Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
GEOUJA System. University of Jaén at GeoCLEF 2007

This paper describes the second participation of the SINAI group of the University of Jaen in GeoCLEF 2007. We have developed a system different from the one presented in GeoCLEF 2006. Our architecture is made up of five main modules. The first one is the Information Retrieval Subsystem, that works with collections and queries in English and returns relevant documents for a query. The queries that are not in English are translated by the Translation Subsystem. All the queries are filtered by the Geo-Relation Finder Subsystem, that finds any spatial relation in the topic, and NER (Named Entities Recognition) Subsystem, that looks for any location in the topic. The most important module is the Geo-Relation Validator Subsystem, it applies some heuristics to filter documents recovered by the IR Subsystem. We have made several runs, combining these modules to resolve the monolingual and the bilingual tasks. The results obtained show that the heuristics applied are quite restrictive and therefore it must be generated new heuristics and to improve the definition of new rules to filter recovered documents.
Is the Prophylactic Antidepressant Efficacy of Lithium in Bipolar I Disorder Dependent on Study Design and Lithium Level?

Abstract: In the 1970s, several randomized controlled trials demonstrated significant antimanic and antidepressant properties of lithium in the prophylactic treatment of bipolar disorder. However, a recent meta-analysis of randomized, placebo-controlled trials of lithium in bipolar disorder found that its protective effect against depressive relapse/recurrence was equivocal. By examining potentially relevant parameters of recent randomized controlled trials with regard to lithium's prophylactic antidepressant efficacy, we try to identify factors which might help to explain these discrepant results across the different trials. Lithium's efficacy against manic relapse/recurrence appears rather robust at plasma levels between 0.8 and 1.2 mmol/L, whereas lithium's efficacy against depressive relapse/recurrence may be more modest and dependent on whether a response during the preceding acute episode was achieved by lithium treatment. Furthermore, it might be advisable to continue lithium without interruption at the same dose/plasma level, which yielded the initial response. A lithium level between 0.5 and 0.8 mmol/L may be equally efficacious against overall relapse and associated with equal or even superior efficacy regarding depressive relapse/recurrence. To provide evidence-based guidelines on this issue, large prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials are needed comparing the efficacy of lithium at different plasma levels against manic and depressive relapse/recurrence. In these trials, factors previously associated with predicting response to lithium should also be assessed.
Environmental control of plant nuclear gene expression by chloroplast redox signals

Plant photosynthesis takes place in specialized cell organelles, the chloroplasts, which perform all essential steps of this process. The proteins involved in photosynthesis are encoded by genes located on the plastid and nuclear genomes. Proper function and regulation of light harvesting and energy fixation thus requires a tight coordination of the gene expression machineries in the two genetic compartments. This is achieved by a bi-directional exchange of information between nucleus and plastids. Signals emerging from plastids report the functional and developmental state of the organelle to the nucleus and initiate distinct nuclear gene expression profiles, which trigger responses that support or improve plastid functions. Recent research indicated that this signaling is absolutely essential for plant growth and development. Reduction/oxidation (redox) signals from photosynthesis are key players in this information network since they do report functional disturbances in photosynthesis, the primary energy source of plants. Such disturbances are caused by environmental fluctuations for instance in illumination, temperature, or water availability. These environmental changes affect the linear electron flow of photosynthesis and result in changes of the redox state of the components involved [e.g., the plastoquinone (PQ) pool] or coupled to it (e.g., the thioredoxin pool). Thus, the changes in redox state directly reflect the environmental impact and serve as immediate plastidial signals to the nucleus. The triggered responses range from counterbalancing reactions within the physiological range up to severe stress responses including cell death. This review focuses on physiological redox signals from photosynthetic electron transport (PET), their relation to the environment, potential transduction pathways to the nucleus and their impact on nuclear gene expression.
DVS: an object-oriented framework for distributed Verilog simulation

There is a wide spread usage of hardware design languages (HDL) to speed up the time to market for the design of modern digital systems. Verification engineers can simulate hardware in order to verify its performance and correctness with help of an HDL. However, simulation can't keep pace with the growth in size and complexity of circuits and has become a bottleneck of the design process. Distributed HDL simulation on a cluster of workstations has the potential to provide a cost effective solution to this problem. We describe the design and implementation of DVS, an object-oriented framework for distributed Verilog simulation. Verilog is an HDL which sees wide industrial use. DVS is an outgrowth of clustered time warp, originally developed for logic simulation. The design of the framework emphasizes simplicity and extensibility and aims to accommodate experiments involving partitioning and dynamic load balancing. Preliminary results obtained by simulating a 16 bit multiplier are presented.
Organisations and their approaches in community based natural resources management in Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe

This publication records the methods, lessons and experiences of organizations involved in CBNRM programmes in Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, to enable organizations and communities to discover and learn from the implementation experiences of counterparts in neighbouring areas. The focus is on practical approaches, with a brief overview of the national CBNRM programmes and enabling legislation. The report is organized by country, and contains Observations from each implementing organization. There is much well-known literature on problem issues but the attempt here is not to describe the dilemmas faced, but the practical solutions devised. The report is straightforward and simple, extracting useful lessons from CBNRM experiences in the four countries. Due to the brevity of the fieldwork in the study countries, there was no time for field trips to the communities. Thus, in this sense, the report contains a bias towards the agendas and perspectives of implementing organizations.
Economic Growth and the Environment

Will the world be able to sustain economic growth indefinitely without running into resource constraints or despoiling the environment beyond repair? What is the relationship between steadily increasing incomes and environmental quality? This paper builds on the author's earlier work (1993), in which he argued that the relationship between economic growth and environmental quality – whether inverse or direct -- is not fixed along a country's development path. Indeed, he hypothesized, it may change as a country reaches a level of income at which people can demand and afford a more efficient infrastructure and a cleaner environment. This implied inverted-U relationship between environmental degradation and economic growth came to be known as the "Environmental Kuznets Curve," by analogy with the income-inequality relationship postulated by Kuznets (1965, 1966). The objective of this paper is to critically review, synthesize and interpret the literature on the relationship between economic growth and environment. This literature has followed two distinct but related strands of research: an empirical strand of ad hoc specifications and estimations of a reduced form equation, relating an environmental impact indicator to income per capita; and a theoretical strand of macroeconomic models of interaction between environmental degradation and economic growth, including optimal growth, endogenous growth and overlapping generations models. The author concludes that the macroeconomic models generally support the empirical findings of the Environmental Kuznets Curve literature. He suggests further empirical investigation related to the assumption of additive separability, as well as development of additional macroeconomic models that allow for a more realistic role for government.
Adaptive rate binning in real time transmission

In this paper, adaptive rate random binning code is developed for point-to-point (P2P) delay constrained source streaming. We study the error exponent, which measures the asymptotic rate at which the error probability decays with delay. An achievable lower bound of error exponent is derived. Numerical results show that the proposed adaptive rate random binning code achieves a better exponent than the existing fixed-length (FL) random binning code.
Effects of Polypharmacy on Adverse Drug Reactions among Geriatric Outpatients at a Tertiary Care Hospital in Karachi: A Prospective Cohort Study

Background Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) present a challenging and expensive public health problem. Polypharmacy is defined according to the WHO criteria as the, “concurrent use of five or more different prescription medication”. Elderly are more prone to adverse reactions due to comorbid conditions, longer lists of medications and sensitivity to drug effects. The aim of the study is to estimate the incidence and strength of association of ADRs due to polypharmacy among the geriatric cohort attending outpatient clinics at a tertiary care center. Methods A hospital based prospective cohort study was conducted at ambulatory care clinics of Aga Khan University Hospital April 2012 to March 2013. One thousand geriatrics patients (age ≥65 years) visiting ambulatory clinics were identified. They were divided on the basis of exposure (polypharmacy vs. no polypharmacy). We followed them from the time of their enrollment (day zero) to six weeks, checking up on them once a week. Incidence was calculated and Cox Proportional Hazard Model estimates were used. Results The final analysis was performed on 1000 elderly patients. The occurrence of polypharmacy was 70% and the incidence of ADRs was 10.5% among the study cohort. The majority (30%) of patients were unable to read or write. The use of herbal medicine was reported by 3.2% of the patients and homeopathic by 3%. Our Cox adjusted model shows that polypharmacy was 2.3 times more associated with ADRs, con-current complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) was 7.4 times and those who cannot read and write were 1.5 times more associated with ADRs. Conclusion The incidence of ADRs due to poly pharmacy is alarmingly high. The factors associated with ADRs are modifiable. Policies are needed to design and strengthen the prescription pattern.
Inverse solution of thermoacustic wave equation for cylindirical multi-layer mediums

Thermoacoustic imaging is a new modality of generating ultrasonic waves with excitation of electromagnetic pulsed energy. Thermoacoustic imaging is based on the inverse soluion of thermoacoustic wave equation. Homogeneous assumption of tissue to be imaged results in degradation of image qualtiy. In this study, we obtain an analytical inverse solution of thermoacoustic wave equation for 3-dimensional concentric cylindrical multi-layer structures. This solution can be applied for imaging of breast and brain. To test our solution, we use a 3-layer test phantom consisting of point sources in numerical simulations.
Authentication vs. Privacy within Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks

Security and protection of private user information are a prerequisite for the deployment of the vehicular network technologies. Nevertheless, the establishment of a secure communication architecture within vehicular ad hoc networks address special challenges, due to the characteristic and speciflcities of such environment (high dynamic and mobility of nodes, high rate of topology changes, high variability in nodes density and neighborhood, broadcast/geocast communication nature .). Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are therefore target of several malicious attacks (internal or external), in addition to unintentional faults and errors. In this context, I present in this paper a novel security communication architecture dedicated to operate within VANETs, ensuring authentication of vehicles and revocation of intrusted ones while guarantying privacy of drivers identities. The safety and e‐ciency of my security architecture is validated through its formal veriflcation using the security protocols verifler tool AVISPA (Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications).
Strategies of bacteria screening in cellular blood components

Abstract Since the impressive reduction of transfusion-transmitted virus infections, bacterial infections by blood transfusion represent the most important infection risk. Platelet concentrates are the current focus of attention, as they are stored under temperature conditions which allow growth of contaminating bacteria up to 1010 and more microbes per platelet bag. This paper does not consider the pathogen reduction methods but will assess suitable screening methods. Beside conventional microbiological approaches or surrogate markers, several efficient methods able to detect bacterial contamination in platelets are available on the market. They need to be divided into two different methodological principles: the cultivation methods and rapid methods. Cultivation or incubation methods require some time for signal production as they depend on growth of microbes. Thus, they have to be combined with early sampling, i.e., the sample to be examined has to be drawn from the blood component 1 day after donation. Their advantage is the relatively uncomplicated implementation into the logistics of blood banks. Because of the initially very low count of bacteria after donation, a certain small sampling error in application of that strategy remains. Rapid methods are able to produce the diagnosis within a short time. Therefore, they allow postponing of sample drawing, ideally up to the time immediately before transfusion. However, this procedure causes logistic complications. On the other hand, late sampling combined with a rapid method will prevent the transfusion of highly contaminated platelet concentrates leading to acute septic shock up to the death of the patient. Considering the sum of different aspects including the supply of patients, the potential improvement of microbial safety of platelet concentrates is comparable in both strategies. Clin Chem Lab Med 2008;46:926–32.
Binding of the Radioligand SIL23 to α-Synuclein Fibrils in Parkinson Disease Brain Tissue Establishes Feasibility and Screening Approaches for Developing a Parkinson Disease Imaging Agent

Accumulation of α-synuclein (α-syn) fibrils in Lewy bodies and Lewy neurites is the pathological hallmark of Parkinson disease (PD). Ligands that bind α-syn fibrils could be utilized as imaging agents to improve the diagnosis of PD and to monitor disease progression. However, ligands for α-syn fibrils in PD brain tissue have not been previously identified and the feasibility of quantifying α-syn fibrils in brain tissue is unknown. We report the identification of the 125I-labeled α-syn radioligand SIL23. [125I]SIL23 binds α-syn fibrils in postmortem brain tissue from PD patients as well as an α-syn transgenic mouse model for PD. The density of SIL23 binding sites correlates with the level of fibrillar α-syn in PD brain tissue, and [125I]SIL23 binding site densities in brain tissue are sufficiently high to enable in vivo imaging with high affinity ligands. These results identify a SIL23 binding site on α-syn fibrils that is a feasible target for development of an α-syn imaging agent. The affinity of SIL23 for α-syn and its selectivity for α-syn versus Aβ and tau fibrils is not optimal for imaging fibrillar α-syn in vivo, but we show that SIL23 competitive binding assays can be used to screen additional ligands for suitable affinity and selectivity, which will accelerate the development of an α-syn imaging agent for PD.
PP2A mRNA Expression Is Quantitatively Decreased in Alzheimer's Disease Hippocampus

Since abnormal tau phosphorylation may play a role in neurofibrillary tangle (NFT) formation in aging and Alzheimer's disease (AD), we probed the distribution and abundance of protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) catalytic (Calpha) and regulatory (PR55alpha and gamma, PR61varepsilon and delta) subunit mRNA in control and AD hippocampus using in situ hybridization. Quantitation of grain density per neuron area of PP2A subunits and beta-actin was determined for the CA3 region of hippocampus and cerebellum, while a qualitative assessment was performed for CA1, CA4, and dentate gyrus. All subunits are expressed in neurons, while PR55gamma and PR55alpha mRNA are also evident in glia. The expression levels of Calpha, all PP2A regulatory subunits studied, and beta-actin were similar in control and AD cerebellum. beta-Actin mRNA was, however, reduced in AD hippocampus. In addition to the generalized reduction of mRNA, as indicated by decreased beta-actin signal, there was a significant loss of Calpha, PR55gamma, and PR61epsilon mRNA in the CA3 hippocampus of AD. This study delineates the distribution of critical PP2A mRNAs and reveals a neuron- and subunit-specific reduction in PP2A catalytic and regulatory mRNA in AD hippocampus. This could result in decreased protein expression and phosphatase activity, leading to the hyperphosphorylation of tau and the formation of NFTs, as well as neuron degeneration in AD.
Twelve tips for developing a clinical teaching programme in a day surgery unit

Healthcare policy in the UK is moving towards an expansion in day care services. As it becomes increasingly difficult to deliver clinical teaching to undergraduates in traditional inpatient venues, opportunities must be sought in ambulatory care. The proposed increased activity of day surgery units provides one such resource for the development of a structured clinical teaching programme. This paper highlights 12 tips for the preparation, delivery and evaluation of a clinical teaching programme in the day surgery unit. It describes the implications for staff and resources and indicates the educational opportunities that can be provided.
Prosodic phrasing in korean, determine governor, and then split or not

This paper introduces a prosodic phrasing method in Korean to improve the naturalness of speech synthesis, especially in textto-speech conversion. In prosodic phrasing, it is necessary to understand the structure of a sentence through a language processing procedure, such as POS tagging and parsing, since syntactic structure correlates better with the prosodic structure of speech than with other factors. In this paper, the prosodic phrasing procedure is treated from two perspectives: dependency parsing and prosodic phrasing using dependency relations. This is appropriate for Ural-Altaic, since a prosodic boundary in speech usually concurs with a governor of dependency relation. From experimental results, using the proposed method achieved 12% improvement in prosody boundary prediction accuracy with a speech corpus consisting 300 sentences uttered by 3 speakers.
Childhood victimization and subsequent risk for promiscuity, prostitution, and teenage pregnancy: a prospective study.

OBJECTIVES This study examined the extent to which being abused and/or neglected in childhood increases a person's risk for promiscuity, prostitution, and teenage pregnancy. METHODS A prospective cohorts design was used to match, on the basis of age, race, sex, and social class, cases of abused and/or neglected children from 1967 to 1971 with nonabused and nonneglected children; subjects were followed into young adulthood. From 1989 to 1995 1196 subjects (676 abused and/or neglected and 520 control subjects were located and interviewed. RESULTS Early childhood abuse and/or neglect was a significant predictor of prostitution for females (odds ratio [OR] = 2.96). For females, sexual abuse (OR = 2.54) and neglect (OR = 2.58) were associated with prostitution, whereas physical abuse was only marginally associated. Childhood abuse and neglect were not associated with increased risk for promiscuity or teenage pregnancy. CONCLUSIONS These findings strongly support a relationship between childhood victimization and subsequent prostitution. The presumed causal sequence between childhood victimization and teenage pregnancy may need to be reevaluated.
The neurochemistry and social flow of singing: bonding and oxytocin

Music is used in healthcare to promote physical and psychological well-being. As clinical applications of music continue to expand, there is a growing need to understand the biological mechanisms by which music influences health. Here we explore the neurochemistry and social flow of group singing. Four participants from a vocal jazz ensemble were conveniently sampled to sing together in two separate performances: pre-composed and improvised. Concentrations of plasma oxytocin and adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) were measured before and after each singing condition to assess levels of social affiliation, engagement and arousal. A validated assessment of flow state was administered after each singing condition to assess participants' absorption in the task. The feasibility of the research methods were assessed and initial neurochemical data was generated on group singing. Mean scores of the flow state scale indicated that participants experienced flow in both the pre-composed (M = 37.06) and improvised singing conditions (M = 34.25), with no significant difference between conditions. ACTH concentrations decreased in both conditions, significantly so in the pre-composed singing condition, which may have contributed to the social flow experience. Mean plasma oxytocin levels increased only in response to improvised singing, with no significant difference between improvised and pre-composed singing conditions observed. The results indicate that group singing reduces stress and arousal, as measured by ACTH, and induces social flow in participants. The effects of pre-composed and improvised group singing on oxytocin are less clear. Higher levels of plasma oxytocin in the improvised condition may perhaps be attributed to the social effects of improvising musically with others. Further research with a larger sample size is warranted.
FIR filter optimization as preemphasis of high-speed backplane data transmission

FIR filter preemphasis has been used to counteract intersymbol interference (ISI) in high-speed backplane data transmission. Backplane channel characteristics are first analyzed. It is found that channel group delay distortion is also a major ISI contributor in addition to amplitude attenuation. A MATLAB program is then described for optimization of the FIR filter under the LMS criterion. Both symbol-spaced FIR (SSF) and fractionally-spaced FIR (FSF) are comparatively studied at different data rates. The determination of tap number and preference of FSF to SSF are discussed.