish whether a negative experimental outcome arises because the patient never achieved the hypnotic state or because hypnosis was an ineffective treatment. The purpose of this research is to bridge this gap between the subjective perception of the hypnotic state and objective measurement of concomitant physiological changes. In addition, we seek a technique that can estimate depth of hypnosis during the course of a hypnosis session, on a time scale of less than a minute.
On the design of algebraic space-time overlays

We consider the design of space-time overlays to upgrade single antenna wireless communication systems to efficiently accommodate multiple transmit antennas. We define the overlay constraint such that the signal transmitted from the first antenna in the upgraded system is the same as that in the single antenna system. The signals transmitted from the remaining antennas are designed according to space-time coding principles to achieve full spatial diversity in quasi-static flat fading channels. For both BPSK and QPSK modulated systems, we develop an algebraic design framework that exploits the structure of existing single dimensional convolutional codes in designing overlays that achieve full spatial diversity with minimum additional decoding complexity at the receiver. We also investigate a concatenated coding approach for BPSK overlay design in which the inner code is an orthogonal block code. This approach is shown to yield near optimal asymptotic performance for quasi-static fading channels.
Clinical significance of alterations of chromosome 8 in high-grade, advanced, nonmetastatic prostate carcinoma.

BACKGROUND Chromosome 8 alterations, including loss of 8p21-22 and gain of 8q24, are commonly observed in prostate carcinoma. We examined whether these alterations are associated with poor prognosis in prostate cancer. METHODS We used dual-probe fluorescence in situ hybridization and DNA probes for 8p22 (lipoprotein lipase gene), centromere 8 (8cen), and 8q24 (c-myc gene) to determine the corresponding copy numbers in tumor samples from 144 patients with high-grade, advanced (stage III) prostate carcinoma. Cox models were used for multivariate analysis of systemic progression or patient death from prostate cancer. All statistical tests are two-sided. RESULTS We classified the 8p22, 8cen, and c-myc copy number as normal, loss, and gain. An additional increase (AI) category of c-myc relative to the centromere copy number (i.e., overrepresentation and amplification of c-myc) was also used. Alterations of 8p22 were not statistically significantly associated with either systemic progression or patient death. Alterations of c-myc were associated with both systemic progression (P =.024) and patient death (P =.039); AI of c-myc showed the poorest outcome. We also evaluated the prognostic relevance of the combined 8p22-8cen-c-myc loci anomaly pattern for the following six patterns: normal-normal-normal, loss-any 8cen-normal, loss-gain-gain, gain-gain-gain, non-loss-any 8cen-AI, and loss-any 8cen-AI, where any 8cen is normal, loss, or gain of the chromosome 8 centromere. Patients with the loss-any 8cen-AI pattern had earlier systemic progression (P =.009) and earlier cause-specific death (P =.013) than did patients with other patterns. Multivariate analyses demonstrated that the loss-any 8cen-AI pattern was an independent risk factor for systemic progression (P<.001) and cause-specific death (P =.002). CONCLUSIONS Genetic alterations of chromosome 8 appear to accumulate in parallel with the progression of prostate carcinomas. AI of the c-myc gene, especially with loss of 8p22, appears to be associated with poor patient prognosis.
GEMS: SMS-based app store for Growth Economies

The GEMS's main idea is based on a client platform for the mobile device, which supports a finite set of GUI templates, i.e. visual forms that dictate the layout of the mobile phone screen. The set of GUI templates contains different kinds of menu lists, text editors and input forms, and text layouts. A mobile application for this client platform is a graph of GUI template instances, where each GUI template instance is a reference to a predefined visual form plus text and references to preloaded texts and graphics that are used to fill in the visual form.
During category learning, top-down and bottom up processes battle for control of the eyes

Information in the visual environment is largely accessed through a series of fixations punctuated by saccades. Changes in fixation patterns in response to learning are well documented in studies of categorization, but the properties of the saccades that precede them and the role of visual salience in effecting eye movements remains poorly understood. This eye tracking study examines oculomotor changes in a categorization task with salient distractors. The design examines high-level, goal-directed attention that serves the purpose of learning, and making decisions based on that learned knowledge in the presence of salient distractors. We find that salient distractors draw fixation durations and saccade velocities that display similar properties to eye movements directed to task relevant items, challenging existing accounts that salience draws rapid saccades.
On the Feasibility of an Open-Implementation Cloud Infrastructure: A Game Theoretic Analysis

Trusting a cloud infrastructure is a hard problem, which urgently needs effective solutions. There are increasing demands for switching to the cloud in the sectors of financial, healthcare, or government etc., where data security protections are among the highest priorities. But most of them are left unsatisfied, due to the current cloud infrastructures' lack of provable trustworthiness. Trusted Computing (TC) technologies implement effective mechanisms for attesting to the genuine behaviors of a software platform. Integrating TC with cloud infrastructure shows a promising method for verifying the cloud's behaviors, which may in turn facilitate provable trustworthiness. However, the side effect of TC also brings concerns: exhibiting genuine behaviors might attract targeted attacks. Consequently, current Trusted Cloud proposals only integrate limited TC capabilities, which hampers the effective and practical trust establishment. In this paper, we aim to justify the benefits of a fully Open-Implementation cloud infrastructure, which means that the cloud's implementation and configuration details can be inspected by both the legitimate and malicious cloud users. We applied game theoretic analysis to discover the new dynamics formed between the Cloud Service Provider (CSP) and cloud users, when the Open-Implementation strategy is introduced. We conclude that, even though Open-Implementation cloud may facilitate attacks, vulnerabilities or misconfiguration are easier to discover, which in turn reduces the total security threats. Also, cyber threat monitoring and sharing are made easier in an Open-Implementation cloud. More importantly, the cloud's provable trustworthiness will attract more legitimate users, which increases CSP's revenue and helps lowering the price. This eventually creates a virtuous cycle, which will benefit both the CSP and legitimate users.
The role of recurrent networks in neural architectures of grounded cognition: learning of control

Recurrent networks have been used as neural models of language processing, with mixed results. Here, we discuss the role of recurrent networks in a neural architecture of grounded cognition. In particular, we discuss how the control of binding in this architecture can be learned. We trained a simple recurrent network (SRN) and a feedforward network (FFN) for this task. The results show that information from the architecture is needed as input for these networks to learn control of binding. Thus, both control systems are recurrent. We found that the recurrent system consisting of the architecture and an SRN or an FFN as a 'core' can learn basic (but recursive) sentence structures. Problems with control of binding arise when the system with the SRN is tested on number of new sentence structures. In contrast, control of binding for these structures succeeds with the FFN. Yet, for some structures with (unlimited) embeddings, difficulties arise due to dynamical binding conflicts in the architecture itself. In closing, we discuss potential future developments of the architecture presented here.
Expression of human plasma gelsolin in Escherichia coli and dissection of actin binding sites by segmental deletion mutagenesis

Human plasma gelsolin has been expressed in high yield and soluble form in Escherichia coli. The protein has nucleating and severing activities identical to those of plasma gelsolin and is fully calcium sensitive in its interactions with monomeric actin. A number of deletion mutants have been expressed to explore the function of the three actin binding sites. Their design is based on the sixfold segmental repeat in the protein sequence. (These sites are located in segment 1, segments 2-3, and segments 4-6). Two mutants, S1-3 and S4-6, are equivalent to the NH2- and COOH-terminal halves of the molecule obtained by limited proteolysis. S1-3 binds two actin monomers in the presence or absence of calcium, it severs and caps filaments but does not nucleate polymerization. S4-6 binds a single actin monomer but only in calcium. These observations confirm and extend current knowledge on the properties of the two halves of gelsolin. Two novel constructs have also been studied that provide a different pairwise juxtaposition of the three sites. S2-6, which lacks the high affinity site of segment 1 (equivalent to the 14,000-Mr proteolytic fragment) and S1,4-6, which lacks segments 2-3 (the actin filament binding domain previously identified using the 28,000-Mr proteolytic fragment). S2-6 binds two actin monomers in calcium and nucleates polymerization; it associates laterally with filaments in the presence or absence of calcium and has a weak calcium-dependent fragmenting activity. S1,4-6 also binds two actin monomers in calcium and one in EGTA, has weak severing activity but does not nucleate polymerization. A model is presented for the involvement of the three binding sites in the various activities of gelsolin.