Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Predictors of decreased spontaneous baroreflex sensitivity in obstructive sleep apnea syndrome.

BACKGROUND The impact of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) on the arterial baroreflex, and its significance, is still under debate. We investigated the baroreflex sensitivity (BRS) during sleep in well-selected OSAS patient and control subject cohorts METHODS We performed a prospective study of 10 non-OSAS subjects, 14 subjects with mild-to-moderate OSAS, and 14 male subjects with severe OSAS subjects. Groups were matched for age, body mass index, and other relevant variables. Subjects had no other disease and were not receiving regular medication. BP was monitored beat-by-beat (Portapres; Finapres Medical Systems; Amsterdam, the Netherlands) at night during polysomnography. Spontaneous BRS was assessed by the sequence technique. Heart-rate correction was also applied to calculate BRS at a heart rate (HR) of 60 beats/min (BRS-60) to account for intersubject variability in baseline HR. Eight suitable patients were treated with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), and BRS measurements were repeated 6 weeks later. RESULTS BRS and BRS-60 were significantly lower in patients with severe OSAS than in patients with mild-to-moderate OSAS and in non-OSAS subjects, and a separate sleep-stage analysis revealed this difference to be evident in stage 2 non-rapid eye movement sleep and during nocturnal wakefulness. There was no difference in BRS and BRS-60 between non-OSAS subjects and patients with mild-to-moderate OSAS. In multivariate analysis, the desaturation index was the only independent predictor of depressed BRS. CPAP therapy significantly improved the BRS measures. CONCLUSION Patients with severe OSAS demonstrate depressed BRS during sleep, which may contribute to the cardiovascular pathophysiology in OSAS patients.
PENGARUH FAKTOR PEKERJAAN TERHADAP PRESENTEEISM (INFLUENCE OF JOB FACTORS TOWARDS PRESENTEEISM)

Presenteeism is a phenomenon described as when a worker comes to work while being sick. Presenteeism has become an issue in organizations because of its consequences on organizational productivity and workers’ well-being. The purpose of this study is to investigate the association between job factors and presenteeism. In this study, the works factors that were examined were job control, job demand, social support and job insecurity. Based on a cross sectional design, the study consisted of 663 public service officers from six department/ministries located in Putrajaya. The data were gathered from a set of questionnaires namely Job Content Questionnaire, Job Insecurity Scale and Stanford Presenteeism Scale. The results demonstrated job control, social support and job insecurity contribute significantly towards presenteeism. Findings of this study provide an insight on the relationship between job factors and presenteeism in the context of public service in Malaysia.
Administration of pigment epithelium-derived factor (PEDF) reduces proteinuria by suppressing decreased nephrin and increased VEGF expression in the glomeruli of adriamycin-injected rats.

BACKGROUND Pigment epithelium-derived factor (PEDF) is a glycoprotein with potent neuronal differentiating activity. We, along with others, have recently found that PEDF inhibits retinal hyperpermeability by counteracting the biological effects of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). However, the protective role of PEDF against nephrotic syndrome (NS), a condition of hyperpermeability in the glomerular capillaries, remains to be elucidated. In this study, we investigated whether and how PEDF reduced proteinuria in rats with adriamycin (ADR)-induced nephropathy (ADN), an experimental model of NS. METHODS ADN was induced by a single intravenous injection of doxorubicin hydrochloride (n = 12). Half the ADN rats were intravenously administrated human recombinant PEDF; the other half were given vehicle everyday for up to 14 days. Control rats (n = 6) received vehicle only. RESULTS In ADN, expression levels of PEDF in isolated glomeruli were significantly decreased, which were associated with a marked proteinuria and increased urinary excretion of nephrin, an index of podocyte damage. Loss of nephrin and decreased podocyte cell number and fusion of foot processes of podocytes with nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-kappaB) activation and VEGF overexpression were also observed in the glomeruli of rats with ADN. Intravenous administration of PEDF ameliorated all of these changes in ADN rats. CONCLUSION The present findings suggest that PEDF could reduce proteinuria by suppressing podocyte damage and decreased nephrin as well as increased VEGF expression in the glomeruli of ADN rats. Pharmacological up-regulation or substitution of PEDF may offer a promising therapeutic strategy for the treatment of nephrotic syndrome.
Impaired conscious and preserved unconscious inhibitory processing in recent onset schizophrenia

Background Impairments in inhibitory function have been found in studies of cognition in schizophrenia. These have been linked to a failure to adequately maintain the task demands in working memory. As response inhibition is known to occur in both voluntary and involuntary processes, an important question is whether both aspects of response inhibition are specifically impaired in people with schizophrenia. Method The subjects were 33 patients presenting with a first episode of psychosis (27 with schizophrenia and six with schizo-affective disorder) and 24 healthy controls. We administered two motor response tasks: voluntary response inhibition was indexed by the stop-signal task and involuntary response inhibition by the masked priming task. We also administered neuropsychological measures of IQ and executive function to explore their associations with response inhibition. Results Patients with schizophrenia compared to healthy controls showed significantly increased duration of the voluntary response inhibition process, as indexed by the stop-signal reaction time (SSRT). By contrast, there were no group differences on the pattern of priming on the masked priming task, indicative of intact involuntary response inhibition. Neuropsychological measures revealed that voluntary response inhibition is not necessarily dependent on working memory. Conclusions These data provide evidence for a specific impairment of voluntary response inhibition in schizophrenia.
ECHoP2P: Emergency call handling over peer-to-peer overlays

The impact of the peer-to-peer paradigm increases both in research and in industry. Still, serious applications for P2F'-based systems are rare. On the other hand, emergency call handling (ECU) is (or will be) a mandatory function for VoIP services. In this paper we investigate international legal and technical requirements of ECU and present ECHoPIP, a solution that fulfills these requirements. Based on Globase.KOM and HiPNOS.KOM, ECHoP2P provides the functionality to determine the closest and (geographically) responsible emergency station to a calling peer. Further, emergency calls are processed with highest priority in the overlay, so that quality of service guarantees are given. We evaluated ECHoPIP thoroughly and present the quality and costs analysis, identified tradeoffs and effects of optimization parameters. ECHoPIP provides a fully evaluated solution for emergency call handling and for further location-aware applications.
CT image reconstruction from partial angular measurements via compressed sensing

Computed Tomograhpy (CT) is a technology that takes projection data along a trajectory and reconstructs an image of the objects. But it exposes patients to significant radiation. Therefore, lower radiation dose has been constantly pursued. The amount of radiation dose is a function of the number of projections. However, in traditional reconstruction algorithms, for example, filtered back projection (FBP) method, the number of projections must satisfy the Shannon/Nyquist sampling theorem so as to avoid streaking artifacts. In this paper, we apply compressed sensing for CT reconstruction. The algorithm minimizes the ℓ1 of the wavelet transform coefficient and total variation of the image. It employs FBP to calculate the intermediate results of derivative of the object function in each compressed sensing iteration. Our simulation experiments show that this method can reconstruct CT images from substantially fewer number of projections than the requirement of Shannon/Nyquist limit. Hence the associated radiation dose can be reduced without noticeable aliasing artifacts and streaking artifacts.
Experimental discovery of the spin-Hall effect in Rashba spin-orbit coupled semiconductor systems

We report the experimental observation of the spin-Hall effect in a two-dimensional (2D) hole system with Rashba spin-orbit coupling. The 2D hole layer is a part of a p-n junction light-emitting diode with a specially designed vertical and planar geometry which allows an angle-resolved polarization detection at opposite edges of the 2D hole system. In equilibrium the angular momenta of the Rashba split heavy hole states lie in the plane of the 2D layer. When an electric field is applied across the hole channel a non zero out-of-plane component of the angular momentum is detected whose sign depends on the sign of the electric field and is opposite for the two edges. Microscopic quantum transport calculations show that the disorder scattering is weak compared to the Rashba coupling in the studied 2D hole system, favoring the intrinsic spin Hall mechanism.
A Review on Warping of Picture and Keywords by Using Different Techniques

In this paper, the new word art system is proposed, in which inputs are picture and the keywords which introduce some information about the input picture, and the output of this system is combination of input picture and input keywords. In traditional days this text-graphic were created by highly skilled artists and this was involving large amount of manual work, so this system is different from this traditional work. The proposed system is Automatic Image Warping System. It is type of automatic non-photorealistic rendering (NPR) packing system. In this method input picture is divided into two parts, one is main part and another is background part. The main part is useful part and background part is not useful part. The keyword will be packed in main part and background part will be ignored. Then the main part will be segmented into number of patches, each patch will work as container for one keyword. The more important keywords are put into large image patches for this we rank keywords as well as patches. Then keywords and patches warping are done with the help of mean value coordinates method. Lastly, the post processing techniques are used to improve effectiveness of picture.
Dünya oyunun gücünde uzlaştı şimdi bu gücü çocukların yararına kullanma zamanı: Hadi Türkiye...

The questions like how children learn easily, and how they can achieve a healthier growth and development bring us to the idea of “play”. If a child plays, this shows that he/she is healthy and can learn things. In fact, it is a cycle, the more children play, the healthier the child becomes and the more their learning experiences become richer. The power of the play comes from the contributions that it provides for a child’s holistic development. In the process of playing a game, Children gain valuable life skills, such as; social skills, research skills, problem solving skills, thinking skills, communication skills, and self-sufficiency and management skills. The educational reforms that many world countries are now working on essentially makes an effort to provide children with the opportunity to learn at their own pace, to use their capacities at the highest level with appropriate methods. "Play" is the most prominent of these efforts or, in other words, scientifically proven opportunities in the absolute solution of the problems in the field of education. This article is compiled to share the results of play-based school and educational programs in different countries. In our country, while emphasizing the pedagogical value of the play at every occasion, it was aimed to draw attention to concrete studies in the field of application.
The narratives of adult third culture kids : cultural identity development and psychological support upon reentry to one's home country

This study explored the experiences of adults who grew up outside their parents’ home country as minor dependents, as known as Third Culture Kids (TCKs), and how their experiences abroad as well as their reentry experience back home shaped their cultural identity development and their psychological health. The research used semi-structured interview questions and interviewed 12 adult TCKs who were of age 30 and over and lived in the US at the time when the study was conducted. One of the incentives for this study was to inform mental health providers to gain a deeper understanding of adult TCKs experiences. The overall results showed that adult TCKs experiences as a child affects ones life even after several decades upon return to one’s home country from their initial experience as TCKs. The research results suggested that it would be ideal for the clinicians to be adult TCKs or if not be informed of the common challenges and the process of grief and loss that TCKs typically experience during transitions. Also, the study showed the value and importance of having access to a community full of people who share similar experiences, not just upon return but also as an on-going support system. Suggestions for future research includes expanding the population to adult TCKs who live in other countries outside of the US, changing the age range to 21 and older, including those who may not be associated to higher education or international education field, and interviewing a larger sample of population. THE NARRATIVES OF ADULT THIRD CULTURE KIDS: CULTURAL IDENTITY DEVELOPMENTAND PSYCHOLOGICAL SUPPORT UPON RE-ENTRY TO ONE’S HOME COUNTRY A project based upon an independent investigation, submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Social Work. Yoko Hisano Smith College School for Social Work Northampton, Massachusetts 01063 2015
Potential implications of Apolipoprotein E in early brain injury after experimental subarachnoid hemorrhage: Involvement in the modulation of blood-brain barrier integrity

Apolipoprotein E (Apoe) genetic polymorphisms have been implicated in the long term outcome of subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH), but little is known about the effect of Apoe on the early brain injury (EBI) after SAH. This study investigated the potential role of APOE in EBI post-SAH. Multiple techniques were used to determine the early BBB disruption in EBI post-SAH in a murine model using wild-type (WT) and Apoe−/− (KO) mice. Progressive BBB disruption (Evans blue extravasation and T2 hyperintensity in magnetic resonance imaging) was observed before the peak of endogenous APOE expression elevation at 48h after SAH. Moreover, Apoe−/− mice exhibited more severe BBB disruption charcteristics after SAH than WT mice, including higher levels of Evans blue and IgG extravasation, T2 hyperintensity in magnetic resonance imaging, tight junction proteins degradation and endothelial cells death. Mechanistically, we found that APOE restores the BBB integrity in the acute stage after SAH via the cyclophilin A (CypA)-NF-κB-proinflammatory cytokines-MMP-9 signalling pathway. Consequently, although early BBB disruption causes neurological dysfunctions after SAH, we capture a different aspect of the effects of APOE on EBI after SAH that previous studies had overlooked and open up the idea of BBB disruption as a target of APOE-based therapy for EBI amelioration research in the future.
An Ontology of Structural Equation Models with Application to Computer Self-Efficacy

Structural equation models are widely used in IS research as they can accommodate both latent and manifest variables. Recent discussion has focused on the relationships between these latent and manifest variables in structural equation models. Despite repeated attempts to clarify the relationships and provide guidelines on their interpretation, there remains much confusion, as evidenced by the ongoing debate about the use of formative measures or formative items. In this paper, we address the topic from a fresh perspective, by establishing a clear separation of theoretical and statistical models, and by introducing the notions of system inputs and outputs. The paper explores the consequences of these principles for the relationships between latent and manifest variables using the computer self-efficacy (CSE) construct as an illustrative example. The novel ideas in modeling allow a fresh perspective on the CSE construct and a resolution of the ongoing debate about the nature of the construct.
Image Classification Using Sum-Product Networks for Autonomous Flight of Micro Aerial Vehicles

Flying autonomous micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) in indoor environments is still a challenging task, as MAVs are not capable of carrying heavy sensors as Lidar or RGD-B, and GPS signals are not reliable indoors. We investigate a strategy where image classification is used to guide a MAV, one of the main requirements then is to have a classifier that can produce results quickly during operation. The goal here is to explore the performance of Sum-Product Networks and Arithmetic Circuits as image classifiers, because these formalisms lead to deep probabilistic models that are tractable during operation. We have trained and tested our classifiers using the Libra toolkit and real images. We describe our approach and report the result of our experiments in the paper.
INTEGRAL and XMM-Newton observations of GRB 040106

On January 6th 2004, the IBAS burst alert system triggered the 8th gamma-ray burst (GRB) to be located by the INTEGRAL satellite. The position was determined and publicly distributed within 12 s, prompting ESA's XMM-Newton to execute a ToO observation just 5 h later, during which an X-ray afterglow was detected. The GRB had a duration ∼52 s with two distinct pulses separated by ∼42 s. Here we present the results of imaging and spectral analyses of the prompt emission from INTEGRAL data and the X-ray afterglow from XMM-Newton data. The γ-ray spectrum is consistent with a single power-law of photon index −1.72 ± 0.15. The fluence (20-200 keV) was 8.2 × 10 −7 erg cm −2 . The X-ray afterglow (Fν(t) ∝ ν −βX t −δ )w as extremely hard with βX = 0.47 ± 0.01 and δ = 1.46 ± 0.04. The 2-10 keV flux 11 h after the burst was 1.1 × 10 −12 erg cm −2 s −1 . The time profile of the GRB is consistent with the observed trends from previous analysis of BATSE GRBs. We find that the X-ray data are not well-fit by either a simple spherical fireball or by a speading jet, expanding into a homogeneous medium or a wind environment. Based on previously determined correlations between GRB spectra and redshift, we estimate a redshift of ∼0.9 +0.5 −0.4 (1σ) and a lower limit on the isotropic radiated energy of ∼5 × 10 51 erg in this burst.
A Novel Congestion Avoidance Technique for Simultaneous Real-Time Medical Data Transmission

The use of wireless body sensor networks (WBSN) in medical services aims at providing continuous monitoring of patients' physiological data. However, the scarce resources in WBSN nodes limit their capabilities to cope with massive traffic during multiple, simultaneous data transmissions. This will create a high tendency for congestion, causing severe performance degradation. Congestion may lead to high number of packet loss and unbounded delay which are critical and may lead to wrong diagnosis. This paper, therefore, aims at improving this limitation using a novel congestion avoidance technique to avoid losing real-time and life-critical medical data (e.g., electrocardiogram and electroencephalography) which are vital for diagnosis. The main idea is to integrate the existing rate control scheme of relaxation theory (RT) with a method known as max-min fairness (MMF) to achieve better performance. The MMF can be accomplished using a progressive filling algorithm, which cuts-down excessive sending rates that may overwhelme the limited buffer in WBSN. This paper builds upon our prior study, which provides a preliminary analysis of RT technique in single node. Our current technique integrates the MMF phase to enhance RT performance when the transmission rates exceed certain threshold. Performance evaluation on RT-MMF technique shows remarkable performance improvements, while maintaining the desired quality of service.
Combinators Introduction : n Algorithm A

The accurate use of combinatory logic and combinators in natural language processing needs a strategy for the removal of combinators, but also for their introduction. The tour of scientific literature teaches us how to reduce combinators and construct from a combinatory expression a normal form without combinators, however no strategy has been proposed to automate the introduction of combinators and construct from one normal form one combinatory expression. We show in our paper that such a strategy is possible. An algorithm is also described.
Multi-image super-resolution using a locally adaptive denoising-based refinement

Spatial resolution enhancement is of particular interest in many applications such as entertainment, surveillance, or automotive systems. Besides using a more expensive, higher resolution sensor, it is also possible to apply super-resolution techniques on the low resolution content. Super-resolution methods can be basically classified into single-image and multi-image super-resolution. In this paper, we propose the integration of a novel locally adaptive de noising-based refinement step as an intermediate processing step in a multi-image super-resolution framework. The idea is to be capable of removing reconstruction artifacts while preserving the details in areas of interest such as text. Simulation results show an average gain in luminance PSNR of up to 0.2 dB and 0.3 dB for an up scaling of 2 and 4, respectively. The objective results are substantiated by the visual impression.
Malignant Schwannoma of Anterior Abdominal Wall: Report of a Case

Malignant schwannoma of the anterior abdominal wall nerves is extremely rare. Malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors (MPNST) represent approximately 10% of all soft tissue sarcomas and it is found in 4% of patients with neurofibromatosis 1. We present a case of malignant schwannoma in a 28-year-old female patient with neurofibromatosis 1. She presented with a painful mass in the right upper quadrant of her abdomen. The tumor location was in the abdominal wall in explorative laparatomy and malignant schwannoma was diagnosed in pathologic assessment. The tumor recurred in 3 months and computed tomography showed two masses in the right side of abdominopelvic cavity. Thereafter, second complete surgical resection was performed and pathologic finding was the same. In spite of administering chemotherapy after second surgery,the tumor recurred and magnetic resonance imaging finding showed a huge heterogeneously enhancing mass with adhesion to the inner side of the abdominal wall. The patient died because of acute respiratory failure due to multiple bilateral pulmonary metastases. Tumor location and rapid recurrence was unique in our patient. Keywords Malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor; Malignant schwannoma; Abdominal wall