Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effectiveness of early switch from intravenous to oral antibiotics in severe community acquired pneumonia: multicentre randomised trial

Objectives To compare the effectiveness of an early switch to oral antibiotics with the standard 7 day course of intravenous antibiotics in severe community acquired pneumonia. Design Multicentre randomised controlled trial. Setting Five teaching hospitals and 2 university medical centres in the Netherlands. Participants 302 patients in non-intensive care wards with severe community acquired pneumonia. 265 patients fulfilled the study requirements. Intervention Three days of treatment with intravenous antibiotics followed, when clinically stable, by oral antibiotics or by 7 days of intravenous antibiotics. Main outcome measures Clinical cure and length of hospital stay. Results 302 patients were randomised (mean age 69.5 (standard deviation 14.0), mean pneumonia severity score 112.7 (26.0)). 37 patients were excluded from analysis because of early dropout before day 3, leaving 265 patients for intention to treat analysis. Mortality at day 28 was 4% in the intervention group and 6% in the control group (mean difference 2%, 95% confidence interval −3% to 8%). Clinical cure was 83% in the intervention group and 85% in the control group (2%, −7% to 10%). Duration of intravenous treatment and length of hospital stay were reduced in the intervention group, with mean differences of 3.4 days (3.6 (1.5) v 7.0 (2.0) days; 2.8 to 3.9) and 1.9 days (9.6 (5.0) v 11.5 (4.9) days; 0.6 to 3.2), respectively. Conclusions Early switch from intravenous to oral antibiotics in patients with severe community acquired pneumonia is safe and decreases length of hospital stay by 2 days. Trial registration Clinical Trials NCT00273676.
Visualization of nonstructural changes in early white matter development on diffusion-weighted MR images: evidence supporting premyelination anisotropy.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Previously, we showed that diffusion-weighted MR imaging depicts evidence of directionally preferential water motion in white matter structures of developing rat brain before and after myelination, and considerably earlier than conventional imaging strategies. Present data augment these imaging and corresponding histologic findings with electron-microscopic corroboration. We additionally report the findings of a 10-day-old rat pup tested functionally by administration of the sodium-channel blocker, tetrodotoxin. METHODS In two rat pups, drawn from the population reported previously, MR estimates of diffusion anisotropy of the optic nerves and chiasm were compared with histologic and electron microscopy results. To test the hypothesis that "premyelination" directional preference of water motion in white matter structures relates to sodium-channel activity, MR imaging was performed in a 10-day-old rat pup treated with the sodium-channel blocker, tetrodotoxin, and findings were compared with data from an age-matched control. RESULTS Although diffusion anisotropy was present in optic structures of the youngest animal, myelin-sensitive histologic staining did not show myelin before 12 days; electron microscopy confirmed lack of any myelin or its precursors during the earliest maturational stage. Administration of tetrodotoxin to the 10-day-old rat-pup led to loss of diffusion anisotropy. CONCLUSION Our findings provide two pieces of supporting data for the hypothesis that nonstructural changes are responsible for early anisotropic diffusion: electron microscopy shows no evidence of myelin despite diffusion anisotropy, and inhibiting the sodium-channel pump appears to remove the directional preference of water motion. Visualization of nonstructural "premyelination" consequences with diffusion-weighted imaging emphasizes its sensitivity and potential in studying early processes of brain development.
Infuse: A TDMA Based Data Dissemination Protocol for Sensor Networks

Reliable dissemination of bulk data is one of the important problems in sensor networks. For example, programming or upgrading the software in sensors at run-time requires reliable dissemination of a new program across the network. In this paper, we present Infuse, a time division multiple access (TDMA) based reliable data dissemination protocol. Infuse takes two input parameters: the choice of the recovery algorithm (from one of two presented in this paper) to deal with unexpected channel errors (e.g., message corruption, varying signal strength), and whether a sensor should listen only to a subset of its neighbors to reduce the amount of active radio time. Based on these parameters, we obtain four possible versions of Infuse. We compare the performance of these versions to assist a designer in selecting the appropriate version based on the network characteristics. Furthermore, we demonstrate Infuse in the context of network programming.
Effect of city form and sociospatial divisions on cognitive representation of an urban environment

ABSTRACT This study’s goal was to clarify how a city’s form and its internal sociospatial divisions affect cognitive representation of an urban environment. The study was based on an experiment in directional judgment in the city of Tel Aviv; it simultaneously provided conditions for cognitive distortions rooted in the orientation of a city’s form relative to the north–south (N-S) axis together with the socioeconomic and morphological differentiation between its northern and southern areas. Estimated directions within and between the city’s areas revealed systematic distortions related to (a) perceptual representation of the city’s form (i.e., rotation of the city‘s form) and (b) categorical representation stemming from the sociospatial division between the city’s internal areas. These findings provide evidence for the involvement of city form and sociospatial divisions in its cognitive representation. They also support arguments regarding the nonunitary nature of cognitive maps. The implications of the findings for urban planning are discussed.
A New Pluggable Framework for Centralized Routing in Wireless Sensor Network

This paper presents a novel energy aware centralized dynamic clustering routing framework for large-scale Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). The main advantage of the proposed method is pluggability of clustering algorithms in the framework. It uses some clustering algorithms that some of their usages are new in this field. The clustering algorithms are K-means, FCM, UPC, GA, IGA and FGKA that run at base station used to identify cluster of sensors. Six clustering algorithms are evaluated in the framework and results of them are compared in three models named unicast, multicast and broadcast.
Sparse approximations of the Schur complement for parallel algebraic hybrid linear solvers in 3D

: In this report we study the computational performance of variants of an algebraic additive Schwarz preconditioner for the Schur complement for the solution of large sparse linear systems. In earlier works, the local Schur complements were computed exactly using a sparse direct solver. The robustness of the preconditioner comes at the price of this memory and time intensive computation that is the main bottleneck of the approach for tackling huge problems. In this work we investigate the use of sparse approximation of the dense local Schur complements. These approximations are computed using a partial incomplete LU factorization. Such a numerical calculation is the core of the multi-level incomplete factorization such as the one implemented in pARMS. The numerical and computing performance of the new numerical scheme is illustrated on a set of large 3D convection-diﬀusion problems; preliminary experiments on linear systems arising from structural mechanics are also reported.
Relation between Genetic Markers of Drug Resistance and Susceptibility Profile of Clinical Neisseria gonorrhoeae Strains

ABSTRACT The main goal of this work is to clarify the predictive value of known genetic markers of Neisseria gonorrhoeae resistance to penicillin, tetracycline, and fluoroquinolones. The correlation between the presence of certain genetic markers and susceptibility of N. gonorrhoeae isolates to penicillin, tetracycline, and fluoroquinolones has been analyzed by means of statistical methods. Susceptibility testing with penicillin, tetracycline, and fluoroquinolones was performed by the agar dilution method. N. gonorrhoeae genomic DNA was isolated. The presence of blaTEM-1 and tet(M) genes was analyzed by PCR. A novel method of polymorphism discovery based on a minisequencing reaction followed by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time-of-flight mass spectrometry was applied for the analysis of chromosomal N. gonorrhoeae genes involved in antimicrobial resistance development. Clinical N. gonorrhoeae isolates (n = 464) were collected. Susceptibility levels to penicillin, tetracycline, and fluoroquinolones were found to be 25.9%, 35.9%, and 54.1%, respectively. Among the 19 N. gonorrhoeae isolates with penicillin MICs of ≥4 μg/ml, the blaTEM-1 gene was detected in 12. The Tet(M) determinant was found in 4 of 12 N. gonorrhoeae isolates with tetracycline MICs of ≥16 μg/ml. The chromosomal genetic markers of penicillin and tetracycline resistance were detected especially in isolates with penicillin MICs of 0.25 to 2.0 μg/ml and tetracycline MICs of 0.5 to 4 μg/ml. Mutations in GyrA and ParC were found in 208 of 211 quinolone-resistant N. gonorrhoeae isolates. This work is the first representative molecular research of the N. gonorrhoeae population in Russia. Information about the prevalence of antibiotic resistance mechanisms and the positive predictive value of certain genetic determinants is given. The positive predictive values of the analyzed genetic markers were found to be different for fluoroquinolones (90.3%), penicillin (91.1%), and tetracycline (81.9%).
Estimating the gradient in the Perona-Malik equation

An impressive and efficient improvement in the classical scale-space analysis was proposed by Perona and Malik (1990) where they describe the diffusion process known as the Perona-Malik (PM) equation. Despite the illposed nature of the PM equation, many of its applications could be carried with success in the signal processing field. On the other hand Weickert and Benamouda (1997) proved the regularization of the PM equation describing and analyzing a model on a semidiscrete system. In this article we present a regularized model of the PM diffusion equation for image segmentation. We start from the hypothesis of well-posedness in the discrete space and the stability conditions. We show two methods for automatic setting of the gradient threshold k, which is changed for each iteration of the partial differential equation (PDE) integration steps. Experimental segmentations are implemented for noise reduction of generic digital images and for segmentation of microcalcifications on X-ray biomedical images.
‘But do monolingual people really exist?’ Analysing elementary students’ contrasting representations of plurilingualism through sequential reflexive drawing

ABSTRACT This article draws on data generated through a multi-site collaborative inquiry with students across five English and French schools in Canada and France to investigate children’s social representations of plurilingualism. Children were asked to draw a sequence of reflexive drawings of a monolingual, a bilingual and a plurilingual individual, as well as themselves. Drawing on theories of social representations of language and plurilingualism, the focus herein is on analysing children’s language representations made visible through the medium of drawing. The article concludes with a discussion of the affordances of using creative multimodal methods in applied linguistics research.
Do Firms Rebalance Their Capital Structures?

We empirically examine whether firms engage in a dynamic rebalancing of their capital structures while allowing for costly adjustment. We begin by showing that the presence of adjustment costs has significant implications for corporate financial policy and the interpretation of previous empirical results. After confirming that financing behavior is consistent with the presence of adjustment costs, we find that firms actively rebalance their leverage to stay within an optimal range. Our evidence suggests that the persistent effect of shocks on leverage observed in previous studies is more likely due to adjustment costs than indifference toward capital structure. A TRADITIONAL VIEW IN CORPORATE FINANCE is that firms strive to maintain an optimal capital structure that balances the costs and benefits associated with varying degrees of financial leverage. When firms are perturbed from this optimum, this view argues that companies respond by rebalancing their leverage back to the optimal level. However, recent empirical evidence has led researchers to question whether firms actually engage in such a dynamic rebalancing of their capital structures. Fama and French (2002), among others, note that firms’ debt ratios adjust slowly toward their targets. That is, firms appear to take a long time to return their leverage to its long-run mean or, loosely speaking, optimal level. Moreover, Baker and Wurgler (2002) document that historical efforts to time equity issuances with high market valuations have a persistent impact on corporate capital structures. This fact leads them to conclude that capital structures are the cumulative outcome of historical market timing efforts, rather than the result of a dynamic optimizing strategy. Finally, Welch (2004) finds that equity price shocks have a long-lasting effect on corporate capital structures as well. He concludes that stock returns are the primary determinant of capital structure changes and that corporate motives for net issuing activity are largely a
Fishtail: from task context to source code examples

Implementing software development tools as integrated development environment (IDE) plugins gives tools direct access to a range of useful representations of the program being created and can improve programmer efficiency. These benefits must be weighed against the effort to integrate the tool into the IDE, effort which may need to be repeated for each IDE targeted. In this paper, we introduce Fishtail, a prototype plugin for the Eclipse IDE, which assists programmers in discovering code examples and documentation on the web relevant to their current task. Fishtail uses a detailed history of programmer interactions with the source code to automatically determine relevant web resources. We describe the key factors that make it attractive to implement Fishtail as a plugin, and the requirements Fishtail imposes on the plugin/IDE interface. To reach a broader user base and understand how well our tool supports different programming styles and IDE architectures, we have recently begun investigating how to make a version of Fishtail available in the Visual Studio IDE. We outline some of the challenges we face in trying to reuse code from the original Eclipse plugin.
Detecting and Characterizing Events

Significant events are characterized by interactions between entities (such as countries, organizations, or individuals) that deviate from typical interaction patterns. Analysts, including historians, political scientists, and journalists, commonly read large quantities of text to construct an accurate picture of when and where an event happened, who was involved, and in what ways. In this paper, we present the Capsule model for analyzing documents to detect and characterize events of potential significance. Specifically, we develop a model based on topic modeling that distinguishes between topics that describe “business as usual” and topics that deviate from these patterns. To demonstrate this model, we analyze a corpus of over two million U.S. State Department cables from the 1970s. We provide an open-source implementation of an inference algorithm for the model and a pipeline for exploring its results.
3 1 0 A pr 2 00 1 Probability of color singlet chain states in e + e − annihilation

We use the method of the color effective Hamiltonian to study the structure of color singlet chain states in Nc = 3 and in the large Nc limit. In order to obtain their total fraction when Nc is finite, we illustrate how to orthogonalize these non-orthogonal states. We give numerical results for the fraction of orthogonalized states in e+e− → qqgg. With the help of a diagram technique, we derive their fraction up to O(1/N2 c ) for the general multigluon process. For large Nc the singlet chain states correspond to well-defined color topologies. Therefore we may expect that the fraction of non-color-singlet-chain states is an estimate of the fraction of events where color reconnection is possible. In the case of soft gluon bremsstrahlung, we give an explicit form for the color effective Hamiltonian which leads to the dipole cascade formulation for parton showering in leading order in Nc. The next-to-leading order corrections are also given for e+e− → qqg1g2 and e+e− → qqg1g2g3. (February 1, 2008)
Global $L$-packets for GSp(2) and theta lifts

Let F be a totally real number fleld. We deflne global L-packets for GSp(2) over F which should correspond to the elliptic tem- pered admissible homomorphisms from the conjectural Langlands group of F to the L-group of GSp(2) which are reducible, or irreducible and induced from a totally real quadratic extension of F. We prove that the elements of these global L-packets occur in the space of cusp forms on GSp(2) over F as predicted by Arthur's conjecture. This can be regarded as the GSp(2) analogue of the dihedral case of the Langlands-Tunnell theorem. To obtain these results we prove a nonvanishing theorem for global theta lifts from the similitude group of a general four dimensional quadratic space over F to GSp(2) over F.
DSP aided chromatic dispersion reckoning in single carrier high speed coherent optical communications

This paper demonstrates digital signal processing (DSP) based chromatic dispersion (CD) reckoning technique for single carrier high speed coherent optical communications. Coherent detection permits the optical field parameters (amplitude, phase and polarization) to be available in the electrical domain enabling new opportunity for multi-level signaling (M-ary PSK and M-ary QAM modulation), as well as the possibility of exploring polarization multiplexing. Again, it enables quasi-exact compensation of linear transmission impairments by a linear filter (equalizer), which can operate adaptively to overcome time-varying impairments. That is why Coherent detection employing QAM modulation formats has become one of the most promising technologies for next generation high speed transmission systems due to the high power and spectral efficiencies. With the development of DSP, coherent optical receivers allow the significant estimation of CD. In recent days, the realizations of these DSP algorithms for mitigating the chromatic dispersion in the coherent transmission systems are the most attractive investigations. In this paper, CD estimation technique has been improved using DSP algorithm and optimal OSNR, BER have been achieved.
The AVLaughterCycle Database

This paper presents the large audiovisual laughter database recorded as part of the AVLaughterCycle project held during the eNTERFACE09 Workshop in Genova. 24 subjects participated. The freely available database includes audio signal and video recordings as well as facial motion tracking, thanks to markers placed on the subjects face. Annotations of the recordings, focusing on laughter description, are also provided and exhibited in this paper. In total, the corpus contains more than 1000 spontaneous laughs and 27 acted laughs. The laughter utterances are highly variable: the laughter duration ranges from 250ms to 82s and the sounds cover voiced vowels, breath-like expirations, hum-, hiccup- or grunt-like sounds, etc. However, as the subjects had no one to interact with, the database contains very few speech-laughs. Acted laughs tend to be longer than spontaneous ones and are more often composed of voiced vowels. The database can be useful for automatic laughter processing or cognitive science works. For the AVLaughterCycle project, it has served to animate a laughing virtual agent with an output laugh linked to the conversational partners input laugh.
Salient areas detection using color volume

salient regions detection is a very popular topic in pattern recognition. A novel method was presented to detect salient regions using color volume and edge in the manner of simulating visual attention mechanism. In order to detect salient regions, we have combined color volume and edge cues together and used them as the primary visual features. Color and edge are important cues that attract human's attention. It can enhance the broad outline of the saliency regions. The results of the experiment validate that the proposed method can efficiently detect salient regions and outperform some famous methods in term of precision/recall and F-measure metrics on MSRA1000 dataset and ECSSD dataset.
Shorted-Ended Stepped-Impedance Dual-Resonance Resonator and Its Application to Bandpass Filters

In this paper, a short-ended stepped-impedance dual-resonance resonator is presented. Analysis of its resonance characteristics is carried out, from which the design graph is given. By controlling the impedance and length ratios of the resonator, for the first time, the first three pairs of resonant modes corresponding to three passbands within a single resonator can be controlled freely in a wide reasonable range. First, a bandpass filter (BPF) with the first spurious occurring at 4.2 f0 is designed. Second, in the dual-/tri-band BPFs design, according to the voltage distributions along the resonator, the feedlines with two arms supply the needed external coupling for the two/three passbands simultaneously, and good impedance matching can be achieved in each passband. Lastly, three filters with one, two, and three passbands are fabricated and measured, which show good agreement with the simulated results.
Ordering of components of Green Supply Chain Practices jointly impacting the individual components of Green Supply Chain Performance – An Empirical Study of the Indian Automobile Manufacturing Sector

This paper establishes the order in which five identified green supply chain practices jointly impact ten identified individual component measures of green supply chain performance with reference to the automobile manufacturing sector of India. This research paper is an extension of the research work done by [1]. The purpose of this research paper is to test the hypotheses developed by [1]. Further the joint impact of Green Supply Chain Practices on individual components of Green Supply Chain Performance has been established by means of ten multiple regression models. Consistently the ten multiple regression models that were developed established that there is a definite ordering of the five Green Supply Chain Practices while jointly impacting each of the ten component measures of Green Supply Chain Performance individually. These findings would enable practicing managers in the automobile manufacturing sector of India to take decisions related to implementation of green supply chain practices which would result in enhancing a particular green supply chain performance measure. This information regarding implementation of Green Supply Chain Practices would be very handy as it has financial and policy making implications.