Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Clinical trials with cholesteryl ester transfer protein inhibitors

Purpose of review Inhibition of cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) has received considerable interest by virtue of its favorable effects on atherogenic and protective lipid parameters. The impact of CETP inhibitors in large clinical outcome trials will be reviewed. Recent findings Population and genetic studies demonstrate that low CETP activity associates with lower rates of cardiovascular events. Inhibiting CETP activity in animal models has a favorable impact on experimental atherosclerosis. Although the first CETP inhibitor to advance to an outcome trial proved to have adverse clinical effects and the next agent, a more modest inhibitor, was clinically futile, there continues to be immense interest in the potential to develop nontoxic, potent CETP inhibitors to reduce cardiovascular risk. Summary The current status of CETP inhibitors in the context of large outcomes trials will be reviewed.
Gene-expression profiling of human osteoblasts following treatment with the ionic products of Bioglass 45S5 dissolution.

The effect of the ionic products of Bioglass 45S5 dissolution on the gene-expression profile of human osteoblasts was investigated by cDNA microarray analysis of 1,176 genes. Treatment with the ionic products of Bioglass 45S5 dissolution increased the levels of 60 transcripts twofold or more and reduced the levels of five transcripts to one-half or less than in control. Markedly up-regulated genes included RCL, a c-myc responsive growth related gene, cell cycle regulators such as G1/S specific cyclin D1, and apoptosis regulators including calpain and defender against cell death (DAD1). Other significantly up-regulated genes included the cell surface receptors CD44 and integrin beta1, and various extracellular matrix regulators including metalloproteinases-2 and -4 and their inhibitors TIMP-1 and TIMP-2. The identification of differentially expressed genes by cDNA microarray analysis has offered new insights into the mode of action of bioactive glasses and has proven to be an effective tool in evaluating their osteoproductive properties.
The Isolation of Antiprotozoal Compounds from Libyan Propolis

Propolis is increasingly being explored as a source of biologically active compounds. Until now, there has been no study of Libyan propolis. Two samples were collected in North East Libya and tested for their activity against Trypanosoma brucei. Extracts from both samples had quite high activity. One of the samples was fractionated and yielded a number of active fractions. Three of the active fractions contained single compounds, which were found to be 13‐epitorulosal, acetyl‐13‐epi‐cupressic acid and 13‐epi‐cupressic acid, which have been described before in Mediterranean propolis. Two of the compounds had a minimum inhibitory concentration value of 1.56 µg/mL against T. brucei. The active fractions were also tested against macrophages infected with Leishmania donovani, and again moderate to strong activity was observed with the compounds having IC50 values in the range 5.1–21.9 µg/mL. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Point defect generation, nano-void formation and growth. I. Validation

The volume fraction of point defects generated as a function of plastic shear strain squared, γ2, was derived from crystal plasticity concepts. The evolution was determined from the stress–strain values using a new constitutive relation which replicates the measured behavior with at least two fitted loci. Assuming that nano-voids form by clustering of vacancies, the nano-void diameter was found to be proportional to their spacing and shear strain with the constant being characteristic of point defect production during deformation. The predicted amount of point defect generated was validated using the previously determined resistivity of [100] copper single crystals deformed at 4.2 K and annealed at 296 K. Similar analysis of super-pure polycrystalline copper data affirmed that the dynamic annihilation parameter extrinsically incorporated in the new derivation is larger due to formation of slip clusters. Moreover, the temperature dependence of the mean slip-distance to inter-forest spacing ratio at Stage II to III transition indicates that the thermally activated drag of vacancy-creating jogs occurs above 150 K. For polycrystalline aluminum deformed at 296 K, it was concluded that the nuclei of the nano-voids were not part of the evolving dislocation array but were embedded in the grown-in microstructure. This hypothesis is pursued in the accompanying paper, Part II, and its prediction results in a criterion for ductile failure.
Lead, Cadmium, Smoking, and Increased Risk of Peripheral Arterial Disease

Background— Lead and cadmium exposure may promote atherosclerosis, although the cardiovascular effects of chronic low-dose exposure are largely unknown. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the association between blood levels of lead and cadmium and peripheral arterial disease. Methods and Results— We analyzed data from 2125 participants who were ≥ 40 years of age in the 1999 to 2000 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Peripheral arterial disease was defined as an ankle brachial index <0.9 in at least 1 leg. Lead and cadmium levels were measured by atomic absorption spectrometry. After adjustment for demographic and cardiovascular risk factors, the ORs of peripheral arterial disease comparing quartiles 2 to 4 of lead with the lowest quartile were 1.63 (95% CI, 0.51 to 5.15), 1.92 (95% CI, 0.62 to 9.47), and 2.88 (95% CI, 0.87 to 9.47), respectively (P for trend=0.02). The corresponding ORs for cadmium were 1.07 (95% CI, 0.44 to 2.60), 1.30 (95% CI, 0.69 to 2.44), and 2.82 (95% CI, 1.36 to 5.85), respectively (P for trend=0.01). The OR of peripheral arterial disease for current smokers compared with never smokers was 4.13. Adjustment for lead reduced this OR to 3.38, and adjustment for cadmium reduced it to 1.84. Conclusions— Blood lead and cadmium, at levels well below current safety standards, were associated with an increased prevalence of peripheral arterial disease in the general US population. Cadmium may partially mediate the effect of smoking on peripheral arterial disease.
0 Multiparty Asynchronous Session Types

Communication is becoming one of the central elements in software development. As a potential typed foundation for structured communication-centred programming, session types have been studied over the last decade for a wide range of process calculi and programming languages, focussing on binary (two-party) sessions. This work extends the foregoing theories of binary session types to multiparty, asynchronous sessions, which often arise in practical communication-centred applications. Presented as a typed calculus for mobile processes, the theory introduces a new notion of types in which interactions involving multiple peers are directly abstracted as a global scenario. Global types retain the friendly type syntax of binary session types while specifying dependencies and capturing complex causal chains of multiparty asynchronous interactions. A global type plays the role of a shared agreement among communication peers, and is used as a basis of efficient type checking through its projection onto individual peers. The fundamental properties of the session type discipline such as communication safety, progress and session fidelity are established for general n-party asynchronous interactions. CCS Concepts: rTheory of computation → Distributed computing models; Process calculi; Type theory; Type structures; Program analysis; Operational semantics; rSoftware and its engineering→ Distributed programming languages; Concurrent programming structures;
Crossover Patterning by the Beam-Film Model: Analysis and Implications

Crossing-over is a central feature of meiosis. Meiotic crossover (CO) sites are spatially patterned along chromosomes. CO-designation at one position disfavors subsequent CO-designation(s) nearby, as described by the classical phenomenon of CO interference. If multiple designations occur, COs tend to be evenly spaced. We have previously proposed a mechanical model by which CO patterning could occur. The central feature of a mechanical mechanism is that communication along the chromosomes, as required for CO interference, can occur by redistribution of mechanical stress. Here we further explore the nature of the beam-film model, its ability to quantitatively explain CO patterns in detail in several organisms, and its implications for three important patterning-related phenomena: CO homeostasis, the fact that the level of zero-CO bivalents can be low (the “obligatory CO”), and the occurrence of non-interfering COs. Relationships to other models are discussed.
Lie Algebrized Gaussians for Image Representation

We present an image representation method which is derived from analyzing Gaussian probability density function (\emph{pdf}) space using Lie group theory. In our proposed method, images are modeled by Gaussian mixture models (GMMs) which are adapted from a globally trained GMM called universal background model (UBM). Then we vectorize the GMMs based on two facts: (1) components of image-specific GMMs are closely grouped together around their corresponding component of the UBM due to the characteristic of the UBM adaption procedure; (2) Gaussian \emph{pdf}s form a Lie group, which is a differentiable manifold rather than a vector space. We map each Gaussian component to the tangent vector space (named Lie algebra) of Lie group at the manifold position of UBM. The final feature vector, named Lie algebrized Gaussians (LAG) is then constructed by combining the Lie algebrized Gaussian components with mixture weights. We apply LAG features to scene category recognition problem and observe state-of-the-art performance on 15Scenes benchmark.
Incremental placement for structured ASICs using the transportation problem

While physically driven synthesis techniques have proven to be an effective method to meet tight timing constraints required by a design, the incremental placement step during physically driven synthesis has emerged as the primary bottleneck. As a solution, this paper introduces a scalable incremental placement algorithm based upon the well known transportation problem. This method has an average speedup of 2× and a 30% reduction in memory usage when compared against a commercial incremental placer without any impact on area or speed of the final placed circuit. Furthermore, this method is scalable for structured ASICs.
Linear regression analysis for fuzzy = crisp input and fuzzy = crisp output data

In order to estimate fuzzy regression models, possibilistic and least-squares procedures can be considered. By taking into account a least-squares approach, regression models with crisp or fuzzy inputs and crisp or fuzzy output are suggested. In particular, for these fuzzy regression models, unconstrained and constrained (with inequality restrictions) least-squares estimation procedures are developed. Furthermore, for the various models presented, explanatory examples are shown and some concluding remarks are also included. c (cid:1) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Multi-Sectional Views Textural Based SVM for MS Lesion Segmentation in Multi-Channels MRIs

In this paper, a new technique is proposed for automatic segmentation of multiple sclerosis (MS) lesions from brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data. The technique uses a trained support vector machine (SVM) to discriminate between the blocks in regions of MS lesions and the blocks in non-MS lesion regions mainly based on the textural features with aid of the other features. The classification is done on each of the axial, sagittal and coronal sectional brain view independently and the resultant segmentations are aggregated to provide more accurate output segmentation. The main contribution of the proposed technique described in this paper is the use of textural features to detect MS lesions in a fully automated approach that does not rely on manually delineating the MS lesions. In addition, the technique introduces the concept of the multi-sectional view segmentation to produce verified segmentation. The proposed textural-based SVM technique was evaluated using three simulated datasets and more than fifty real MRI datasets. The results were compared with state of the art methods. The obtained results indicate that the proposed method would be viable for use in clinical practice for the detection of MS lesions in MRI.
Correlations between microphysical properties of large-scale semi-transparent cirrus from TOVS and the state of the atmosphere from ECMWF ERA-40 reanalyses

Introduction Cirrus clouds (semi-transparent ice clouds) cover about 30% of the globe (e. g., Wylie and Menzel, 1999). Their radiative effect due to changes of their microphysical properties can vary significantly (e.g., Kristjansson et al., 2000). In General Circulation Models these microphysical properties, such as dominating ice crystal shape and sizes, must be predicted from available macrophysical quantities, such as temperature, ice water path and winds (e. g. McFarlane et al., 1992; Donner et al., 1997; Kristjansson et al., 1999). Most utilised relationships have been established only for a few places on earth and for very limited time periods (e. g. Heymsfield and Platt, 1984; McFarquar and Heymsfield, 1996; Korolev et al., 2001). The use of satellite observations allows one to obtain a more coherent image of the validity of these correlations found in regional field campaigns. Since 1979, the TIROS-N Operational Vertical Sounder (TOVS) instruments (Smith et al., 1979) aboard the NOAA Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellites have measured radiation emitted and scattered from different levels of the atmosphere, and therefore are an important tool for a continuous survey of the state of the atmosphere over the whole globe. Their relatively high spectral resolution yields reliable cirrus properties, day and night (e.g., Wylie et al., 1994, Stubenrauch et al., 1999a). Mean effective ice crystal diameters, De, of cirrus clouds are retrieved by taking advantage of the fact that spectral cirrus emissivity differences between 11and 8 μm depend on this parameter (Stubenrauch et al., 1999b; Rädel et al., 2003). This method is sensitive to diameters up to 80 μm, and is applied to large-scale semi-transparent cirrus (visible optical thickness between 0.7 and 3.8). Ice water path (IWP) is then determined from the cirrus emissivity at 11 μm and the retrieved De. The averages of these quantities over the globe from 60°N to 60°S are 55 μm and 30 gm, respectively. In this article we study seasonal and regional variations of these quantities as well as correlations with atmospheric properties. Therefore, atmospheric humidity and dynamical properties of the atmosphere, such as horizontal and vertical winds, have been extracted from the ERA-40 reanalyses of the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).
Extensions to the Method of Multiplicities, with Applications to Kakeya Sets and Mergers

We extend the "method of multiplicities" to get the following results, of interest in combinatorics and randomness extraction. (A) We show that every Kakeya set (a set of points that contains a line in every direction) in $\F_q^n$ must be of size at least $q^n/2^n$. This bound is tight to within a $2 + o(1)$ factor for every $n$ as $q \to \infty$, compared to previous bounds that were off by exponential factors in $n$. (B) We give improved randomness extractors and "randomness mergers". Mergers are seeded functions that take as input $\Lambda$ (possibly correlated) random variables in $\{0,1\}^N$ and a short random seed and output a single random variable in $\{0,1\}^N$ that is statistically close to having entropy $(1-\delta) \cdot N$ when one of the $\Lambda$ input variables is distributed uniformly. The seed we require is only $(1/\delta)\cdot \log \Lambda$-bits long, which significantly improves upon previous construction of mergers. (C) Using our new mergers, we show how to construct randomness extractors that use logarithmic length seeds while extracting $1 - o(1)$ fraction of the min-entropy of the source. The "method of multiplicities", as used in prior work, analyzed subsets of vector spaces over finite fields by constructing somewhat low degree interpolating polynomials that vanish on every point in the subset {\em with high multiplicity}. The typical use of this method involved showing that the interpolating polynomial also vanished on some points outside the subset, and then used simple bounds on the number of zeroes to complete the analysis. Our augmentation to this technique is that we prove, under appropriate conditions, that the interpolating polynomial vanishes {\em with high multiplicity} outside the set. This novelty leads to significantly tighter analyses.
Practical technique of pulsed field magnetization for bulk HTS application

We studied a pulsed field magnetization (PFM) of bulk HTS assembled into a synchronous motor as a field-pole. The PFM is essential to apply bulk HTS inside the machine as a practical technique. In the present study, we developed a PFM technique that is a usage of Controlled Magnetic density Distribution Coil (CMDC). The coil is composed of inner vortex coil and outer solenoid. We successfully obtained the trapped flux density with 1.3 T by the step-wise cooling method with CMDC at 38 K in the motor. The bulk was cooled by a condensed neon. In addition, we studied the PFM for Gd-bulk of 140 mm diameter. By using the CMDC, we obtained the trapped flux density distribution with regular shape. In this paper we report these advanced PFM techniques for a practical machinery applications.
Learning nonlinear state-space models for control

This paper studies the learning of nonlinear state-space models for a control task. This has some advantages over traditional methods. Variational Bayesian learning provides a framework where uncertainty is explicitly taken into account and system identification can be combined with model-predictive control. Three different control schemes are used. One of them, optimistic inference control, is a novel method based directly on the probabilistic modelling. Simulations with a cart-pole swing-up task confirm that the latent state space provides a representation that is easier to predict and control than the original observation space.
Systemic Management of Architectural Decisions in Enterprise Architecture Planning. Four Dimensions and Three Abstraction Levels

This paper presents a process model for the management of architectural decisions in enterprise architecture planning. First, decisions are made at the enterprise level, with strategic business considerations on the enterprise information, systems and technology strategy and governance issues. The next step is to define the domains, to then go on with domain architecture decisions. At the systems level, the enterprise and domain architecture decisions are collected and converted into architecture descriptions accurate in precision, form and detail to be given as input to the information systems development process, following the architectural planning. The model is derived from previous work and empirical findings in three large organizations, where the enterprise architecture and enterprise systems have been developed. This case study contributes with considerations on the domains, their definition, and produces refinements to an enterprise architecture process model presented before. For the development of the model, the "living system" paradigm is followed.
Suggested Screening Guidelines for Familial Colorectal Cancer

Guidelines for screening for colorectal cancer in subjects with a positive family history of the disease, without the use of DNA based screening, are outlined. These suggestions are derived from (a) the experience of screening 644 subjects at an estimated lifetime risk of dying from colorectal cancer of 10% or more, in the StMark's Family Cancer Clinic, over six years, and (b) a review of published studies, particularly incorporating the experience of the International Collaboration Group on Hereditary Non-polyposis Colorectal Cancer (HNPCC). Selection of subjects for surveillance depends upon the empirical evaluation of their risk of colorectal cancer, based upon family history details, with the exclusion of a diagnosis of familial adenomatous polyposis in the family. When DNA predictive tests for genes predisposing to HNPCC are available, surveillance can be directed at subjects with a germline mutation known to confer an increased genetic risk of colorectal cancer and discontinued in those at lower (or average) risk. In many subjects, however, DNA testing may still not be possible because of the failure to identify a predisposing mutation in an affected subject in their family. Any surveillance protocol can only be evaluated by long term follow up of those subjects in multiple centres.
Assisting Parents and In-Laws : Gender , Type of Assistance , and Couples ’ Employment

We use 1995 MIDUS data (n 1⁄4 2,085) to assess whether the gender gap in help persists across different types of help (unpaid task assistance, emotional support, financial assistance) to parents and in-laws. We also examine whether joint employment patterns influence levels of help. Persistent gender differences are identified in levels of emotional support to parents and in-laws: Women spend more time than men giving this help. There are no gender differences in levels of unpaid task assistance or financial assistance to parents or in-laws. Individuals in single-earner couples, however, provide greater levels of unpaid task assistance to in-laws and financial assistance to parents than individuals in dual-earner couples. Furthermore, financial assistance to parents is positively linked to work hours.
Drug-Induced Acute Interstitial Nephritis.

Drug-induced acute interstitial nephritis (DI-AIN) is a common cause of AKI, affecting about 20% of patients with unexplained AKI, and leads to CKD and ESRD ([1][1]). Although any drug can potentially cause DI-AIN, antibiotics, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and proton pump inhibitors, are
Hierarchies of antigen‐specific cytotoxic T‐cell responses

Summary: Studies carried out using either mice or humans have shown that cytotoxic T‐lymphocyte (CTL) responses to many different pathogenic organisms often comprise CTL specific for multiple class I‐restricted pep‐tide epitopes. Differences in the magnitude of epitope‐specific CTL responses appear to arise mainly from differences in the expression level of the corresponding class I/peptide complex on the surface of the antigen‐presenting cell. The size of the CTL response may be United by the frequency and possibly by the affinity of specific CTL precursors in the naive T‐cell pool. Thus, both the efficiency of antigen processing and the composition of the peripheral T‐cell pool impose direct limitations on the extent of a T‐cell response to a given peptide epitope. Studies of CTL hierarchies have resulted in the identification of immunodominant epitopes i.e. peptide epitopes which stimulate the largest number of specific CTL and which are therefore generally believed to offer the best level of protection against the pathogen from which they were derived. It is also thought that CTL responses to non‐dominant epitopes mediate protection against pathogenic challenge. These ideas are considered here with respect to experimental data collected following infection of mice with lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus.