Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects on Peripheral and Central Blood Pressure of Cocoa With Natural or High-Dose Theobromine: A Randomized, Double-Blind Crossover Trial

Flavanol-rich cocoa products have been reported to lower blood pressure. It has been suggested that theobromine is partially responsible for this effect. We tested whether consumption of flavanol-rich cocoa drinks with natural or added theobromine could lower peripheral and central blood pressure. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled 3-period crossover trial we assigned 42 healthy individuals (age 62±4.5 years; 32 men) with office blood pressure of 130 to 159 mm Hg/85 to 99 mm Hg and low added cardiovascular risk to a random treatment sequence of dairy drinks containing placebo, flavanol-rich cocoa with natural dose consisting of 106 mg of theobromine, or theobromine-enriched flavanol-rich cocoa with 979 mg of theobromine. Treatment duration was 3 weeks with a 2-week washout. The primary outcome was the difference in 24-hour ambulatory systolic blood pressure between placebo and active treatment after 3 weeks. The difference in central systolic blood pressure between placebo and active treatment was a secondary outcome. Treatment with theobromine-enriched cocoa resulted in a mean±SE of 3.2±1.1 mm Hg higher 24-hour ambulatory systolic blood pressure compared with placebo (P<0.01). In contrast, 2 hours after theobromine-enriched cocoa, laboratory peripheral systolic blood pressure was not different from placebo, whereas central systolic blood pressure was 4.3±1.4 mm Hg lower (P=0.001). Natural dose theobromine cocoa did not significantly change either 24-hour ambulatory or central systolic blood pressure compared with placebo. In conclusion, theobromine-enriched cocoa significantly increased 24-hour ambulatory systolic blood pressure while lowering central systolic blood pressure.
Changes in functional status attributable to hip fracture: a comparison of hip fracture patients to community-dwelling aged.

Disability attributable to hip fracture regarding activities of daily living was evaluated by comparing 594 hip fracture patients entering eight hospitals in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1990-1991 with community-dwelling aged from the Established Populations for Epidemiologic Studies of the Elderly (EPESE) cohort matched on age, sex, and walking ability. Subjects were assessed at baseline (prefracture report for patients), 12 months, and 24 months. At baseline, 26% of both groups had walking disability, 12-14% had transferring disability, and 6-8% evidenced grooming disability. At 12 and 24 months, about 50% of hip fracture patients were walking disabled compared with 21-29% of EPESE respondents after the authors controlled for age, sex, comorbidities, and functional status (excess disability attributable to hip fracture, i.e., attributable disability, of 26 additional cases of disability per 100 persons in the hip fracture cohort during follow-up). Likewise, hip fracture patients experienced more disability regarding transferring (38-39% vs. 10-18%; attributable disability, approximately 22 cases per 100 persons) and grooming (17-19% vs. 7-15%; attributable disability, approximately six cases per 100 persons). Thus, results showed that hip fracture patients had substantially more activities of daily living disability than that explained by aging over 24 months.
HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING APPROACH FOR MOTIF SEARCH USING OPENMP AND OPENMPI

Meaningful Patterns, or Motifs, often exist in large volumes of biological data. They are theorized to be highly significant elements in protein and DNA and are important for understanding the function of particular sequences. Identifying these motifs can help researchers to accurately target human disease with therapeutic drugs and understand gene function more precisely. There have been several identified problems, but this project looks primarily at parallel optimizations for the planted (l, d)-motif problem. In PMS we are given two integer l and d and n biological sequences. We want to find out all sequences of length l that appears in each of the input sequences with at most d mismatches. Being able to quickly identify these motifs is difficult due to the nature of the problem. The number of comparisons we need to make grows exponentially with d. It quickly becomes impractical to attempt sequential computation of the motif search as d grows. This project demonstrates the practical application of parallel techniques using openMP and openMPI with cluster computer which shows the degree to which performance can be improved through loop and block-level parallelization. It also discusses how these techniques can be applied to other similar problems in the field of bioinformatics.
Coding for multiple packets in erasure networks

Coding over noisy channels commonly aims at errorfree recovery of all messages. In the present paper we address a different concept: multiple finite-length packets are to be transmitted over a noisy block-fading channel, and the goal is to maximize the number of correctly decoded packets. Specifically, we consider the case of transmission of two messages over a block-fading erasure channel to gain fundamental insights. We consider three different coding strategies and derive analytically the probabilities of error for constructions based on random codes and maximum distance separable (MDS) codes.
Monetary Policy Shocks and Transmission in Italy: a VAR Analysis

This paper provides updated empirical evidence about the real and nominal effects of monetary policy in Italy, by using structural VAR analysis. We discuss different empirical approaches that have been used in order to identify monetary policy exogenous shocks. We argue that the data support the view that the Bank of Italy, at least in the recent past, has been targeting the rate on overnight interbank loans. Therefore, we interpret shocks to the overnight rate as purely exogenous monetary policy shocks and study how different macroeconomic variables react to such shocks.
Analysis and Mining of Educational Data for Predicting the Performance of Students

In recent, higher education has increased rapidly. Many new institutions, colleges and universities are being established by both the private and government sectors for the growth of education and welfare of the students. Where a teacher explains the material and students understand and learn the lesson. There is no absolute scale for measuring knowledge but examination score is one scale which shows the performance indicator of students. This paper describes the use of data mining techniques to improve the efficiency of academic performance in the educational institutions. In this paper, we present a real-world experiment conducted in VBS Purvanchal University, Jaunpur, India. This method helps to identify the students who need special advising or counseling by the teacher which gives high quality of education.
Distinct stages in stress granule assembly and disassembly

Stress granules are non-membrane bound RNA-protein (RNP) assemblies that form when translation initiation is limited and contain a biphasic structure with stable core structures surrounded by a less concentrated shell. The order of assembly and disassembly of these two structures remains unknown. Time course analysis of granule assembly suggests that core formation is an early event in granule assembly. Stress granule disassembly is also a stepwise process with shell dissipation followed by core clearance. Perturbations that alter liquid-liquid phase separations (LLPS) driven by intrinsically disordered protein regions (IDR) of RNA binding proteins in vitro have the opposite effect on stress granule assembly in vivo. Taken together, these observations argue that stress granules assemble through a multistep process initiated by stable assembly of untranslated mRNPs into core structures, which could provide sufficient high local concentrations to allow for a localized LLPS driven by IDRs on RNA binding proteins. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.18413. 001
SQP: An experimental stateless queuing discipline for protecting TCP flows

The QoS (Quality of Service) is an important factor in computer networks. Here we proposed an effective queuing discipline for obtaining QoS and thus the throughput is increased. The SQP is a stateless queue management algorithm. The SQP allocates variable bandwidth for TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) flows and performs the matched drops in the queue. Based on the priority of TCP flow the queuing is done using SQP. Thus the queuing is simple and the implementation is less complex also it restricts the unresponsive TCP flows.
Sensing and perception challenges of planetary surface robotics

This expository paper describes sensing and perception issues facing the space robotics community concerned with deploying autonomous rovers on other planetary surfaces. Challenging sensing problems associated with rover surface navigation and manipulation functions are discussed for which practical solutions from sensor developers would vastly improve rover capabilities. Some practical concerns that impact sensor selection based on mass, power, and operability constraints are also discussed. The intent is to present challenges to facilitate alignment of new sensing solutions with key sensing requirements of planetary surface robotics.
Retrieval of bilingual autobiographical memories: Effects of cue language and cue imageability

An important issue in theories of bilingual autobiographical memory is whether linguistically encoded memories are represented in language-specific stores or in a common language-independent store. Previous research has found that autobiographical memory retrieval is facilitated when the language of the cue is the same as the language of encoding, consistent with language-specific memory stores. The present study examined whether this language congruency effect is influenced by cue imageability. Danish-English bilinguals retrieved autobiographical memories in response to Danish and English high- or low-imageability cues. Retrieval latencies were shorter to Danish than English cues and shorter to high- than low-imageability cues. Importantly, the cue language effect was stronger for low-than high-imageability cues. To examine the relationship between cue language and the language of internal retrieval, participants identified the language in which the memories were internally retrieved. More memories were retrieved when the cue language was the same as the internal language than when the cue was in the other language, and more memories were identified as being internally retrieved in Danish than English, regardless of the cue language. These results provide further evidence for language congruency effects in bilingual memory and suggest that this effect is influenced by cue imageability.
Responding to Gendered Violence Among College Students: The Impact of Participant Characteristics on Direct Bystander Intervention Behavior

ABSTRACT Bystander intervention has been an effective strategy for crime prevention and has been successful in the context of campus sexual assault. Less is known about the extent to which individual-level factors correlate with intervention behavior in situations of intimate partner violence (IPV) and sexual harassment. The present study used a sample of 377 undergraduate student surveys on a campus without a bystander intervention program to examine the impact of individual-level participant factors on direct intervention across sexual assault, IPV, and sexual harassment scenarios. Findings demonstrated statistically significant differences where positive bystander attitudes and violence prevention efficacy correlated with direct intervention for sexual assault; positive bystander attitudes, personality extroversion, and exposure to a victim increased intervention behavior in an IPV scenario, and positive bystander attitudes and violence prevention efficacy increased direct intervention and lifetime experience of IPV decreased direct intervention in a sexual harassment scenario. Research and policy implications are discussed.
Oxidative stress and redox regulation of lung inflammation in COPD

Reactive oxygen species, either directly or via the formation of lipid peroxidation products, may play a role in enhancing inflammation through the activation of stress kinases (c-Jun activated kinase, extracellular signal-regulated kinase, p38) and redox-sensitive transcription factors, such as nuclear factor (NF)-κB and activator protein-1. This results in increased expression of a battery of distinct pro-inflammatory mediators. Oxidative stress activates NF-κB-mediated transcription of pro-inflammatory mediators either through activation of its activating inhibitor of κB-α kinase or the enhanced recruitment and activation of transcriptional co-activators. Enhanced NF-κB-co-activator complex formation results in targeted increases in histone modifications, such as acetylation leading to inflammatory gene expression. Emerging evidence suggests the glutathione redox couple may entail dynamic regulation of protein function by reversible disulphide bond formation on kinases, phosphatases and transcription factors. Oxidative stress also inhibits histone deacetylase activity and in doing so further enhances inflammatory gene expression and may attenuate glucocorticoid sensitivity. The antioxidant/anti-inflammatory effects of thiol molecules (glutathione, N-acetyl-L-cysteine and N-acystelyn, erdosteine), dietary polyphenols (curcumin-diferuloylmethane, cathechins/quercetin and reserveratol), specific spin traps, such as α-phenyl-N-tert-butyl nitrone, a catalytic antioxidant (extracellular superoxide dismutase (SOD) mimetic, SOD mimetic M40419 and SOD, and catalase manganic salen compound, eukarion-8), porphyrins (AEOL 10150 and AEOL 10113) and theophylline have all been shown to play a role in either controlling NF-κB activation or affecting histone modifications with subsequent effects on inflammatory gene expression in lung epithelial cells. Thus, oxidative stress regulates both key signal transduction pathways and histone modifications involved in lung inflammation. Various approaches to enhance lung antioxidant capacity and clinical trials of antioxidant compounds in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are also discussed.
The effect of EEG recording on functional MR image quality

Introduction The recording of electroencephalogram (EEG) inside the MR scanner has gained increasing interest, particularly in the field of functional MRl (fMRI) [ 1,2]. EEG recording during fMRI can impair the image quality due to magnetic susceptibility of the EEG electrode assemblies and electromagnetic noise from the EEGrecording equipment. We therefore investigated (1) local signal drop outs and geometric distortions caused by individual components of electrode assemblies, and (2) degrading of the image signal-to noise ratio due to electromagnetic noise.
Confidence measures for the SWITCHBOARD database

There is increasing interest in systems which attempt to automate a task or a transaction using speech input and output. To function effectively with imperfect speech recognition, such systems require an estimate of which words in the output from the recogniser are likely to be correct and which can probably be disregarded as incorrect, i.e. a confidence-measure for each decoded word. We define a measure for evaluating the effectiveness of a post-classifier which estimates confidence-measures, and describe the development of a post-classifier for words decoded from the SWITCHBOARD database, which uses statistics derived from a Viterbi decoder. Without any grouping of the decoded word-classes, the post-classifier increased the probability of deciding whether a decoded word was correct or incorrect by 32%. When grouping was used, longer words showed an improvement of 65%.
Language modeling based on automatic word concatenations

This paper describes an automatic process which build variable length compound words, without xing their maximum length, according to their contexts observed in a training text. Four criteria have been studied : the bigram frequency, a normalized measured based on the mutual information and left and right conditional probabilities. This work has been performed with a database recorded at LIMSI and made of rail travel information requests. The corresponding language models have been evaluated in terms of perplexity and speech error recognition rates with the LIMSI speech recognizer, and compared with a baseline word bigram model. Best results are obtained when the model is built with words concatenated with the left conditional probability.
D G ] 2 1 M ar 2 00 3 Harmonic morphisms between degenerate semi-Riemannian manifolds

In this paper we generalize harmonic maps and morphisms to the degenerate semi-Riemannian category, in the case when the manifolds M and N are stationary and the map φ : M → N is radical-preserving. We characterize geometrically the notion of (generalized) horizontal (weak) conformality and we obtain a characterization for (generalized) harmonic morphisms in terms of (generalized) harmonic maps.
MIMO techniques for green radio guaranteeing QoS

Environmental issues and the need to reduce energy consumption for lowering operating costs have pushed power efficiency to become one of the major issues of current research in the field of wireless networks. This paper addresses a number of multiple input multiple output (MIMO) precoding and scheduling techniques across the PHY and MAC layers that can operate under a reduced link budget and collectively improve the transmit power efficiency of a base station, while maintaining the same levels of service. Different MIMO transmission and precoding schemes proposed for LTE, achieving varying degrees of multiuser diversity in both the time, frequency as well as the space domain, are examined. Several fairness-aware resource allocation algorithms are applied to the considered MIMO schemes and a detailed analysis of the tradeoffs between power efficiency and quality of service is presented. This paper explicitly examines the performance of a system serving real-time, VoIP traffic under different traffic loading conditions and transmit power levels. It is demonstrated that by use of efficient scheduling and resource allocation techniques significant savings in terms of consumed energy can be achieved, without compromising QoS.
Eecient Storage of Temporal Data in a Data Warehousing Context

A data warehouse provides strong capabilities for answering complex decision support queries. In particular, it is often desirable to query relations as they existed at some point in the past. Much of the research in temporal databases, materialized views, and snapshot databases has some bearing on this concept. In particular, diierential les provide a means for storing past versions of relations while conserving storage space. Queries involving these diierential les can be optimized in a variety of ways.
Book Review

E lla J. Baker wanted the economically oppressed black people of the rural South, where she had maintained a network of connections since the 1940s, to take radical action on behalf of themselves and their communities. In Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement, Barbara Ransby is tireless in substantiating Baker’s radical activism and intellectual prowess. Ransby’s task is not to be envied. Throughout the writing, Ransby says, she was constantly reminded by colleagues—hers and Baker’s—that Baker “was bigger than that” (171). She knew everybody in the black freedom movement and she was everywhere it was, like Bayard Rustin, her friend and fellow traveler. Baker was born in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1903; was raised in Littleton, North Carolina, her redoubtable mother’s birthplace; was educated away from home at Shaw Academy and University in Raleigh from 1918 to 1927; and migrated to Harlem—and not for the nightlife—in 1927. She maintained the same apartment there until 1986, the year she died of Alzheimer’s-related causes. From the 1920s at Shaw, when she led a group of students to petition the dean of women to allow women students to wear silk stockings, to 1964, when she shepherded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party onto the floor of the Democratic National Convention to challenge the credentials of Mississippi’s Dixiecrat delegation, Baker exemplified “the revolutionary in action, transcending more attendant concerns and reaching for something larger, greater, more inspirational” (319). For Baker, the black freedom struggle was always the crucible of that “larger freedom that encompasses all of mankind” (Baker, quoted in Ransby, 319). Ransby reprises the well-known story of Baker’s distrust of and her “disappointed
Cross-layer design for Multiple access techniques in wireless communications

The classical communication networks are modeled as a protocols stack, often referring to the ISO/OSI stack. Each protocol is belonging to a certain layer, and it is independent from the other layers. In the modern telecommunication networks, especially for the wireless communication, the protocol division in layers can be a strong limitation to the network optimization. For this reason future standards foresee an interaction between layers, named cross-layer design. This is one of the first step toward the 4G systems.
Spectrins and AnkyrinB Constitute a Specialized Paranodal Cytoskeleton

Paranodal junctions of myelinated nerve fibers are important for saltatory conduction and function as paracellular and membrane protein diffusion barriers flanking nodes of Ranvier. The formation of these specialized axoglial contacts depends on the presence of three cell adhesion molecules: neurofascin 155 on the glial membrane and a complex of Caspr and contactin on the axon. We isolated axonal and glial membranes highly enriched in these paranodal proteins and then used mass spectrometry to identify additional proteins associated with the paranodal axoglial junction. This strategy led to the identification of three novel components of the paranodal cytoskeleton: ankyrinB, αII spectrin, and βII spectrin. Biochemical and immunohistochemical analyses revealed that these proteins associate with protein 4.1B in a macromolecular complex that is concentrated at central and peripheral paranodal junctions in the adult and during early myelination. Furthermore, we show that the paranodal localization of ankyrinB is disrupted in Caspr-null mice with aberrant paranodal junctions, demonstrating that paranodal neuron–glia interactions regulate the organization of the underlying cytoskeleton. In contrast, genetic disruption of the juxtaparanodal protein Caspr2 or the nodal cytoskeletal protein βIV spectrin did not alter the paranodal cytoskeleton. Our results demonstrate that the paranodal junction contains specialized cytoskeletal components that may be important to stabilize axon–glia interactions and contribute to the membrane protein diffusion barrier found at paranodes.
On the Robustness of Document Re-Ranking Techniques: A Comparison of Label Propagation, KNN, and Relevance Feedback

This paper describes our work at the sixth NTCIR workshop on the subtask of C-C single language information retrieval. We compared label propagation (LP), K-nearest neighboring (KNN), and relevance feedback (RF) for document re-ranking and found that RF is a more robust technique for performance improvement, while LP and KNN are sensitive to the choice and the number of relevant documents for successful document re-ranking.