Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
[Change in life expectancy in connection with three large groups of causes of death in Medellín, Colombia, between 1989-1991 and 1994-1996].

OBJECTIVES To examine changes in life expectancy in Medellin, Colombia, between 1989-1991 y 1994-1996, in connection with four large groups of causes of death commonly employed in studies on the burden of disease: group 1, communicable diseases, perinatal and maternal health problems, and nutritional deficits; group 2, non-communicable diseases; group 3, wounds; group 4, ill-defined causes. The latter were excluded from the analysis because of their ambiguity. METHODS The calculations were made according to the method described by J. H. Pollard in 1986, with the aid of Microsoft Excel, by using the recommended formulas. The computations were double checked with EPIDAT (version 3.0, unofficial). RESULTS Between 1989-1991 y 1994-1996, a total gain of 1.93 years in life expectancy was seen in Medellin, with a rise from 62.13 to 64.06 years. The gain was greater in men than in women (2.42 vs. 1.09 years, respectively). The increase noted among females was greatest in the extreme age groups (girls 1 to 4 and women over 54 years of age); in men, it was highest in the middle years (between the ages of 25 and 44). In both sexes, the greatest percentage loss in life expectancy was seen in persons 15 to 19 years of age (23% in men and 4% in women, roughly). In the group comprising communicable diseases, perinatal and maternal health problems, and nutritional deficits, a loss in life expectancy was seen in men (0.04 years), whereas in the group of non-communicable diseases there was a gain in life expectancy in both sexes (0.60 years among men and 0.55 years among women). The greater gain in life expectancy among men was linked to a reduction in mortality from wounds (1.98 years). CONCLUSIONS If one compares the results obtained in Medellin at the end of the study period with life expectancy at birth in Colombia in 1995, which was 70 years, it is obvious that life expectancy in Medellin is still lagging behind, even though it has risen progressively over the years. This is in keeping with the epidemiological transition the city has experienced, which has been linked with a rise in mortality from degenerative and cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory ailments, and diabetes, as well as from diseases resulting from human activity. Nevertheless, this epidemiological transition has been slow in Medellin when compared to Colombia as a whole due to high rates of death from infectious and parasitic diseases, which are more characteristic of the transition in its earlier stages. Despite the fact that mortality from wounds has decreased in Medellin, particularly among young males, it may be worthwhile to reassess the effectiveness of interventions undertaken in recent years to promote peaceful coexistence and tolerance in the community.
Quantitatively different red cell/nucleated cell chimerism in patients with long-term, persistent hematopoietic mixed chimerism after bone marrow transplantation for thalassemia major or sickle cell disease

Background Persistent mixed chimerism represents a state in which recipient and donor cells stably co-exist after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. However, since in most of the studies reported in literature the engraftment state was observed in the nucleated cells, in this study we determined the donor origin of the mature erythrocytes of patients with persistent mixed chimerism after transplantation for hemoglobinopathies. Results were compared with the engraftment state observed in singly picked out burst-forming unit – erythroid colonies and in the nucleated cells collected from the peripheral blood and from the bone marrow. Design and Methods The donor origin of the erythrocytes was determined analyzing differences on the surface antigens of the erythrocyte suspension after incubation with anti-ABO and/or anti-C, -c, -D, -E and -e monoclonal antibodies by a flow cytometer. Analysis of short tandem repeats was used to determine the donor origin of nucleated cells and burst-forming unit – erythroid colonies singly picked out after 14 days of incubation. Results The proportions of donor-derived nucleated cells in four transplanted patients affected by hemoglobinopathies were 71%, 46%, 15% and 25% at day 1364, 1385, 1314 and 932, respectively. Similar results were obtained for the erythroid precursors, analyzing the donor/recipient origin of the burst-forming unit – erythroid colonies. In contrast, on the same days of observation, the proportions of donor-derived erythrocytes in the four patients with persistent mixed chimerism were 100%, 100%, 73% and 90%. Conclusions Our results showed that most of the erythrocytes present in four long-term transplanted patients affected by hemoglobinopathies and characterized by the presence of few donor engrafted nucleated cells were of donor origin. The indication that small proportions of donor engrafted cells might be sufficient for clinical control of the disease in patients affected by hemoglobinopathies is relevant, although the biological mechanisms underlying these observations need further investigation.
SVM-based Voice Activity Detection for Distributed Specch Recognition System

Voice Activity Detection (VAD) algorithms based on machine learning techniques have shown competitive results in the area of automatic speech recognition. This paper describes a new approach of VAD based on Support Vector Machines (SVM) for Distributed Speech Recognition (DSR) system. In the proposed scheme, the speech and the non-speech frames are detected from the compressed Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCCs), at the back-end (e.g. server) side, with the aim of improving the VAD performance and reducing the compression bit-rate from the front-end side (e.g. client). By using the trained SVM with polynomial kernel, the SVM-based VAD show an encouraging detection results. The classification task conducted from the Aurora-2 speech database, using different noise conditions, illustrates comparable VAD performance, with respect to ETSI Advanced Front-End (ETSI-AFE) VAD algorithm. Keywordsvoice acivity detection; support vector machines; DSR system; mel frequency cepstral coefficients
Scanning Electron Microscopy Study of Fiber Reinforced Polymeric Nanocomposites

The nanoscale materials offer the opportunity to explore new behavior beyond those established in conventional materials. It has been established that mechanical and thermal properties, moisture barrier, and flame resistance of polymeric composites can be improved by adding a small amount of nanoparticles as filler particles without compromising the density, toughness, storage life, weight or processability of the composite [Sandler et al., 2002; Bruzaud & Bourmaud, 2007]. The higher surface area is one of the most promising characteristics of nanoparticles due to their ability in creating a good interface in a composite. The dispersion of nanoparticles in the matrix is one of the most important parameters in fabricating nanophased composites. It depends on processing techniques such as solution blending, shear mixing, in-situ polymerization, ultrasonic cavitation, and high pressure mixing [Giannelis, 1998; Yasmin et al., 2003; Vaia et al., 1996]. Nanomaterials have enhanced various characteristics in a given polymer. However, these enhancements have limitations at higher loadings due to increased agglomeration causing premature failure.
Double-edge factor graphs: Definition, properties, and examples

Some of the most interesting quantities associated with a factor graph are its marginals and its partition sum. For factor graphs without cycles and moderate message-update complexities, the sum-product algorithm (SPA) can be used to efficiently compute these quantities exactly. Moreover, for various classes of factor graphs with cycles, the SPA has been successfully applied to efficiently compute good approximations to these quantities. Note that in the case of factor graphs with cycles, the local functions are usually non-negative real-valued functions. In this paper we introduce a class of factor graphs, called double-edge factor graphs (DE-FGs), which allow local functions to be complex-valued and only require them, in some suitable sense, to be positive semi-definite kernel functions. We discuss various properties of the SPA when running it on DE-FGs and we show promising numerical results for various example DE-FGs, some of which have connections to quantum information processing.
NEVER TOO EARLY, NEVER TOO LATE: EFFECTS OF SEARCH TIMING ON PRODUCT INNOVATION.

The article discusses a research study done to explain whether organizations introduce cutting-edge products when timing depends solely on their competitors. The two-part hypothesis states that moving early is based on searching technical knowledge earlier than competitors while the second part mentions moving later than opponents. An advantage to searching for knowledge earlier is exclusive product retainment. Moving late can be advantageous since firms can analyze their competitor's behavior in the event that any errors are made. The study sampled industrial automation companies during 1984-1998 in Japan, Europe, and the United States. The study found that firms that move early tend to be more innovative.
Why rapid, adaptive evolution matters for community dynamics

Evolution on contemporary timescales has recently been recognized as an important driver for ecological change. It is now well established that evolutionary change can affect the interactions between species within a few generations and that ecological interactions may influence the outcome of evolution in return. This tight link between ecology and evolution is of fundamental importance as it can determine the stability of populations and communities, as well as the generation and maintenance of diversity within and among populations. Although these eco-evolutionary dynamics and feedbacks have now been demonstrated many times, we are still far away from understanding how often they occur in nature. We summarize recent findings on eco-evolutionary dynamics, with a focus on consumer-resource interactions, from theory and empirical research. We identify gaps in our knowledge and suggest future research directions to provide a mechanistic understanding and predictive capability for community and ecosystem responses to environmental change.
Infants' Physical World

Investigations of infants' physical world over the past 20 years have revealed two main findings. First, even very young infants possess expectations about physical events. Second, these expectations undergo significant developments during the first year of life, as infants form event categories, such as occlusion, containment, and covering events, and identify the variables relevant for predicting outcomes in each category. A new account of infants' physical reasoning integrates these findings. Predictions from the account are examined in change-blindness and teaching experiments.
Anchor-Based Localization via Interval Analysis for Mobile Ad-Hoc Sensor Networks

Location awareness is a fundamental requirement for many applications of sensor networks. This paper proposes an original technique for self-localization in mobile ad-hoc networks. This method is adapted to the limited computational and memory resources of mobile nodes. The localization problem is solved in an interval analysis framework. The propagation of the estimation errors is based on an interval formulation of a state space model, where observations consist of anchor-based connectivities. The problem is then formulated as a constraint satisfaction problem where a simple Waltz algorithm is applied in order to contract the solution. This technique yields a guaranteed and robust online estimation of the mobile node positions. Observation errors as well as anchor node imperfections are taken into consideration in a simple and computational-consistent way. Multihop anchor-based and backpropagated localizations are also made possible in our method. Simulation results on mobile node trajectories corroborate the efficiency of the proposed technique and show that it outperforms the particle filtering methods.
An Approach to Pain Management in End Stage Renal Disease: Considerations for General Management and Intradialytic Symptoms

The prevalence and severity of symptoms in patients with advanced chronic kidney disease is higher than those of the general population and comparable to those with other chronic and serious medical conditions. Despite the prevalence and severity in this population, symptoms continue to be under‐recognized and inadequately managed. The recognition of specific intradialytic pain syndromes such as pain related to arteriovenous access, headaches, muscle cramps or generalized pain by providers may aid in improving patient compliance and quality of life. The approach to pain management in end stage renal disease patients follows that of the general population with specific considerations regarding clearance and potential side effects guiding selection of agents. Overall, evidence is limited regarding the pharmacology of many medications in this population.
Measurement of surgical motion with a marker free computer vision based system

This paper presents a marker free computer vision based system for tracking the articulated movement of hands in order to measure surgical skill. Tracking is achieved with a fast level set evolution method for active contours based on edge information. The spatial positions of anatomical features like the middle of the arm and of the wrist are computed from stereo images. Our first measurements show that we can track the trajectory of the arm movement with this method.
Efficient web crawling with proposed URL ordering

In this paper an efficient and modified ordering algorithm is proposed. Which shows the better utilization of storage space. This paper shows the results of the modified proposed URL (Uniform Resource Locator) ordering algorithm. Experimental result shows that it can work efficiently in finding the important pages comparatively to the traditional PageRank. We have performed experiment on data set using web logs from university and we achieve statistical significant improvement in ordering by getting two more categories on an average also more URLs in the higher order rank. And it shows 6.95 % time saving in downloading and 46.6% better in Quality than traditional PageRank.
Complex Pattern Formation Using Cellular Automata

Pattern formation is a process whereby pattern at the global level of a system emerges solely from interactions among the lower-level components of the system. The rules specify the interactions among the system's components are executed using only local information, without reference to the global pattern. Creating algorithmic approach for generating complex patterns of digital images is important and difficult task. Researchers face with many challenges in developing tiling algorithms such as providing simple and applicable algorithm to describe complex patterns. This paper uses cellular automata with extended moor neighborhood under null boundary condition to generate complex patterns of digital images. Growth from simple motif in two dimensional cellular automata can produce widely different complex patterns. The proposed approach leads to accurate and scalable algorithm for generating these patterns. The results of implemented algorithm demonstrate our approach with a variety of complex patterns. The paper is organized as follows. Section I gives a brief introduction to the pattern formation. Section II and Section III presents the concept of cellular automata and pattern formation using cellular automata. Section IV presents the experimental results and discussions followed by Section V that provides the conclusions and future work.
Mutations at twelve independent loci result in absence of outer dynein arms in Chylamydomonas reinhardtii

35 strains of Chlamydomonas mutant missing the entire outer dynein arm were isolated by screening slow-swimming phenotypes. They comprised 10 independent genetic loci (odal-10) including those of previously isolated mutants oda38 and pf28. The 10 loci were distinct from pf13 and pf22, loci for nonmotile mutants missing the outer arm. These results indicate that at least 12 genes are responsible for the assembly of the outer dynein arms. There were no mutants lacking partial structures of the outer arm, suggesting that lack of a single component results in failure of assembly of entire outer arms. Temporary dikaryons derived from mating of two different oda strains often, but not always, recovered the wild-type motility within 2 h of mating. Hence, outer arms can be transported and attached to the outer doublets independently of flagellar growth.
An unusual haplotype structure on human chromosome 8p23 derived from the inversion polymorphism

Chromosomal inversion is an important type of genomic variations involved in both evolution and disease pathogenesis. Here, we describe the refined genetic structure of a 3.8‐Mb inversion polymorphism at chromosome 8p23. Using HapMap data of 1,073 SNPs generated from 209 unrelated samples from CEPH—Utah residents with ancestry from northern and western Europe (CEU); Yoruba in Ibadan, Nigeria (YRI); and Asian (ASN) samples, which were comprised of Han Chinese from Beijing, China (CHB) and Japanese from Tokyo, Japan (JPT)—we successfully deduced the inversion orientations of all their 418 haplotypes. In particular, distinct haplotype subgroups were identified based on principal component analysis (PCA). Such genetic substructures were consistent with clustering patterns based on neighbor‐joining tree reconstruction, which revealed a total of four haplotype clades across all samples. Metaphase fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) in a subset of 10 HapMap samples verified their inversion orientations predicted by PCA or phylogenetic tree reconstruction. Positioning of the outgroup haplotype within one of YRI clades suggested that Human NCBI Build 36‐inverted order is most likely the ancestral orientation. Furthermore, the population differentiation test and the relative extended haplotype homozygosity (REHH) analysis in this region discovered multiple selection signals, also in a population‐specific manner. A positive selection signal was detected at XKR6 in the ASN population. These results revealed the correlation of inversion polymorphisms to population‐specific genetic structures, and various selection patterns as possible mechanisms for the maintenance of a large chromosomal rearrangement at 8p23 region during evolution. In addition, our study also showed that haplotype‐based clustering methods, such as PCA, can be applied in scanning for cryptic inversion polymorphisms at a genome‐wide scale. Hum Mutat 0, 1–8, 2008. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Perceived values of web-based collective design platforms from the perspective of industrial designers in reference to Quirky and OpenIDEO

Web-based collective design platforms are virtual environments which highly rely on large-scale participation of people from diverse backgrounds in different phases of the design process. Understanding and motivating participants is important to enhance the diversity of solutions and approaches in such platforms. This study investigates the motivation factors for the designer members of the crowd, and explores the perceived values of these platforms from the perspective of industrial designers. An empirical study based on semi-structured interviews with novice industrial designers was conducted in reference to two collective design platforms, Quirky and OpenIDEO. The study reveals six major values emphasized by the designers: Supportiveness, collectiveness, appreciativeness, responsiveness, trustworthiness, and tangibility of outcome. The findings indicate that the value of collectiveness may be interrelated with the values of supportiveness, appreciativeness and responsiveness. Trustworthiness is a complex construct; participation quality, evaluation quality, reward system, intellectual property and past performance are the related issues brought to focus by designers. The tangibility of outcome may provide a useful reference for re-interpreting the perceived values in accordance with the type of the collective platform.
Arsenic in drinking water and renal cancers in rural Bangladesh

Objectives Data on the role of arsenic in renal cancer are suggestive but inconclusive. The present analysis aimed to determine whether renal cancers were more likely in Bangladeshi villagers exposed to high arsenic concentration in well water and, if so, whether this excess was limited to transitional cell cancers (TCC) or occurred also for renal cell cancers (RCC). Methods Histology/cytology results from renal biopsies carried out at a single clinic in Dhaka, Bangladesh, from January 2008 to October 2011 were classified into four groups: RCC, TCC, other malignancy and benign. Patients aged ≥18 years using hand-pumped well water were identified by questionnaire, blind to diagnosis. Arsenic concentration was estimated from British Geological Survey reports for administrative area (thana) of residence. In a case-referent design (with benign results as referents), ORs were calculated by multilevel logistic regression adjusted for confounding. Time since well installation and smoking were examined by stratification. Results Among 1489 cases included, 896 were RCC, 90 TCC and 503 benign. Arsenic concentration was estimated for 301 thanas with 63% of cases and 40% referents with arsenic concentration ≥50 µg/L (p<0.001). Risk increased monotonically with arsenic concentration ≥50 µg/L for both cell types (RCC and TCC). Risk estimates were greater in thana with early well installation where risk was increased for RCC in exposure stratum 10<50 µg/L (OR=2.47 95% CI 1.52 to 4.01). Stratification by ‘ever smoked’ confirmed the presence of risk in non-smokers. Conclusions The relationship between arsenic concentration and both RCC and TCC suggests that arsenic is a causal factor in renal cancer.
A logic based approach to interaction design in open multi-agent systems

An important challenge posed by the design of open information systems concerns the choice of suitable methods to harness their complexity and to guarantee the correctness of their behaviour. In recent times, logic programming has been proposed as a powerful technology, formal and declarative, for the specification and verification of agent based and open systems. In this work, we focus on the interaction design. We base our approach on a logic-based formalism, which can be used to define the semantics of agent communication languages and interaction protocols. We advocate its use within a more general framework, drawing a design methodology which encompasses the specification of the interaction space and of its desired properties, and their verification.
Optimised Classification for Taxonomic Knowledge Bases

Many legacy ontologies are now being translated into Description Logic (DL) based ontology languages in order to take advantage of DL based tools and reasoning services. The resulting DL Knowledge Bases (KBs) are typically of large size, but have a very simple structure, i.e., they consist mainly of shallow taxonomies. The classification algorithms used in state-of-the-art DL reasoners may not deal well with such KBs In this paper we propose an optimisation which dramatically speeds-up classification for such KBs.