Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Open Access Research Article Predictors of Inhospital Mortality and Re-hospitalization in Older Adults with Community-acquired Pneumonia: a Prospective Cohort Study

Background: A better understanding of potentially modifiable predictors of in-hospital mortality and re-admission to the hospital following discharge may help to improve management of community-acquired pneumonia in older adults. We aimed to assess the associations of potentially modifiable factors with mortality and re-hospitalization in older adults hospitalized with community-acquired pneumonia. Methods: A prospective cohort study was conducted from July 2003 to April 2005 in two Canadian cities. Patients aged 65 years or older hospitalized for community-acquired pneumonia were followed up for up to 30 days from initial hospitalization for mortality and these patients who were discharged alive within 30 days of initial hospitalization were followed up to 90 days of initial hospitalization for re-hospitalization. Separate logistic regression analyses were performed identify the predictors of mortality and re-hospitalization. Results: Of 717 enrolled patients hospitalized for community-acquired pneumonia, 49 (6.8%) died within 30 days of hospital admission. Among these patients, 526 were discharged alive within 30 days of hospitalization of whom 58 (11.2%) were re-hospitalized within 90 days of initial hospitalization. was associated with re-hospitalization while vitamin E supplementation was protective (OR = 0.37 (0.16, 0.90), P = . 028). Lower socioeconomic status, prior influenza and pneumococcal vaccinations, appropriate antibiotic prescription upon admission, and lower nutrition risk were not significantly associated with mortality or re-hospitalization. Conclusion: Chronic comorbidities appear to be the most important predictors of death and re-hospitalization in older adults hospitalized with community-acquired pneumonia while vitamin E supplementation was protective. Background Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is one of the leading causes of mortality in older adults aged 65 years or more [1-6]. Re-hospitalization due to pneumonia after premature hospital discharge or due to new or worsening
Worldwide human papillomavirus etiology of cervical adenocarcinoma and its cofactors: implications for screening and prevention.

BACKGROUND Most cancers of the uterine cervix are squamous cell carcinomas. Although the incidence of such carcinomas of the uterine cervix has declined over time, that of cervical adenocarcinoma has risen in recent years. The extent to which human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and cofactors may explain this differential trend is unclear. METHODS We pooled data from eight case-control studies of cervical cancer that were conducted on three continents. A total of 167 case patients with invasive cervical adenocarcinoma (112 with adenocarcinoma and 55 with adenosquamous carcinoma) and 1881 hospital-based control subjects were included. HPV DNA was analyzed in cervical specimens with the GP5+/6+ general primer system followed by type-specific hybridization for 33 HPV genotypes. Blood samples were analyzed for chlamydial and herpes simplex virus 2 (HSV-2) serology. Multivariable unconditional logistic regression modeling was used to calculate odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). All tests of statistical significance were two-sided. RESULTS The adjusted overall odds ratio for cervical adenocarcinoma in HPV-positive women compared with HPV-negative women was 81.3 (95% CI = 42.0 to 157.1). HPV 16 and HPV 18 were the two most commonly detected HPV types in case patients and control subjects. These two types were present in 82% of the patients. Cofactors that showed clear statistically significant positive associations with cervical adenocarcinoma overall and among HPV-positive women included never schooling, poor hygiene, sexual behavior-related variables, long-term use of hormonal contraception, high parity, and HSV-2 seropositivity. Parity had a weaker association with adenocarcinoma and only among HPV-positive women. Use of an intrauterine device (IUD) had a statistically significant inverse association with risk of adenocarcinoma (for ever use of an IUD compared with never use, OR = .41 [95% CI = 0.18 to 0.93]). Smoking and chlamydial seropositivity were not associated with disease. CONCLUSIONS HPV appears to be the key risk factor for cervical adenocarcinoma. HPV testing in primary screening using current mixtures of HPV types and HPV vaccination against main HPV types should reduce the incidence of this cancer worldwide.
Electrical Conductivity of LSCF Thin Films for SOFC on Micro Hotplates

Technologies established for microsystems combined with electronic and ionic conducting oxides made by thin film deposition techniques enable the miniaturization of Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC) for mobile power generation. In this paper, special high temperature silicon nitride based micro hotplates [1, 2] were used as a platform for preparation and testing of SOFC cathode thin films. The hotplates withstood a maximum temperature of 800°C and several hours of long term operation at 600°C. La0.6Sr0. 4Co0.2Fe0. 8O3 (LSCF) – an SOFC cathode material – was deposited onto these hotplates by spray pyrolysis (thickness ~ 500 nm) [3, 4]. Crystallization of the initially amorphous thin films was carried out at temperatures around 600°C either in an external furnace or using the integrated heater directly on the hotplate. Using the integrated heater instead of the external furnace for this annealing led to significant reduction of the required time. Furthermore, very fast heating and cooling rates of several 100°C / min were obtained with the integrated heater of the micro hotplate. The electrical conductivity of the thin film nano-grained LSCF was measured on the micro hotplate as a function of temperature and compared to reference samples deposited onto bulk substrates. The conductivity of thin films deposited onto micro hotplates was in the same order of magnitude as the conductivity of the reference samples indicating proper functioning of the LSCF thin films under these conditions. Further development of this technology is aimed for the integration of an entire micro SOFC onto a micro hotplate providing an integrated heating system for start up operation of the fuel cell.
A categorization approach to automated ontological function annotation

Automated function prediction (AFP) methods increasingly use knowledge discovery algorithms to map sequence, structure, literature, and/or pathway information about proteins whose functions are unknown into functional ontologies, typically (a portion of) the Gene Ontology (GO). While there are a growing number of methods within this paradigm, the general problem of assessing the accuracy of such prediction algorithms has not been seriously addressed. We present first an application for function prediction from protein sequences using the POSet Ontology Categorizer (POSOC) to produce new annotations by analyzing collections of GO nodes derived from annotations of protein BLAST neighborhoods. We then also present hierarchical precision and hierarchical recall as new evaluation metrics for assessing the accuracy of any predictions in hierarchical ontologies, and discuss results on a test set of protein sequences. We show that our method provides substantially improved hierarchical precision (measure of predictions made that are correct) when applied to the nearest BLAST neighbors of target proteins, as compared with simply imputing that neighborhood's annotations to the target. Moreover, when our method is applied to a broader BLAST neighborhood, hierarchical precision is enhanced even further. In all cases, such increased hierarchical precision performance is purchased at a modest expense of hierarchical recall (measure of all annotations that get predicted at all).
Sparse principal component analysis for feature selection of multiple physiological signals from flight task

Sparse principal component analysis (SPCA) imposes extra constraints or penalty terms to the standard PCA to achieve sparsity. In this paper, we introduce an efficient algorithm for finding an effective sparse feature principal component (PC) of multiple physiological signals. The algorithm consists of two stages. In the first stage, it identifies an active index set with a desired cardinality corresponding to the nonzero entries of the PC. In the second one, it uses the power iteration method to find the best direction with respect to the active index set. Experiments on randomly generated data and multiple physiological signals datasets show that our algorithm is very fast, especially on large and sparse data sets, while the numerical quality of the solution is comparable to the state-of-art algorithm.
Analysis and design of AQM based on receding horizon control in stabilizing TCP

In this paper, we propose a uni ed mathematical framework based on receding horizon control for analyzing and designing AQM (Active Queue Management) algorithms in stabilizing a given TCP (Transfer Control Protocol) algorithm. The proposed framework is based on a dynamical system of the given TCP and minimization of a linear quadratic cost on the transients in queue length, aggregate rate, jitter in the aggregate rate, and congestion measure. We derive the receding horizon AQMs that stabilize the linearized dynamical system with minimum cost. Conversely, we show that any AQM with an appropriate structure solves the same optimal control problem with appropriate weighting matrix. We interpret existing AQMs such as RED (Random Early Detection), REM (Random Exponential Marking), PI (Proportional-Integral) and AVQ (Adaptive Virtual Queue) as di erent approximations of the optimal AQM, and discuss the impact of these approximations on performance. We illustrate our results through simulation examples.
Secondhand Smoke Exposure Causes Bronchial Hyperreactivity via Transcriptionally Upregulated Endothelin and 5-hydroxytryptamine 2A Receptors

Background Cigarette smoke exposure is strongly associated with airway hyperreactivity (AHR) which is the main characteristic seen in asthma. The intracellular MAPK signaling pathways are suggested to be associated with the airway damage to the AHR. In the present study, we hypothesize that secondhand cigarette smoke (SHS) exposure upregulates the bronchial contractile receptors via activation of the Raf/ERK/MAPK pathway. Methodology/Principal Findings Rats were exposed to SHS for 3 h daily for up to 8 weeks. The receptor agonists-induced bronchial contractile reactivity was analyzed with a sensitive myograph system. The mRNA transcription and protein translation of the target receptors and the kinases in Raf/ERK/MAPK pathway were investigated by real-time PCR, Western blotting and immunofluorescence, respectively. Compared with exposure to fresh air, SHS induced enhanced bronchial contractile responses mediated by the 5-hydroxytryptamine 2A (5-HT2A) receptors as well as the endothelin type B (ETB) and type A (ETA) receptors. The response curves were shifted toward the left with an increased maximal contraction (Emax) demonstrating that SHS induced AHR. Additionally, the mRNA and protein levels of the 5-HT2A, ETB and ETA receptors were increased. Furthermore, SHS exposure increased the phosphorylation of Raf-1 and ERK1/2, but it did not alter p38 or JNK. A Raf-1 inhibitor (GW5074) suppressed the SHS-induced increase in the expression of 5-HT2A and ETA receptors and the receptor-mediated AHR. Conclusions/Significance Our findings show that SHS exposure induces transcriptional upregulation of the 5-HT2A, ETB and ETA receptors in rat bronchial smooth muscle cells, which mediates AHR. The Raf/ERK/MAPK pathway is involved in SHS-associated receptor upregulation and AHR.
Myosin isoform switching during assembly of the Drosophila flight muscle thick filament lattice

Summary During muscle development myosin molecules form symmetrical thick filaments, which integrate with the thin filaments to produce the regular sarcomeric lattice. In Drosophila indirect flight muscles (IFMs) the details of this process can be studied using genetic approaches. The weeP26 transgenic line has a GFP-encoding exon inserted into the single Drosophila muscle myosin heavy chain gene, Mhc. The weeP26 IFM sarcomeres have a unique MHC-GFP-labelling pattern restricted to the sarcomere core, explained by non-translation of the GFP exon following alternative splicing. Characterisation of wild-type IFM MHC mRNA confirmed the presence of an alternately spliced isoform, expressed earlier than the major IFM-specific isoform. The two wild-type IFM-specific MHC isoforms differ by the presence of a C-terminal ‘tailpiece’ in the minor isoform. The sequential expression and assembly of these two MHCs into developing thick filaments suggest a role for the tailpiece in initiating A-band formation. The restriction of the MHC-GFP sarcomeric pattern in weeP26 is lifted when the IFM lack the IFM-specific myosin binding protein flightin, suggesting that it limits myosin dissociation from thick filaments. Studies of flightin binding to developing thick filaments reveal a progressive binding at the growing thick filament tips and in a retrograde direction to earlier assembled, proximal filament regions. We propose that this flightin binding restricts myosin molecule incorporation/dissociation during thick filament assembly and explains the location of the early MHC isoform pattern in the IFM A-band.
05051 Abstracts Collection - Probabilistic, Logical and Relational Learning - Towards a Synthesis

From 30.01. 05 to 04.02. 05, the Dagstuhl Seminar 05051 ``Probabilistic, Logical and Relational Learning - Towards a Synthesis'' was held in the International Conference and Research Center (IBFI), Schloss Dagstuhl. During the seminar, several participants presented their current research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. Abstracts of the presentations given during the seminar as well as abstracts of seminar results and ideas are put together in this paper. The first section describes the seminar topics and goals in general. Links to extended abstracts or full papers are provided, if available.
A methodology using EMO for parameter estimation of SVM kernel function

The problem of kernel parameterization for support vector machines (SVMs) is considered. This paper tried to apply EMO to the parameters estimation problem of SVMs, and we investigated which combination of objectives is proper for this problem. We examined the performance of SVMs classifier with using not only cross-validation(CV) case, but also inverted CV which the ratios of training data and external test set is swapped. Inverted CV was used for the performance estimation in which a limited amount of sample can be used for training data. In our experiment, we used the two different kinds of problems; graphic two dimensional problems and benchmark data sets taken from the UCI Machine Learning Repository. Through experiments, we investigated the synergistic and effectiveness of an objective combination.
Social commerce credibility analysis

Online shopping is increasingly popular for customers. However, there are also high concerns on online frauds. In order to alleviate this concern, a proposed Social Commerce pages' Credibility Analysis software (SCCA) is developed. The web application can provide up-to-date information related to the user's chosen social commerce pages on Facebook. It provides figures and statistics that indicate the page's credibility. In addition, it also provides sentiment scores, both positive and negative, which are analyzed based on customers' comments on the page. The results from using this SCCA software on two social commerce categories, i.e. fashion and IT — each with ten popular pages, are used to rank these pages. The ranking is done based on our own devising measurement. This gives us some more insights into the current de-facto standard of common believed credibility. For example, it suggests that the amount of “Like”, which is often used to assess a page's credibility, may not be adequate for a complex issue such as social commerce credibility.
Comparative study on weight function for word sense disambiguation

Context word of the ambiguous word is an important basis for word sense disambiguation (WSD). Knowledge-based WSD computes overall semantic relatedness between context words and each sense of ambiguous word. Each of context words is assigned different WSD weight based on its distance with ambiguous word. Power function and exponential function can be used to compute WSD weight. In the paper, the performances of them are compared. The experimental result shows that power function is a preferred function to compute WSD weight.
In vivo and In vitro Interactions between Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus spp.

The significance of polymicrobial infections is increasingly being recognized especially in a biofilm context wherein multiple bacterial species—including both potential pathogens and members of the commensal flora—communicate, cooperate, and compete with each other. Two important bacterial pathogens that have developed a complex network of evasion, counter-inhibition, and subjugation in their battle for space and nutrients are Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus. Their strain- and environment-specific interactions, for instance in the cystic fibrosis lung or in wound infections, show severe competition that is generally linked to worse patient outcomes. For instance, the extracellular factors secreted by P. aeruginosa have been shown to subjugate S. aureus to persist as small colony variants (SCVs). On the other hand, data also exist where S. aureus inhibits biofilm formation by P. aeruginosa but also protects the pathogen by inhibiting its phagocytosis. Interestingly, such interspecies interactions differ between the planktonic and biofilm phenotype, with the extracellular matrix components of the latter likely being a key, and largely underexplored, influence. This review attempts to understand the complex relationship between P. aeruginosa and Staphylococcus spp. , focusing on S. aureus, that not only is interesting from the bacterial evolution point of view, but also has important consequences for our understanding of the disease pathogenesis for better patient management.
Sixty-Seven Years of Land-Use Change in Southern Costa Rica

Habitat loss and fragmentation of forests are among the biggest threats to biodiversity and associated ecosystem services in tropical landscapes. We use the vicinity of the Las Cruces Biological Station in southern Costa Rica as a regional case study to document seven decades of land-use change in one of the most intensively studied sites in the Neotropics. Though the premontane wet forest was largely intact in 1947, a wave of immigration in 1952 initiated rapid changes over a short period. Overall forest cover was reduced during each time interval analyzed (1947–1960, 1960–1980, 1980–1997, 1997–2014), although the vast majority of forest loss (>90%) occurred during the first two time intervals (1947–1960, 1960–1980) with an annual deforestation rate of 2.14% and 3.86%, respectively. The rate dropped to <2% thereafter and has been offset by forest recovery in fallow areas more recently, but overall forest cover has continued to decline. Approximately 27.9% of the study area is forested currently. Concomitantly, the region shifted from a single contiguous forest to a series of progressively smaller forest fragments with each successive survey. A strong reduction in the amount of core habitat was paralleled by an increased proportion of edge habitat, due to the irregular shape of many forest fragments. Structural connectivity, however, remains high, with an expansive network of >100 km of linear strips of vegetation within a 3 km radius of the station, which may facilitate landscape-level movement for some species. Despite the extent of forest loss, a substantial number of regional landscape-level studies over the past two decades have demonstrated the persistence of many groups of organisms such as birds and mammals. Nonetheless, the continued decline in the quantity and quality of remaining habitat (~30% of remaining forest is secondary), as well as the threat of an extinction debt (or time lag in species loss), may result in the extirpation of additional species if more proactive conservation measures are not taken to reverse current trends–a pattern that reflects many other tropical regions the world over.
Integrated cloud storage architecture for enhancing service reliability, availability and scalability

Nowadays, there are many free cloud storage services available on the Internet and these services can be more convenient, when the following problems are solved. The first problem is the limitation of free service such as space limit, file size limit and file type limit. Secondly, different cloud storage service has different functions, thus some users may need to use more than two services simultaneously in order to fulfill their needs. The process of logging on and using multiple services will be very complicated. In addition, incidents such as server down or other internet problems often make users unable to access their data or even worse-to lose all their data. The goal of this research is to build a service to solve these problems and enhance the reliability, availability and scalability of free cloud services.
Modeling lifetime nursing home use under assumptions of better health.

OBJECTIVES There is evidence of notable improvement in active life expectancy among older Americans. Little is known, however, about the effect of better health on lifetime nursing home use. The purpose of this study was to address this gap in our knowledge. METHODS Discrete-time hazard models of nursing home admission and discharge were developed using data from the 1982, 1984, and 1989 National Long Term Care Surveys and the 1984-1990 Longitudinal Study of Aging. Microsimulation techniques were used to incorporate monthly functional status information into the models that predict nursing home use and to generate lifetime nursing home histories for a cohort of older men and women under various assumptions of improved morbidity. RESULTS Improved health increased total life expectancy and the absolute amount of time spent in both the community and in nursing homes. Better health did not change the proportion of life older persons spent in nursing homes or the percentage of the cohort who entered nursing homes. DISCUSSION If morbidity improves there will be an increase in the use of nursing homes. However, for the majority of older persons, better health will be associated with more independent living throughout the life span.