Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence, Patterns, and Clinical Predictors of Left Ventricular Late Gadolinium Enhancement in Patients Undergoing Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Prior to Pulmonary Vein Antral Isolation for Atrial Fibrillation

Abstract Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging is increasingly used to evaluate patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) before pulmonary vein antral isolation (PVAI). The purpose of this study was to assess the incidence and pattern of left ventricular (LV) late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) in patients undergoing CMR before PVAI and compare the clinical and demographic differences of patients with and without LV LGE. Clinical and demographic data on 62 patients (mean age 61 ± 7.9, 69% male) undergoing CMR before PVAI for AF were collected. Two observers, masked to clinical histories, independently recorded the prevalence, extent (number of myocardial segments), and pattern (subendocardial, midmyocardial, or subepicardial) of LV LGE in each patient. Clinical and demographic predictors of LV LGE were determined using logistic regression. Twenty-three patients (37%) demonstrated LV LGE affecting a mean of 3.0 ± 2.1 myocardial segments. There was no difference in LV ejection fraction between patients with and without LGE, and most (65%) patients with LGE had normal wall motion. Only age (P = 0.04) and a history of congestive heart failure (P = .03) were statistically significant independent predictors of LGE. The most common LGE pattern was midmyocardial, seen in 17 of 23 (74%) patients. Only 4 of 23 (17%) patients had LGE in an “expected” pattern based on clinical history. Of the remaining 19 patients, 4 had known congestive heart failure, 5 nonischemic cardiomyopathy, 4 known coronary artery disease, and 2 prior aortic valve replacement. Six of 23 (26%) patients had no known coronary artery, valvular, or myocardial disease. There is a high prevalence of unexpected LV scar in patients undergoing CMR before PVAI for AF, with most patients demonstrating a nonischemic pattern of LV LGE and no wall motion abnormalities (ie, subclinical disease). The high prevalence of unexpected LGE in these patients may argue for CMR as the modality of choice for imaging integration before PVAI, especially given the demonstrated prognostic value of LGE in this and other patient populations.
Using the condensation algorithm to implement tracking for mobile robots

The detection of objects in every frame of a sequence is often not sufficient for scene interpretation. Tracking can increase the robustness, especially when occlusions occur or when objects temporally disappear. The standard approach for tracking is to use a Kalman filter for every object. This, however requires the use of a high complexity management system to deal with the multiple hypotheses necessary to track all anticipated objects. We present a stochastic approach which is based on the CONDENSATION algorithm-conditional density propagation over time-that is capable of tracking multiple objects with multiple hypotheses in range images. A probability density function describing the likely state of the objects is propagated over time using a dynamic model. The measurements influence the probability function and allow the incorporation of new objects into the tracking scheme. Additionally, the representation of the density function with a fixed number of samples ensures a constant running time per iteration step. Results on different data sources are shown for mobile robot applications.
A delay in age at first mating results in the loss of future reproductive potential via apoptosis

Summary Women who delay childbearing risk subfertility. However, this loss of fertility is not a simple function of aging. Women who have had children early in life tend to maintain fertility longer, measured as a later age at menopause. But why should otherwise healthy women lose reproductive capacity? Loss of fertility independent of senescence, menopause, has been approached from two perspectives: evolution and development. Evolutionary biologists focus on how natural selection favors survival after reproductive ability has ceased, whereas reproductive biologists examine mechanisms by which women lose fertility with age and factors that influence the rate of reproductive aging. Combining mechanistic studies with evolutionary theory should allow us to define principles of the evolution of postembryonic development of ovaries, including the role of reproductive timing relative to sexual maturation. Achieving this will require identifying appropriate, and more experimentally tractable, taxa in which to study how early reproductive events influence lifetime fertility. We work with an invertebrate species, the cockroach Nauphoeta cinerea, with a complex reproductive biology in which females experience reproductive cycles, give live birth, and show age‐related decline in fertility. Thus, N. cinerea provides an opportunity to use an experimental approach to examine mechanisms by which females lose reproductive potential as they delay reproduction. Our results demonstrate that the loss of both oocytes ready for fertilization and future oocytes in females that delay mating is because of apoptosis. We suggest that loss of fertility because of delayed mating may originate in a nonadaptive response in control of apoptosis through mistiming of reproduction.
Spreading the News

Around the world, social networking has transformed the way people communicate and share information. This has been particularly important in China, where the media landscape is vast, but the space for critical opinion has been traditionally narrow. China’s microblogs have added a number of innovations to the basic functions of platforms like Twitter – particularly Sina Weibo, a microblog (‘weibo’) set up by the company SINA in 2009. Like Twitter, it is often the first place for news to break, and it hosts discussions about breaking news. Sina Weibo allows users to comment on any microblog entry, as they would on a normal blog post. This change was key to the exponential growth of microblogging in China, as it fit with Chinese habits of ‘piling in’ on a discussion: it’s been exciting and empowering for Chinese microbloggers to see their posts attract hundreds or thousands of comments, giving them the feeling that what they have written is being passed on, is influencing the community and may actually change things. Those posting comments are able to trade insults or cheer for their favourite microbloggers. And so a space for discussion has emerged.
Robust adaptive observers for nonlinear systems with bounded disturbances

Existing adaptive observers for nonlinear systems may generate unbounded parameter estimates in the presence of bounded disturbances. Robust adaptive observers are presented which prevent parameter estimate drift; guarantee the input to state stability property of the error dynamics with respect to disturbances and parameter time-derivatives under persistency of excitation; and achieve asymptotic convergence of state estimation errors for systems in adaptive observer form. Those results are obtained by generalizing a previous result and Barbalat's lemma.
¿Es la vida un género natural? Dificultades para lograr una definición del concepto de vida Is life a natural kind? Some difficulties in order to obtain a definition of life

There exist at present several definitions of ‘life’, and consensus over them is not foreseeable. The disagreement is not only about the concrete features to be demanded in order to attribute life to a particular being, but also about the kind of definition to be proposed. After reviewing the main trends concerning this problem, the possibility that life might be a natural kind is discussed. It is argued that life could be easily considered as a natural kind if the proposal of understanding them as homeostatic clusters of properties –and not as classes defined by an essence– is accepted.
Testing Taxon Tenacity of Tortoises: evidence for a geographical selection gradient at a secondary contact zone

We examined a secondary contact zone between two species of desert tortoise, Gopherus agassizii and G. morafkai. The taxa were isolated from a common ancestor during the formation of the Colorado River (4–8 mya) and are a classic example of allopatric speciation. However, an anomalous population of G. agassizii comes into secondary contact with G. morafkai east of the Colorado River in the Black Mountains of Arizona and provides an opportunity to examine reinforcement of species' boundaries under natural conditions. We sampled 234 tortoises representing G. agassizii in California (n - 103), G. morafkai in Arizona (n - 78), and 53 individuals of undetermined assignment in the contact zone including and surrounding the Black Mountains. We genotyped individuals for 25 STR loci and determined maternal lineage using mtDNA sequence data. We performed multilocus genetic clustering analyses and used multiple statistical methods to detect levels of hybridization. We tested hypotheses about habitat use between G. agassizii and G. morafkai in the region where they co-occur using habitat suitability models. Gopherus agassizii and G. morafkai maintain independent taxonomic identities likely due to ecological niche partitioning, and the maintenance of the hybrid zone is best described by a geographical selection gradient model.
Walking a fine line: is it possible to remain an empathic physician and have a hardened heart?

Establishing an empathic physician–patient relationship is an essential physician skill. This chapter discusses the sexually dimorphic aspects of the neural components involved in affective and cognitive empathy, and examines why men and women medical students or physicians express different levels of empathy. Studies reveal levels of medical student affective or cognitive empathy can help reveal which medical specialty a student will enter. The data show students or physicians with higher empathy enter into specialties characterized by large amounts of patient contact and continuity of care; and individuals with lower levels of empathy desire specialties having little or no patient contact and little to no continuity of care. Burnout and stress can decrease the empathy physicians had when they first entered medical school to unacceptable levels. Conversely, having a too empathetic physician can let patient conditions and reactions interfere with the ability to provide effective care. By learning to blunt affective empathic responses, physicians establish a certain degree of empathic detachment with the patient in order to provide objective care. However, a physician must not become so detached and hardened that their conduct appears callous, because it is still important for physicians, especially those in specialties with a large amount of patient contact, to use empathic communication skills.
Northeastern University in TREC 2009 Million Query Track

Abstract : Ranking is a central problem in information retrieval. Modern search engines, especially those designed for the World Wide Web, commonly analyze and combine hundreds of features extracted from the submitted query and underlying documents in order to assess the relative relevance of a document to a given query and thus rank the underlying collection. The sheer size of this problem has led to the development of learning to rank (LTR) algorithms that can automate the construction of such ranking functions: Given a training set of (feature vector, relevance) pairs, a machine learning procedure learns how to combine the query and document features in such a way so as to effectively assess the relevance of any document to any query and thus rank a collection in response to a user input. Much thought and research has been placed on the development of sophisticated learning-to-rank algorithms. However, relatively little research has been conducted on the construction of appropriate learning to rank data sets nor on the effect of these data sets on the ability of a learning-to-rank algorithm to "learn" effectively.
Temporally and Spatially Constrained ICA of fMRI Data Analysis

Constrained independent component analysis (CICA) is capable of eliminating the order ambiguity that is found in the standard ICA and extracting the desired independent components by incorporating prior information into the ICA contrast function. However, the current CICA method produces constraints that are based on only one type of prior information (temporal/spatial), which may increase the dependency of CICA on the accuracy of the prior information. To improve the robustness of CICA and to reduce the impact of the accuracy of prior information on CICA, we proposed a temporally and spatially constrained ICA (TSCICA) method that incorporated two types of prior information, both temporal and spatial, as constraints in the ICA. The proposed approach was tested using simulated fMRI data and was applied to a real fMRI experiment using 13 subjects who performed a movement task. Additionally, the performance of TSCICA was compared with the ICA method, the temporally CICA (TCICA) method and the spatially CICA (SCICA) method. The results from the simulation and from the real fMRI data demonstrated that TSCICA outperformed TCICA, SCICA and ICA in terms of robustness to noise. Moreover, the TSCICA method displayed better robustness to prior temporal/spatial information than the TCICA/SCICA method.
Microbial Type I Fatty Acid Synthases (FAS): Major Players in a Network of Cellular FAS Systems

SUMMARY The present review focuses on microbial type I fatty acid synthases (FASs), demonstrating their structural and functional diversity. Depending on their origin and biochemical function, multifunctional type I FAS proteins form dimers or hexamers with characteristic organization of their catalytic domains. A single polypeptide may contain one or more sets of the eight FAS component functions. Alternatively, these functions may split up into two different and mutually complementing subunits. Targeted inactivation of the individual yeast FAS acylation sites allowed us to define their roles during the overall catalytic process. In particular, their pronounced negative cooperativity is presumed to coordinate the FAS initiation and chain elongation reactions. Expression of the unlinked genes, FAS1 and FAS2, is in part constitutive and in part subject to repression by the phospholipid precursors inositol and choline. The interplay of the involved regulatory proteins, Rap1, Reb1, Abf1, Ino2/Ino4, Opi1, Sin3 and TFIIB, has been elucidated in considerable detail. Balanced levels of subunits α and β are ensured by an autoregulatory effect of FAS1 on FAS2 expression and by posttranslational degradation of excess FAS subunits. The functional specificity of type I FAS multienzymes usually requires the presence of multiple FAS systems within the same cell. De novo synthesis of long-chain fatty acids, mitochondrial fatty acid synthesis, acylation of certain secondary metabolites and coenzymes, fatty acid elongation, and the vast diversity of mycobacterial lipids each result from specific FAS activities. The microcompartmentalization of FAS activities in type I multienzymes may thus allow for both the controlled and concerted action of multiple FAS systems within the same cell.
Validation of the German Version of the Patient Activation Measure 13 (PAM13-D) in an International Multicentre Study of Primary Care Patients

The patients’ active participation in their medical care is important for patients with chronic diseases. Measurements of patient activation are needed for studies and in clinical practice. This study aims to validate the Patient Activation Measure 13 (PAM13-D) in German-speaking primary care patients. This international cross-sectional multicentre study enrolled consecutively patients from primary care practices in three German-speaking countries: Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Patients completed the PAM13-D questionnaire. General Self-Efficacy scale (GSE) was used to assess convergent validity. Furthermore Cronbach’s alpha was performed to assess internal consistency. Exploratory factor analysis was used to evaluate the underlying factor structure of the items. We included 508 patients from 16 primary care practices in the final analysis. Results were internally consistent, with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.84. Factor analysis revealed one major underlying factor. The mean values of the PAM13-D correlated significantly (r = 0.43) with those of the GSE. The German PAM13 is a reliable and valid measure of patient activation. Thus, it may be useful in primary care clinical practice and research.
On a convection-diffusion equation with partial diffusivity

We consider the Cauchy problem for the nonlinear degenerate equation in R div(A∇u) + u(b · ∇u)− ∂tu = f(·, u), where A ≥ 0 is a constant symmetric matrix and ker(A) is generated by b. We prove the existence of a local viscosity solution u and we study the interior regularity of u in the framework of Hormander type operators.
Supermassive black holes in elliptical galaxies: switching from very bright to very dim

Relativistic outflows (mainly observed in the radio) are a characteristic feature of both Galactic stellar-mass black holes and supermassive black holes (SMBHs). Simultaneous radio and X-ray observations of Galactic sources have shown that the outflow is strong at low accretion rates, but it weakens dramatically or disappears completely at high accretion rates, manifesting structural changes in the accretion flow. It is reasonable to assume that SMBHs follow the same trend. For low-luminosity SMBHs in nearby elliptical galaxies and clusters, recent observations strongly suggest that the outflows play the central role in keeping the gas hot (mechanical feedback). If the outflow is quenched in SMBHs at high accretion rates similarly to the behaviour of Galactic sources, then the straightforward consequence is a relatively weak feedback of rapidly accreting SMBHs. We argue that elliptical galaxies and their central engines should then evolve through two stages. Early on, the central SMBH rapidly grows by accreting cooling gas at a near-Eddington rate with high radiative efficiency but with weak feedback on the infalling gas. This stage terminates when the black hole has grown to a sufficiently large mass that its feedback (radiative and/or mechanical), despite the low gas heating efficiency, is able to suppress gas cooling. After that the system switches to a stable state corresponding to passively evolving ellipticals, when the accretion rate and radiative efficiency are very low, but the gas heating efficiency is high and energy input from the relativistic outflow keeps the gas hot.
Trypanosoma cruzi Proline Transport Presents a Cell Density‐dependent Regulation

Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiological agent of Chagas disease, uses proline as its main carbon source, essential for parasite growth and stage differentiation in epimastigotes and amastigotes. Since proline is mainly obtained from extracellular medium by transport proteins, in this work we studied the regulation of the T. cruzi proline transporter TcAAAP069. Proline uptake and intracellular concentration presented oscillations during epimastigote growth phases, increasing during the early exponential phase (322 pmol/min) and decreasing to undetectable levels during the late exponential phase. Transporter expression rate correlated with proline uptake, and its subcellular localization alternated from both, the plasma membrane and close to the flagellar pocket, when the transport is higher, to only the flagellar pocket region, when the transport decreased until proline uptake and TcAAAP069 protein became undetectable at the end of the growth curve. Interestingly, when parasites were treated with conditioned medium or were concentrated to artificially increase the culture density, the proline transport was completely abolished resembling the effects observed in late exponential phase. These data highlight for the first time the existence of a density‐associated regulation of relevant physiological processes such as proline metabolism.
Multicast server selection: problems, complexity, and solutions

We formulate and investigate fundamental problems that arise when multicast servers, that deliver content to multiple clients simultaneously, are replicated to enhance scalability and performance. Our study consists of two parts. First, we consider the problem under the assumption that the multicast clients are static for the duration of the multicast content distribution session. In this context, we examine two models for server behavior: fixed-rate servers, which transmit at a constant rate, and rate-adaptive servers, which adapt their transmission rate based on network conditions and/or feedback from clients. In both cases, we show that general versions of the client assignment problems are NP-hard. We then develop and evaluate efficient algorithms for interesting special cases, as well as heuristics for general cases. Second, we consider the case in which the set of clients changes dynamically during the multicast content distribution session. We again consider both fixed-rate and rate-adaptive servers. We formulate the problem as a Markov decision process, capturing the costs associated with trees, as well as the transition costs to dynamically change the trees. We use the properties of optimal solutions for small examples to develop a set of dynamic server selection heuristics.
Gestão do conhecimento organizacional em empresa de prestação de serviços técnicos

A gestao do conhecimento e considerada atualmente uma das fontes potenciais de constituicao de diferencial competitivo organizacional. Esta realidade pode ser percebida em todos os segmentos economicos, mas se torna mais relevante em organizacoes de prestacao de servicos tecnicos. O estudo de caso unico, realizado numa empresa de prestacao de servicos de disponibilizacao de internet via radio, situada no Rio Grande do Sul, evidenciou, por meio de entrevistas em profundidade e analise de narrativas, com os tecnicos da empresa, o processo de gestao do conhecimento, bem como as suas especificidades no seu compartilhamento e internalizacao.
A Runtime Resource-Management Framework for Embedded Service-Oriented Systems

Service-Oriented Computing (SOC) has rapidly progressed in recent years, with examples appearing in numerous application areas including business processes, high-performance computing, web-based services, and embedded systems. In the embedded systems domain, ubiquitous devices, context-aware systems, and sensor networks are increasingly being used in a plethora of areas. However, because of the nature of their operating environment, service-oriented embedded systems (SOeS) pose unique challenges to quality management. SOeS have to contend not only with the quality of services from providers, but also with the constrained system resources in their operating environment. SOeS need to efficiently utilise available system resources by dynamically adapting themselves to changes in their runtime environment. This paper discusses current SOC resource-management initiatives, setting out the challenges that SOeS systems must overcome, and proposes a pluggable, runtime resource-management framework for SOeS.