Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of erythromycin and itraconazole on the pharmacokinetics of oral lignocaine.

Lignocaine is metabolized by cytochrome P450 3A4 enzyme (CYP3A4), and has a moderate to high extraction ratio resulting in oral bioavailability of 30%. We have studied the possible effect of two inhibitors of CYP3A4, erythromycin and itraconazole, on the pharmacokinetics of oral lignocaine in nine volunteers using a cross-over study design. The subjects were given erythromycin orally (500 mg three times a day), itraconazole (200 mg once a day) or placebo for four days. On day 4, each subject ingested a single dose of 1 mg/kg of oral lignocaine. Plasma samples were collected until 10 hr and concentrations of lignocaine and its major metabolite, monoethylglycinexylidide were measured by gas chromatography. Both erythromycin and itraconazole increased the area under the lignocaine plasma concentration-time curve [AUC(0-infinity)] and lignocaine peak concentrations by 40-70% (P<0.05). Compared to placebo and itraconazole, erythromycin increased monoethylglycinexylidide peak concentrations by approximately 40% (P<0.01) and AUC(0-infinity) by 60% (P<0.01). The clinical implication of this study is that erythromycin and itraconazole may significantly increase the plasma concentrations and toxicity of oral lignocaine. The extent of the interaction of lignocaine with these CYP3A4 inhibitors was, however, less than that of, e.g. midazolam or buspirone, and it did not correlate with the CYP3A4 inhibiting potency of erythromycin and itraconazole.
Considering a resource-light approach to learning verb valencies

Here we describe work on learning the subcategories of verbs in a morphologically rich language using only minimal linguistic resources. Our goal is to learn verb subcategorizations for Quechua, an under-resourced morphologically rich language, from an unannotated corpus. We compare results from applying this approach to an unannotated Arabic corpus with those achieved by processing the same text in treebank form. The original plan was to use only a morphological analyzer and an unannotated corpus, but experiments suggest that this approach by itself will not be effective for learning the combinatorial potential of Arabic verbs in general. The lower bound on resources for acquiring this information is somewhat higher, apparently requiring a a part-of-speech tagger and chunker for most languages, and a morphological disambiguater for Arabic.
Automated Micro-architectural Test Generation for Validation of Modern Processors

Design complexity of todays microprocessors is increasing at an alarming rate to cope up with the required performance improvement by adopting complicated micro-architectural features such as deep pipelines, dynamic scheduling, out-oforder and superscalar execution, and dynamic speculation. Since verification complexity is directly proportional to the design complexity, considerable amount of time and resources are spent on design validation. In the current industrial practice, billions of random test programs generated at instruction set architecture (ISA) level are used during simulation-based validation. However, architectural test generation techniques have limitations in terms of exercising intricate micro-architectural artifacts. Therefore, it is necessary to use micro-architectural details during test generation. Furthermore, there is a lack of automated techniques for directed test generation targeting micro-architectural faults. To address these challenges, we present a directed test generation technique at micro-architectural level for functional validation of microprocessors. A processor model is described in a temporal specification language at micro-architecture level. The desired behaviors of micro-architecture mechanisms are expressed as temporal logic properties. We use decompositional model checking for systematic test generation. Our experiments using a processor based on the Power Architecture TM Technology shows very promising results in terms of test generation time as well as test program length.
Antigenic diversity of Chlamydia psittaci of mammalian origin determined by microimmunofluorescence

A group of twenty-five isolates of Chlamydia psittaci representing at least seven different biotypes of bovine, ovine, caprine, equine, feline, porcine, and guinea pig origin were immunotyped by an indirect microimmunofluorescence test. Different groups of chlamydia-free BALB/c mice received two weekly intravenous inoculations with chicken embryo-propagated, partially purified elementary bodies of each strain. Antisera for immunotyping were collected 4 days after the first inoculation and 3 to 4 days after the second inoculation and tested for antichlamydial immunoglobulin M and immunoglobulin G antibodies by the indirect microimmunofluorescence test with cell culture-propagated, partially purified homologous and heterologous antigens. Nine immunotypes of C. psittaci were distinguished. The correlation between immunotypes and biotypes was close, and a pattern of either disease or host specificity could be associated with each immunotype. Most immunotypes identified induced cross-reacting antibodies against each other, but no significant cross-reactions were observed with elementary bodies of the mouse pneumonitis strain of C. trachomatis. Findings from this study should provide the necessary background for the rational selection of prototype strains of C. psittaci for further antigenic analysis at the molecular level.
Combining HMM classifiers in a handwritten text recognition system

A study of several methods for combining information from two classifiers in a system for the recognition of handwritten text is presented. The system uses two hidden Markov models (HMMs) per character to model columns and rows of pixels in the character image. We show that the best method of combining the results from the vertical and horizontal classifiers is simply to multiply the probabilities produced by the two methods. This approach outperforms more complicated classifier combination strategies such as the behaviour-knowledge space (BKS) method.
Modelling legal reasoning in a mathematical environment through model theoretic semantics

We introduce a mathematical model of legal reasoning using an underlying conditional logic semantics, to allow its tractability in some special cases. The main idea is to capture the entailment of legal consequences through a model of 0-1 programming. For such task, first we model legal reasoning with Lehmann's Lexicographic semantics and then we translate it to an instance of weighted MAXSAT problem, in order to compute the logical consequences of legal reasoning. Hence, combinatorial optimization algorithms can be used to yield the legal consequences of defeasible reasoning over legal conditional knowledge bases.
Iterative Residual Frequency Offset Correction for OFDM Systems

The estimation and tracking of the fractional carrier frequency offset (CFO) is a crucial issue in the implementation of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. In this contribution, we present a novel code-aided fractional CFO estimation algorithm based on the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm. The proposed algorithm exchanges soft information from the channel decoder, in the form of a posteriori probabilities of the coded symbols, between the demapper, the decoder, and the CFO estimator in an iterative way. The proposed estimation scheme can work with any detector as long as the detector is able to compute the a posteriori probabilities (APPs) of the data symbols.
Natural environmental radioactivity in the soil of Terengganu State, Malaysia

The activity concentrations of naturally occurring radionuclides in environmental medium such as soil play an important role in setting national and international average doses to public for radiation protection purposes. This work measures the activity concentrations of the naturally occurring radionuclides (226 Ra, 232Th and 40K) in soil samples of Terengganu state, Malaysia using hyper pure germanium (HPGe) spectrometry. The mean (range) activity concentrations of 226Ra, 232Th, and 40K in the soil samples 79 ± 3 (20 ± 1 - 151 ± 5) Bq kg-1 with the mean value of Bq kg-1 for 226Ra; 84 ± 3 (8 ± 1 - 182 ± 6) Bq kg-1 for 232Th, and 545 ± 55 (47 ± 5 - 1056 ± 107) Bq kg-1 for 40K. Upon comparing these values with the world averages for 226Ra, 232Th and 40K, which are 33, 36 and 474 Bq kg-1, respectively. It is therefore, evidently seen that the mean activity concentrations of 226Ra and 232Th in the soil of Terengganu are slightly more than twice their corresponding global averages. The mean activity concentration of 40K in the soil of Terengganu is ~ 15% higher than the world average.
On finite approximations of topological algebraic systems

Abstract We introduce and discuss a concept of approximation of a topological algebraic system A by finite algebraic systems from a given class . If A is discrete, this concept agrees with the familiar notion of a local embedding of A in a class of algebraic systems. One characterization of this concept states that A is locally embedded in iff it is a subsystem of an ultraproduct of systems from . In this paper we obtain a similar characterization of approximability of a locally compact system A by systems from using the language of nonstandard analysis. In the signature of A we introduce positive bounded formulas and their approximations; these are similar to those introduced by Henson [14] for Banach space structures (see also [15, 16]). We prove that a positive bounded formula φ holds in A if and only if all precise enough approximations of φ hold in all precise enough approximations of A. We also prove that a locally compact field cannot be approximated arbitrarily closely by finite (associative) rings (even if the rings are allowed to be non-commutative). Finite approximations of the field ℝ can be considered as possible computer systems for real arithmetic. Thus, our results show that there do not exist arbitrarily accurate computer arithmetics for the reals that are associative rings.
Security processor with quantum key distribution

We present a fully operable security gateway prototype, integrating quantum key distribution and realised as a system-on-chip. It is implemented on a field-programmable gate array and provides a virtual private network with low latency and gigabit throughput. The seamless hard- and software integration of a quantum key distribution layer enables high key-update rates for the encryption modules. Hence, the amount of data encrypted with one session key can be significantly decreased. We realise a highly modular architecture and make extensive use of software/hardware partitioning. This work is the first approach towards application of a new key distribution technology in dedicated security processors. In particular, it elaborates requirements for the integration of quantum key distribution on a chip level.
Scrambled Eggs: Apoptotic Cell Clearance by Non-Professional Phagocytes in the Drosophila Ovary

For half of a century, it has been known that non-professional phagocytes, such as fibroblasts, endothelial, and epithelial cells, are capable of efferocytosis (engulfment of apoptotic cells). Non-professional phagocytes differ from professional phagocytes in the range and efficiency of engulfment. Much of the recognition and underlying signaling machinery between non-professional and professional phagocytes is the same, but it is not known how the engulfment capacity of non-professional phagocytes is controlled. Moreover, the signaling networks involved in cell corpse recognition, engulfment, and phagosome maturation are only partially understood. The Drosophila ovary provides an excellent system to investigate the regulation of phagocytic activity by epithelial cells, a major class of non-professional phagocytes. During Drosophila oogenesis, mid-stage egg chambers undergo apoptosis of the germline in response to nutrient deprivation. Epithelial follicle cells then undergo major cell shape changes and concomitantly engulf the germline material. Our previous work has established that Draper and the integrin α-PS3/β-PS heterodimer are required in follicle cells for germline cell clearance. In addition, we have characterized phagosome maturation pathways, and found that the JNK pathway amplifies the engulfment response. In this review, we discuss recent advances on the interplay between engulfment pathways in the follicular epithelium for cell clearance in the Drosophila ovary. We also provide a comparison to apoptotic cell clearance mechanisms in C. elegans and mammals, illustrating strong conservation of efferocytosis mechanisms by non-professional phagocytes.
Generalized lipodystrophy, congenital and acquired (lipoatrophy)

This review is based on longitudinal studies on our seven patients with congenital generalized lipodystrophy, our patient with acquired generalized lipodystrophy, and published papers on these subjects. An inability to store energy in adipose tissue is of pathogenetic importance. In congenital lipodystrophy, insulin resistance is present from birth, resulting in hyperinsulinaemia, dyslipidaemia, and insulin‐resistant diabetes with an anabolic syndrome worsened by a voracious appetite. Clinically, we observed increased height velocity in pre‐school age children, and organomegaly with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which seems to be lethal in early adulthood: three of our patients died at the ages of 24,32 and 37 years. The oldest alive, 39 years, suffers from stenocardia. Regarding treatment, it is most important to reduce energy consumption. The congenital form is recessively inherited. The aetiology may be related to insulin receptor or postreceptor mechanisms. Acquired generalized lipodystrophy seems to be an autoimmune disorder with secondary destruction of the adipose organ; the anabolic syndrome with insulin‐resistant diabetes is secondary. Our patient died when 24 years old from pneumonia.
Efficiently mining community structures in oriented social networks

A community within a network is a group of vertices densely connected to each other but less connected to the vertices outside. The problem of detecting communities in directed networks plays a key role in a wide range of research areas, e.g. Computer Science, Biology and Sociology. Most of the existing algorithms to find communities count on the topological features of the network and often do not scale well on directs, real-life instances. In this article, We show how the widely used benefit function that we define Dense_Pur can incorporate the information contained in edge directions. We propose a graph mining algorithm, called ACODIG1. for maximizing our objective function over using Ant Colony Optimisation. Test on an a simple directed netwok, show the efficiency of ACODIG to detecting communities in directed network.
Intensified Effect of Adiposity on Blood Pressure in Overweight and Obese Children

In children, blood pressure (BP) and risk for hypertension are proportional to degree of adiposity. Whether the relationship to BP is similar over the full range of adiposity is less clear. Subjects from a cohort study (n=1111; 50% male and 42% black) contributed 9102 semiannual BP and height/weight assessments. The mean enrollment age was 10.2 years, and mean follow-up was 4.5 years. Adiposity was expressed as body mass index percentile, which accounted for effects of age and sex. The following observations were made. The effect of relative adiposity on BP was minimal until the body mass index percentile reached 85, beginning of the overweight category, at which point the effect of adiposity on BP increased by 4-fold. Similarly intensified adiposity effects on BP were observed in children aged ⩽10, 11 to 14 years, and ≥15 years. Serum levels of the adipose tissue-derived hormone, leptin, together with heart rate, showed an almost identically patterned relation to BP to that of body mass index percentile and BP, thus implicating a possible mediating role for leptin. In conclusion, there is a marked intensification of the influence of adiposity on BP when children reach the categories of overweight and obese. Among the possible pathways, leptin may be a potentially important mediator acting through the sympathetic nervous system (reflected in heart rate). The findings have relevance to interventions designed to prevent or treat adiposity-related increases in BP and to the analytic approaches used in epidemiological studies.
Marine reserves as linked social–ecological systems

Marine reserves are increasingly recognized as having linked social and ecological dynamics. This study investigates how the ecological performance of 56 marine reserves throughout the Philippines, Caribbean, and Western Indian Ocean (WIO) is related to both reserve design features and the socioeconomic characteristics in associated coastal communities. Ecological performance was measured as fish biomass in the reserve relative to nearby areas. Of the socioeconomic variables considered, human population density and compliance with reserve rules had the strongest effects on fish biomass, but the effects of these variables were region specific. Relationships between population density and the reserve effect on fish biomass were negative in the Caribbean, positive in the WIO, and not detectable in the Philippines. Differing associations between population density and reserve effectiveness defy simple explanation but may depend on human migration to effective reserves, depletion of fish stocks outside reserves, or other social factors that change with population density. Higher levels of compliance reported by resource users was related to higher fish biomass in reserves compared with outside, but this relationship was only statistically significant in the Caribbean. A heuristic model based on correlations between social, cultural, political, economic, and other contextual conditions in 127 marine reserves showed that high levels of compliance with reserve rules were related to complex social interactions rather than simply to enforcement of reserve rules. Comparative research of this type is important for uncovering the complexities surrounding human dimensions of marine reserves and improving reserve management.
2 Cost Factors , Models , and Metrics in IDSs

Intrusion detection systems need to maximize security while minimizing costs. In this paper, we study the problem of building cost-sensitive intrusion detection models. We examine the major cost factors: development costs, operational costs, damage costs incurred due to intrusions, and the costs involved in responding to intrusions. We propose cost-sensitive machine learning techniques to produce models that are optimized for user-defined cost metrics. We describe an automated approach for generating efficient run-time versions of these models. Empirical experiments in off-line analysis and real-time detection show that our cost-sensitive modeling and deployment techniques are effective in reducing the overall cost of intrusion detection.
Cost-utility analysis of behavioral interventions for HIV-infected persons to reduce HIV transmission in the USA

We developed an ordinary differential equation model to analyze the cost and utility (measured in quality adjusted life years, or QALYs) of three published behavioral HIV interventions that aim to reduce the risk of transmission from HIV-infected persons to their sexual partners. The ODE model maps measurements of behavioral risk reduction parameters, estimated from sampling, into costs and QALYs. Monte Carlo sampling was used to perform a probabilistic sensitivity analysis to quantify uncertainty in costs and QALYs due to parameter estimation error from sampling. The results suggested that the behavioral interventions considered in this study are most likely to be cost-saving, or at least cost-effective. Our study shows how statistical estimates of behavioral measures translates into uncertainty about health costs and outcomes and suggests implications for which data are important to collect when assessing cost-utility tradeoffs, and not just measures of risk reduction from behavioral interventions.
Dynamical processes within an anticyclonic eddy revealed from Argo floats

Mesoscale eddies play a significant role in supplying the nutrients required for phytoplankton blooms and redistributing biomass in the ocean. However, how eddies influence nutrient flux and biomass distribution remains unclear. Here we reveal two important dynamical processes (radial displacement and vertical fluctuations) within an anticyclonic eddy by analyzing observations from Argo floats. The Argo floats in the eddy were displaced toward the eddy edge due to the imbalance of radial momentum. Vertical fluctuations below the mixed layer resulted in alternating upwelling and downwelling in the inner and outer parts of the eddy. High salinity deep water was uplifted tens of meters by the upwelling and further extended to the surface with the aid of wind effects. Vertical motions associated with the fluctuations penetrated to the depths of several hundred meters. These processes represent crucial dynamical mechanisms for the motion of particles in mature anticyclonic eddies.
The good and the bad of chemokines/chemokine receptors in melanoma

Chemokine ligand/receptor interactions affect melanoma cell growth, stimulate or inhibit angiogenesis, recruit leukocytes, promote metastasis, and alter the gene expression profile of the melanoma associated fibroblasts. Chemokine/chemokine receptor interactions can protect against tumor development/growth or can stimulate melanoma tumor progression, tumor growth and metastasis. Metastatic melanoma cells express chemokine receptors that play a major role in the specifying the organ site for metastasis, based upon receptor detection of the chemokine gradient elaborated by a specific organ/tissue. A therapeutic approach that utilizes the protective benefit of chemokines involves delivery of angiostatic chemokines or chemokines that stimulate the infiltration of cytotoxic T cells and natural killer T cells into the tumor microenvironment. An alternative approach that tackles the tumorigenic property of chemokines uses chemokine antibodies or chemokine receptor antagonists to target the growth and metastatic properties of these interactions. Based upon our current understanding of the role of chemokine‐mediated inflammation in cancer, it is important that we learn to appropriately regulate the chemokine contribution to the tumorigenic ‘cytokine/chemokine storm’, and to metastasis.
Glial cell response: A pathogenic factor in Parkinson’s disease

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the progressive loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc). The loss of these neurons is associated with a glial response composed mainly of activated microglial cells and, to a lesser extent, of reactive astrocytes. This glial response may be the source of trophic factors and can protect against reactive oxygen species and glutamate. Alternatively, this glial response can also mediate a variety of deleterious events related to the production of pro-oxidant reactive species, proinflammatory prostaglandin, and cytokines. In this review, the authors discuss the potential protective and deleterious effects of glial cells in the SNpc of PD and examine how these factors may contribute to the pathogenesis of this disease.