Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pharmacology of Ramelteon, a Selective MT1/MT2 Receptor Agonist: A Novel Therapeutic Drug for Sleep Disorders

An estimated one‐third of the general population is affected by insomnia, and this number is increasing due to more stressful working conditions and the progressive aging of society. However, current treatment of insomnia with hypnotics, gamma‐aminobutyric acid A (GABAA) receptor modulators, induces various side effects, including cognitive impairment, motor disturbance, dependence, tolerance, hangover, and rebound insomnia. Ramelteon (Rozerem; Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Osaka, Japan) is an orally active, highly selective melatonin MT1/MT2 receptor agonist. Unlike the sedative hypnotics that target GABAA receptor complexes, ramelteon is a chronohypnotic that acts on the melatonin MT1 and MT2 receptors, which are primarily located in the suprachiasmatic nucleus, the body's “master clock. ” As such, ramelteon possesses the first new therapeutic mechanism of action for a prescription insomnia medication in over three decades. Ramelteon has demonstrated sleep‐promoting effects in clinical trials, and coupled with its favorable safety profile and lack of abuse potential or dependence, this chronohypnotic provides an important treatment option for insomnia.
Rhythm metrics in MSA spoken language of six algerian regions

This paper focuses in rhythm speech metrics of Modern Standard Arabic using speech material of six regions taken from ALGASD corpus. These regions are scattered across all the country: three regions from the north (Algiers, Tizi-Ouzou and Jijel) and three from the south (Bechar in the west -close to Morocco-, Ghardaia in the center of Algeria' south and El Oued is in the East -close to Tunisia-). To reveal differences in speech rhythm, metrics are computed using two rhythm models: Interval Measures and Pairwise Variability Indices. The main experiment assessed patterns in rhythm metric properties depending on speakers' location. Statistical analysis shows significant effects of speaker's origin (north/south) on vocalic and consonantal rhythm metrics.
CSER: HW/SW configurable soft-error resiliency for application specific instruction-set processors

Soft error has been identified as one of the major challenges to CMOS technology based computing systems. To mitigate this problem, error recovery is a key component, which usually accounts for a substantial cost, since they must introduce redundancies in either time or space. Consequently, using state-of-art recovery techniques could heavily worsen the design constraint, which is fairly stringent for embedded system design. In this paper, we propose a HW/SW methodology that generates the processor, which performs finely configured error recovery functionality targeting the given design constraints (e.g., performance, area and power). Our methodology employs three application-specific optimization heuristics, which generate the optimized composition and configuration based on the two primitive error recovery techniques. The resultant processor is composed of selected primitive techniques at corresponding instruction execution, and configured to perform error recovery at run-time accordingly to the scheme determined at design time. The experiment results have shown that our methodology can at best achieve nine times reliability while maintaining the given constraints, in comparison to the state of the art.
Direct effects of light on alertness, vigilance, and the waking electroencephalogram in humans depend on prior light history.

STUDY OBJECTIVES Light can induce an acute alerting response in humans; however, it is unknown whether the magnitude of this response is simply a function of the absolute illuminance of the light itself, or whether it depends on illuminance history preceding the stimulus. Here, we compared the effects of illuminance history on the alerting response to a subsequent light stimulus. DESIGN A randomized, crossover design was used to compare the effect of two illuminance histories (1 lux vs. 90 lux) on the alerting response to a 6.5-h 90-lux light stimulus during the biological night. SETTING Intensive Physiologic Monitoring Unit, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA. PARTICIPANTS Fourteen healthy young adults (6 F; 23.5 ± 2.9 years). INTERVENTIONS Participants were administered two 6.5-h light exposures (LE) of 90 lux during the biological night. For 3 days prior to each LE, participants were exposed to either 1 lux or 90 lux during the wake episode. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS The alerting response to light was assessed using subjective sleepiness ratings, lapses of attention, and reaction times as measured with an auditory psychomotor vigilance task, as well as power density in the delta/theta range of the waking EEG. The alerting response to light was greater and lasted longer when the LE followed exposure to 1 lux compared to 90 lux light. CONCLUSION The magnitude and duration of the alerting effect of light at night depends on the illuminance history and appears to be subject to sensitization and adaptation.
Robust Modeling and Estimation of Optical Flow with Overlapped Basis Functions.

Abstract : Computation of optical flow has been formulated as nonlinear optimization of a cost function comprising a gradient constraint term and a field smoothness factor. Results obtained using these techniques are often erroneous, highly sensitive to numerical precision, and determined sparsely, and they carry with them all the pitfalls of nonlinear optimization. In this paper, we regularize the gradient constraint equation by modeling optical flow as a linear combination of an overlapped set of basis functions. We develop a theory for estimating model parameters robustly and reliably. We prove that the extended least squares solution proposed here is unbiased and robust to small perturbations in the estimates of gradients and to mild deviations from the gradient constraint. The solution is obtained by a numerically stable sparse matrix inversion, giving a reliable flow field estimate over the entire frame. Experimental results of our scheme are surprisingly accurate and consistent across a variety of images, in comparison with the standard optical flow algorithms. We argue that our flow field model offers higher accuracy and robustness than conventional optical flow techniques, and is better suited for image stabilization, mosaicking and video compression.
Putting the user in charge: End user development for eco-feedback technologies

This paper aims at sensitizing stakeholders for the benefits of an end user development perspective in eco-feedback technology. Motivated by experiences gathered from a Living Lab-based design case study, we want to advocate a thinking that emphasizes end user development as a crucial part of the success of interactive eco-feedback technology. From our point of view, the field of end user development offers the potential to foster flexibilization and contextualization of energy feedback, thus improving opportunities to apply individual reference systems for end users in the situated and socio-technical surroundings of their private home.
Altered Proteasomal Function in Sporadic Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterized pathologically by preferential degeneration of the dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc). Nigral cell death is accompanied by the accumulation of a wide range of poorly degraded proteins and the formation of proteinaceous inclusions (Lewy bodies) in dopaminergic neurons. Mutations in the genes encoding alpha-synuclein and two enzymes of the ubiquitin-proteasome system, parkin and ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase L1, are associated with neurodegeneration in some familial forms of PD. We now show that, in comparison to age-matched controls, alpha-subunits (but not beta-subunits) of 26/20S proteasomes are lost within dopaminergic neurons and 20S proteasomal enzymatic activities are impaired in the SNc in sporadic PD. In addition, while the levels of the PA700 proteasome activator are reduced in the SNc in PD, PA700 expression is increased in other brain regions such as the frontal cortex and striatum. We also found that levels of the PA28 proteasome activator are very low to almost undetectable in the SNc compared to other brain areas in both normal and PD subjects. These findings suggest that failure of the ubiquitin-proteasome system to adequately clear unwanted proteins may underlie vulnerability and degeneration of the SNc in both sporadic and familial PD.
Subspace Compressive Frequency Estimation of Frequency Hopping Signal

Compressive sensing (CS) creates a new framework of signal reconstruction or approximation from a smaller set of incoherent projection compared with the traditional Nyquist-rate sampling theory. Recently, it has been shown that CS can solve some signal processing problems given incoherent measurements without ever reconstructing the signals. Moreover, the number of measurements necessary for most compressive signal processing application such as detection, estimation and classification is lower than that necessary for signal reconstruction. Based on CS and subspace theory, this paper presents a novel frequency estimation algorithm of frequency hopping (FH) signals. Given the hop rate, the hopping frequencies can be estimated with a tiny number of measurements. Simulation results demonstrate that the method is effective and efficient.
Evaluation of panoramic Radiographs as a Screening Tool of Osteoporosis in Post Menopausal Women: A Cross Sectional Study.

BACKGROUND Indian women, especially those from low-income groups consume diets that are deficient of calcium, proteins and micronutrients. Hence, they are prone to suffer from osteoporotic hip fractures at a much earlier age than western women. To detect early signs of osteoporosis, it is ideal to perform Bone Mineral Density testing of all post-menopausal women who are at risk. AIM (i) To assess and compare the relative efficacy, ease of application and measurement of the various mandibular cortical indices which were obtained on the panoramic radiographs with bone densitometry data of post-menopausal women. and (ii) To evaluate the effectiveness of these measurements in the identification of cases of osteoporosis/osteopaenia. METHOD A cross sectional sample which consisted of 40 randomly selected post menopausal women who were aged 40-69 years was subjected to dental panoramic radiography. Mental index, panoramic mandibular index, gonion index, mandibular cortical index and antegonial index were measured on each radiograph. The data were expressed as mean and standard deviation. Analysis of variance with post-hoc Tukey's test was performed to determine group differences in mandibular measurements. RESULTS Based on the bone densitometry results, the sample was classified into normal (n=9), osteopaenic (n=15) and osteoporotic (n=16) groups. Statistically significant differences were found for mean Mental index (p=0.000), mean Panoramic Mandibular Index (p=0.007) and mean Gonial Index (p=0.000). The sensitivity (100%) and specificity (88.88%) of MCI showed good results. CONCLUSION Dentists who use orthopantomographs may play a vital role in screening patients with osteoporosis, mainly among post menopausal women.
Creep constitutive model considerations for high-temperature finite element numerical simulations

Finite element modelling is increasingly used as an integral part of creep analyses for the integrity assessment of high-temperature structures. An important consideration in such finite element simulations is the constitutive model used to represent the creep strain response of the component material as a function of temperature, stress and time. There are a variety of creep models which can be chosen by the analyst for implementation in finite element codes. In this study, five different creep models have been fitted to a set of experimental uniaxial creep curves for a 1%CrMoV turbine rotor steel at 550 °C. Subsequently, the derived constitutive equations have been implemented in finite element model representations of a series of fracture mechanics compact tension specimens manufactured from the same heat of the steel and loaded at the same temperature. The outcome clearly demonstrates the potential sensitivity of high-temperature numerical analyses of structures to the type of creep model adopted, and to the scope of the experimental data from which the model is derived. This is shown by comparing the load point displacement records from a number of compact tension specimen creep crack incubation tests with the results of finite element simulations employing the different creep deformation models. FE calculated steady-state creep stress/strain distributions ahead of the notches of compact tension specimens can also exhibit a strong sensitivity to the type of creep model adopted. Prior benchmarking the effectiveness of finite element simulation procedures for critical high-temperature components with the selected material creep model equation is therefore strongly recommended.
Determinants of macular pigment optical density and its relation to age-related maculopathy: results from the Muenster Aging and Retina Study (MARS).

PURPOSE The controversial protective effect of macular pigment (MP), consisting of lutein (L) and zeaxantin (Z), in age-related maculopathy (ARM) and its late-stage, age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is discussed. Determinants of MP optical density (MPOD) and its relation to ARM were investigated. METHODS MPOD was accessed at eccentricities of 0.5° and 2.0° from the fovea in 369 participants in the 2.6-year follow-up examination of the prospective Muenster Aging and Retina Study using dual-wavelength analysis of autofluorescence images. ARM was graded from standardized fundus photographs according to the International Classification System. RESULTS MPOD at 0.5° and 2.0° between pairs and within single eyes was strongly correlated (P < 0.001). Smoking and body mass index showed moderately inverse associations with MPOD at 2.0°, and age was positively related to MPOD at both eccentricities. Serum L, measured at the baseline examination, was significantly associated with MPOD measured at follow-up. Likewise, use of L/Z-containing supplements raised MPOD. Crude mean MPOD increased with ascending stage of ARM. However, adjustment for influential factors and exclusion of L supplement users removed differences of mean MPOD between ARM stages. Considering further the accompanying eye, study eyes with ARM had significantly higher MPOD when the contralateral eye had AMD. CONCLUSIONS MPOD levels showed a high degree of intraindividual concordance and interindividual variability. Long-standing serum L levels, and in particular L supplementation, were the strongest determinants of MPOD. The hypothetical inverse association between MPOD and ARM stage was not confirmed.
An extendible multidimensional array system for MOLAP

In MOLAP systems, multidimensional arrays are employed to store fact tables dumped from the frontend relational database. On these fact tables, various kinds of statistical computations such as aggregate operations can be performed efficiently by utilizing the fast random accessing capability of arrays. This capability depends on that the size of an employed multidimensional array is fixed in every dimension, so a simple addressing function can be used to access array elements. But, if a new column value emerges after constructing the fact table, the existing fixed size multidimensional array cannot involve the value. In this paper, we provide an extendible multidimensional array system for MOLAP. Such an array can extend its size dynamically along an arbitrary dimension without any relocation of existing data. This property enables incremental aggregate operations without relocating any data dumped at the latest time. Some problems in making this system work as a basis for MOLAP are stated, and their countermeasures are proposed.
Role of antioxidants in chronic fatigue syndrome in mice.

The present study was carried out using mice model of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) in which mice were forced to swim everyday for 7 days for a 6 min session. There was a significant increase in despair behavior (immobility period) in saline treated mice on successive days. Treatment with potent antioxidants carvedilol (5 mg/kg, i.p.) and melatonin (10 mg/kg, i.p.) produced a significant reduction in immobility period. Similar results were observed with herbal products St. John's Wort (Hypericum perforatum L) (10 mg/kg, p.o.) and GS-02 (20 mg/kg, p.o.). Fluoxetine, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor produced a significant effect only on first and second day of its treatment. Biochemical analysis revealed that chronic swim test significantly increased lipid peroxidation and catalase levels in whole brains of mice. There was a decrease in the levels of super oxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione reductase (GSH) in the brain. Administration of carvedilol, melatonin, GS-02 and St. John's Wort restored the levels of lipid peroxidation and glutathione. The enzymes SOD and catalase were also restored. Fluoxetine affected the biochemical variables not to the same extent as other treatments. The findings of the present study suggest that oxidative stress might play a significant role in the pathophysiology of CFS. Thus antioxidants and herbal products like St. Johns wort and GS-02 could be useful in the treatment of CFS.
Capacitated team formation problem on social networks

In a team formation problem, one is required to find a group of users that can match the requirements of a collaborative task. Example of such collaborative tasks abound, ranging from software product development to various participatory sensing tasks in knowledge creation. Due to the nature of the task, team members are often required to work on a co-operative basis. Previous studies [1, 2] have indicated that co-operation becomes effective in presence of social connections. Therefore, effective team selection requires the team members to be socially close as well as a division of the task among team members so that no user is overloaded by the assignment. In this work, we investigate how such teams can be formed on a social network. Since our team formation problems are proven to be NP-hard, we design efficient approximate algorithms for finding near optimum teams with provable guarantees. As traditional data-sets from on-line social networks (e.g. Twitter, Facebook etc) typically do not contain instances of large scale collaboration, we have crawled millions of software repositories spanning a period of four years and hundreds of thousands of developers from GitHub, a popular open-source social coding network. We perform large scale experiments on this data-set to evaluate the accuracy and efficiency of our algorithms. Experimental results suggest that our algorithms achieve significant improvement in finding effective teams, as compared to naive strategies and scale well with the size of the data. Finally, we provide a validation of our techniques by comparing with existing software teams.
Mass Cytometry Analysis Shows That a Novel Memory Phenotype B Cell Is Expanded in Multiple Myeloma

Hansmann and colleagues used cytometry by time-of-flight (CyTOF) and next-generation sequencing to detect cancer-associated immune phenotypes in human peripheral blood on a single-cell level, leading to identification of an expanded novel memory B-cell phenotype in multiple myeloma. It would be very beneficial if the status of cancers could be determined from a blood specimen. However, peripheral blood leukocytes are very heterogeneous between individuals, and thus high-resolution technologies are likely required. We used cytometry by time-of-flight and next-generation sequencing to ask whether a plasma cell cancer (multiple myeloma) and related precancerous states had any consistent effect on the peripheral blood mononuclear cell phenotypes of patients. Analysis of peripheral blood samples from 13 cancer patients, 9 precancer patients, and 9 healthy individuals revealed significant differences in the frequencies of the T-cell, B-cell, and natural killer–cell compartments. Most strikingly, we identified a novel B-cell population that normally accounts for 4.0% ± 0.7% (mean ± SD) of total B cells and is up to 13-fold expanded in multiple myeloma patients with active disease. This population expressed markers previously associated with both memory (CD27+) and naïve (CD24loCD38+) phenotypes. Single-cell immunoglobulin gene sequencing showed polyclonality, indicating that these cells are not precursors to the myeloma, and somatic mutations, a characteristic of memory cells. SYK, ERK, and p38 phosphorylation responses, and the fact that most of these cells expressed isotypes other than IgM or IgD, confirmed the memory character of this population, defining it as a novel type of memory B cells. Cancer Immunol Res; 3(6); 650–60. ©2015 AACR.
Progression of Mild Cognitive Impairment to Dementia: Contribution of Cerebrovascular Disease Compared With Medial Temporal Lobe Atrophy

Background and Purpose— We sought to determine the predictive value of magnetic resonance imaging measures of vascular disease (white matter hyperintensities [WMHs], lacunes, microbleeds, and infarcts) compared with atrophy on the progression of mild cognitive impairment to dementia. Methods— We included 152 consecutive patients with mild cognitive impairment. Baseline magnetic resonance imaging was used to determine the presence of medial temporal lobe atrophy and vascular disease (presence of lacunes, microbleeds, and infarcts was determined, and WMHs were rated on a semiquantitative scale). Patients were followed up for 2±1 years. Results— Seventy-two (47%) patients progressed to dementia during follow-up. Of these, 56 (37%) patients were diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and 16 (10%) patients were diagnosed with a non-Alzheimer dementia (including vascular dementia, frontotemporal lobar degeneration, and Parkinson dementia). Converters were older and had a lower Mini-Mental State Examination score at baseline. On baseline magnetic resonance imaging, patients who progressed to a non-Alzheimer dementia showed more severe WMHs and had a higher prevalence of lacunes in the basal ganglia and microbleeds compared with nonconverters. Cox proportional-hazard models showed that, adjusted for age and sex, baseline medial temporal lobe atrophy (hazard ratio=2.9; 95% CI, 1.7 to 5.3), but not vascular disease, was associated with progression to Alzheimer's disease. By contrast, deep WMHs (hazard ratio=5.7; 95% CI, 1.2 to 26.7) and periventricular hyperintensities (hazard ratio=6.5; 95% CI, 1.4 to 29.8) predicted progression to non-Alzheimer dementia. Furthermore, microbleeds (hazard ratio=2.6; 95% CI, 0.9 to 7.5) yielded a >2-fold increased, though nonsignificant, risk of non-Alzheimer dementia. Conclusion— Medial temporal lobe atrophy and markers of cerebrovascular disease predict the development of different types of dementia in mild cognitive impairment patients.
CkNN monitoring based on parallel pre-computing

The problem of k nearest neighbor (kNN) queries plays an important role in spatial information retrieval. The continuous k nearest neighbor query is a variation of kNN query which is aimed to find the kNN in a given path for a query point continuously. Recently, The problem of CkNN queries over moving objects in road networks has caught more and more researchers' attention due to its various applications. In this paper, we report on a pre-processing based approach to answer CkNN queries with light online computation cost. We evaluate our approach on a real data set. The evaluation results validate the effectiveness and efficiency of our approach. Besides, we design a prototype system for monitoring and navigating the urban taxis based on CkNN queries. In our system, we utilize the parallel pre-computing and approximation techniques to support a large number of moving objets. Through a web-based graphical interface, both taxi drivers and pedestrians can access our system and query for their CkNN.