Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Clinical chorioamnionitis, elevated cytokines, and brain injury in term infants.

OBJECTIVES To determine the initial inflammatory cytokine response in term infants born to mothers with clinical chorioamnionitis and to assess whether the cytokine response is associated with birth depression, abnormal neurologic examination, and hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE). METHODS Infants who were exposed to chorioamnionitis and admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (n = 61) were studied prospectively. Cytokine concentrations were measured from umbilical cord blood and at 6 and 30 hours after birth. Control values (n = 50) were determined from cord blood of healthy term infants. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays were performed for interleukin (IL)-1beta; IL-6; IL-8; regulated on activation, normal T-cell expressed and secreted (RANTES); macrophage inflammatory protein-1alpha; and tumor necrosis factor-alpha. Serial blinded neurologic examinations using a modified Dubowitz score were performed simultaneously at 6 and 30 hours. RESULTS Cord IL-6 (1071 +/- 1517 vs 65 +/- 46 pg/mL), IL-8 (2580 +/- 9834 vs 66 +/- 57 pg/mL), and RANTES (95 917 +/- 16 518 vs 54 000 +/- 14 306 pg/mL) concentrations only were higher in infants with chorioamnionitis versus control infants. IL-6 increased at 6 hours to 1451 +/- 214 pg/mL, followed by a 5-fold decline at 30 hours in contrast to progressive decreases over time in IL-8 and RANTES. There was no relationship between cytokines and birth depression. Modified Dubowitz score correlated with IL-6 at 6 hours (r = 0.5). Infants with HIE/seizures (n = 5) had significantly higher cytokine concentrations at 6 hours versus infants without either (n = 56): IL-6 (3130 vs 1219 pg/mL), IL-8 (5433 vs 780 pg/mL), and RANTES (97 396 vs 46 914 pg/mL). CONCLUSIONS There was a significant association between abnormalities in the neurologic examination and cytokine concentrations, with the highest cytokines concentrations observed in infants who developed HIE/seizures.
Use of Ratings of Perceived Exertion in Rehabilitation Services: Past and Present Researches

Sansom Institute for Health Research, School of Health Sciences, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia. *Corresponding author: Dr. Jeremy B.J. Coquart, Faculte des Sciences du Sport et de l’Education Physique, CETAPS, boulevard Siegfried, 76821 Mont Saint Aignan Cedex, France, Tel: +33(0)232107797; Fax: +33(0)232107793; E-mail: jeremy.coquart@voila.fr
Weak local-global compatibility in the p-adic Langlands program for U(2)

Inspired by Emerton's work for GL(2), we study the completed cohomology of the tower of finite sets associated with a definite unitary group in two variables. When p splits (and other technical assumptions are fulfilled), we show that the p-adic local Langlands correspondence for GL(2) (over Q_p) occurs in the cohomology. We give an application to the Fontaine-Mazur conjecture over CM fields.
Degradation of cellulosic insulation in power transformers. Part 3: effects of oxygen and water on ageing in oil

Heat, water and oxygen accelerate the degradation of cellulose insulation in electrical transformers. Their effects on insulation have been studied over a number of years using degree of polymerisation (DP) of the paper as a measure of ageing. Results are reported of a systemic study to measure the relative effectiveness of each component individually and in combination, on ageing in oil in a three-parameter two-level, partial factorial experiment. Ageing was measured in terms of change of degree of polymerisation of the paper and analysed according to recently developed models. In addition, the concentrations of furfural-based degradation products in the oil were measured. Water and temperature are most effective in accelerating ageing, with oxygen about one-third as efficient. There is a strong synergistic effect between temperature and water, a weaker synergism between temperature and oxygen, but, importantly, an apparent antagonistic effect between water and oxygen, at low water levels. If correct, the antagonism implies that the effectiveness of water, as an accelerator of ageing, decreases with increasing levels of oxygen in the oil at low water levels, which could explain why the insulation in scrapped transformers is sometimes found to be in very good condition.
Gain and Loss of Photosynthetic Membranes during Plastid Differentiation in the Shoot Apex of Arabidopsis[W]

Using electron and optical microscopy techniques, including electron tomography, this work characterizes the thylakoid membranes in plastids of the shoot apex. It shows that the maturation state of the thylakoids is not uniform within the shoot apical meristem and that plastids either acquire or lose thylakoid membranes depending on the position and lineage of the cells in which they are found. Chloroplasts of higher plants develop from proplastids, which are undifferentiated plastids that lack photosynthetic (thylakoid) membranes. In flowering plants, the proplastid-chloroplast transition takes place at the shoot apex, which consists of the shoot apical meristem (SAM) and the flanking leaf primordia. It has been believed that the SAM contains only proplastids and that these become chloroplasts only in the primordial leaves. Here, we show that plastids of the SAM are neither homogeneous nor necessarily null. Rather, their developmental state varies with the specific region and/or layer of the SAM in which they are found. Plastids throughout the L1 and L3 layers of the SAM possess fairly developed thylakoid networks. However, many of these plastids eventually lose their thylakoids during leaf maturation. By contrast, plastids at the central, stem cell–harboring region of the L2 layer of the SAM lack thylakoid membranes; these appear only at the periphery, near the leaf primordia. Thus, plastids in the SAM undergo distinct differentiation processes that, depending on their lineage and position, lead to either development or loss of thylakoid membranes. These processes continue along the course of leaf maturation.
The pros and cons of RFID in supply chain management

This paper presents the pros and cons of using radio-frequency identification (RFID) in supply chain management (SCM). While RFID has a greater number of benefits than its predecessor, the bar code, it currently comes at a price that many businesses still consider prohibitive. On the one hand, RFID is advantageous because it does not require line-of-sight scanning, it acts to reduce labor levels, enhances visibility, and improves inventory management. On the other hand, RFID is presently a costly solution, lacking standardization, it has a small number of suppliers developing end-to-end solutions, suffers from some adverse deployment issues, and is clouded by privacy concerns. Irrespective of these factors, the ultimate aim of RFID in SCM is to see the establishment of item-level tracking which should act to revolutionize SCM practices, introducing another level of efficiencies never before seen.
Achievable optimal superheat temperature control in evaporators of HVAC systems

In this paper a novel approach to minimize superheat temperature of an evaporator in real-time operation of a Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning (HVAC)-Refrigeration system is presented. Two approaches for optimal control of an evaporator superheat are presented in this paper. Both approaches use the second derivative of superheat (Tgh), w.r. t. mass flow rate of refrigerant at the outlet of an evaporator for the purpose of controfling the superheat to its near optimal value. The first approach is based on an analytical formulation of the second derivative and employs gradient descent method to drive the Ts h to its optimal point. The second approach utilizes an extremum seeking control (ESC) for optimizing higher order derivatives to drive and maintain the Ts h at its minimum stable level. The proposed approaches have been validated through simulation studies in MATLAB/Simulink environment.
Ubiquitous support of multi path probing: Preventing man in the middle attacks on Internet communication

Digital certificates issued by certification authorities (CAs) which are part of the Web Public Key Infrastructure (Web PKI) are the indispensable basis for secure communication on the Internet. The certificates are used in TLS to authenticate web servers. However, as past incidents have shown, CA failures and the issuance of malicious certificates threatens the security of communication, as it allows for man in the middle attacks (MitM) and server impersonation. All known mitigations so far are only niche solutions having their own weaknesses and problems which prevented a wide deployment. Thus, additional methods must be natively supported by common web servers to mitigate threats imposed by CA failures. We propose to integrate multi path probing of certificates as a fundamental mechanism into the web infrastructure. This enables the reconfirmation of certificates whenever their authenticity is in doubt. We describe how this can be realized with minor efforts and without infrastructural changes, while the overhead arising from these reconfirmations can be kept at a small rate.
Are Pretreatment 18F-FDG PET Tumor Textural Features in Non–Small Cell Lung Cancer Associated with Response and Survival After Chemoradiotherapy?

There is evidence in some solid tumors that textural features of tumoral uptake in 18F-FDG PET images are associated with response to chemoradiotherapy and survival. We have investigated whether a similar relationship exists in non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods: Fifty-three patients (mean age, 65.8 y; 31 men, 22 women) with NSCLC treated with chemoradiotherapy underwent pretreatment 18F-FDG PET/CT scans. Response was assessed by CT Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) at 12 wk. Overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), and local PFS (LPFS) were recorded. Primary tumor texture was measured by the parameters coarseness, contrast, busyness, and complexity. The following parameters were also derived from the PET data: primary tumor standardized uptake values (SUVs) (mean SUV, maximum SUV, and peak SUV), metabolic tumor volume, and total lesion glycolysis. Results: Compared with nonresponders, RECIST responders showed lower coarseness (mean, 0.012 vs. 0.027; P = 0.004) and higher contrast (mean, 0.11 vs. 0.044; P = 0.002) and busyness (mean, 0.76 vs. 0.37; P = 0.027). Neither complexity nor any of the SUV parameters predicted RECIST response. By Kaplan–Meier analysis, OS, PFS, and LPFS were lower in patients with high primary tumor coarseness (median, 21.1 mo vs. not reached, P = 0.003; 12.6 vs. 25.8 mo, P = 0.002; and 12.9 vs. 20.5 mo, P = 0.016, respectively). Tumor coarseness was an independent predictor of OS on multivariable analysis. Contrast and busyness did not show significant associations with OS (P = 0.075 and 0.059, respectively), but PFS and LPFS were longer in patients with high levels of each (for contrast: median of 20.5 vs. 12.6 mo, P = 0.015, and median not reached vs. 24 mo, P = 0.02; and for busyness: median of 20.5 vs. 12.6 mo, P = 0.01, and median not reached vs. 24 mo, P = 0.006). Neither complexity nor any of the SUV parameters showed significant associations with the survival parameters. Conclusion: In NSCLC, baseline 18F-FDG PET scan uptake showing abnormal texture as measured by coarseness, contrast, and busyness is associated with nonresponse to chemoradiotherapy by RECIST and with poorer prognosis. Measurement of tumor metabolic heterogeneity with these parameters may provide indices that can be used to stratify patients in clinical trials for lung cancer chemoradiotherapy.
Utilization of Pumice Waste for Clayey Subgrade of Pavements

The present study examined the potential of pumice waste of the Isparta-Gelincik region, which has been categorized under the lightweight aggregate class as a stabilizing additive to problematic clayey subgrade of pavements. The physical properties of lightweight aggregate material were analyzed. In earlier research, few experiments have been carried out by using experimental samples to test for properties such as stability when frozen, solidity, strength, Atterberg limits, California bearing ratio (CBR), and dynamic repeated load triaxial (RLT) tests. The utilization of Gelincik pumice waste as a stabilizer was determined for the clayey subgrade. Pumice waste of the Isparta-Gelincik region and high plasticity clay were mixed in varying proportions to improve the engineering properties of the clayey soil. The CBR experiment was also performed to observe the change of strength through the use of waste material. In addition, RLT testing was performed by using mixed materials to observe the changes in the resilient moduli values of the mixtures. The results of the experimental research showed that Gelincik pumice waste can be used as a stabilizer for problematic clayey subgrades when constructing roads. This research is the first example of a stabilization approach for problematic clayey subgrade of pavements by using pumice waste.
Effects of tundish cover powder and teeming stream on oxidation rate of molten steel in tundish

The oxidation rate of the molten steel covered with the tundish cover powder and the molten steel being teemed was measured and the reaction mechanism was investigated as a basic study to quantify the oxidation rate of molten steel at different parts in an actual tundish. The oxidation rate of the molten steel covered with the tundish cover powder is proportional to the partial pressure of O2 gas in the gaseous phase and the reciprocal number of thickness of tundish cover powder and can be explained by mass transfer control model of O2 gas in the layer of tundish cover powder. The oxidation rate of stirred molten steel and molten steel being teemed is proportional to the partial pressure of O2 gas in the gaseous phase and the 0.45th power of the stirring energy per unit area and can be rationally explained by a control model of mass transfer of O2 gas in the gaseous phase in which an increase in the reaction interface area due to stirring is considered.
L1-medial skeleton of point cloud

We introduce L1-medial skeleton as a curve skeleton representation for 3D point cloud data. The L1-median is well-known as a robust global center of an arbitrary set of points. We make the key observation that adapting L1-medians locally to a point set representing a 3D shape gives rise to a one-dimensional structure, which can be seen as a localized center of the shape. The primary advantage of our approach is that it does not place strong requirements on the quality of the input point cloud nor on the geometry or topology of the captured shape. We develop a L1-medial skeleton construction algorithm, which can be directly applied to an unoriented raw point scan with significant noise, outliers, and large areas of missing data. We demonstrate L1-medial skeletons extracted from raw scans of a variety of shapes, including those modeling high-genus 3D objects, plant-like structures, and curve networks.
A Phoenix++ Based New Genetic Algorithm Involving Mechanism of Simulated Annealing

Genetic algorithm is easy to fall into local optimal solution. Simulated annealing algorithm may accept nonoptimal solution at a certain probability to jump out of local optimal solution. On the other hand, lack of communication among genes in MapReduce platform based genetic algorithm, the high-performance distributed computing technologies or platforms can further increase the execution efficiency of these traditional genetic algorithms. To this end, we propose a novel Phoenix++ based new genetic algorithm involving mechanism of simulated annealing. Simulated annealing genetic algorithm has two distinctive characteristics. First, it is the synthesis of the conventional genetic algorithm and the simulated annealing algorithm. This characteristic guarantees our proposed algorithm has a higher probability of getting the global optimal solution than traditional genetic algorithms. The other is that our algorithm is a parallel algorithm running on the high-performance parallel platform Phoenix++ instead of a conventional serial genetic algorithm. Phoenix++ implements the MapReduce programming model that processes and generates large data sets with our parallel, distributed algorithm on a cluster. The experiments indicate that the convergence speed of GA algorithm is significantly faster after adding the simulated annealing algorithm on Phoenix++ platform.
Reasoning about Belief Based on Common Knowledge of Observability of Actions

Intelligent agents should regard other agents’ thoughts. If they can guess what you think without asking you, they should do so. We human beln~s notice other people’s thoughts without direct communication. One’s thoughts depend on one’s belief. However, reasoning about belief is very difficult because various factors affect belief and they often lead to inconsistency. This paper presents a simple algorithm to calculate multiagent nested belief from an action sequence. The following three factors are essential in this algorithm: 1) the observability conditions of fluents and actions, 2) the direct/indirect effects of each action, and 3) the incompatibility of fluents. The algorithm performs regressive reasonlug from a query. It has been tested by dozens of examples through a graphic interface. Experiments show the system gives plausible answers to various queries. This method will be useful in the construction of plan recognition systems and other advanced systems.
Gestural cues of discourse segmentation

Research on discourse segmentation frequently involves the identification of certain cues in the various dimensions of text, speech, and gesture. Advances in automated segmentation models and algorithms have been achieved when these cues are taken into consideration. For gestures in particular, it must be observed that their presence and function as cues for discourse boundaries are both genreand speaker-dependent. This study uses a recorded lecture to investigate whether speaker gestures can reliably predict the presence or absence of a discourse boundary and whether native speakers are able to make use of such a cue in isolation from others.
Markers of coagulation and inflammation often remain elevated in ART-treated HIV-infected patients

Purpose of review Current antiretroviral therapies have dramatically changed the disease course of HIV infection. Although antiretroviral therapy is effective at decreasing viral replication and preserving CD4+ T-cell numbers, low-level immune activation and inflammation persist in virally suppressed HIV-infected patients. This chronic immune activation/inflammation may contribute to an increased risk for venous and arterial thrombosis. Recent findings Several markers of coagulation and inflammation are increased in HIV-infected patients. The Strategies for the Management of Antiretroviral Therapy study reported that plasma D-dimer levels, a marker of fibrinolysis, independently predicted morbidity in HIV-infected patients. Increased plasma and cell surface levels of the procoagulant tissue factor have also been reported in patients with HIV disease. Fibrinogen, von Willebrand factor, and P-selectin are likewise increased in plasma samples of HIV-infected patients; all of these markers suggest HIV-infection results in a procoagulant state. Treatment with antiretroviral therapy reduces, but does not always normalize, levels of biomarkers associated with inflammation and coagulation in HIV+ patients. Summary HIV-infected patients are at greater risk for both venous and arterial thrombosis. Chronic immune activation and inflammation in these patients appears to contribute to coagulation risk. Antiretroviral therapy reduces viral replication, immune activation, and markers of coagulation, but these indices do not always return to normal, even after several years of viremic control.
Scalable continuous range monitoring of moving objects in symbolic indoor space

Indoor spaces accommodate large populations of individuals. The continuous range monitoring of such objects can be used as a foundation for a wide variety of applications, e.g., space planning, way finding, and security. Indoor space differs from outdoor space in that symbolic locations, e.g., rooms, rather than Euclidean positions or spatial network locations are important. In addition, positioning based on presence sensing devices, rather than, e.g., GPS, is assumed. Such devices report the objects in their activation ranges. We propose an incremental, query-aware continuous range query processing technique for objects moving in this setting. A set of critical devices is determined for each query, and only the observations from those devices are used to continuously maintain the query result. Due to the limitations of the positioning devices, queries contain certain and uncertain results. A maximum-speed constraint on object movement is used to refine the latter results. A comprehensive experimental study with both synthetic and real data suggests that our proposal is efficient and scalable.
Fundamental Research and Demonstration Project of Evaporation Treatment of Wastewater from FGD in Flue Gas Duct

The desulfurization wastewater is a kind of intractable wastewater which comes from the process of wet desulfurization. There are many shortcomings of traditional development methods. Desulfurization wastewater evaporation treatment in flue gas duct as a new processing technology. This approach of evaporating desulfurization wastewater by flue gas is feasible. The feasibility of the demonstration project of boiler flue gas treating wastewater on 4# boiler in Changshu Power Company limited was analyzed; the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software FLUENT was adopted to simulated the pressure field and velocity field in the outlet flue pipes of air pre-heater. The concrete arrangement mode and the number of the spray lances were determined by calculations. The temperature of the flue gas is tested after the system was put into operation. The results showed that this technology can realize the desulfurization wastewater with zero discharge without hurting the work of electrostatic precipitator. The demonstration project is the first of its kind in domestic power industry; this study provides experiences and references of power plant desulfurization wastewater with zero discharge.
Thymic lymphoma induction by the AKT8 murine retrovirus

The directly transforming murine retrovirus, AKT8, was isolated from a spontaneous AKR thymoma and carries the cell-derived viral oncogene, akt. We have now shown that this virus produces thymic lymphomas after inoculation of susceptible mouse strains. The presence of the AKT8 genome in the DNA of the virus-induced tumors was demonstrated by Southern blotting using an akt-specific probe. These results establish the in vivo pathogenicity of the AKT8 virus and its akt oncogene, and imply a potential role for the cellular akt proto-oncogene in tumor development.
Nonlinear distributed source-channel coding over orthogonal additive white Gaussian noise channels

The problem of designing simple and energy-efficient nonlinear distributed source-channel codes is considered. By demonstrating similarities between this problem and the problem of bandwidth expansion, a structure for source-channel codes is presented and analyzed. Based on this analysis an understanding about desirable properties for such a system is gained and used to produce an explicit source-channel code which is then analyzed and simulated. It is shown that the code has a substantial gain compared to a linear source-channel code.