Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
β-Blockers are associated with a reduction in COPD exacerbations

Background While some retrospective studies have suggested that β-blocker use in patients with COPD is associated with a reduction in the frequency of acute exacerbations and lower mortality, there is concern that their use in patients with severe COPD on home oxygen may be harmful. Methods Subjects with Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) stage 2–4 COPD participating in a prospective follow-up of the COPDGene cohort, a multicentre observational cohort of current and former smokers were recruited. Total and severe exacerbation rates were compared between groups categorised by β-blocker use on longitudinal follow-up using negative binomial regression analyses, after adjustment for demographics, airflow obstruction, %emphysema on CT, respiratory medications, presence of coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure and coronary artery calcification, and after adjustment for propensity to prescribe β-blockers. Results 3464 subjects were included. During a median of 2.1 years of follow-up, β-blocker use was associated with a significantly lower rate of total (incidence risk ratio (IRR) 0.73, 95% CI 0.60 to 0.90; p=0.003) and severe exacerbations (IRR 0.67, 95% CI 0.48 to 0.93; p=0.016). In those with GOLD stage 3 and 4 and on home oxygen, use of β-blockers was again associated with a reduction in the rate of total (IRR 0.33, 95% CI 0.19 to 0.58; p<0.001) and severe exacerbations (IRR 0.35, 95% CI 0.16 to 0.76; p=0.008). Exacerbation reduction was greatest in GOLD stage B. There was no difference in all-cause mortality with β-blocker use. Conclusions β-Blockers are associated with a significant reduction in COPD exacerbations regardless of severity of airflow obstruction. The findings of this study should be tested in a randomised, placebo-controlled trial. Trial registration number (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00608764).
Screening for abdominal aortic aneurysm.

The incidence of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) has been increasing over the last fifty years, probably as a consequence of the smoking epidemics that developed in the years that followed the Second World War. As stated by Puech-Leão et al., abdominal aortic aneurysm is an asymptomatic but potentially fatal condition, for which the proper treatment is elective surgery before rupturing can occur. The Multicentre Aneurysm Screening Study (MASS) was designed to assess whether or not such screening is beneficial. A population-based sample of men (n = 67,800) aged 65-74 years was enrolled, and each individual was randomly allocated to either receive an invitation for an abdominal ultrasound scan (invited group; n = 33,389) or not (control group; n = 33,961). The primary outcome measurement was mortality related to abdominal aortic aneurysm. Of the 33,389 men invited to participate in screening, 27,147 accepted the invitation and 1,333 aneurysms were detected. Using mortality data from the Office of National Statistics, an intention-to-treat analysis was performed, based on cause of death. There were 65 aneurysm-related deaths (absolute risk of 0.0019) in the screened group, compared with 113 (absolute risk of 0.0033) in the control group (absolute risk reduction of 0.014), with a number needed to screen of 714. What does this mean? It means that we have to screen 714 people to prevent one death related to an AAA. Screening people has positive and negative consequences. In the case of screening for an aortic aneurysm, the positive result is the prevention of a possible rupture of the aneurysm. The negative result is to label an asymptomatic individual as a sick man. In the MASS Study, four scales were used for assessing quality of life. Six weeks after screening, there were no differences in anxiety or depression between those who screened negative and those who screened positive. There were just small differences in health status measurements: those who screened positive had slightly lower scores on the physical and mental subscales of SF-36, and lower self-assessments of their health, as measured by EuroQol. Results from other study have shown that screening for AAA results in impairment of quality of life among those who have the disease and were suffering from poor quality of life prior to screening. Among those who had an age-adjusted good quality of life prior to screening and were found to have the disease, and among those who were found to have normal aortas, no negative effect on quality of life was observed. The study concluded that low quality of life before screening is a possible risk factor for negative mental effects in diagnosing an AAA by screening.
Dynamics of episodic Late Cretaceous–Cenozoic magmatism across Central to Eastern Anatolia: New insights from an extensive geochronology compilation

We compiled geochronology data from 87 published studies within the Anatolia orogen (32.5°E–44°E) to investigate the spatial and temporal patterns of continental magmatism during the final stages of Neotethys Ocean closure. The number and diversity of studies compiled here collectively provide a thorough characterization of magmatism (>700 ages) in the Anatolia orogen since the Late Cretaceous (ca. 100 Ma). Our new compilation reveals that magmatism was episodic and occurred in three distinct magmatic episodes punctuated by two orogen-wide magmatic lulls. We used regional-scale insights into the timing, location, composition, and evolution of magmatism revealed by our compilation to evaluate the tectonic and geodynamic processes responsible for each widespread magmatic lull, and to test and refine existing geodynamic models for Anatolia. We interpret the first orogen-wide magmatic lull (ca. 72–58 Ma) to have been the result of Maastrichtian to Paleocene collision of the Kırşehir and Anatolide-Tauride blocks with the Pontides arc along the Izmir-Ankara-Erzincan suture zone and synchronous collision of the Bitlis-Pütürge massif with the southern-margin of the Anatolide-Tauride blocks along the Bitlis suture zone. Magmatic quiescence during the second magmatic lull (ca. 40–20 Ma) was variably related to terminal subduction and Arabia slab break off along the Bitlis suture zone in the east, and Cyprus slab flattening due to postcollisional southward retreat of the Cyprus trench in the west, each triggered by middle to late Eocene Arabia collision. Postcollisional Neogene–Quaternary magmatism was most likely caused by lithospheric delamination and slab tearing/rollback in the Eastern and Central Anatolia volcanic provinces, respectively.
Association of Circulating Endothelial Nitric Oxide Synthase Levels with Phosphataemia in Patients on Haemodialysis

The amount of evidence indicates that hyperphosphataemia (HP) can induce endothelial damage and significantly impair endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) expression. There are no clinical studies that have assessed HP and its correlation with circulating eNOS concentration in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Our preliminary study aimed to evaluate the relationship between plasma inorganic phosphorus (P) levels and circulating plasma eNOS concentration in patients on haemodialysis (HD). A total of 50 patients on HD were enrolled to the study. They were divided into groups according to the tertiles of P. The examined HD group was also analysed and compared with controls as a whole group; then, the group was divided into patients with and without dyslipidaemia (D) as well as into those with and without type 2 diabetes mellitus (type 2 DM). A total of 26 age-matched healthy volunteers were included in the study as the control group. The plasma levels of eNOS in HD patients are reduced in comparison to those in healthy subjects. There was no difference in plasma eNOS concentrations between HD patients with type 2 DM and those without DM as well as between those with D and without D. In the entire group of HD patients, there were positive correlations between circulating levels of eNOS and plasma P concentrations. In HD patients with D, higher systolic and diastolic blood pressure were accompanied by decreased plasma eNOS concentrations. In conclusion, HP and high blood pressure appear to decrease the circulating eNOS levels. These findings demonstrate an additional negative impact of HP on eNOS activity.
Optimum Power Scheduling for CDMA Access Channels ∗ Aylin Yener

We consider the system access problem for CDMA networks where the access channels are nonorthogonal to the traffic channels. In such systems, the accessing user can degrade the performance of existing users by introducing extra interference. We study how transmit power should be varied with each successive access attempt so that the linear combination of average power expended and the average delay experienced by the accessing user is minimized. The harm caused by the accessing user to the existing communication links is also considered. We find that for all cost functions we consider, the absence of an access deadline implies that each access attempt should be made at some constant power. With an imposed access deadline we find that the optimum sequence of transmit powers can be determined recursively.
Efficient Mutation Killers in Action

This paper presents the techniques and results of a novel model-based test case generation approach that automatically derives test cases from UML state machines. Mutation testing is applied on the modeling level to generate test cases. We present the test case generation approach, discuss the tool chain, and present the properties of the generated test cases. The main contribution of this paper is an empirical study of a car alarm system where different strategies for killing mutants are compared. We present detailed figures on the effectiveness of the test case generation technique. Although UML serves as an input language, all techniques are grounded on solid foundations: we give UML state transition diagrams a formal semantics by mapping them to Back's action systems.
The interaction between freezing tolerance and phenology in temperate deciduous trees

Temperate climates are defined by distinct temperature seasonality with large and often unpredictable weather during any of the four seasons. To thrive in such climates, trees have to withstand a cold winter and the stochastic occurrence of freeze events during any time of the year. The physiological mechanisms trees adopt to escape, avoid, and tolerate freezing temperatures include a cold acclimation in autumn, a dormancy period during winter (leafless in deciduous trees), and the maintenance of a certain freezing tolerance during dehardening in early spring. The change from one phase to the next is mediated by complex interactions between temperature and photoperiod. This review aims at providing an overview of the interplay between phenology of leaves and species-specific freezing resistance. First, we address the long-term evolutionary responses that enabled temperate trees to tolerate certain low temperature extremes. We provide evidence that short term acclimation of freezing resistance plays a crucial role both in dormant and active buds, including re-acclimation to cold conditions following warm spells. This ability declines to almost zero during leaf emergence. Second, we show that the risk that native temperate trees encounter freeze injuries is low and is confined to spring and underline that this risk might be altered by climate warming depending on species-specific phenological responses to environmental cues.
Docosahexaenoic Acid Promotes Axon Outgrowth by Translational Regulation of Tau and Collapsin Response Mediator Protein 2 Expression*

n-3 PUFAs are essential for neuronal development and brain function. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying their biological effects remain unclear. Here we examined the mechanistic action of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), the most abundant n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in the brain. We found that DHA treatment of cortical neurons resulted in enhanced axon outgrowth that was due to increased axon elongation rates. DHA-mediated axon outgrowth was accompanied by the translational up-regulation of Tau and collapsin response mediator protein 2 (CRMP2), two important axon-related proteins, and the activation of Akt and p70 S6 kinase. Consistent with these findings, rapamycin, a potent inhibitor of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), prevented DHA-mediated axon outgrowth and up-regulation of Tau and CRMP2. In addition, DHA-dependent activation of the Akt-mTOR-S6K pathway enhanced 5′-terminal oligopyrimidine tract-dependent translation of Tau and CRMP2. Therefore, our results revealed an important role for the Akt-mTOR-S6K pathway in DHA-mediated neuronal development.
Subtropical cyclones near‐term projections from an ensemble of regional climate models over the northeastern Atlantic basin

Since nearly a decade ago, hybrid cyclones called subtropical cyclones (STCs) have attracted the attention of scientific and forecasting community due to their identification as damaging weather systems. Research about them has been so far focused on present climate data. A study of STCs under future climate scenarios has not been performed yet. For the first time, in this work we analyse the capability of regional climate models (RCMs) to simulate STCs in addition to searching for possible alterations in their frequency and intensity due to anthropogenic climate change over the subtropical northeastern Atlantic basin. By using an ensemble of three RCMs nested in four different global climate models (GCMs), we find that RCMs acceptably reproduce STCs (except for certain model combinations) for the historical climate period (1951–2000), giving support for the analysis of future climate results. In pure GCM simulations, no STCs are identified. For future climate conditions under A1B, A2 and B1 scenarios (2001–2050), more simulations indicate a decrease in the frequency of STCs than those which find an increase. This decrease is showed to be partially due to a reduced presence of extratropical cyclones, from which they tend to form, within that region. However, no strong agreement between simulations has been obtained, and other factors like the changes in the conversion rate could affect STCs in the future. With respect to intensity, no clear tendency is found.
Mossy fiber plasticity and enhanced hippocampal excitability, without hippocampal cell loss or altered neurogenesis, in an animal model of prolonged febrile seizures

Seizures induced by fever (febrile seizures) are the most frequent seizures affecting infants and children; however, their impact on the developing hippocampal formation is not completely understood. Such understanding is highly important because of the potential relationship of prolonged febrile seizures to temporal lobe epilepsy. Using an immature rat model, we have previously demonstrated that prolonged experimental febrile seizures render the hippocampus hyperexcitable throughout life. Here we examined whether (1) neuronal loss, (2) altered neurogenesis, or (3) mossy fiber sprouting, all implicated in epileptogenesis in both animal models and humans, were involved in the generation of a pro‐epileptic, hyperexcitable hippocampus by these seizures. The results demonstrated that prolonged experimental febrile seizures did not result in appreciable loss of any vulnerable hippocampal cell population, though causing strikingly enhanced sensitivity to hippocampal excitants later in life. In addition, experimental febrile seizures on postnatal day 10 did not enhance proliferation of granule cells, whereas seizures generated by kainic acid during the same developmental age increased neurogenesis in the immature hippocampus. However, prolonged febrile seizures resulted in long‐term axonal reorganization in the immature hippocampal formation: Mossy fiber densities in granule cell‐ and molecular layers were significantly increased by 3 months (but not 10 days) after the seizures. Thus, the data indicate that prolonged febrile seizures influence connectivity of the immature hippocampus long‐term, and this process requires neither significant neuronal loss nor altered neurogenesis. In addition, the temporal course of the augmented mossy fiber invasion of the granule cell and molecular layers suggests that it is a consequence, rather than the cause, of the hyperexcitable hippocampal network resulting from these seizures. Hippocampus 2003;13:399–412. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
An Online Mechanism for Multi-Unit Demand and its Application to Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle Charging

We develop an online mechanism for the allocation of an expiring resource to a dynamic agent population. Each agent has a non-increasing marginal valuation function for the resource, and an upper limit on the number of units that can be allocated in any period. We propose two versions on a truthful allocation mechanism. Each modifies the decisions of a greedy online assignment algorithm by sometimes cancelling an allocation of resources. One version makes this modification immediately upon an allocation decision while a second waits until the point at which an agent departs the market. Adopting a prior-free framework, we show that the second approach has better worst-case allocative efficiency and is more scalable. On the other hand, the first approach (with immediate cancellation) may be easier in practice because it does not need to reclaim units previously allocated. We consider an application to recharging plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). Using data from a real-world trial of PHEVs in the UK, we demonstrate higher system performance than a fixed price system, performance comparable with a standard, but non-truthful scheduling heuristic, and the ability to support 50% more vehicles at the same fuel cost than a simple randomized policy.
The Genetics of Diabetes

a birth defect since I’m a diabetic? &dquo; These questions are typical of those asked by families where there is a history of diabetes. In order to assist families in decisions concerning health and reproduction, the diabetes educator must be aware of the many aspects involved in providing genetic counseling for these families. She should have a broad knowledge base including genetics and teratology, but she also must be aware of what resources are available to both her and the families she cares for. Genetic counseling teams* are available for consultation with the diabetes educator as well as to provide counseling for a specific family when needed or requested. Who should be referred for counseling? What can families expect from the genetic counseling process? What is the educator’s role in respect to this important aspect of the diabetic family’s health care? To answer these questions, it is first appropriate to review the genetics of diabetes and then discuss the multifaceted process of genetic counseling.
On spectrum gaps of some divergent elliptic operators with periodic coefficients

More than 10 years ago physicists gave a theoretic description of the so-called photonic crystal, an optic analog of a semiconductor. In contrast to a semiconductor, the photonic crystal is an artificial material, a composite. The dominant requirement for the photonic crystal is that electromagnetic waves of a certain length cannot propagate in it. It was also predicted that the photonic crystal is a material with high-contrast periodic structure [1]. In the mathematical sense, here we have a periodic Maxwell operator in the entire space L(R), and this operator must have gaps in its spectrum. Since the Maxwell operator is quite difficult from the viewpoint of spectral theory, scalar second-order elliptic operators (“acoustic approximations”) are often considered. There are many mathematical publications on this subject, in which different methods are applied depending on what specific geometric and physical model of the photonic crystal is chosen. For a detailed statement of the problem and a review of mathematical methods and models, see the paper [2] by Figotin and Kuchment and the papers [3, 4] by Kuchment and Kunyansky.
From Smartphone to Fabric: Mobile Embroidery Programming

Equipping the next generation with skills in science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM), including computational thinking and graphic design, is crucial. Yet it can be difficult for young people to sustain interest in technology – particularly for girls due to persistent differences in their socialization. Project-based learning combining hands-on experience with fashion and design offers a promising means of sparking and sustaining interest in technology. Mobile embroidery programming is one such project, but there are still challenges to be overcome in transferring embroidery files to programmable embroidery machines as part of school courses or coding weeks. This report presents a device we developed that facilitates wireless file transfer. The embroidery file, encoded in a common format like DST, can be wirelessly transferred to the embroidery machine. We optimized the process of the embroidery workflow in a series of 14 workshops. Furthermore, we tested additional hardware for embroidery file transfer based on Raspberry Pi on a group of 18 participants. Our findings suggest that wireless file transfer may be useful with other maker devices such as 3D printers. The results will benefit schools, maker spaces, code clubs, and individual users seeking to engage in STEAM activities.
Techno-Economic Evaluation of Narrowband and Broadband Access Network Alternatives and Evolution Scenario Assessment

The paper presents the main results obtained within the Research in Advanced Communications in Europe (RACE) project: 2087 TITAN regarding minimum-risk introductory routes for new narrowband and broadband services in the residential and small business market. The project developed a methodology and a tool for techno-economic evaluation of advanced narrowband and broadband telecommunications networks and services. Results from four extensive access network studies are presented. For the narrowband services, optical access and radio in the local loop have been assessed and compared to conventional copper layout in a greenfield environment. Access network upgrade strategies for emerging new broadband services have been evaluated in three studies, with technological options ranging from enhanced copper to hybrid-fiber-coax (HFC) and broadband passive optical networks. An extensive study on different broadband access network upgrade alternatives for public network operators (PNOs) were carried out, taking into account the diversity of conditions met today by European countries. In another study, the effect of competition In the access network was modeled assuming two main operators sharing the market. Broadband upgrade alternatives were evaluated for a new cable operator, competing with the dominant public network operator. In addition, video-on-demand (VoD) and Internet access upgrades have been analyzed. The paper demonstrates the viability of techno-economic studies for the access network, including in-depth analysis of the time-dependence of component cost, tariffs, service penetrations and market shares.