Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Case-crossover design: Air pollution and health outcomes

ObjectivesThe objective of this study was to investigate variants of case-crossover design for assessing correlations between counts of health events over time and exposure to ambient air pollution. For illustrative purposes, daily emergency department (ED) visits for depression among females were considered.Materials and MethodAmbient nitrogen dioxide (NO2) was used as a principal ambient air pollutant. In addition, sulphur dioxide (SO2) and carbon monoxide (CO) were considered. Different configurations of the control periods (every 1, 2, …, 10 days) and different forms (linear, natural splines) of meteorological factors in the applied conditional logistic regression models were used. The sequence of overlapping age intervals was defined ([0, 19], [1, 20], and so on) and each age group was analyzed separately. The results for the defined age sequences allow identifying age ranges in which the effects are strongest.ResultsConsequently, for example, different age ranges for patients for which ED visits for depression were correlated with NO2 and SO2 were identified. This age-interval difference explains the very often observed phenomenon whereby two air pollutants used in one model may not show correlations with health outcomes. In this situation they affect separate age groups. The results also show dependency on number-defined control periods for the applied case-crossover technique. The opposite statistical conclusions may be generated by using different control schemas.ConclusionsThe results support the hypothesis that ED visits for depressive disorder may be correlated with exposure to ambient air pollution.
Evidence for Fusion Between Cardiac and Skeletal Muscle Cells

Abstract— Cardiomyoplasty with skeletal myoblasts may benefit cardiac function after infarction. Recent reports indicate that adult stem cells can fuse with other cell types. Because myoblasts are “fusigenic” cells by nature, we hypothesized they might be particularly likely to fuse with cardiomyocytes. To test this, neonatal rat cardiomyocytes labeled with LacZ and green fluorescent protein (GFP) were cocultured with unlabeled C2C12 myoblasts. After 3 days, we observed a small population of skeletal myotubes that expressed LacZ and GFP, indicating cell fusion. To test whether such fusion occurred in vivo, LacZ-expressing C2C12 myoblasts were grafted into normal nude mouse hearts. At 2 weeks after grafting, cells at the graft-host interface expressed both LacZ and cardiac-specific myosin light chain 2v (MLC2v). To test more definitively whether fusion between skeletal and cardiac muscle could occur, we used a Cre/lox reporter system that activated LacZ only upon cell fusion. When neonatal cardiomyocytes from &agr;-myosin heavy chain promoter (&agr;-MHC)-Cre mice were cocultured with myoblasts from floxed-lacZ reporter mice, LacZ was activated in a subset of cells, indicating cell fusion occurred in vitro. Finally, we grafted the floxed-lacZ myoblasts into normal hearts of &agr;-MHC-Cre+ and &agr;-MHC-Cre− mice (n=5 each). Hearts analyzed at 4 days and 1 week after transplantation demonstrated activation of LacZ when the skeletal muscle cells were implanted into hearts of &agr;-MHC-Cre+ mice, but not after implantation into &agr;-MHC-Cre− mice. These data indicate that skeletal muscle cell grafting gives rise to a subpopulation of skeletal-cardiac hybrid cells with a currently unknown phenotype. The full text of this article is available online at http://circres.ahajournals. org.
SPATIAL BEHAVIOURAL SIMULATION OF MECHANICAL OBJECTS

The paper presents a computational method for spatial behavioral simulation of moving mechanical objects. The developed software is able to handle both two-dimensional and threedimensional objects whose geometric models are imported from commercialized CAD systems through STEP files. Kinematical description of various objects is unified, stationary obstacles and moving bodies are treated in the same way. For spatial behavioral simulation objects and obstacles can be arbitrarily configured in the space, their pre-collision movement, frictioninfluenced and friction-free collisions on the obstacles are computed, together with the postcollision trajectories of movement. The spatial behavioral simulation has been applied to solve an industrial problem: namely, spatial positioning of moving objects without using extra energy.
On the reliability, availability, and throughput of satellite swarms

Based on the opportunities and gained reputation of individual nanosatellites, a larger number of identical nanosatellites may, in the future, build up a spacecraft swarm for applications, such as multipoint sensing, virtual instruments, or enhanced communication. However, the overall system characterization of such a spacecraft swarm as well as its comparison to classical monolithic space architectures has not yet been performed. To this end, we model, analyze, and compare the lifetime of nanosatellites and classical larger satellites using representative Markov models and Monte-Carlo analysis. We model, characterize, and analyze swarm-specific aspects, in particular, systemwide reliability, availability, and throughput. Finally, we critically examine design strategies for spacecraft swarms that suggest individual spacecraft to take over functionality from other swarm satellites with the goal to increase system-level performance.
Neuroprotection in PD—A role for dopamine agonists?

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder after Alzheimer’s disease. PD invariably manifests with motor symptoms related to the dopaminergic cell loss in the substantia nigra pars compacta. In the early stages, patients usually experience some bradykinesia, rigidity and, often, some tremor. The symptoms are typically asymmetric at onset. The age of presentation varies considerably, with young-onset PD arbitrarily being defined as onset before 50 years of age. The incidence and prevalence of PD rise with increasing age; the peak incidence is in the early 60s. Dopaminergic cell loss continues with the progression of the disease. Various imaging markers have suggested a rate of cell loss between 6 and 12% per annum in the early stages of PD. However, the rate of cell loss may vary, probably being greatest in the earlier phases of the disease. The preclinical latent period, during which cells are dying but clinical features are not apparent, has been variously estimated at between 5 and 10 years. Again, however, this period varies, probably according to etiology. Although the early symptomatic features of PD are related to dopaminergic cell loss, in later stages of the disease the effect of neuronal loss in other neurotransmitter systems becomes apparent. These nonmotor features include autonomic dysfunction and cognitive abnormalities. Although symptomatic treatments are available to reverse the dopaminergic features of PD, no successful treatments are yet available for the nondopaminergic features. These inevitably become the most disabling element of PD, and the cognitive dysfunction, in particular, is often a reason for institutionalization. Various treatments are now available for the symptomatic management of PD. These are predominantly related to the dopaminergic system and include L-dopa, dopamine agonists (DAs), and monoamine oxidase-B inhibitors (MAOIs). Other drugs, such as anticholinergics and amantadine, may have a beneficial effect on motor features by influencing nondopaminergic transmitter systems. Symptomatic treatments in the earlier stages of PD are extremely successful and significantly reduce disability and maintain function. However, the inexorable loss of dopaminergic neurons limits the longterm efficacy of these drugs. Therefore, there is a pressing need to develop disease-modifying therapies that can slow the course of disease progression and perhaps even reverse symptoms by restoring function to defective neurons. Several drugs are now under evaluation for a neuroprotective effect in PD and other neurodegenerative diseases. The majority of these drugs are still being evaluated at the preclinical phase. Some, such as coenzyme Q10, have demonstrated some efficacy in one small study.1 This review focuses on the potential role of DAs as disease-modifying therapy in PD.
The Federal Role in Educational R & D

1867, when the Department of Education was established, to 1954 was largely one in which the Department (later changed to OE) was charged with the responsibility of collecting statistics on the condition and progress of education at the local, state, and federal levels. This was merely a social bookkeeping function and led to the establishment of the statistics unit in OE. During these years, OE conducted surveys and disseminated reports to help the states and local school districts deal with a variety of educational problems.1 During this period, it might be said that OE and the federal government were bystanders as the field of educational research moved through its early emphasis on philosophic inquiry to its predominant concern with psychologically based empiricism and aptitude and intelligence testing.
Microreaction for Microfuel Processing: Challenges and Prospects

The processing of high density liquid hydrocarbon fuels appears to be the most promising method of supplying a hydrogen stream for feeding portable fuel cells. Furthermore, microchemical systems are a strong enabling aspect of compact fuel processors due to their advantageous heat and mass transport and inherent compactness. However, a number of crucial challenges exist for the realization of practical fuel processors. In this article, these challenges are addressed, and two examples are shown of how the challenges can be attacked in the context of implementation of microchemical systems. The examples involve (a) appropriate measurement of kinetics in microchannel-catalyst systems with preferential oxidation of carbon monoxide as a model, and (b) thermal integration of reactor components with a methanol steam reformer as a model.
Holdup Problems in Early Supplier Involvement and the Manufacturer ’ s Optimal Strategy

While early supplier involvement has been adopted in many industries to facilitate product innovation, its impact on new product development performance is mixed. This study examines the dynamic relationship between the manufacturer and supplier using cooperative investment framework, and argues that, due to the nature of the investment, post-contractual holdups can reduce the benefits from the collaboration suggested by the resource-based view, leading to a longer development lead time and a lower probability of a radical innovation. These problems are different from the classical agency problems in that they are not based on asymmetric information between the principle and the agent and/or their different attitudes towards risk, and thus cannot be solved by monitoring or standard contracts. The study offers insights for manufacturers in deciding whether to strategically commit to their suppliers. While the commitment strategy increases the suppliers' incentive to collaborate, the non-commitment strategy reduces holdup problems. The manufacturer's optimal strategy is derived considering two contingent factors. The findings enrich the understanding of supply chain partner collaboration in new product development from a new perspective.
Applying Neural-Symbolic Cognitive Agents in Intelligent Transport Systems to reduce CO2 emissions

Providing personalized feedback in Intelligent Transport Systems is a powerful tool for instigating a change in driving behaviour and the reduction of CO2 emissions. This requires a system that is capable of detecting driver characteristics from real-time vehicle data. In this paper, we apply the architecture and theory of a Neural-Symbolic Cognitive Agent (NSCA) to effectively learn and reason about observed driving behaviour and related driver characteristics. The NSCA architecture combines neural learning and reasoning with symbolic temporal knowledge representation and is capable of encoding background knowledge, learning new hypotheses from observed data, and inferring new beliefs based on these hypotheses. Furthermore, it deals with uncertainty and errors in the data using a Bayesian inference model, and it scales well to hundreds of thousands of data samples as in the application reported in this paper. We have applied the NSCA in an Intelligent Transport System to reduce CO2 emissions as part of an European Union project, called EcoDriver. Results reported in this paper show that the NSCA outperforms the state-of-the-art in this application area, and is applicable to very large data.
Global divergence in critical income for adult and childhood survival: analyses of mortality using Michaelis–Menten

Life expectancy has risen sharply in the last 50 years. We applied the classic Michaelis–Menten enzyme kinetics to demonstrate a novel mathematical relationship of income to childhood (aged 0–5 years) and adult (aged 15–60 years) survival. We treat income as a substrate that is catalyzed to increase survival (from technologies that income buys) for 180 countries from 1970 and 2007. Michaelis–Menten kinetics permit estimates of maximal survival and, uniquely, the critical income needed to achieve half of the period-specific maximum. Maximum child and adult survival rose by about 1% per year. Critical incomes fell by half for children, but doubled for men. HIV infection and smoking account for some, but not all, of the rising critical incomes for adult survival. Altering the future cost curve for adult survival will require more widespread use of current interventions, most notably tobacco control, but also research to identify practicable low-cost drugs, diagnostics, and strategies. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.00051. 001
Cooling-rate effects in amorphous silica: A computer-simulation study.

Using molecular-dynamics computer simulations we investigate how in silica the glass transition and the properties of the resulting glass depend on the cooling rate with which the sample is cooled. By coupling the system to a heat bath with temperature ${\mathit{T}}_{\mathit{b}}$(t), we cool the system linearly in time, ${\mathit{T}}_{\mathit{b}}$(t)=${\mathit{T}}_{\mathit{i}}$-\ensuremath{\gamma}t, where \ensuremath{\gamma} is the cooling rate. In qualitative accordance with experiments, the temperature dependence of the density shows a local maximum, which becomes more pronounced with decreasing cooling rate. We find that the glass transition temperature ${\mathit{T}}_{\mathit{g}}$ is in accordance with a logarithmic dependence on \ensuremath{\gamma}. The enthalpy, density, and thermal expansion coefficient for the glass at zero temperature decrease with decreasing \ensuremath{\gamma}. We show that also microscopic quantities, such as the radial distribution function, the bond-bond angle distribution function, the coordination numbers, and the distribution function for the size of the rings, depend significantly on \ensuremath{\gamma}. We demonstrate that the cooling-rate dependence of these microscopic quantities is significantly more pronounced than the one of macroscopic properties. Furthermore, we show that these microscopic quantities, as determined from our simulation, are in good agreement with the ones measured in real experiments, thus demonstrating that the used potential is a good model for silica glass. The vibrational spectrum of the system also shows a significant dependence on the cooling rate and is in qualitative accordance with the one found in experiments. Finally we investigate the properties of the system at finite temperatures in order to understand the microscopic mechanism for the density anomaly. We show that the anomaly is related to a densification and subsequent opening of the tetrahedral network when the temperature is decreased, whereas the distance between nearest neighbors, i.e., the size of the tetrahedra, does not change significantly. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.
On Line Adaptation of Neural Network Classifiers to Non-Stationary Image and Video Inputs

A novel technique for on line adaptation of neural network classifiers to non stationary image and video inputs, is proposed in this paper. The scheme includes on the one hand, a maximum a posteriori procedure which optimally estimates the most representative data of the current environment and on the other hand, a retrieval mechanism which selects the most appropriate network classifier from a system memory. Small perturbation of the retrieved network weights is then performed for further improving the network performance.
Stampidine as a promising antiretroviral drug candidate for pre-exposure prophylaxis against sexually transmitted HIV/AIDS

Introduction: Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is an evolving new approach to prevention of sexually transmitted HIV-1 that employs antiretroviral (ARV) agents prior to potential HIV-1 exposure in an attempt to reduce the likelihood of HIV-1 infection postexposure. The identification of new ARV agents with potent activity against multidrug-resistant HIV remains an unmet and urgent challenge in the field of PrEP. Areas covered: This article reviews the preclinical and early clinical activity and safety profile of stampidine, a novel antiretroviral (ARV) drug candidate that exhibits remarkable subnanomolar to low nanomolar in vitro antiretroviral potency against genotypically and phenotypically nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI)-resistant primary clinical HIV isolates, non-nucleoside RT-resistant HIV-1 isolates. Stampidine has a favorable pharmacokinetic profile in mice, rats, dogs and cats with 25 or 50 mg/kg tolerable dose levels yielding micromolar plasma concentrations that are 1000-fold higher than its in vitro IC50 value against HIV. Stampidine has a favorable, safety profile in mice, rats, dogs and cats and it showed significant in vivo ARV activity in HIV-infected Hu-PBL-SCID mice as well as FIV-infected domestic cats. Furthermore, it did not cause any maternal toxicity, developmental toxicity or teratogenicity in rabbits treated at 10 – 40 mg/kg/day dose levels. In a recently completed first-in-human Phase I clinical trial, stampidine did not cause dose-limiting toxicity at single dose levels ranging from 5 to 25 mg/kg. Expert opinion: The favorable safety and activity profile of stampidine warrants its further development as a promising next-generation PrEP candidate to prevent the sexual transmission of HIV-1. The discovery of stampidine as a potent antiretroviral agent represents a significant step forward in the development of effective therapeutic as well as preventive strategies against HIV/AIDS.
The Selective Phosphodiesterase 4 Inhibitor Roflumilast and Phosphodiesterase 3/4 Inhibitor Pumafentrine Reduce Clinical Score and TNF Expression in Experimental Colitis in Mice

Objective The specific inhibition of phosphodiesterase (PDE)4 and dual inhibition of PDE3 and PDE4 has been shown to decrease inflammation by suppression of pro-inflammatory cytokine synthesis. We examined the effect of roflumilast, a selective PDE4 inhibitor marketed for severe COPD, and the investigational compound pumafentrine, a dual PDE3/PDE4 inhibitor, in the preventive dextran sodium sulfate (DSS)-induced colitis model. Methods The clinical score, colon length, histologic score and colon cytokine production from mice with DSS-induced colitis (3.5% DSS in drinking water for 11 days) receiving either roflumilast (1 or 5 mg/kg body weight/d p.o.) or pumafentrine (1.5 or 5 mg/kg/d p.o.) were determined and compared to vehicle treated control mice. In the pumafentrine-treated animals, splenocytes were analyzed for interferon-γ (IFNγ) production and CD69 expression. Results Roflumilast treatment resulted in dose-dependent improvements of clinical score (weight loss, stool consistency and bleeding), colon length, and local tumor necrosis factor-α (TNFα) production in the colonic tissue. These findings, however, were not associated with an improvement of the histologic score. Administration of pumafentrine at 5 mg/kg/d alleviated the clinical score, the colon length shortening, and local TNFα production. In vitro stimulated splenocytes after in vivo treatment with pumafentrine showed a significantly lower state of activation and production of IFNγ compared to no treatment in vivo. Conclusions These series of experiments document the ameliorating effect of roflumilast and pumafentrine on the clinical score and TNF expression of experimental colitis in mice.
Evidence-based nutrition principles and recommendations for the treatment and prevention of diabetes and related complications.

Historically, nutrition principles and recommendations for diabetes and related complications have been based on scientific evidence and diabetes knowledge when available and, when evidence was not available, on clinical experience and expert consensus. Often it has been difficult to discern the level of evidence used to construct the nutrition principles and recommendations. Furthermore, in clinical practice, many nutrition recommendations that have no scientific supporting evidence have been and are still being given to individuals with diabetes. To address these problems and to incorporate the research done in the past 8 years, this 2002 technical review provides principles and recommendations classified according to the level of evidence available. It reviews the evidence from randomized, controlled trials; cohort and case-controlled studies; and observational studies, which can also provide valuable evidence (1,2), and takes into account the number of studies that have provided consistent outcomes of support. In this review, nutrition principles are graded into four categories based on the available evidence: those with strong supporting evidence, those with some supporting evidence, those with limited supporting evidence and those based on expert consensus. Evidence-based nutrition recommendations attempt to translate research data and clinically applicable evidence into nutrition care. However, the best available evidence must still be moderated by individual circumstances and preferences. The goal of evidence-based recommendations is to improve the quality of clinical judgments and facilitate cost-effective care by increasing the awareness of clinicians and patients with diabetes of the evidence supporting nutrition services and the strength of that evidence, both in quality and quantity. Before 1994, the American Diabetes Association’s (ADA’s) nutrition principles and recommendations attempted to define an “ideal” nutrition prescription that would apply to everyone with diabetes (3,4,5). Although individualization was a major principle of all recommendations, it was usually done within defined …
Threshold calculation scheme with filter bank in signal detection

In signal detection for cognitive radio, it is desirable to calculate a threshold within a short observation period since noise power changes in accordance with the amplification factor and the temperature of a low noise amplifier in a receiver. This paper proposes a threshold calculation scheme with a filter bank. The proposed scheme uses a more number of noise samples output from the filter bank to calculate the threshold. Thus, the proposed scheme can improve the accuracy of the calculated thresholds and it leads to increase the probability of detection. Numerical results obtained through computer simulation show that the proposed scheme reduces the required sample per energy by 0.5dB at a detection probability of 0.99.