Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Efficacy of indacaterol on quality of life and pulmonary function in patients with COPD and inhaler device preferences

Background Indacaterol is a novel, once-daily, inhaled, long-acting b2-agonist for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The study objective was to evaluate the efficacy of indacaterol on quality of life and pulmonary function in patients with COPD in a real-world setting, and also to evaluate its inhaler device (Breezhaler®), which is important for both adherence and management. Methods Twenty-eight outpatients with COPD were treated with indacaterol (150 μg once daily for 8 weeks), and the effects on pulmonary function were evaluated using a questionnaire survey with the modified Medical Research Council (mMRC) dyspnea scale and COPD assessment test (CAT) before and after treatment. Similar investigations were also performed separately among different baseline medications. Moreover, original questionnaire surveys for indacaterol and its device were performed. Results Overall, mMRC dyspnea scale and CAT scores significantly improved (1.96±1.04 to 1.57±1.07 and 17.39±8.23 to 12.82±8.42, respectively; P<0.05). Significant improvements in forced vital capacity (FVC) and forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) were also observed on pulmonary function tests (2.91±0.66 L to 3.07±0.65 L and 1.46±0.60 L to 1.58±0.59 L, respectively; P<0.05). Replacement therapy from salmeterol to indacaterol significantly improved mMRC and FVC values, but did not significantly improve CAT scores or other pulmonary functions. Add-on therapy with indacaterol significantly improved mMRC score, CAT score, FVC, and FEV1, regardless of whether tiotropium was used as a baseline treatment. All subjects in a questionnaire survey found the inhaler device easy to use. There were no serious adverse events leading to treatment discontinuation. Conclusion Indacaterol is thought to be effective and well tolerated as a bronchodilator for the management of COPD. Treatment with indacaterol in addition to a long-acting muscarinic antagonist was also useful.
The renal–cardiac connection in subjects with preserved ejection fraction: a population based study

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is prevalent and is associated with increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. The interaction between diastolic dysfunction (DD) and CKD in subjects with preserved systolic function is not well defined. This study sought to determine the association between renal function and DD in subjects with preserved ejection fraction.
Research on the Interactive Transmission Mechanism of House Price in China - Based on a Mixed VAR Model

In order to study the interactive relationships between house price with marc-economy in China and reveal the transmission mechanism, this paper specifies a six dimensional VAR model to identify the forces driving house prices fluctuations in China over the period 1999-2009. By employing quarterly time series for real house prices, gross domestic product, money, consumer price index, market capitalization of tradable shares and labor remuneration of persons employed in all units, the author found that: (1) there is a stable and significant relationship of mutual causality between house price with these three factors including GDP, M2, CPI. (2) house price is quickly responses to the growth or falling of market capitalization of tradable shares . in other words ,it is a single causal relationship between them (3) There is not a significant causal relation between house price with labor remuneration . It may appear surprising. Yet this phenomenon accurately reflects the real estate bubble today. This paper deeply study the transmission mechanism of house price.
An Evaluation of Audio Feature Extraction Toolboxes

Audio feature extraction underpins a massive proportion of audio processing, music information retrieval, audio effect design and audio synthesis. Design, analysis, synthesis and evaluation often rely on audio features, but there are a large and diverse range of feature extraction tools presented to the community. An evaluation of existing audio feature extraction libraries was undertaken. Ten libraries and toolboxes were evaluated with the Cranﬁeld Model for evaluation of information retrieval systems, reviewing the coverage, effort, presentation and time lag of a system. Comparisons are undertaken of these tools and example use cases are presented as to when toolboxes are most suitable. This paper allows a software engineer or researcher to quickly and easily select a suitable audio feature extraction toolbox.
Gustatory Dysfunction as an Early Symptom of Semantic Dementia

Objective: To investigate the gustatory function in patients with semantic dementia (SD). Methods: Detection and recognition thresholds of the 4 basic tastes (sweet, salty, sour, and bitter), taste discrimination, and taste identification were evaluated in 18 patients with SD, 18 patients with Alzheimer disease (AD), and 22 healthy controls. Results: Total detection and recognition threshold values were significantly higher in the SD and AD groups than in the control group. Patients with early-stage SD (Clinical Dementia Rating Scale score 0.5) exhibited significantly higher detection and recognition thresholds relative to controls, while increases in recognition threshold were only noted in patients with AD. Patients with SD exhibited significantly higher thresholds for the detection of sweet and salty tastes and the recognition of salty, sour, and bitter tastes, while patients with AD exhibited significantly higher thresholds only for the recognition of salty and sour tastes. Taste discrimination was preserved, whereas taste identification was disturbed, in both the SD and AD groups. Conclusions: Gustatory dysfunction at both the sensory and semantic levels may be among the early symptoms of SD. Although patients with SD had difficulty detecting sweet tastes, they more easily recognized these tastes than others, which may explain their strong preference for sweets.
Relationship of 2D ultrasonic spectral parameters to the physical properties of soft tissue scatterers

We have conducted a general study that relates calibrated 2-D ultrasonic spectral parameters to the physical properties of sub-resolution tissue scatterers. Our 2-D spectra are computed form digital radio-frequency echo data obtained as the transducer linearly scans along the cross-range (scan direction) with increments smaller than the half beam width. Acquired data are Fourier transformed with respect to range (beam) and cross-range (scan) directions. To quantitatively measure and classify the physical properties of tissues, we have defined two spectral functions and four spectral parameters. The 2-D spectral functions are: radially integrated spectral power (RISP) and angularly integrated spectral power (AISP). The summary parameters are: peak value and 3-dB width of the RISP, slope and intercept of the AISP. These parameter are understood in terms of the beam properties, transducer parameters and the physical properties of the tissue microstructures including size, shape, orientation, concentration and acoustic impedance. Our theoretical model indicates that 1) the 3-dB width of the RISP is predominantly determined by the scatterer size along the beam direction; 2) the slope of the linear fit of the AISP is predominantly determined by the scatterer size along range direction; 3) the concentration and the relative acoustic impedance fluctuation of the scatterers change the overall spectrum magnitude. The predictions of the theoretical model have been verified using beef muscle fibers examined with 40 MHz center frequency.
A Semantic Approach To Autonomous Mixing

In this work, we give an overview of current automatic mixing approaches, and note the absence of using high-level, semantic knowledge to inform mixing decisions. We then propose a system where processing parameters for music production are inferred from instrument-specific rules rather than low-level features. To this end, we compile a body of rules from practical mixing engineering literature, and assess the potential of a system using just these rules. We compare the system to human mixing engineers and traditional automatic mixing systems that only use extracted, low-level signal features. Its performance is discussed and future directions are established.
A Bayesian account of ‘hysteria’

This article provides a neurobiological account of symptoms that have been called ‘hysterical’, ‘psychogenic’ or ‘medically unexplained’, which we will call functional motor and sensory symptoms. We use a neurobiologically informed model of hierarchical Bayesian inference in the brain to explain functional motor and sensory symptoms in terms of perception and action arising from inference based on prior beliefs and sensory information. This explanation exploits the key balance between prior beliefs and sensory evidence that is mediated by (body focused) attention, symptom expectations, physical and emotional experiences and beliefs about illness. Crucially, this furnishes an explanation at three different levels: (i) underlying neuromodulatory (synaptic) mechanisms; (ii) cognitive and experiential processes (attention and attribution of agency); and (iii) formal computations that underlie perceptual inference (representation of uncertainty or precision). Our explanation involves primary and secondary failures of inference; the primary failure is the (autonomous) emergence of a percept or belief that is held with undue certainty (precision) following top-down attentional modulation of synaptic gain. This belief can constitute a sensory percept (or its absence) or induce movement (or its absence). The secondary failure of inference is when the ensuing percept (and any somatosensory consequences) is falsely inferred to be a symptom to explain why its content was not predicted by the source of attentional modulation. This account accommodates several fundamental observations about functional motor and sensory symptoms, including: (i) their induction and maintenance by attention; (ii) their modification by expectation, prior experience and cultural beliefs and (iii) their involuntary and symptomatic nature.
Investing Time in the Public Good : A Web-based Threshold Public Good Experiment

In traditional public good experiments participants receive an endowment from the experimenter that can be invested in a public good or kept in a private account. In this paper we present an experimental environment that uses participants time as their natural endowment, which can be invested in the public good experiment. The experiment runs for several days and participants can make contributions to the threshold public good by logging into a web application and performing virtual actions. Like traditional experiments we find an initial high level of contributions that decreases over subsequent days. We compared two treatments, with and without leaderboards, which compared the real-time performance of groups. We find that the leaderboard increases contributions during the first day, but in subsequent days no significant positive effect is found. Groups with low performances on the first day may have given up when confronted with the leaderboard rankings. These findings show the double-edged effect of information feedback.
Role of the residual layer and large-scale subsidence on the development and evolution of the convective boundary layer

Observations, mixed-layer theory and the Dutch Large-Eddy Simulation model (DALES) are used to analyze the dynamics of the boundary layer during an intensive operational period (1 July 2011) of the Boundary Layer Late Afternoon and Sunset Turbulence campaign. Continuous measurements made by remote sensing and in situ instruments in combination with radio soundings, and measurements done by remotely piloted aircraft systems and two manned aircrafts probed the vertical structure and the temporal evolution of the boundary layer during the campaign. The initial vertical profiles of potential temperature, specific humidity and wind, and the temporal evolution of the surface heat and moisture fluxes prescribed in the models runs are inspired by some of these observations. The research focuses on the role played by the residual layer during the morning transition and by the large-scale subsidence on the evolution of the boundary layer. By using DALES, we show the importance of the dynamics of the boundary layer during the previous night in the development of the boundary layer at the morning. DALES numerical experiments including the residual layer are capable of modeling the observed sudden increase of the boundary-layer depth during the morning transition and the subsequent evolution of the boundary layer. These simulations show a large increase of the entrainment buoyancy flux when the residual layer is incorporated into the mixed layer. We also examine how the inclusion of the residual layer above a shallow convective boundary layer modifies the turbulent kinetic energy budget. Large-scale subsidence mainly acts when the boundary layer is fully developed, and, for the studied day, it is necessary to be considered to reproduce the afternoon observations. Finally, we also investigate how carbon dioxide (CO2) mixing ratio stored the previous night in the residual layer plays a fundamental role in the evolution of the CO2 mixing ratio during the following day.
Printed Sub‐2 V Gel‐Electrolyte‐Gated Polymer Transistors and Circuits

The fabrication and characterization of printed ion‐gel‐gated poly(3‐hexylthiophene) (P3HT) transistors and integrated circuits is reported, with emphasis on demonstrating both function and performance at supply voltages below 2 V. The key to achieving fast sub‐2 V operation is an unusual gel electrolyte based on an ionic liquid and a gelating block copolymer. This gel electrolyte serves as the gate dielectric and has both a short polarization response time (<1 ms) and a large specific capacitance (>10 µF cm−2), which leads simultaneously to high output conductance (>2 mS mm−1), low threshold voltage (<1 V) and high inverter switching frequencies (1–10 kHz). Aerosol‐jet‐printed inverters, ring oscillators, NAND gates, and flip‐flop circuits are demonstrated. The five‐stage ring oscillator operates at frequencies up to 150 Hz, corresponding to a propagation delay of 0.7 ms per stage. These printed gel electrolyte gated circuits compare favorably with other reported printed circuits that often require much larger operating voltages. Materials factors influencing the performance of the devices are discussed.
The Design Space of Software Development Methodologies

The success of a software development project depends on the underlying framework used to plan and structure the process of development tasks. Presently, there are a multitude of software development methodologies in which to choose. The selection of an appropriate methodology for a specific project may not always be a straightforward process and, further, the methodology that provides the most benefit to the project may be overlooked. In an effort to organize the multitude of software development methodologies in a coherent and visual manner, I created the design space of software development methodologies in which I seek to comprehend different methodologies plotted as points. Constructing such a design space allows for a fair comparison of the various methodologies based on the underlying features and characteristics, rather than lists of advantages and disadvantages for each method, which depend more on the application to a specific project.
Impact of Break-In Period on the Short-Term Outcomes of Patients Started on Peritoneal Dialysis

♦ Objectives: Peritoneal dialysis (PD) is one of the first-line modalities of renal replacement therapy in patients with end-stage renal disease. Guidelines recommended a break-in period of at least 2 weeks before full PD start. However, the optimal duration of the break-in period is still unclear. In the present study, we investigated the effect of various break-in periods on short-term outcomes in patients on PD. ♦ Methods: All patients who underwent Tenckhoff catheter implantation and initiated PD in Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, between 1 January 2001 and 31 December 2010 were included. Patients were grouped according to the duration of their break-in period: 7 days or less (BI≤7), 8 - 14 days (BI8-14), and more than 14 days (BI>14). Kaplan-Meier curves and log-rank tests were used to compare short-term outcomes in the various groups. ♦ Results: Our study enrolled 657 patients (44.5% men), of whom 344, 137, and 176 patients were in the respective break-in groups. Compared with BI>14 patients, BI≤7 patients had a lower estimated glomerular filtration rate (5.34 ± 1.86 mL/min/1.73 m2 vs 6.55 ± 1.71 mL/min/1.73 m2, p < 0.001) and lower serum albumin (33.29 ± 5.36 g/L vs 36.64 ± 5.40 g/L, p < 0.001). The incidence of mechanical complications during the first 6 months was significantly higher in BI≤7 patients than in BI>14 patients (8.4% vs 1.7%, p = 0.004). However, we observed no significant differences between the three groups with respect to the prevalence of catheter dysfunction requiring surgical intervention (p > 0.05). Logistic regression analysis showed that BI≤7 [relative risk: 4.322; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.278 to 14.608; p = 0.019] was an independent predictor of catheter dysfunction, but not of catheter dysfunction requiring surgical intervention (p > 0.05). Catheter dysfunction [hazard ratio (HR): 20.087; 95% CI: 7.326 to 55.074; p < 0.001] and peritonitis (HR: 4.533; 95% CI: 1.748 to 11.751; p = 0.002) were risk factors for technique failure during the first 6 months, but BI≤7 was not correlated with technique failure. ♦ Conclusions: Patients starting PD with a break-in period of less than 1 week might experience a minor increased risk of mechanical complications, but no major effect on technique survival.
Language resource construction for Mongolian

Mongolian is a typical low-resource language. The resource limitation is in various aspects, from acoustic analysis, phonetic rules, lexicon, speech and text data. This paper describes our recent progression on Mongolian resource construction supported by the NSFC M2ASR project. Firstly, we collected the text data of Mongolian containing more than 60,000 sentences from the newspaper, internet and Mongolian books. Secondly, we built the initial dictionary of Mongolian based on the Mongolian Chinese Dictionary. All the resources are published following the M2ASR Free Data Program.
Cash Transfers, Behavioral Changes, and Cognitive Development in Early Childhood: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment

Cash transfer programs have become extremely popular in the developing world. There is a large literature on the effects of these programs on schooling, health and nutrition, but relatively little is known about possible impacts on child development. This paper analyzes the impact of a cash transfer program on cognitive development in early childhood in rural Nicaragua. Identification is based on random assignment. We show that children in households assigned to receive benefits had significantly higher levels of development nine months after the program began. There is no fadeout of program effects two years after the program had ended and transfers were discontinued. We show that the changes in child development we observe are unlikely to be a result of the cash component of the program alone.
UVA‐induced oxidative degradation of melanins: fission of indole moiety in eumelanin and conversion to benzothiazole moiety in pheomelanin

Eumelanin is photoprotective while pheomelanin is phototoxic to pigmented tissues. Ultraviolet A (UVA)‐induced tanning seems to result from the photooxidation of pre‐existing melanin and contributes no photoprotection. However, data available for melanin biodegradation remain limited. In this study, we first examined photodegradation of eumelanin and pheomelanin in human black hairs and found that the ratio of Free (formed by peroxidation in situ) to Total (after hydrogen peroxide oxidation) pyrrole‐2,3,5‐tricarboxylic acid (PTCA) increases with hair aging, indicating fission of the dihydroxyindole moiety. In red hair, the ratio of thiazole‐2,4,5‐tricarboxylic acid (TTCA) to 4‐amino‐3‐hydroxyphenylalanine (4‐AHP) increases with aging, indicating the conversion from benzothiazine to benzothiazole moiety. These photodegradation of melanins were confirmed by UVA (not UVB) irradiation of melanins from mice and human hairs and synthetic eumelanin and pheomelanin. These results show that both eumelanin and pheomelanin degrade by UVA and that Free/Total PTCA and TTCA/4‐AHP ratios serve as sensitive indicators of photodegradation.
Sweet liking phenotype, alcohol craving and response to naltrexone treatment in alcohol dependence.

AIMS To investigate the relationship between the sweet liking/sweet disliking phenotype (a putative probe of brain opioid function), craving for alcohol and response to treatment with naltrexone in individuals with alcohol dependence. METHODS Forty individuals with alcohol dependence were enrolled in a 12-week open-label study of 50 mg of naltrexone with four sessions of motivational enhancement therapy. Prior to treatment, individuals completed a sweet preference test and the Penn Alcohol Craving Scale. Subjects were categorized as sweet liking (SL), n = 15, or sweet disliking (SDL), n = 25, via a standard sweet tasting paradigm. The sweet tasting results were blinded to the subjects and to treatment staff. SL status, pretreatment craving and their interaction were examined as predictors of frequency of abstinent days and heavy drinking days during treatment with naltrexone. RESULTS SL and SDL subjects achieved similar reductions in percent heavy drinking days with treatment. During treatment, SDL subjects had 48% abstinent days compared to 30% for SL subjects (P = 0.034). Pretreatment craving did not predict % heavy drinking days or % abstinent days. An interaction effect was found between the SL/SDL phenotype and pretreatment craving such that SL subjects with high craving demonstrated higher rates of percent abstinent days whereas SDL subjects with high craving demonstrated lower rates of percent abstinent days, P < 0.001. CONCLUSIONS These findings indicate that the SL/SDL phenotype may predict variation in response to naltrexone and/or counseling treatment. Furthermore, the SL/SDL phenotype may interact with craving to provide a more robust prediction of outcome with naltrexone or counseling.
A magneto-optical fiber device based on magnetic fluid-filled photonic crystal fiber

Magneto-optical fiber plays an important role in magneto-optical devices. The fiber has larger Verdet constant will lead to a larger Faraday rotation per unit length fiber and applied field. In order to increase the magneto-optical characteristic, especially the Verdet constant of photonic crystal fiber, a magneto-optical fiber device based on combination of the magnetic fluid and the tunable photonic bandgap effect of photonic crystal fiber is proposed. The magnetic fluid is filled into the air holes of the cladding layer in the photonic crystal fiber using a new air pressure-filled method. Because the magnetic fluid prepared in this experiment has higher refractive index (>1.45), and is filled into the air-holes of photonic crystal fiber, as a result, the index guiding fiber is converted into photonic bandgap fiber. A magneto-optic system based on the Stokes polarization parameters method is designed which could analyze the Faraday effect. The corresponding Faraday rotation could be measured in the external magnetic field with different magnetic intensity by this magneto-optic system. The Faraday rotation of the photonic crystal fiber filled with magnetic fluid is approximately 5 times than that of the single mode optical fiber. The proposed magneto-optical fiber device takes full advantage of the ultrahigh sensitivity characteristic of photonic bandgap fiber and the large Verdet constant of magneto-optical fiber, can be used for high sensitive magnetic field sensor, magneto-optical switch, and magneto-optical modulator, etc.