Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Association of Atrial Fibrillation and Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Background—Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is associated with recurrent atrial fibrillation (AF) after electrocardioversion. OSA is highly prevalent in patients who are male, obese, and/or hypertensive, but its prevalence in patients with AF is unknown. Methods and Results—We prospectively studied consecutive patients undergoing electrocardioversion for AF (n=151) and consecutive patients without past or current AF referred to a general cardiology practice (n=312). OSA was diagnosed with the Berlin questionnaire, which is validated to identify patients with OSA. We also assessed its accuracy compared with polysomnography in a sample of the study population. Groups were compared with the 2-tailed t, Wilcoxon, and &khgr;2 tests. Logistic regression modeled the association of AF and OSA after adjustment for relevant covariates. Patients in each group had similar age, gender, body mass index, and rates of diabetes, hypertension, and congestive heart failure. The questionnaire performed with 0.86 sensitivity, 0.89 specificity, and 0.97 positive predictive value in our sample. The proportion of patients with OSA was significantly higher in the AF group than in the general cardiology group (49% versus 32%, P=0.0004). The adjusted odds ratio for the association between AF and OSA was 2.19 (95% CI 1.40 to 3.42, P=0.0006). Conclusions—The novel finding of this study is that a strong association exists between OSA and AF, such that OSA is strikingly more prevalent in patients with AF than in high-risk patients with multiple other cardiovascular diseases. The coinciding epidemics of obesity and AF underscore the clinical importance of these results.
An evaluation of a novel instrument for measuring macular pigment optical density: the MPS 9000

Purpose: Of the antioxidants found in the human retina, only the macular carotenoid quantities can be estimated noninvasively (albeit in a collective fashion), thus facilitating study of their role in that tissue. The aim of this study was to evaluate concordance between macular pigment optical density (MPOD) values recorded on a commercially available instrument, the MPS 9000, with those of an already validated heterochromatic flicker photometry instrument. Also, we assessed and compared test–retest variability for each instrument.
The Antitumor and Antiangiogenic Activity of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Receptor Inhibition Is Potentiated by ErbB1 Blockade

Purpose: Receptor tyrosine kinases of the ErbB family play important roles in the control of tumor growth. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) stimulates endothelial cell proliferation, enhances vascular permeability, and plays an important role in tumor vascularization. We evaluated the effects of selective VEGF receptor (VEGFR; PTK787/ZK222584) and ErbB (PKI166 and ZD1839) inhibitors on tumor growth and angiogenesis and asked whether additional therapeutic benefit was conferred by combination treatment. Experimental Design: The antitumor activity of each inhibitor alone or in combination was assessed in human cancer models in immunocompromised mice. ErbB receptor expression and activation of downstream signaling pathway was evaluated in both tumor and endothelial cells. Results: Both ErbB inhibitors significantly enhanced the antitumor activity of PTK787/ZK222584. In vitro, ErbB1 inhibition blocked VEGF release by tumor cells and proliferation of both tumor and endothelial cells. In an in vitro angiogenesis assay, epidermal growth factor (EGF) stimulated the release of VEGF by smooth muscle cells resulting in increased angiogenesis, a response blocked by administration of PTK787/ZK222584. Under basal condition, both ZD1839 and PTK787/ZK222584 blocked sprouting, likely via inhibition of an autocrine ErbB1 loop and VEGFR signaling, respectively, in endothelial cells. In conditions of limiting VEGF, EGF plays an important role in endothelial cell proliferation, survival, and sprouting. Conclusion: We have shown that activation of ErbB1 triggers a plethora of effects, including direct effects on tumor and endothelial cells and indirect effects mediated via induction of VEGF release. Simultaneous blockade of ErbB1 and VEGFR pathways results in a cooperative antitumor effect, indicating that this combination may represent a valid therapeutic strategy.
Diagnostic performance of QT interval variables from 24-h electrocardiography in the long QT syndrome.

AIMS The long QT syndrome is mainly defined by QT interval prolongation (QTc > 0.44s). However, data obtained in genotyped patients showed that resting QTc measurement alone may be inaccurate for ascertaining the phenotype. The aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic performance of QT interval rate-dependence in untreated chromosome 11-linked patients. METHODS The study population consisted of 25 untreated long QT patients linked to chromosome 11 and 25 age- and gender-matched controls. QTc intervals were measured on 12-lead resting ECG recordings. From 24-h Holter recordings, the slope of the relationship between ventricular repolarization and heart rate was studied separately day and night to assess neural modulation. Mean heart rates and rate-dependences of QT and Q-maximum of T (QTm) intervals were compared between long QT patients and controls for both time periods. RESULTS In both groups, the rate-dependences were modulated by day-night influences. When compared to controls, long QT patients showed a significant increase at night in QT/RR slopes (0.158 +/- 0.05 vs 0.117 +/- 0.03, P = 0.002) and QTm/RR slopes (0.163 +/- 0.05 vs 0.116 +/- 0.04, P = 0.0006). Multivariate analysis, adjusting QTc interval on age and gender, discriminated between long QT patients and controls with a 76% sensitivity and a 84% specificity. A 96% sensitivity and a 96% specificity were reached by taking into account the QTm/RR slope at night, the QTc interval and the mean heart rate during the day. CONCLUSION QT interval variables obtained from 24-h ECG recordings improve long QT syndrome diagnosis by showing an increased nocturnal ventricular repolarization rate-dependence in genotyped chromosome 11-linked patients.
Towards dynamic information modelling in architectural design

Product modelling has received a lot of attention in the last decade and is now growing into a successful means to support design and production processes, also in the area of building and construction. Collaboration through data exchange and model integration are coming within reach for all participants in the building process. However, it is difficult to apply the current approaches in product modelling to architectural design. One of the major issues is the necessity for a design model to be conceptually adaptable as design proceeds and more information is becoming available or design decisions are reversed. It is also recognised that no assumptions should be made about design methods and that design information models must support various methods. Furthermore, concepts such as space and user activity play an important role in early design stages and must be supported by modelling tools. The success of computer support for architectural design therefore depends on how well it supports a dynamic handling of design information, as well as if it can handle information regarding non-technical issues. The paper describes and discusses three long-term, independent research projects that are being carried out in three European universities. The three projects all address the issues mentioned above. While their initiatives were independent and the developments are not formally related, they show strong similarities in terms of objectives, conceptual approach, and methodology.
Characters in Brief: Cartwright’s TWO

TWO is a play written by Jim Cartwright an English dramatist. Cartwright designs TWO such that two actors can play all the characters. This paper is an analytical study which draws inferences based largely on descriptions of the setting and of the characters, and on the dialogues and monologues by the playwright in TWO.TWO like dramas do, holds up a mirror to life such that as citizens of life we cannot miss our self-semblances in the images that Cartwright so poignantly evokes. The paper concludes that Cartwright’s TWO is predominated by the theme of love and appears primarily, to be a commentary on the relevance of age, obesity, infidelity, incompatibility, denunciation, abuse and death in consensual, as well as romantic relationships. Keywords : Cartwright, TWO, love, analytical, setting, dialogues, monologues
The Role of Macrophages in Acute and Chronic Wound Healing and Interventions to Promote Pro-wound Healing Phenotypes

Macrophages play key roles in all phases of adult wound healing, which are inflammation, proliferation, and remodeling. As wounds heal, the local macrophage population transitions from predominantly pro-inflammatory (M1-like phenotypes) to anti-inflammatory (M2-like phenotypes). Non-healing chronic wounds, such as pressure, arterial, venous, and diabetic ulcers indefinitely remain in inflammation—the first stage of wound healing. Thus, local macrophages retain pro-inflammatory characteristics. This review discusses the physiology of monocytes and macrophages in acute wound healing and the different phenotypes described in the literature for both in vitro and in vivo models. We also discuss aberrations that occur in macrophage populations in chronic wounds, and attempts to restore macrophage function by therapeutic approaches. These include endogenous M1 attenuation, exogenous M2 supplementation and endogenous macrophage modulation/M2 promotion via mesenchymal stem cells, growth factors, biomaterials, heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) expression, and oxygen therapy. We recognize the challenges and controversies that exist in this field, such as standardization of macrophage phenotype nomenclature, definition of their distinct roles and understanding which phenotype is optimal in order to promote healing in chronic wounds.
Generative models of part-structured 3D objects

We introduce two generative models of part-segmented 3D objects: the shape variational auto-encoder (ShapeVAE) and the shape factor analyzer (ShapeFA). These models describe a distribution over the co-existence of object parts, as well as over the continuous variability of the object surface, leveraging the part structure of 3D objects in their architecture. We demonstrate that while the ShapeFA slightly outperforms the ShapeVAE in terms of density estimation, the ShapeVAE produces better quality samples and is effective at completing partially obscured shapes.
Time as non-functional requirement in distributed control systems

When designing a distributed control system consisting of heterogeneous components whose properties are usually not well known, it is difficult or even impossible to use an analytical approach to verify the fulfillment of all requirements. In this contribution, it is shown (at the example of different implementation scenarios for a typical control function) that detailed knowledge about the communication system is required to reliably assess and compare different designs of distributed systems with regard to a real-time characteristic. However, automation engineers typically can neither be expected to have such detailed knowledge about the internal details of computing and communication, nor do they have the time to study different design alternatives in detail. This motivates further work of the authors towards better engineering support for the design of distributed automation systems, by providing helpful advice regarding design decisions.
Benign pulmonary metastasizing leiomyoma of the uterus: A case report

Pulmonary benign metastasizing leiomyoma (BML), is characterized by multiple pulmonary nodular lesions and is a rare disease. The present study reports the case of a 45-year-old asymptomatic woman who underwent an excision of uterine leiomyoma 11 years previously. Chest computed tomography (CT) revealed multiple bilateral pulmonary nodules five months prior to admission, during a regular check-up. Intravenous levofloxacin (0.5 g/day) was administered for one week, which demonstrated no effect. Positron emission tomography combined with CT (PET/CT) revealed no evident radioactivity concentration. Due to the suspicion of metastasizing leiomyoma, video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery, with a wedge resection of the right pulmonary lesion, was performed. Post-operative pathological examination revealed the lesion to be a pulmonary leiomyoma accompanied by local necrosis. Immunohistochemical staining revealed that the lesion was positive for the expression of smooth muscle actin, desmin, estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor and B-cell lymphoma-2. Cytokeratin and epithelial membrane antigen were not expressed in the tumor cells. Staining for Ki-67 revealed expression of Ki-67 in ~1% of the spindle cells. The overall morphological and immunohistochemical features, accompanied by the remote patient history of primary uterine leiomyoma, supported the diagnosis of pulmonary BML.
ConfRes: interactive coding conflict resolver based on core visualisation

The tool presented supports manual resolution of coding conflicts in asynchronous circuit specification given as signal transition graphs (STGs) and displays them as partial orders (finite and complete prefixes of STG unfoldings). The manual approach although efficient requires a significant effort from the designer. The tool ConfRes assists the designer by visualising the conflict cores, their superposition and the constraints on signal insertion.
Non-Interactive Quantum Statistical and Perfect Zero-Knowledge

This paper introduces quantum analogues of non-interactive perfect and statistical zero-knowledge proof systems. Similar to the classical cases, it is shown that sharing randomness or entanglement is necessary for non-trivial protocols of non-interactive quantum perfect and statistical zero-knowledge. It is also shown that, with sharing EPR pairs a priori, the class of languages having one-sided bounded error non-interactive quantum perfect zero-knowledge proof systems has a natural complete problem. Non-triviality of such a proof system is based on the fact proved in this paper that the Graph Non-Automorphism problem, which is not known in BQP, can be reduced to our complete problem. Our results may be the first non-trivial quantum zero-knowledge proofs secure even against dishonest quantum verifiers, since our protocols are non-interactive, and thus the zero-knowledge property does not depend on whether the verifier in the protocol is honest or not. A restricted version of our complete problem derives a natural complete problem for BQP.
Optical CDMA via temporal codes

The authors provide an analysis of the performance of optical orthogonal codes in an optical code division multiple access (CDMA) network by considering the probability distribution of the interference patterns. It is shown that the actual performance is close to a previous estimate. A less structured temporal code in which the code words are allowed to overlap at two pulse positions is also considered. The bit error probability for this class of codes is obtained for two cases: with and without optical hard-limiting at the receivers. It is shown that this code may increase the number of users in the network considerably without a significant loss in the performance. >
On Authentication System Based on 802.1X Protocol in LAN

Abstract-Network security plays an important part in LAN system. The 802.1X protocol provides a port-based network access control to the LAN. In this paper, three cases of user name attacks against the 802.1X are given firstly. Then, the design flaws of 802.1X system are analyzed. At last, an improved authentication process is presented and how to prevent the user name attacks is discussed.
Sequence analyses of G-protein-coupled receptors: similarities to rhodopsin.

G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) 1 constitute a large superfamily of receptor proteins responsible for signal transduction (see http://www.gpcr.org/7tm). Throughout all higher organisms, these receptors mediate recognition of environmental stimuli like light, odor, and taste, but also hormonal and other types of communications across plasma membranes (1). They are also important targets for pharmacological intervention via activating or blocking their action (2). Three families of GPCRs were identified, with family A being by far the largest (reviewed in refs 3-5). Its members are more closely related to each other within a few functional domains than those of the other families. In addition, numerous diseases have been linked to specific mutations within the genes encoding GPCRs, also making these receptors targets for specific therapeutic interventions including gene transfer (6-9).
Risk profile of coronary heart disease among the staff members of Qassim University, Saudi Arabia

Objective: To estimate the risk profile of coronary heart disease (CHD) among the staff members of Qassim University and assess their knowledge in a screening campaign in Qassim region, Saudi Arabia. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among male and female staff at Qassim University campus. All employees of Qassim University were invited to participate in the study. Data were collected through a self-administered questionnaire. The study sample size was 233 staff and employees. The data were entered and analyzed using SPSS version 18. The data analysis focused on providing point estimates for the risk factors. Results: The study found that 30% of participants have one or more risk factors for CHD, namely obesity 20.6%, diabetes 10.3%, hypertension 12.4%, dyslipidemia 10.7%, and smokers (11.6%). About 54% of the participants have a family history of at least one chronic disease as a risk factor for CHD. Conclusion: The most common risk factor of CHD among the staff members is obesity by 20.6%. Risk factors for CHD are quite common among Qassim University staff. These findings need to increase the health education and disease promotion program as an important intervention to reduce the occurrence and severity of CHD risk factors and to improve the quality of the life of the staff members of Qassim University.
Diffusion algebras

We deﬁne the notion of ”diﬀusion algebras”. They are quadratic Poincar´e-Birkhoﬀ-Witt (PBW) algebras which are useful in order to ﬁnd exact expressions for the probability distributions of stationary states appearing in one-dimensional stochastic processes with exclusion. One considers processes in which one has N species, the number of particles of each species being conserved. All diﬀusion algebras are obtained. The known examples already used in applications are special cases in our classiﬁcation. To help the reader interested in physical problems, the cases N = 3 and 4 are listed separately.
The implementation and evaluation of dynamic code decompression using DISE

Code compression coupled with dynamic decompression is an important technique for both embedded and general-purpose microprocessors. Postfetch decompression, in which decompression is performed after the compressed instructions have been fetched, allows the instruction cache to store compressed code but requires a highly efficient decompression implementation. We propose implementing postfetch decompression using a new hardware facility called dynamic instruction stream editing (DISE). DISE provides a programmable decoder---similar in structure to those in many IA-32 processors---that is used to add functionality to an application by injecting custom code snippets into its fetched instruction stream. We present a DISE-based implementation of postfetch decompression and show that it naturally supports customized program-specific decompression dictionaries, enables parameterized decompression allowing similar-but-not-identical instruction sequences to share dictionary entries, and uses no decompression-specific hardware. We present extensive experimental results showing the virtue of this approach and evaluating the factors that impact its efficacy. We also present implementation-neutral results that give insight into the characteristics of any postfetch decompression technique. Our experiments not only demonstrate significant reduction in code size (up to 35&percent;) but also significant improvements in performance (up to 20&percent;) and energy (up to 10&percent;).
Image Steganalysis Based on Statistical Moments of Wavelet Subband Histogram of Images with Least Significant Bit planes

This paper proposed a new image Steganalysis scheme based on statistical moments of histogram of multi-level wavelet subbands in frequency domain. These wavelet subbands derived from an image that has some of least significant bits of the grey level test image and some of its most significant bit planes are removed. Then we decompose the image using three-level Haar discrete wavelet transform (DWT) into 13 subbands (here the image itself is considered as the LL0 subband). The Fourier transform of each subband histogram, is calculated. The first three statistical moments of each subband histogram are selected to form a 39-dimensional feature vector for Steganalysis. Support Vector Machines (SVM) classifier is then used to discriminate between stego-images and innocent images. We experiment our proposed scheme on LSB, Cox and QIM data hiding method. Experimental results show that the proposed method improves the detection rate especially for LSB steganography.
Pencils of geodesics in symmetric spaces, Karpelevich boundary, and associahedron-like polyhedra

There are several ways of a construction of a boundary of a symmetric space using pencils of geodesics: the Karpelevich boundary, the visibility boundary, the associahedral boundary, and the sea urchin. We give explicit descriptions of these boundaries. We obtain some moduli space like polyhedra as sections of these compactifications by Cartan subspaces. For simplicity, we consider only the space $GL_n/O_n$ of ellipsoids in $R^n$.
THE IMPLEMENTATION OF A NATURAL ADMITTANCE CONTROLLER ON AN INDUSTRIAL ROBOT By NIRUT NAKSUK

By NIRUT NASKUK This thesis describes the implementation of active compliant motion control on an industrial robot. The robot included an open architecture industrial controller, which was originally designed for position control. The software architecture for implementing active compliance within this system is presented. The estimation of important parameters such as the torque/voltage ratio, friction and inertia of the robot also presented. To quantitatively measure the performance of the resulting system, the admittance of the robot was measured. This measurement shows that the robot with active compliance behaves as a passive physical equivalent system, thus guaranteeing stability in contact with arbitrary passive environments.
Kinetic theory viscosity

We show how the viscous evolution of Keplerian accretion discs can be understood in terms of simple kinetic theory. Although standard physics texts give a simple derivation of momentum transfer in a linear shear flow using kinetic theory, many authors, as detailed by Hayashi & Matsuda, have had difficulties applying the same considerations to a circular shear flow. We show here how this may be done, and note that the essential ingredients are to take proper account of, first, isotropy locally in the frame of the fluid and, secondly, the geometry of the mean flow.