Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Clinical Trials of Pharmacological Therapies in Acute Heart Failure Syndromes: Lessons Learned and Directions Forward

Acute heart failure syndromes (AHFS) are characterized by a gradual or rapid onset of new or worsening signs and/or symptoms of heart failure (HF) requiring urgent therapy, usually resulting in hospitalization.1,2 The societal burden of AHFS is substantial, with >1 million hospitalizations annually in the United States and similar relative numbers in Europe.2–6 Ongoing epidemiological trends, such as the aging population, improved survival after myocardial infarction, and a decrease in sudden death due to defibrillator therapy, suggest that the prevalence of chronic HF resulting in hospitalization will continue to increase during the coming decades.7 The prognosis after hospitalization for AHFS remains bleak, with rates of death or recurrent hospitalization at 6 months approaching 50%,8–10 outcomes that have changed little in recent years despite improvements in the management of chronic HF.11 Hidden within these oft-cited statistics is a notable paradox—signs and symptoms of AHFS (dyspnea, edema, etc) are successfully treated in the majority of patients, but postdischarge outcomes remain dismal, and attempts to develop new short-term therapies for AHFS have largely been unsuccessful. Since our initial publication in 2005,1 4 large, international phase III development programs—tezosentan,12 levosimendan,13 tolvaptan,14 and rolofylline15—have failed to convincingly demonstrate the safety and efficacy of these agents in AHFS. Even for drugs approved for AHFS treatment (milrinone and nesiritide in the United States and levosimendan in parts of Europe), there have been persistent concerns about safety.16–18 Broadly speaking, the pharmacological armamentarium for AHFS—loop diuretics, vasodilators, and inotropes—is largely unchanged from the 1970s.19 Although substantial efforts in the last decade to develop improved AHFS therapies have yielded disappointing results, we believe that as a scientific community, we are now better equipped to conduct future studies. Hospitalization for AHFS is now recognized as a critical clinical …
A Universal Model of Giftedness – an adaptation of the Munich Model

The Munich Model of Giftedness (MMG) by Heller and his colleagues, developed for the identification of gifted children, is adapted and expanded, with the aim of making it more universally usable as a model for the pathway from talents to performance. On the side of the talent-factors, the concept of multiple intelligences is introduced, and the moderating factors proposed in the MMG are discussed and categorized. The environmental moderators are interpolated as to incorporate not only “school-settings” but also “work-settings”.
Bonds of Pluralism: The Form and Substance of Urban Social Networks . By Laumann Edward O.. (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1973. Pp. 342. $14.95.)

grams "have hardly proven themselves to be effective" (p. 100). He argues that "capitalizing on the comparative advantages of Chinese-American children or Jewish children may be more efficient than attempting to provide all students with an equal opportunity to become an architect or an accountant (p. 110). " And he concludes that inequality in educational opportunity is not really very important compared to the inequalities in income, wealth, health expenditures or housing quality. He doubts that equalization of school quality would equalize performance. And even if it did, equalization of school achievement would not significantly reduce individual variations in income and occupations (p. 137). Katzman's description of his attempts to measure the impact of policy inputs is valuable. But the book is flawed by his prescriptive judgments which seem to have little root in his data. And his proposal to solve the problems of distribution of educational opportunity through compensatory education flies in the face of his own warning that an increase in the level of input is not an adequate predictor of an increase in the quality of the product.
Automatic Analysis of Descriptive Texts

This paper describes a system that attempts to interpret descriptive texts without the use of complex grammars. The purpose of the system is to transform the descriptions to a standard form which may be used as the basis of a database system knowledgeable in the subject matter of the text.The texts currently used are wild plant descriptions taken directly from a popular book on the subject. Properties such as size, shape and colour are abstracted from the descriptions and related to parts of the plant in which we are interested. The resulting output is a standardised hierarchical structure holding only significant features of the description.The system, implemented in the PROLOG programming language, uses keywords to identify the way segments of the text relate to the object described. Information on words is held in a keyword list of nouns relating to parts of the object described. A dictionary contains the attributes of ordinary words used by the system to analyse the text. The text is divided into segments using information provided by conjunctions and punctuation.About half the texts processed are correctly analysed at present. Proposals are made for future work to improve this figure. There seems to be no inherent reason why the technique cannot be generalised so that any text of semi-standard descriptions can be automatically converted to a canonical form.
Ultrasound Elastography Used for Preventive Non-Invasive Screening in Early Detection of Liver Fibrosis

Background Early discovery of liver fibrosis is becoming more popular because of enhanced incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma. Ultrasound-based liver elastography is a method used to approve suspected liver fibrosis or cirrhosis. We assessed the clinical usefulness of acoustic radiation force impulse shear wave elasticity imaging (ARFI-SWEI) as a preventive screening method to uncover fibrosis. Methods We screened 382 patients by native routine sonography for abnormal liver results and divided them into six groups: group 1: normal liver, groups 2-4: fatty liver grade I-III, group 5: liver cirrhosis, and group 6: inhomogenic liver tissue. Then ARFI-SWEI was performed and the results were compared with published shear wave velocity cut-off values that were predictive of each fibrosis stage (F0-4). A control group consisted of 20 healthy volunteers. Results The part of liver fibrosis ≥ F2 was in groups 1-4: 20-32%, group 5: 100%, and group 6: 91%. Main causes for fibrosis stage ≥ F2 were (non)-alcoholic steatohepatitis, chronic viral or autoimmune hepatitis and chronic heart failure. Conclusions Screening of the liver tissue in b-mode ultrasound can underestimate possible liver fibrosis; by using ARFI-SWEI, liver fibrosis can be uncovered early. It is a suitable preventive method comparable to colonoscopy for colon cancer.
Reconhecimento e notificação de violência pelos profissionais da estratégia de saúde da família

A violencia tem se apresentado como uma demanda marcante aos setores sanitarios. Objetivou-se verificar se os profissionais da Estrategia Saude da Familia (ESF) de um municipio de Sao Paulo encontram dificuldades quanto ao processo de reconhecimento e notificacao das ocorrencias envolvendo violencia. Trata-se de um estudo transversal e descritivo. Do total de 135 profissionais, 57 consentiram e responderam um questionario autoaplicado com questoes abertas e fechadas. Os dados foram analisados quanti-qualitativamente. 75,4% dos profissionais nao conhecem a ficha de notificacao de violencias; 60% nao se sentem responsaveis pela notificacao dos casos. O acontecimento da violencia intrafamiliar, muitas vezes, esta associado ao uso de drogas e/ou alcool e tambem da condicao socioeconomica dos individuos envolvidos. Conclui-se que a maioria dos participantes encontra-se despreparada para o reconhecimento e notificacao dessas ocorrencias. Sugere-se o aprimoramento das estrategias, de modo a capacitar os profissionais para realizar um atendimento adequado as vitimas de violencia intrafamiliar. Descritores: Violencia; Saude Publica; Epidemiologia; Politicas Publicas.
Multifrequency characteristics of disposable and nondisposable EMG needle electrodes

The physical properties of recording electrodes coupled with the input characteristics of recording amplifiers can affect motor unit parameters. In recent years, there has been increased use of disposable needle electrodes; thus, a comparison of impedance characteristics with disposable types is of interest. Impedances at 10, 100, 1000, and 10,000 Hz of eight different electrode models including concentric and monopolar, both disposable and reusable, were measured. For all models of monopolar electrodes, no significant difference in impedance was found between disposable and nondisposable types. Intramodel variability was seen, however, with a twofold difference between minimum and maximum impedances for each model. For concentric electrodes, a moderate difference in impedance was found between disposable and nondisposable types, but less intramodel variability was seen; there was also more intermodel variability. To determine whether the measured impedances could affect recorded motor unit potentials, a theoretical analysis was conducted using typical waveforms along with circuit analysis techniques. Electrode impedances as high as 50 times nominal values caused no significant waveform distortion. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Processamento de sujeitos de orações com verbos inacusativos no português brasileiro

Este estudo trata da opcionalidade de posicionamento do sujeito sintatico de verbos monoargumentais inacusativos em posicao pre-posta ou pos-posta ao verbo subcategorizador. Buscou-se examinar a hipotese de que essa opcionalidade gramatical pode divergir do ponto de vista do processamento sentencial, acarretando, no âmbito de implementacao em desempenho linguistico, uma diferenciacao das duas construcoes gramaticalmente possiveis. O exame baseou-se em um experimento psicolinguistico para o qual foi escolhida uma tarefa de grande precisao na localizacao dos eventos linguisticos que causam onus diferencial no processamento, a maze task . Os resultados trazem evidencias de que a posicao de sujeito pos-posto aos verbos inacusativos acarreta facilitacao sistematica do processamento de sentencas com verbos inacusativos para os falantes do portugues do Brasil.
Alterations of Dopamine D2 Receptors and Related Receptor-Interacting Proteins in Schizophrenia: The Pivotal Position of Dopamine Supersensitivity Psychosis in Treatment-Resistant Schizophrenia

Although the dopamine D2 receptor (DRD2) has been a main target of antipsychotic pharmacotherapy for the treatment of schizophrenia, the standard treatment does not offer sufficient relief of symptoms to 20%–30% of patients suffering from this disorder. Moreover, over 80% of patients experience relapsed psychotic episodes within five years following treatment initiation. These data strongly suggest that the continuous blockade of DRD2 by antipsychotic(s) could eventually fail to control the psychosis in some point during long-term treatment, even if such treatment has successfully provided symptomatic improvement for the first-episode psychosis, or stability for the subsequent chronic stage. Dopamine supersensitivity psychosis (DSP) is historically known as a by-product of antipsychotic treatment in the manner of tardive dyskinesia or transient rebound psychosis. Numerous data in psychopharmacological studies suggest that the up-regulation of DRD2, caused by antipsychotic(s), is likely the mechanism underlying the development of the dopamine supersensitivity state. However, regardless of evolving notions of dopamine signaling, particularly dopamine release, signal transduction, and receptor recycling, most of this research has been conducted and discussed from the standpoint of disease etiology or action mechanism of the antipsychotic, not of DSP. Hence, the mechanism of the DRD2 up-regulation or mechanism evoking clinical DSP, both of which are caused by pharmacotherapy, remains unknown. Once patients experience a DSP episode, they become increasingly difficult to treat. Light was recently shed on a new aspect of DSP as a treatment-resistant factor. Clarification of the detailed mechanism of DSP is therefore crucial, and a preventive treatment strategy for DSP or treatment-resistant schizophrenia is urgently needed.
UvA-DARE ( Digital Academic Repository ) Detection of polarization in the afterglow of GRB 990510 with the ESO Very Large Telescope

Following a BeppoSAX alert and the discovery of the OT at SAAO, we observed GRB 990510 with the FORS instrument on ESO’s VLT Unit 1 (Antu). The burst is unremarkable in gamma rays, but in optical is the first one to show good evidence for jetlike outflow. We report the detection of significant linear polarization in the afterglow: it is % 0.86 days after trigger, and after 1.81 days is consistent with that same value, but 1.6 5 0.2 much more uncertain. The polarization angle is constant on a timescale of hours and may be constant over one day. We conclude that the polarization is intrinsic to the source and due to the synchrotron nature of the emission, and discuss the random and ordered field geometries that may be responsible for it. Subject headings: gamma rays: bursts — magnetic fields — polarization — radiation mechanisms: nonthermal
Growth scenario of IT industries in India

The first time the computer significantly affected the general public in India was in 1986 with the computerization of the nation’s railway passenger reservation system. In recent years, however, the power of the Internet and e-commerce has brought IT into the everyday life of India’s general public. Indian software exports grew 57% (in Indian rupees) in 1999–2000 and 51% in dollar terms over 1998–1999, while the domestic market grew 45%. Growth in e-commerce solutions rose about 200%; the CAD/CAM market grew 41%; and banking software and enterprise resource planning (ERP) increased 70% and 23%, respectively. Several multinational companies are attracted to the Indian market because of its enormous pool of skilled professionals. Indeed, India is second only to the U.S. in producing English-speaking scientific professionals. It should be noted that in 1999–2000 more than 185 Fortune 500 companies—that is, two out of every five global giants—have outsourced some of their IT requirements to India. The number of software professionals employed here increased to 250,000 in 1998–1999, up by 25% from the preceding year. This growth includes software professionals in non-commercial organizations and other software development groups in user organizations. The software industry in India is one of the fastest growing sectors in the Indian economy. The skills in demand are in business applications, e-commerce, software engineering, Java, ERP, interactive integration services, data warehousing, Internet services, client networking, business processing resources, object-oriented programming systems, client/server, graphicaluser interfaces, Windows, project management, Phalguni Gupta ■ India has fast emerged as a leader
Enhancing Robustness in Multi-criteria Decision-Making: A Scenario-Based Approach

This paper presents a distributed system facilitating robust decision-making under uncertainty in complex situations often found in strategic emergency management. The construction of decision-relevant scenarios, each being a consistent, coherent and plausible description of a situation and its future development, is used as a rationale for collecting, organizing, filtering and processing information for decision-making. The construction of scenarios is targeted at assessing decision alternatives avoiding time-consuming processing of irrelevant information. The scenarios are constructed in a distributed setting ensuring that each decision can be founded on a coherent and consistent set of assessments and assumptions provided by the best (human or artificial) experts available within limited time. Our theoretical framework is illustrated by means of an emergency management example.
Towards a TrustZone-Assisted Hypervisor for Real-Time Embedded Systems

Virtualization technology starts becoming more and more widespread in the embedded space. The penalties incurred by standard software-based virtualization is pushing research towards hardware-assisted solutions. Among the existing commercial off-the-shelf technologies for secure virtualization, ARM TrustZone is attracting particular attention. However, it is often seen with some scepticism due to the dual-OS limitation of existing state-of-the-art solutions. This letter presents the implementation of a TrustZone-based hypervisor for real-time embedded systems, which allows multiple RTOS partitions on the same hardware platform. The results demonstrate that virtualization overhead is less than 2 percent for a 10 milliseconds guest-switching rate, and the system remains deterministic. This work goes beyond related work by implementing a TrustZone-assisted solution that allows the execution of an arbitrary number of guest OSes while providing the foundation to drive next generation of secure virtualization solutions for resource-constrained embedded devices.
Automatic Parametrization of Edge Detection Algorithms

Selecting the right parameters is a vital issue in image processing algorithms. Normally this is done after experimenting with a limited number of pictures, and then one just hopes that the parameters will work adequately with all the other images. Experimenting with the parameters, however, consumes precious human time. In this paper we present a technique that aims at finding the right parametrization of edge detection algorithms by comparing several approaches and deciding on the optimal one automatically.
Can participatory democracy produce better selves? Psychological dimensions of Habermas's discursive model of democracy

Participatory democrats hold that when individuals participate in democratic processes they are likely to become more tolerant of differences, more attuned to reciprocity, bettor able to engage in moral discourse and judgment, and more prone to examine their own preferences. These democratic dispositions in turn strengthen democratic processes. Notwithstanding the centrality of this selftransformation thesis to democratic theory, Jiirgen Habermas remains the only democratic theorist to have developed an account of transformative processes. This he does by linking democratic discourse to individual development of critical capacities for political judgment, or autonomy. Habermas's account, however, requires reconstruction, since he for the most part addresses his ideas to problems other than those of democratic theory. Such a reconstruction suggests that the self-transformation thesis needs to be qualified: political contexts may elicit, rather than overcome, psychodynamic barriers to autonomy. This and related considerations suggest that democratic transformations of the self are more likely in some kinds of democratic contexts than others.
Functional Characterization of Poplar Wood-Associated NAC Domain Transcription Factors1[C][OA]

Wood is the most abundant biomass produced by land plants. Dissection of the molecular mechanisms underlying the transcriptional regulation of wood formation is a fundamental issue in plant biology and has important implications in tree biotechnology. Although a number of transcription factors in tree species have been shown to be associated with wood formation and some of them are implicated in lignin biosynthesis, none of them have been demonstrated to be key regulators of the biosynthesis of all three major components of wood. In this report, we have identified a group of NAC domain transcription factors, PtrWNDs, that are preferentially expressed in developing wood of poplar (Populus trichocarpa). Expression of PtrWNDs in the Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) snd1 nst1 double mutant effectively complemented the secondary wall defects in fibers, indicating that PtrWNDs are capable of activating the entire secondary wall biosynthetic program. Overexpression of PtrWND2B and PtrWND6B in Arabidopsis induced the expression of secondary wall-associated transcription factors and secondary wall biosynthetic genes and, concomitantly, the ectopic deposition of cellulose, xylan, and lignin. Furthermore, PtrWND2B and PtrWND6B were able to activate the promoter activities of a number of poplar wood-associated transcription factors and wood biosynthetic genes. Together, these results demonstrate that PtrWNDs are functional orthologs of SND1 and suggest that PtrWNDs together with their downstream transcription factors form a transcriptional network involved in the regulation of wood formation in poplar.
Use of Modified Threat Reduction Assessments to Estimate Success of Conservation Measures within and Adjacent to Kruger National Park, South Africa

Abstract: The importance of biodiversity as natural capital for economic development and sustaining human welfare is well documented. Nevertheless, resource degradation rates and persistent deterioration of human welfare in developing countries is increasingly worrisome. Developing effective monitoring and evaluation schemes and measuring biodiversity loss continue to pose unique challenges, particularly when there is a paucity of historical data. Threat reduction assessment (TRA) has been proposed as a method to measure conservation success and as a proxy measurement of conservation impact, monitoring threats to resources rather than changes to biological parameters themselves. This tool is considered a quick, practical alternative to more cost‐ and time‐intensive approaches, but has inherent weaknesses. I conducted TRAs to evaluate the effectiveness of Kruger National Park (KNP) and Limpopo Province, South Africa, in mitigating threats to biodiversity from 1994 to 2004 in 4 geographical areas. I calculated TRA index values in these TRAs by using the original scoring developed by Margoluis and Salafsky (2001) and a modified scoring system that assigned negative mitigation values to incorporate new or worsening threats. Threats were standardized to allow comparisons across the sites. Modified TRA index values were significantly lower than values derived from the original scoring exercise. Five of the 11 standardized threats were present in all 4 assessment areas, 2 were restricted to KNP, 2 to Limpopo Province, and 2 only to Malamulele municipality. These results indicate, first, the need to integrate negative mitigation values into TRA scoring. By including negative values, investigators will be afforded a more accurate picture of biodiversity threats and of temporal and spatial trends across sites. Where the original TRA scoring was used to measure conservation success, reevaluation of these cases with the modified scoring is recommended. Second, practitioners must carefully consider the need and consequences of generalizing threats into generic categories for comparative assessments. Finally, continued refinement of the methodology and its extension to facilitate the transfer of successful conservation strategies is needed.