Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of Cyclosporin A and Low Dosages of Steroid on Posttransplantation Diabetes in Kidney Transplant Recipients

Objective To investigate the adverse effects of cyclosporin A (CsA) on pancreatic beta-cell function in kidney transplant recipients. Research Design and Methods The study consisted of 73 patients without a history of diabetes mellitus who had undergone kidney transplantation in our clinic. Results We experienced a higher incidence of posttransplantation diabetes mellitus (PTDM) in patients receiving CsA and low dosages of methylprednisolone (6/20, 30%, P < 0.05) than in patients receiving conventional therapy of azathioprine methylprednisolone (4/53, 7.5%) since the introduction of CsA. In all 6 patients in the CsA-treated group, PTDM occurred within 3 mo after transplantation. The CsA level during the initial 3 mo posttransplant was significantly higher in diabetic than nondiabetic subjects, and the highest CsA level was observed shortly (1 mo) before the development of PTDM. After an average of 71 days of insulin therapy, there was complete remission of PTDM in 5 of 6 diabetic patients, with a corresponding decrease in CsA level. For the patients who were in remission for > 1 yr, a significant improvement of glucose intolerance was observed in association with a significantly higher insulin response to oral glucose load; however, their glycemic profile still showed a significantly higher plasma glucose concentration and a prolonged continuous elevation without initial peak of the insulin-response curve in contrast to the normal pattern found in nondiabetic subjects in the CsA-treated group. Conclusions This study suggests that CsA in combination with low dosages of steroid may have adverse effects on glucose metabolism, which may lead to effects similar to those in non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus.
The MARY TTS entry in the Blizzard Challenge 2008

The present paper reports on the DFKI entry to the Blizzard challenge 2008. The main difference of our system compared to last year is a new join model inspired by last year’s iFlytek paper; the effect seems small, but measurable in the sense that it leads to the selection of longer chunks of consecutive units. In interpreting the results of the listening test, we correlate the ratings to various measures of the system. This allows us to explain at least some part of the variance in MOS ratings. Index Terms: speech synthesis, unit selection, join costs
Distinct Turn-Over Patterns of Common Repeats Correlate with Genome Size Differences Among Cattle, Dog and Human

Optimal three-way global sequence alignments for 84 cattle clones or loci (total 11 Mb of high-quality finished genomic sequence, each larger than 50 kb) were constructed using the human and dog genome assemblies. Although unique portions of genomic sequence remained relatively constant among these three mammals, the overall size differences in cattle-dog, humancattle, and human-dog comparisons were 10.6%, 6.2%, and 16.8% respectively, which strongly correlated with the difference between repetitive portions in dog (28.9%), cattle (39.5%) and human (45.6%). These alignments were therefore examined for the pattern, frequency, and nature of common repeats and their contribution to the genome size. This comparison indicated that distinct turn-over patterns of lineage-specific (young) or ancestral (old) repeats may account for a repeat-driven genome size change in cattle, dog and human. The smaller size of the cattle sequence relative to human is primarily due to less ancestral repeats, indicating a larger loss of them in cattle. The larger size of the cattle sequence as compared to dog is mainly due to additional lineage specific repeat sequences in cattle, suggesting a higher insertion rate and longer lineage-specific repeats in cattle. Finally, both insertions of lineage-specific repeats and retentions of ancestral repeats contributed to the larger size of the human sequence as compared to dog. Assuming that the sampled genome sequence is representative, these differences may lead to 6-16% differences of dog, cattle, human genome size, with majorities of them due to insertions and deletions of common repeats.
autogenic effects of static muscle stretch in spastic man.

Autogenic inhibition of the H reflex was produced by static stretch of the triceps surae in nine patients with spasticity due to spinal cord lesions. This inhibitory effect was abolished by diffuse infiltration of the triceps surae with procaine hydrochloride, but enhanced by ischemia sufficient to block the ankle jerk without altering the direct motor response. In contrast to the triceps surae, the H reflex of the pretibial flexors was facilitated by stretch of these muscles. It is concluded that these effects are consistent with activation of secondary spindle endings which are known to produce autogenic inhibition of extensor reflexes and autogenic facilitation of flexor reflexes in spinal preparations.
Using Animation to Improve Formal Specifications of Security Protocols

The verification of cryptographic protocols has greatly improved these last years. Automated tools such as AVISPA provide real help in finding and characterizing attacks. The counterpart is the formal specification of the protocol, using an appropriate language such as HLPSL. Since HLPSL is a very expressive language, this stage is complicated and error-prone before a correct specification is eventually obtained. The verification tools of AVISPA are not designed to detect such specification errors. Unfortunately, as long as it contains typo-like errors, the verification of a HLPSL specification is pointless. In this paper, we propose an animation tool called SPAN †. It turns a formal protocol specification into an execution diagram, according to user choices. We show how the visualization eases the formal specification stage in many ways: drawing of typical execution diagrams, visualization of protocol termination, understanding of interleaved sessions, detection of unwanted side effects, etc. We also show how visualization and simulation of an intruder helps in finding attacks that are not automatically detected by tools.
DEVELOPMENTAL DEPENDENCIES OF THE HUMAN BRAINSTEM AUDITORY EVOKED RESPONSE

The technical and methodological challenges to the study of sensory development are multiple. Measurements must often be performed on a small scale, the phenomena under study are in constant evolution, there is increased behavioral variability, and the relative contributions of genetic versus experiential factors must be defined. For these reasons, the introduction of a rapid technique able to circumvent the vagaries of behavioral instability without the sacrifice of quantification is usually enthusiastically received. It is not surprising, therefore, that the introduction of the human brainstem auditory evoked response (BAER). as a quantitative measure of auditory maturation, is rapidly gaining in popularity. This chapter reviews the BAER as applied to the study of auditory development. There are three main divisions in this article. The first is a description of the age dependence of response parameters, the second examines the effect of stimulus variables on response parameters, and the third summarizes selected issues surrounding the application of the brainstem auditory evoked response to the study of human auditory development.
Epidemiology of sarcoidosis in Japan

The present study was designed to identify recent clinical phenotypes using the National Epidemiological Survey and to compare findings with those of previous surveys in Japan. Pathologically confirmed sarcoidosis cases newly diagnosed in 2004 were eligible for the present study. Disease parameters were recorded and compared. A total of 1,027 patients were enrolled from a cluster encompassing 79.4% of the entire Japanese population. The study participants consisted of 364 males and 663 females, providing an average incidence rate of 1.01 per 100,000 inhabitants (0.73 for males and 1.28 for females). The age-specific incidence rate displayed a biphasic pattern in the whole patient population and in the females. The male incidence rates peaked in the 20–34-yr-old group. A second peak for 50–60-yr-old females showed a higher incidence than the first younger peak. Patients with abnormalities in eyes, skin and cardiac laboratory findings accounted for 54.8, 35.4 and 23.0% of cases, respectively. The female/male incidence ratio was increased, and the frequency of eye and skin involvement and cardiac abnormality was higher than in previous surveys conducted in Japan. In conclusion, the data obtained in the present study differ from those of other countries and showed changes in sarcoidosis clinical phenotypes compared with previous studies in Japan.
Deviation between navigated and final 3-dimensional implant position in mini-invasive unicompartmental knee arthroplasty

Background and purpose Unicompartmental knee arthroplasty (UKA) is an established method of treating isolated gonartrosis. Modern techniques such as computer-assisted surgery (CAS) and minimally invasive surgery (MIS) are attractive complementary methods to UKA. However, the positioning of the components remains a concern. Thus, we performed a prospective study to assess whether there was deviation between the navigated implant position and the final implant position. Patients and methods We performed UKA with MIS and CAS in 13 patients. By comparing intraoperative navigation data with postoperative computed tomography (CT) measurements, we calculated the deviation between the computer-assisted implant position and the final 3-D implant position of the femoral and tibial components. Results The computer-assisted placement of the femoral and tibial component showed adequate position and consistent results regarding flexion-extension and varus-valgus. However, regarding rotation there was a large variation and 6 of 10 patients were outside the target range for both the femoral component and the tibial component. Interpretation Difficulties in assessing anatomical landmarks with the CAS in combination with MIS might be a reason for the poor rotational alignment of the components.
Active thermography method using an CO2 laser for thermal excitation, applied to defect detection in bioceramic materials

This paper presents a non-destructive technique (NDT) using active infrared thermography and a thermal excitation consisting in a CO2 laser, having a wavelength of 10.6 μm, applicable for bioceramic interior defect detection. For this work we used two samples of bioceramics (Al2O3), having the same size, 16 mm diameter and 3 mm thickness. A non-defect sample it was used as the basis for the temperature differences between the healthy and the defective one. In the second sample an internal defect was created. In order to make possible the thermal excitation of the samples it was necessary to deflect the laser beam from vertical to horizontal direction, towards the material. The first advantage of this method represents the detection of internal defects in bioceramic materials, the microscopic method not being reliable in this purpose. The second advantage represents the rapidity of the determinations, just few seconds necessary for internal defect detection.
Stable Estimation of a Topographic Primal Sketch for Range Image Interpretation

This paper describes how range images can be segmented using the sign of differential geometry operators such as the mean and Gaussian curvatures. This segmentation called topographic primal sketch is invariant to rigid body motion in space and is defined by eight fundamental surfaces. The first part of the paper presents two novel techniques where an initial estimate of the categories, full of inconsistent labelling due to noise, is transformed into a consistent one. One of the two methods is based on a label relaxation technique, where consistency is viewed as a local optimization problem, and the second is based on stochastic relaxation, where the local classification of a pixel is solved by statistical decisions. The advantages and disadvantages of each method are presented.
Dynamic coefficient in the process of opinion classification

The paper focuses on the classification of opinions, which are available within the social web. It introduces a dictionary based method for web discussion polarity analysis. The method solves the reversion of polarity by negation as well as the determination of polarity intensity. Last two problems require a word combination processing. The word combination processing needs a dynamic coefficient setting. This paper introduced three various ways, how to determine the dynamic coefficient.
The Mediating Role of Perceived Risk when Buying Online

This paper aim is to assess if consumers’ perceived risk can mediate the relationship between trust and consumers’ intention to buy online. Several others studies indicate that perceived risk acts like a barrier to online buying adoption, while trust in the online vendors and the reliability of the online environment is an enhancer of consumers’ intention to buy online. Two models were developed for the purpose of this study and Partial Least Squares (PLS) analysis was used on data collected from 98 respondents. Three variables were introduced in the model: perceived risk, perceived trust and consumers’ intention to buy online. Each variable was formed as a formative latent variable using multi-items, measured on a 7 point Likert scale. The results of the first structural equation modeling indicate that trust is capable of explaining 44% of the variance in consumers’ intention to buy online. Perceived risk was introduced in the second structural equation modeling and results indicate that it has a negative direct effect on consumers’ intention to buy online . However, perceived trust is the sole variable capable of decreasing consumers’ perceived risk. Thus, online vendors should put a great emphasize on creating a trustful environment for selling online goods and services.
Sharing the Costs of Common Tasks in the Air Partitioning OS

In every non-trivial partitioned system, there are always tasks that are not exclusive to just one component, but are of common interest to a set of components, potentially all. Examples for such tasks are inter-partition communication in an ARINC 653-based system or I/O in any kind of partitioned system. The costs for these common tasks must be paid by those components using them. It must be avoided that some components clandestinely benefit, i.e. steal, from a system-wide service whereas others pay for it. On the other hand, there is often the need for optimisation beyond such considerations on justice. Typically, in a realtime system, such optimisations reuse time that was guaranteed to a process that did not run in the worst case. This paper presents the infrastructure for sharing the costs of common tasks in the AIR partitioning OS. Two different approaches are discussed, one stressing predictability, the other stressing performance. Different use cases with demanding safety and performance requirements are presented and it is shown how the AIR infrastructure can be used to meet both kinds of requirements.
Zero bit-error-rate weak PUF based on Spin-Transfer-Torque MRAM memories

Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs) are emerging cryptographic primitives used to implement low-cost device authentication and secure secret key generation. While several solutions exist for classical CMOS devices, novel proposals have been recently presented which exploit emerging technologies like magnetic memories. The Spin-Transfer-Torque Magnetic Random Access Memory (STT-MRAM) is a promising choice for future PUFs due to the high variability affecting the electrical resistance of the Magnetic Tunnel Junction (MTJ) device in anti-parallel magnetization. Some papers showed that these devices could guarantee high levels of both unclonability and reliability. However, 100% reliability is not yet obtained in those proposals. In this paper we present an effective method to identify the unreliable cells in a PUF implementation. This information is then used to create a zero bit-error-rate PUF scheme.
Virtual screening of RAGE inhibitors using molecular docking

Advanced Glycation End products (AGEs) interaction with Receptor for AGEs (RAGE) activates downstream signaling and evokes inflammatory responses in vascular cells. Therefore, it is of interest to design a novel series of molecules with a library of 352 compounds based on natural Isoflavone and Argpyrimidine moities. The compounds screened against the optimized structure of RAGE (PDB code: 3CJJ) using MolDock aided with molecular docking algorithm. This exercise identified compound number 62 with appreciable ADME properties having no toxicity and pharmacophore features. Therefore, compound 62 identified as a RAGE inhibitor is proposed for further validation in the context of Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) and vascular complications.
Modelling the effects of payoff on response bias in a perceptual discrimination task : Threshold bound , drift-rate-change , or two-stage-processing hypothesis

Three hypothesis, hereafter labelled threshold-bound hypothesis, drift-rate-change hypothesis and two-stage-processing hypothesis are proposed to account for data from a perceptual discrimination task in which three different response deadlines were involved and three different payoffs were presented prior to each individual trial. The present research is to show how the three different hypotheses incorporate response biases into a sequential sampling decision process; how payoffs and deadlines affect choice probabilities; and the hypotheses’ predictions of choice times and choice probabilities. The two-stage-processing hypothesis gave the best account, especially for the choice probabilities whereas the drift-rate-change hypothesis had problems predicting choice probabilities as a function of deadlines. Threshold-bound, drift-rate-change, or two-stage-processing hypothesis 3
Does the visual system of the flying fox resemble that of primates? The distribution of calcium‐binding proteins in the primary visual pathway of Pteropus poliocephalus

It has been proposed that flying foxes and echolocating bats evolved independently from early mammalian ancestors in such a way that flying foxes form one of the suborders most closely related to primates. A major piece of evidence offered in support of a flying fox‐primate link is the highly developed visual system of flying foxes, which is theorized to be primate‐like in several different ways. Because the calcium‐binding proteins parvalbumin (PV) and calbindin (CB) show distinct and consistent distributions in the primate visual system, the distribution of these same proteins was examined in the flying fox (Pteropus poliocephalus) visual system. Standard immunocytochemical techniques reveal that PV labeling within the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) of the flying fox is sparse, with clearly labeled cells located only within layer 1, adjacent to the optic tract. CB labeling in the LGN is profuse, with cells labeled in all layers throughout the nucleus. Double labeling reveals that all PV+ cells also contain CB, and that these cells are among the largest in the LGN. In primary visual cortex (V1) PV and CB label different classes of non‐pyramidal neurons. PV+ cells are found in all cortical layers, although labeled cells are found only rarely in layer I. CB+ cells are found primarily in layers II and III. The density of PV+ neuropil correlates with the density of cytochrome oxidase staining; however, no CO+ or PV+ or CB+ patches or blobs are found in V1. These results show that the distribution of calcium‐binding proteins in the flying fox LGN is unlike that found in primates, in which antibodies for PV and CB label specific separate populations of relay cells that exist in different layers. Indeed, the pattern of calcium‐binding protein distribution in the flying fox LGN is different from that reported in any other terrestrial mammal. Within V1 no PV+ patches, CO blobs, or patchy distribution of CB+ neuropil that might reveal interblobs characteristic of primate V1 are found; however, PV and CB are found in separate populations of non‐pyramidal neurons. The types of V1 cells labeled with antibodies to PV and CB in all mammals examined including the flying fox suggest that the similarities in the cellular distribution of these proteins in cortex reflect the fact that this feature is common to all mammals. J. Comp. Neurol. 417:73–87, 2000. ©2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Role of phosphorylated CaMKII and calcineurin in the differential effect of hypothyroidism on LTP of CA1 and dentate gyrus

Hypothyroidism impairs early long‐term potentiation (LTP) in the CA1 but not in the dentate gyrus (DG) of hippocampus of anesthetized adult rats. Protein levels and activities of signaling molecules in both the CA1 and DG of surgically thyroidectomized and sham‐operated euthyroid rats were measured. Basal levels of total calmodulin kinase II (CaMKII) protein in both the CA1 and DG were decreased in hypothyroidism. Marked reduction of basal P‐CaMKII levels and CaMKII activity was seen in CA1, but not in the DG of the same hypothyroid animals. Basal levels of calmodulin and protein kinase Cγ (PKCγ) were decreased in CA1 but remained unchanged in the DG of hypothyroid rats. Basal calcineurin levels and activity, although enhanced in CA1, were reduced in the DG of hypothyroid rats. These findings suggest that the DG may possess a compensatory mechanism whereby calcineurin levels are reduced, to allow sufficient CaMKII activity to produce an apparently normal LTP in hypothyroid rats. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Women and Drug Crime: The Role of Welfare Reform

Dhaval M. Dave Bentley University 175 Forest St., AAC 195 Waltham, MA 02452, and National Bureau of Economic Research Ph. 781.891. 2268 Fax. 212.817. 1597 ddave@bentley.edu ddave@bentley.edu Nancy E. Reichman Robert Wood Johnson Medical School 97 Paterson St., Room 435 New Brunswick, NJ 08903 Ph. 732-235-7977 Fax. 732-235-7088 nancy.reichman@umdnj.edu nancreinany.reichman@umdnj.edu Dhiman Das Robert Wood Johnson Medical School 97 Paterson St., Room 433 New Brunswick, NJ 08903 Ph. 732-235-7091 Fax. 732-235-7088 dasdh@umdnj.edu
Compressing LSTMs into CNNs

We show that a deep convolutional network with an architecture inspired by the models used in image recognition can yield accuracy similar to a long-short term memory (LSTM) network, which achieves the state-of-the-art performance on the standard Switchboard automatic speech recognition task. Moreover, we demonstrate that merging the knowledge in the CNN and LSTM models via model compression further improves the accuracy of the convolutional model
Subjectivity in Mandarin Chinese: The meaning and use of causal connectives in written discourse

This dissertation investigates the way in which ‘subjectivity’ − the degree to which the speaker expresses herself in the utterance – constrains the use of Chinese causal connectives, and into the universal and language-specific properties associated with this use. It starts with a literature review theoretically evaluating the potential for the western notion of subjectivity to explain the usage patterns of causal connectives in Chinese discourse, followed by corpus-based analyses of eight Chinese causal connectives in terms of subjectivity across different genres of written text (i.e., news reports, novels, and opinion pieces). The results indicate that overall, Chinese causal connectives show systematic variation in terms of subjectivity. Six of them (i.e., jiran, yinwei, youyu, all translated as ‘because’; and kejian, yin’er, yushi, all translated as ‘so/therefore’) display subjectivity profiles that differ from each other, and are robust across genres, whereas two other causal connectives (i.e., suoyi and yinci, both translated as ‘so/therefore’) manifest genre-sensitivity. The dissertation discusses implications of these findings for the way in which connectives are stored in the lexicon. In an eye-tracking experiment, it was investigated whether and how the degrees of subjectivity encoded in subjective/objective causal connectives affect the online processing of Chinese discourse.