Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modified testicular expression of stress‐associated “readthrough” acetylcholinesterase predicts male infertility

Male infertility is often attributed to stress. However, the protein or proteins that mediate stress‐related infertility are not yet known. Overexpression of the “readthrough” variant of acetylcholinesterase (AChE‐R) is involved in the cellular stress response in a variety of mammalian tissues. Here, we report testicular overexpression of AChE‐R in heads, but not tails, of postmeiotic spermatozoa from mice subjected to a transient psychological stress compared with age‐matched control mice. Transgenic mice overexpressing AChE‐R displayed reduced sperm counts, decreased seminal gland weight, and impaired sperm motility compared with age‐matched nontransgenic controls. AChE‐R was prominent in meiotic phase spermatocytes and in tails, but not heads, of testicular spermatozoa from AChE‐R transgenic mice. Head‐localized AChE‐R was characteristic of human sperm from fertile donors. In contrast, sperm head AChER staining was conspicuously reduced in samples from human couples for whom the cause of infertility could not be determined, similar to the pattern found in transgenic mice. These findings indicate AChE‐R involvement in impaired sperm quality, which suggests that it is a molecular marker for stress‐related infertility.
Hypothermia in Preterm Infants in the First Hours after Birth: Occurrence, Course and Risk Factors

Background Hypothermia is associated with increased morbidity and mortality rates. Preterm infants frequently have hypothermia when they are admitted to the NICU, but there is no data on the occurrence of hypothermia during the first hours after admission. Objective To investigate the occurrence of hypothermia in preterm infants in the first three hours of admission and to identify risk factors. Methods Infants < 32 weeks of gestation included in a randomized trial with admission temperature as primary outcome were retrospectively analyzed for the occurrence of hypothermia (< 36.5°C) in the first three hours after admission. Risk factors were identified using linear regression analysis and logistic regression. Results In total 80 infants were included with a median (IQR) gestational age at birth of 29 (27–30) weeks. In 93% of the infants hypothermia occurred in the first three hours after admission. The median (IQR) duration of hypothermia was 101 (34–162) minutes, of which 24 (7–52) minutes the hypothermia was mild, 45 (4–111) minutes moderate, severe hypothermia hardly occurred. Gestational age and the occurrence of hypothermia at birth were independent risk factors for the occurrence of moderate and severe hypothermia and significantly correlated with duration of hypothermia. Conclusions Hypothermia occurred often and for a long period in preterm infants in the first three hours of life, low gestational age and admission temperature were independent risk factors
Lung Cancer in French and Czech Uranium Miners: Radon-Associated Risk at Low Exposure Rates and Modifying Effects of Time since Exposure and Age at Exposure

Abstract Tomasek, L. , Rogel, A. , Tirmarche, M. , Mitton, N. and Laurier, D. Lung Cancer in French and Czech Uranium Miners: Radon-Associated Risk at Low Exposure Rates and Modifying Effects of Time since Exposure and Age at Exposure. Radiat. Res. 169, 125–137 (2008). Radon is recognized as a public health concern for indoor exposure. Precise quantification derived from occupational exposure in miners is still needed for estimating the risk and the factors that modify the dependence on cumulated exposure. The present paper reports on relationship between radon exposure and lung cancer risk in French and Czech cohorts of uranium miners (n = 10,100). Miners from these two cohorts are characterized by low levels of exposure (average cumulated exposure of less than 60 WLM) protracted over a long period (mean duration of exposure of 10 years) and by a good quality of individual exposure estimates (95% of annual exposures based on radon measurements). The modifying effect of the quality of exposure on the risk is analyzed. A total of 574 lung cancer deaths were observed, which is 187% higher than expected from the national statistics. This significantly elevated risk is strongly associated with cumulated radon exposure. The estimated overall excess relative risk per WLM is 0.027 (95% CI: 0.017–0.043, related to measured exposures). For age at exposure of 30 and 20 years since exposure, the ERR/WLM is 0.042, and this value decreases by approximately 50% for each 10-year increase in age at exposure and time since exposure. The present study emphasizes that the quality of exposure estimates is an important factor that may substantially influence results. Time since exposure and simultaneously age at exposure were the most important effect modifiers. No inverse exposure-rate effect below 4 WL was observed. The results are consistent with estimates of the BEIR VI report using the concentration model at an exposure rate below 0.5 WL.
Does Childhood Disability Increase Risk for Child Abuse and Neglect?

In this article we review the empirical evidence for the presumptions that children with disabilities are at increased risk for child maltreatment, and parents with disabilities are more likely to perpetrate child abuse and neglect. Challenges to the epidemiological examination of the prevalence of child maltreatment and disabilities are discussed. We conclude that the evidence for the relationship between child maltreatment victimization of children with disabilities and perpetration by caregivers with disabilities remains equivocal due to variability in research samples, key definitions, and study methodology. Future research examining the link between disability and child maltreatment would benefit from more rigorous methodology and inclusion of a theoretical framework, such as the ecological model of child maltreatment. One potential pathway from disability to child maltreatment is presented. Knowing and understanding the link between disability and child abuse and neglect is an important step toward planning targeted and appropriate prevention and intervention activities.
A risk scoring system to identify emergency department patients with heart failure at high risk for serious adverse events.

OBJECTIVES There are no validated guidelines to guide physicians with difficult disposition decisions for emergency department (ED) patients with heart failure (HF). The authors sought to develop a risk scoring system to identify HF patients at high risk for serious adverse events (SAEs). METHODS This was a prospective cohort study at six large Canadian EDS that enrolled adult patients who presented with acute decompensated HF. Each patient was assessed for standardized clinical and laboratory variables as well as for SAEs defined as death, intubation, admission to a monitored unit, or relapse requiring admission. Adjusted odds ratios for predictors of SAEs were calculated by stepwise logistic regression. RESULTS In 559 visits, 38.1% resulted in patient admission. Of 65 (11.6%) SAE cases, 31 (47.7%) occurred in patients not initially admitted. The multivariate model and resultant Ottawa Heart Failure Risk Scale consists of 10 elements, and the risk of SAEs varied from 2.8% to 89.0%, with good calibration between observed and expected probabilities. Internal validation showed the risk scores to be very accurate across 1,000 replications using the bootstrap method. A threshold of 1, 2, or 3 total scores for admission would be associated with sensitivities of 95.2, 80.6, or 64.5%, respectively, all better than current practice. CONCLUSIONS Many HF patients are discharged home from the ED and then suffer SAEs or death. The authors have developed an accurate risk scoring system that could ultimately be used to stratify the risk of poor outcomes and to enable rational and safe disposition decisions.
Estimated Influenza Illnesses and Hospitalizations Averted by Vaccination — United States, 2013–14 Influenza Season

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommends annual influenza vaccination for all persons aged ≥6 months to reduce morbidity and mortality caused by influenza in the United States. CDC previously developed a model to estimate that annual influenza vaccination resulted in 1.1-6.6 million fewer cases and 7,700-79,000 fewer hospitalizations per season during the 2005-2013 influenza seasons. For the 2013-14 influenza season, using updated estimates of vaccination coverage, vaccine effectiveness, and influenza hospitalizations, CDC estimates that influenza vaccination prevented approximately 7.2 million illnesses, 3.1 million medically attended illnesses, and 90,000 hospitalizations associated with influenza. Similar to prior seasons, fewer than half of persons aged ≥6 months are estimated to have been vaccinated. If influenza vaccination levels had reached the Healthy People 2020 target of 70%, an estimated additional 5.9 million illnesses, 2.3 million medically attended illnesses, and 42,000 hospitalizations associated with influenza might have been averted. For the nation to more fully benefit from influenza vaccines, more effort is needed to reach the Healthy People 2020 target.
Shedding too much Light on a Microcontroller's Firmware Protection

Almost every microcontroller with integrated ﬂash features ﬁrmware readout protection. This is a form of content protection which aims at securing intellectual prop-erty (IP) as well as cryptographic keys and algorithms from an adversary. One series of microcontrollers are the STM32 which have recently gained popularity and thus are increasingly under attack. However, no practical experience and information on the resilience of STM32 microcontrollers is publicly available. The paper presents the ﬁrst investigation of the STM32 security concept, especially targeting the STM32F0 sub-series. Starting with a conceptual analysis, we discover three weaknesses and develop them to vulnerabilities by demonstrating corresponding Proofs-of-Concept. At ﬁrst, we discover that a common security conﬁguration provides low protection which can be exploited using our Cold-boot Stepping approach to extract critical data or even readout-protected ﬁrmware. Secondly, we reveal a design weakness in the security conﬁguration storage which allows an attacker to downgrade the level of ﬁrmware protection, thereby enabling additional attacks. Thirdly, we discover and analyze a hardware ﬂaw in the debug interface, attributed to a race condition, that allows us to directly extract read-protected ﬁrmware using an iterative approach. Each attack requires only low-priced equipment, thereby increasing the impact of each weakness and resulting in a severe threat altogether.
The union of balls and its dual shape

Efficient algorithms are described for computing topological, combinatorial, and metric properties of the union of finitely many spherical balls in ℝd. These algorithms are based on a simplicial complex dual to a decomposition of the union of balls using Voronoi cells, and on short inclusion-exclusion formulas derived from this complex. The algorithms are most relevant in ℝ3 where unions of finitely many balls are commonly used as models of molecules.
Face Detection by Orientation Map Matching

This paper describes a fast and accurate face detection method based on edge orientation map matching of colour images. Face detection speed and accuracy is crucial to realtime face recognition applications but still remains a problem even though much research effort has been devoted to face detection algorithms. What make our method different from existing works are that only simple computation is involved so that faces can be detected in less than 1 second, and both face shape and skin colour information is taken into account whereby false detection is reduced. In addition our algorithm is robust to noise as edge orientation maps are computed for each image block, rather than for each individual pixel. Experimental results demonstrate the advantages of our approach.
in silico identification of novel cancer-related genes by comparative genomics of naked mole rat and rat

The naked mole rat (NMR, Heterocephalus glaber) is a long-lived underground mammal, whose maximum lifespan can be up to 30 years and more than 7 times longer than house mouse. In addition, they are resistant to both spontaneous and experimentally induced tumorigenesis. These special biologic or behavioral characteristics make them most suitable for cancer and longevity research. The recent genome sequencing of NMR has provided the opportunity for the study of molecular mechanisms of such extreme traits. In this study, we carried out a comparative analysis of the complete set of NMR and rat genes. First, we identified all orthologous genes shared between these two animals. We further focused on the rat genes that were absent in NMR and used KEGG pathway database to identify the biological meaning of their proteins. The top three pathways include “Cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction”, “Neuroactive ligand-receptor interaction” and “Pathways in cancer”, which was consistent with the unique NMR traits. Interestingly, in the rat cancer pathway which contains 13 paths leading to evading apoptosis, 8 of them appeared to be interrupted in NMR. Finally, we found that 50% of genes lacked in “Pathways in cancer” and 40% of genes lacked in “MAPK signaling pathway” have been known to be related to a variety of cancers. Overall, this study provides insights into searching for new cancer-related genes and understanding the anti-cancer mechanism of NMR.
Behavioural and emotional problems in hearing impaired children: a preliminary study of teacher and parent ratings

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to measure the rate of behavioural and emotional problems in children with severe to profound hearing impairment, as rated by teachers and parents. Children (N = 46) were selected from a nursery and primary school for the deaf. Two‐thirds of the sample used both British Sign Language (BSL) and some form of oral communication, and 35 per cent used BSL only. Teachers completed the Teacher's Checklist and the Teacher Report Form, and parents completed the equivalent Parent's Checklist and Child Behaviour Checklist. According to the Teacher's Checklist, which had the lowest cut‐off score, about 11 per cent of the children presented with significant behavioural/emotional difficulties that would justify clinical assessment and treatment. The rate of these problems was three to six times lower than the rate of similar problems as detected by parents. Poor functioning at school was the variable that best predicted the presence of behavioural and emotional problems. The findings a.
New Challenges in Multihospital Kidney Exchange.

The growth of kidney exchange presents new challenges for the design of kidney exchange clearinghouses. The players now include directors of transplant centers, who see sets of patient-donor pairs, and can choose to reveal only difficult-to-match pairs to the clearinghouse, while withholding easy-to-match pairs to transplant locally. This reduces the number of transplants. We discuss how the incentives for hospitals to enroll all pairs in kidney exchange can be achieved, and how the concentration of hard to match pairs increases the importance of long, non-simultaneous nondirected donor chains.
Generating Acrostics via Paraphrasing and Heuristic Search

We consider the problem of automatically paraphrasing a text in order to find an equivalent text that contains a given acrostic. A text contains an acrostic, if the first letters of a range of consecutive lines form a word or phrase. Our approach turns this paraphrasing task into an optimization problem: we use various existing and also new paraphrasing techniques as operators applicable to intermediate versions of a text (e.g., replacing synonyms), and we search for an operator sequence with minimum text quality loss. The experiments show that many acrostics based on common English words can be generated in less than a minute. However, we see our main contribution in the presented technology paradigm: a novel and promising combination of methods from Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence. The approach naturally generalizes to related paraphrasing tasks such as shortening or simplifying a given text.
Information Subsidy and Agenda-Building in Local Television News

A study of subsidized information received by an Indianapolis television station over a four-week period in 1987 found less than one-fourth of news releases and other subsidies survived the first cut by producers and assignment editors. Information from non-profit organizations and interest groups was kept most frequently, while that from government and business was kept least frequently. It is suggested that two levels of agenda building operate simultaneously in local TV news—the relationship between journalists and local sources, and the less purposive level where non-local sources haphazardly attempt to get on the local agenda.
The rhythms of tonal music

A comprehensive study of the many facets of rhythm in tonal music.Lester covers accent, meter and hypermeter, phrase rhythm, rhythm and linear analysis, continuity, rhythm and form, rhythm and polyphony, rhythm and performance, rhythms of textural components, grouping, and rhythm and style.The primary focus of this book is accent, which Lester argues is one of the major aspects of rhythm. The central question is not whether a note or event (rest, point in time) is accented, but how it is accented. This change of focus allows for the first time a thorough investigation into the factors that give rise to accent, the relative importance of these factors in creating accentuation, the way accents are perceived, the way meter arises, and the limits of metric organization on higher levels of structure.Lester s synthesis of other theorists on tonal rhythm is thorough but, more important, his own ideas on the subject are original and enlightening. "
Complex Di(cid:11)usion Processes for Image Filtering

A framework that naturally uni(cid:12)es smoothing and enhancement processes is presented. We generalize the linear and nonlinear scale spaces in the complex domain, by combining the di(cid:11)usion equation with the simpli(cid:12)ed schr(cid:127)odinger equation. A fundamental solution for the linear case is developed. Preliminary analysis of the complex di(cid:11)usion shows that the generalized di(cid:11)usion has properties of both forward and inverse di(cid:11)usion. An important observation, supported theoretically and numerically, is that the imaginary part can be regarded as an edge detector (smoothed second derivative), after rescaling by time, when the complex di(cid:11)usion coeÆcient approaches the real axis. Based on this observation, a nonlinear complex process for ramp preserving denoising is developed.
Thermal Effectiveness of Different IR Radiators Employed in Rheumatoid Hand Therapy as Assessed by Thermovisual Examination

We conducted a thermovisual comparison of mean hand surface temperature changes upon local heating with two different IR sources. Sixty‐six patients with rheumatoid arthritis (47 women and 19 men; average age, 56.1 ± 8.6 years) were subjected to topical heat therapy for one hand with either the standard IR radiator (SIR) or the water filter IRA (wIRA). The surface temperature of the dorsal side of both hands was measured, and thermal images were taken before and up to 2 h after treatment. At 1 min after treatment, SIR application increased the surface skin temperature of the heated hand from 31.5 ± 1.9 to 35.0 ± 1.9°C (P < 0.05), while wIRA increased it from 32.1 ± 1.6 to 34.2 ± 1.1°C (P < 0.05). Constant decline in temperature was observed immediately after treatment, with the temperatures reaching baseline in about 30 and 120 min after wIRA and SIR treatment, respectively. Similar temperature changes were observed in the heated hands for wIRA and SIR, except at 1 min after treatment. Changes in the untreated hands indicated contralateral reaction. The temperature of the warmed hand showed a correlation to the body mass index.
Performance Measurements of Tertiary Storage Devices

In spite of the rapid decrease in magnetic disk prices, tertiary storage (i.e., removable media in a robotic storage library) is becoming increasingly popular. The fact that so much data can be stored encourages applications that use ever more massive data sets. Application drivers include multimedia databases, data warehouses, scientific databases, and digital libraries and archives. The database research community has responded with investigations into systems integration, performance modeling, and performance optimization. Tertiary storage systems present special challenges because of their unusual performance characteristics. Access latencies can range into minutes even on unloaded systems, but transfer rates can be very high. Tertiary storage is implemented with a wide array of technologies, each with its own performance quirks. However, little detailed performance information about tertiary storage devices has been published. In this paper we present detailed measurements of several tape drives and robotic storage libraries. The tape drives we measure include the DLT 4000, DLT 7000, Ampex 310, IBM 3590, 4mm DAT, and the Sony DTF drive. This mixture of equipment includes high and low performance drives, serpentine and helical scan drives, and cartridge Permission to copy without fee all or part oj this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advantage, the VLDB copyright notice and the title of the publication and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of the Very Large Data Base Endowment. To copy otherwise, or to republish, requires a fee and/or special permission from the Endowment. Proceedings of the 24th VLDB Conference New York, USA, 1998 Ethan L. Miller elm@csee.umbc. edu CSEE Department University of Maryland, Baltimore County Baltimore, MD 21250 and cassette tapes. The detailed measurements of different aspects of tertiary storage system performance provides an understanding of the issues related to integrating tapebased tertiary storage with a DBMS.
DisCo specification language: marriage of actions and objects

The potential of the action-oriented paradigm has been explored in the development of a specification language, DisCo, which can be characterized as both action-oriented and object-oriented. Its possibilities are introduced by contrasting them to the more familiar process-oriented approaches. Its execution model is state-based and leads to direct application of temporal logic in formal reasoning. Action-orientation allows a natural support for such forms of modularity that cut across process boundaries. At the same time, process-oriented abstractions are retained by object-orientation and the use of hierarchical state chart structures. The novel aspects of modularity are illustrated by a protocol example. The language is semi-executable. <<ETX>>
Professional learning experiences and administrator practice: is there a connection?

This study identified the formal and informal professional learning experiences in which school administrators engaged and the relationship between these professional learning experiences and administrator practice. The researcher developed an instrument that solicited school administrators’ engagement and perceived value of formal and informal learning experiences. A second instrument was adapted to measure middle grades administrators’ leadership practices. All middle grades principals in a southern state in the US were sent both instruments, resulting in a response rate of 42.5%. Correlational results indicated a significant relationship between participation in informal professional learning experiences and principal practice as measured by student, school, and faculty factors. Participation in informal professional learning experiences also significantly predicted principal practice related to the same three factors.