Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An exploration of prospective imagery: the impact of future events scale.

BACKGROUND Mental imagery of the future has clear clinical importance, although little is known about intrusive, prospective imagery of personally-relevant events. Currently, no measure is available to assess this. AIMS The Impact of Future Events Scale (IFES) was created to assess the impact of intrusive, prospective, personally-relevant imagery. It was examined in relation to predictions about dysphoria. METHOD To form the IFES, the IES-R (a measure of the impact of a past traumatic event on posttraumatic stress disorder symptomatology such as intrusive re-experiencing) was adapted item-by-item to assess intrusive "pre-experiencing" and imagery of specific, future events. Participants (N = 75) completed the IFES and assessments of depression, anxiety and general imagery use. RESULTS As predicted, the IFES significantly and positively correlated with depression scores. Analyses using subgroups of non-dysphoric and mild-dysphoric participants confirmed that the mild-dysphoric group reported significantly higher IFES scores, indicating higher levels of pre-experiencing of the future and related hyperarousal and avoidance. CONCLUSIONS IFES provides a measure of the impact of "pre-experiencing" in the form of intrusive prospective, personally-relevant imagery, with sensitivity to group differences on the basis of depression scores. Further research is required to extend these finding into clinical depression and other psychopathological conditions.
New pathways of the renin–angiotensin system: the role of ACE2 in cardiovascular pathophysiology and therapy

Importance of the field: The renin-angiotensin system (RAS) is nowadays an important target in cardiovascular diseases and we are currently on the verge of a new interpretation of its role in cardiovascular homeostasis, mainly due to the identification of the new axis ACE2/angiotensin 1 - 7/Mas receptor. Areas covered in this review: The main aspects related to ACE2 role in cardiovascular physiology and possible pathological and therapeutic implications are reviewed. What the reader will gain: A description of the new view of the RAS, along with the key findings that support it. In the cardiovascular system, the ACE2/angiotensin 1 - 7/Mas axis, mainly through the inhibition of fibrosis, inflammation, thrombosis and cell proliferation, modulates RAS activity with significant pathophysiological implications in clinical conditions such as hypertension, myocardial ischemia and heart failure. A more complete understanding of this axis has significant therapeutic relevance and a major effort is being carried out in order to pursue this objective. Take home message: There is increasing evidence that ACE2/angiotensin 1 - 7/Mas receptor axis has a key role in RAS activity regulation with significant pathophysiological implications in several disease states. A therapeutic intervention at this level may open new doors and change the current approach to RAS targeting.
A Heartbeat Mechanism and Its Application in Gigascope

Data stream management systems often rely on ordering properties of tuple attributes in order to implement non-blocking operators. However, query operators that work with multiple streams, such as stream merge or join, can often still block if one of the input stream is very slow or bursty. In principle, punctuation and heartbeat mechanisms have been proposed to unblock streaming operators. In practice, it is a challenge to incorporate such mechanisms into a high-performance stream management system that is operational in an industrial application.In this paper, we introduce a system for punctuation-carrying heartbeat generation that we developed for Gigascope, a high-performance streaming database for network monitoring, that is operationally used within AT&T's IP backbone. We show how heartbeats can be regularly generated by low-level nodes in query execution plans and propagated upward unblocking all streaming operators on its way. Additionally, our heartbeat mechanism can be used for other applications in distributed settings such as detecting node failures, performance monitoring, and query optimization. A performance evaluation using live data feeds shows that our system is capable of working at multiple Gigabit line speeds in a live, industrial deployment and can significantly decrease the query memory utilization.
Mechanical stability of a latching MEMS variable optical attenuator

The mechanical stability of a latching shutter-insertion variable optical attenuator formed by deep reactive ion etching of bonded silicon-on-insulator (BSOI) is considered. The device can be continuously adjusted or latched into a discrete set of attenuation states using a rack-and-tooth mechanism. Simple numerical and analytic theories are developed to describe the effect of latching. The dynamics of the mechanism are characterized using internal actuation and it is shown that the use of a levered mechanism gives rise to several underdamped, low-frequency in-plane resonances during analog adjustment. Elastic nonlinearity is also identified. Vibration testing is then performed using an external piezoelectric transducer. It is shown that the effect of engaging the latch is to upshift the frequency of the most important mechanical resonance, reducing sensitivity to vibration in fixed attenuation states.
Faster Concurrent Range Queries with Contention Adapting Search Trees Using Immutable Data

The need for scalable concurrent ordered set data structures with linearizable range query support is increasing due to the rise of multicore computers, data processing platforms and in-memory databases. This paper presents a new concurrent ordered set with linearizable range query support. The new data structure is based on the contention adapting search tree and an immutable data structure. Experimental results show that the new data structure is as much as three times faster compared to related data structures. The data structure scales well due to its ability to adapt the sizes of its immutable parts to the contention level and the sizes of the range queries.
Parallel Game-Tree Search

The design issues affecting a parallel implementation of the alpha-beta search algorithm are discussed with emphasis on a tree decomposition scheme that is intended for use on well ordered trees. In particular, the principal variation splitting method has been implemented, and experimental results are presented which show how such refinements as progressive deepening, narrow window searching, and the use of memory tables affect the performance of multiprocessor based chess playing programs. When dealing with parallel processing systems, communication delays are perhaps the greatest source of lost time. Therefore, an implementation of our tree decomposition based algorithm is presented, one that operates with a modest amount of message passing within a network of processors. Since our system has low search overhead, the principal basis for comparison is the communication overhead, which in turn is shown to have two components.
A Convolutional Neural Network with Dynamic Correlation Pooling

A dynamic correlation pooling method is proposed based on Mahalanobis distance to improve the accuracy of image recognition. The proposed correlation technique employs the correlation information between adjacent pixels of the image and is applied to Lenet-5 convolution neural network model, the performance of which is tested on data sets of MMIST, USPS and CIFAR-10, respectively. The empirical studies show that the proposed pooling method can improve the convergence rate and recognition accuracy in comparison with the max pooling, average pooling, stochastic pooling and mixed pooling.
Event-trigged control for discrete-time multi-agent networks

In this paper, a new control strategy was proposed to deal with the discrete-time multi-agent consensus problem. Two types of protocols are discussed in this paper: i) networks of single-integrators without delay under centralized event-triggered control and ii) networks of single-integrators with delay under distributed event-triggered control. For each consensus protocol, we prove that the multi-agent network will achieve consensus asymptotically. Numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the obtained theoretical results.
Lipoprotein apoprotein metabolism.

The study of the plasma lipoproteins in recent years has significantly broadened our understanding of lipid metabolism and lipid transport. Incisive studies into the structure and function of the lipoprotein species have contributed to significant advances in our understanding and management of lipid disorders. All of the lipoproteins are related and interact dynamically within the vascular system. Many of the processes involved in lipoprotein metabolism are regulated by enzyme activity that can influence plasma lipoprotein levels. An understanding of these interactions and interrelationships has been made possible by numerous studies over the past decade. Until about 10 years ago lipoproteins were classically viewed as isolated families or species as defined either by ultracentrifugation or by electrophoresis. The operational separations by density or electrophoretic mobility allowed for the naming and quantification of various abnormalities, but provided little insight as to the cause of these abnormalities or of the role of the lipoproteins in lipid transport. A more functional view of the lipoproteins awaited the isolation, characterization and metabolic study of the lipoprotein apoproteins. Numerous reviews have appeared over the last several years summarizing our current state of knowledge of the plasma lipoproteins, their composition, structure, and function as well as the structure, distribution, and function of the lipoprotein apoproteins (1-6). It is not our intent herein to provide another comprehensive review of the plasma lipoproteins. Rather we will focus our attention on the functional interrelationships of the lipoprotein apoproteins and the information these relationships reveal about the mechanisms and determinants involved in the lipoprotein metabolism within the vascular bed. Though there are still some disagreements about nomenclature, in this review we will employ the nomenclature first introduced by Alaupovic et al. (7). It is now widely agreed that there are at least seven different lipoprotein apoproteins. These apoproteins differ in their primary, secondary, and tertiary structure as well as in their functions and distribution throughout the lipoprotein spectrum (Tables 1, 2). Five of these lipoprotein apoproteins have already been sequenced (8-16) and numerous reports have appeared detailing the unique characteristics that allow these proteins to bind lipid (1-6). Some, like apoprotein B and apoprotein A-I1 appear to have a primary role in the transport of lipid, while others like apoproteins A-I and C-I1 serve as activators (coenzymes) for enzyme systems involved in lipoprotein lipolysis and interconversion (1 -6). We will review what is known about the metabolism of the individual lipoprotein apoproteins and attempt to relate these apoprotein systems to one another as well as to normal and abnormal lipid transport.
Delayed Effects of a Low-Volume, Power-Type Resistance Exercise Session on Explosive Performance

Abstract Tsoukos, A, Veligekas, P, Brown, LE, Terzis, G, and Bogdanis, GC. Delayed effects of a low-volume, power-type resistance exercise session on explosive performance. J Strength Cond Res 32(3): 643–650, 2018—This study examined the delayed effects of a power-type training session on explosive performance. Seventeen well-trained male power and team sport athletes (age: 22.7 ± 5.5 years, height: 181 ± 8 cm, body mass: 80.7 ± 8.6 kg, body fat: 9.2 ± 1.7%, 1 repetition maximum (1RM) half-squat: 163 ± 29 kg) performed 4 sessions (2 experimental and 2 control) 1 week apart in a randomized and counterbalanced order. Explosive performance was assessed before, 24 and 48 hours after a low-volume, power-type training session (5 × 4 jump squats at 40% 1RM with 3 minutes rest), as well as before and after 24 and 48 hours of rest (control). Dependent variables were as follows: countermovement jump (CMJ), reactive strength index (RSI) during a drop jump, leg press maximum isometric force, and rate of force development (RFD) at 3 time windows: 0–100, 0–200, and 0–300 milliseconds. Analysis of variance revealed no changes in the control conditions. In contrast after training, CMJ was improved by 5.1 ± 1.0% and 3.0 ± 1.0% at 24 and 48 hours, respectively, compared with baseline. The RSI improved by 10.7 ± 2.1% only at 24 hours. The RFD increased at all time windows at 24 hours (range of improvement: 9.7 ± 3.4% to 18.3 ± 4.1%, p < 0.01). However, at 48 hours, improvement was only seen in RFD0–100 (9.8 ± 3.1%, p < 0.01). These findings suggest that a low-volume, power-type training session results in delayed enhancement of explosive muscle performance, which is greatest at 24 hours after the activity. Athletes are advised to perform power-type training 1 day before competition or a high-quality training session to improve their performances.
Effect of CNT modified matrix of epoxy CFRPs on hydrothermal behaviour of material. Evaluation of water uptake using electrical resistance measurements

In the present work, reference and nano-modified unidirectional and quasi-isotropic, epoxy matrix, carbon fibre reinforced polymers, were exposed to distilled water at hydrothermal environment. Water uptake was investigated as a function of the CNT matrix wt-% content up to saturation level. In parallel the variation of glass transition temperature Tg was also monitored using DMA tests. The distilled water absorption process was modelled following the Fick's law, and the experimental results found to be in very good agreement to the theoretical predictions up to saturation. During the tests, at defined time intervals, the variation of the electrical conductivity of the investigated materials was studied and a correlation between the water absorption and the variation of the electrical conductivity was established. Finally, all the reference materials and the ones concluded at the saturation stage were exposed to broadband dielectric measurements at frequency range of 0·1 Hz to 1 MHz.
A Privacy-Preserving Data Obfuscation Scheme Used in Data Statistics and Data Mining

Many applications are benefited from data sharing, especially data statistics and data mining. But as the shared data may contain private information of data owner, it has a high risk of revealing data owner's privacy. Data obfuscation is proposed to gain a balance between data privacy and data usability. But it is hard for the present obfuscation schemes to remain the usability of data in a fine-grained level. Besides, the original data can't be retrieved from the obfuscated data. To address the above issues, we proposed a data obfuscation scheme that adds an accurate "noise" to the original data to protect the privacy while keeping the numeral characteristics of data unchanged in different levels. Besides, the scheme can also lower the impact on data mining. Furthermore, by allocating different keys to users, different users have different permissions to access to data. To achieve this, our scheme comes in four steps. Firstly, an improved cloud model is proposed to generate an accurate "noise". Next, an obfuscation algorithm is propose to add noise to the original data. Then, an initial scheme for dataset obfuscation is proposed, including the grouping and key allocating processes. In the final step, a fine-grained grouping scheme based on similarity is proposed. The experiments show that our scheme obfuscates date correctly, efficiently, and securely.
Study of PDMS Compounds Using the Adhesion Force Determined by AFM Force Distance Curve Measurements

The atomic force microscope(AFM) was used to perform surface force measurements in contact mode to investigate surface properties of model systems at the nanoscale. Three different Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) compounds were observed. The first consisted of pure PDMS, the second of PDMS blend with the nanoparticles Zinc Oxide(PDMS/ZnO) and the third of PDMS blend with the nanoparticles Zinc Oxide and toluene solvent(PDMS/ZnO/toluene), respectively. Surface morphology and the adhesion force were investigated by using atomic force microscopy. Force–distance curve measurement was performed in a contact mode, which used tip as silicon nitride. Moreover, we found a significantly different of the adhesion force when modified by nanoparticles ZnO and toluene solvent.
Population-based analysis of incidence and outcome of transformed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

PURPOSE To assess the incidence and predictive factors for development of transformed lymphoma in a population-based series of patients with follicular lymphoma (FL). PATIENTS AND METHODS The Lymphoid Cancer Database was used to identify patients with FL diagnosed and treated in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Transformed lymphoma was defined as the development of aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) in patients with FL. Factors present at the time of initial diagnosis of indolent NHL and at transformation were analyzed for their impact on risk of transformation and subsequent outcome. RESULTS Between 1986 and 2001, 600 patients with newly diagnosed FL met the inclusion criteria. With a median follow-up of 109 months (range, 10 to 244), 170 (28%) developed transformation, 107 (63%) based on biopsy confirmation. The annual risk of transformation was 3% continuously through 15 years. A multivariate analysis of clinical factors at diagnosis identified advanced stage as the only predictor of future transformation. The median post-transformation survival was 1.7 years. The 5-year survival was superior for patients with limited extent transformation compared with those with advanced cases (66% v 19%, P < .0001). Patients with transformation based on clinical versus histological criteria had an identical median survival of 1.8 years (P = .2). CONCLUSION The annual risk of transformation of FL is 3% continuing without plateau beyond 15 years. Advanced stage at diagnosis is predictive of future transformation. Clinically diagnosed transformation has an equal impact on outcome as biopsy proven transformation.
Polymorphisms at PRSS1–PRSS2 and CLDN2–MORC4 loci associate with alcoholic and non-alcoholic chronic pancreatitis in a European replication study

Objective Several genetic risk factors have been identified for non-alcoholic chronic pancreatitis (NACP). A genome-wide association study reported an association of chronic pancreatitis (CP) with variants in PRSS1–PRSS2 (rs10273639; near the gene encoding cationic trypsinogen) and CLDN2–MORC4 loci (rs7057398 in RIPPLY1 and rs12688220 in MORC4). We aimed to refine these findings in a large European cohort. Design We studied 3062 patients with alcohol-related CP (ACP) or NACP and 5107 controls. Also, 1559 German patients with alcohol-associated cirrhosis or alcohol dependence were included for comparison. We performed several meta-analyses to examine genotype–phenotype relationships. Results Association with ACP was found for rs10273639 (OR, 0.63; 95% CI 0.55 to 0.72). ACP was also associated with variants rs7057398 and rs12688220 in men (OR, 2.26; 95% CI 1.94 to 2.63 and OR, 2.66; 95% CI 2.21 to 3.21, respectively) and in women (OR, 1.57; 95% CI 1.14 to 2.18 and OR 1.71; 95% CI 1.41 to 2.07, respectively). Similar results were obtained when German patients with ACP were compared with those with alcohol-associated cirrhosis or alcohol dependence. In the overall population of patients with NACP, association with rs10273639 was absent (OR, 0.93; 95% CI 0.79 to 1.01), whereas rs7057398 of the X chromosomal single nucleotide polymorphisms was associated with NACP in women only (OR, 1.32; 95% CI 1.15 to 1.51). Conclusions The single-nucleotide polymorphisms rs10273639 at the PRSS1–PRSS2 locus and rs7057398 and rs12688220 at the CLDN2–MORC4 locus are associated with CP and strongly associate with ACP, but only rs7057398 with NACP in female patients.
Fabrication Effects on Properties of Composites for Medical Applications: 1. Composite Preparation and Characterization

We investigate the fabrication of continuous carbon fiber/poly(ε-caprolactone) composites for biomedical applications. Two fabrication methods: in-situ polymerization and film stacking are compared at two different thicknesses. Analysis of void content produced via the two fabrication methods showed that the in-situ polymerization specimens had considerably lower void content than the film stacked samples. Significantly higher mechanical properties were obtained for the in-situ polymerized samples, and an almost three-fold increase in properties was seen as compared to the film stacked samples. Scanning electron microscopy images of surfaces supported the findings above. Dynamic mechanical analysis revealed higher dynamic modulus for the in-situ polymerized samples which was consistent with the above results.
Dual domain video denoising with optical flow estimation

We propose a new video denoising algorithm combining state of the art image and video denoising algorithms. We extend the DDID [1] algorithm to video sequences and then combine it with the SPTWO [2] method. The experimentation illustrates how the new method keeps the best of each algorithm, being superior both visually and numerically to other state of the art techniques.
Comparison of prognosis for men with type 2 diabetes mellitus and men with cardiovascular disease

Background: People with type 2 diabetes mellitus are at high risk for cardiovascular disease. In some studies, the mortality rate among people with this condition has been equivalent to that among people with cardiovascular disease. We compared cardiovascular mortality between incident cases of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Methods: The study population was part of a random sample of 4376 men from Quebec, Canada, aged 35 to 64 years, who did not have cardiovascular disease in 1974 and who were followed until 1998. Three groups of incident cases were identified: diabetes without cardiovascular disease, first cardiovascular event (myocardial infarction, unstable angina or stroke) without diabetes, and both cardiovascular disease and diabetes. These cases were age-matched to a control group without diabetes or cardiovascular disease. Results: During the 24-year follow-up period, new diabetes without cardiovascular disease was documented in 137 men. A first cardiovascular event without diabetes was documented in 527 men. Relative to the 627 controls, men with 1 of the 2 diseases of interest had higher cardiovascular mortality (age-adjusted relative risk [RR] 3.11, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.96–4.92) for those with diabetes and 4.46 (95% CI 3.15–6.30) for those with cardiovascular disease). However, within the first 5 years after diagnosis, men with cardiovascular disease had higher cardiovascular mortality than men with diabetes (age-adjusted RR 2.03, 95% CI 1.01–4.08). Interpretation: Men with isolated type 2 diabetes and men with isolated cardiovascular disease had similar cardiovascular mortality rates several years after initial diagnosis of either condition. These findings reinforce the need to prevent and optimally manage diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Variational tetrahedral meshing

In this paper, a novel Delaunay-based variational approach to isotropic tetrahedral meshing is presented. To achieve both robustness and efficiency, we minimize a simple mesh-dependent energy through global updates of both vertex positions and connectivity. As this energy is known to be the ∠1 distance between an isotropic quadratic function and its linear interpolation on the mesh, our minimization procedure generates well-shaped tetrahedra. Mesh design is controlled through a gradation smoothness parameter and selection of the desired number of vertices. We provide the foundations of our approach by explaining both the underlying variational principle and its geometric interpretation. We demonstrate the quality of the resulting meshes through a series of examples.