Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Regulation of hepatic glucose production during exercise in humans: role of sympathoadrenergic activity.

To investigate the role of sympathoadrenergic activity on glucose production (Ra) during exercise, eight healthy males bicycled 20 min at 41 +/- 2 and 74 +/- 4% maximal O2 uptake (VO2max; mean +/- SE) either without (control; Co) or with blockade of sympathetic nerve activity to liver and adrenal medulla by local anesthesia of the celiac ganglion (Bl). Epinephrine (Epi) was in some experiments infused during blockade to match (normal Epi) or exceed (high Epi) Epi levels during Co. A constant infusion of somatostatin and glucagon was given before and during exercise. At rest, insulin was infused at a rate maintaining euglycemia. During intense exercise, insulin infusion was halved to mimic physiological conditions. During exercise, Ra increased in Co from 14.4 +/- 1.0 to 27.8 +/- 3.0 mumol.min-1.kg-1 (41% VO2max) and to 42.3 +/- 5.2 (74% VO2max; P < 0.05). At 41% VO2max, plasma glucose decreased, whereas it increased during 74% VO2max. Ra was not influenced by Bl. In high Epi, Ra rose more markedly compared with control (P < 0.05), and plasma glucose did not fall during mild exercise and increased more during intense exercise (P < 0.05). Free fatty acid and glycerol concentrations were always lower during exercise with than without celiac blockade. We conclude that high physiological concentrations of Epi can enhance Ra in exercising humans, but normally Epi is not a major stimulus. The study suggests that neither sympathetic liver nerve activity is a major stimulus for Ra during exercise. The Ra response is enhanced by a decrease in insulin and probably by unknown stimuli. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Understanding Social Machines

This framework introduced in this paper aims to reflect the characteristics that social machines have been described to have. The framework uses a mixed methods approach underpinned by social theory to provide a detailed and rich understanding of the socio-technical nature of a social machine. The strength of this lies in the diversity of the data being used; whilst the quantitative approach can provide mathematical rigor to the structure and properties of the networks and appreciate its scale, the qualitative approach seeks to examine the `social relations' [12], and the context to how the social machine is enabling humans and technologies to interact and shape each other. Like many studies using empirical-based research [10], this framework takes advantage of the complementary nature that mixed methods offers, and pushes it further by using an analytical socio-technical lens.
Optical Reconstruction of High-Speed Surface Dynamics in an Uncontrollable Environment

The ability to communicate with our voice can be regarded as the concatenation of the two processes “phonation” and “modulation. ” These take place in the larynx and palatal and oral region, respectively. During phonation the audible primary voice signal is created by mutual reaction of vocal folds with the exhaled air stream of the lungs. The underlying interactions of masses, fluids and acoustics have yet to be identified and understood. One part of the primary signal's acoustical source are vortex induced vibrations, as e.g., created by the Coandăeffect in the air stream. The development of these vorteces is determined by the shape and 3-D movements of the vocal folds in the larynx. Current clinical in vivo research methods for vocal folds do not deliver data of satisfactory quality for fundamental research, e.g., an endoscope is limited to 2-D image information. Based hereupon, a few improved methods have been presented, however delivering only selective 3-D information, either for a single point or a line. This stands in contrast to the 3-D motions of the entire vocal fold surface. More complex imaging methods, such as MRI, do not deliver information in real-time. Thus, it is necessary to develop an easily applicable, more improved examination method, which allows for 3-D data of the vocal folds surfaces to be obtained. We present a method to calibrate a 3-D reconstruction setup including a laser projection system and a high-speed camera. The setup is designed with miniaturization and an in vivo application in mind. The laser projection system generates a divergent grid of 196 laser dots by diffraction gratings. It is calibrated with a planar calibration target through planar homography. In general, the setup allows to reconstruct the topology of a surface at high frame rates (up to 4000 frames per second) and in uncontrollable environments, as e.g., given by the lighting situation (little to no ambient light) and varying texture (e.g., varying grade of reflection) in the human larynx. In particular, this system measures the 3-D vocal fold surface dynamics during phonation. Applied to synthetic data, the calibration is shown to be robust (error approximately 0.5 ) regarding noise and systematic errors. Experimental data gained with a linear -stage proved that the system reconstructs the 3-D coordinates of points with an error at approximately 15 . The method was applied exemplarily to reconstruct porcine and artificial vocal folds' surfaces during phonation. Local differences such as asymmetry between left and right fold dynamics, as well as global parameters, such as opening and closing speed and maximum displacements, were identified and quantified.
Side information based orthogonal matching pursuit in distributed compressed sensing

Compressed sensing (CS) theory shows that it is possible to reconstruct exactly a sparse signal from fewer linear measurements than that would be expected from traditional sampling theory. Orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP) is a kind of greedy pursuit algorithms that could implement CS signal recovery. However, in distributed compressed sensing (DCS) scenario, an emerging field based on the correlation among sources, original OMP has to be modified in order to satisfy the limited power restrictions. In this paper, by considering the reconstructed signal as side information (SI), we propose a new jointly decoding algorithm based on OMP and deduce the theoretical measurement rate of each signal. Compared with conventional decoding algorithms, a certain amount of saving in time and number of measurements is obtained and illustrated in the simulation results.
Robust speech recognition in reverberant environments using subband-based steady-state monaural and binaural suppression

The precedence effect describes the ability of the auditory sys-tem to suppress the later-arriving components of sound in a reverberant environment, maintaining the perceived arrival azimuth of a sound in the direction of the actual source, even though later reverberant components may arrive from other directions. It is also widely believed that precedence-like processing can also improve speech intelligibility, as well as the accuracy of speech recognition systems, in reverberant environments. While the mechanisms underlying the precedence effect have traditionally been assumed to be binaural in nature, it is also possible that the suppression of later components may take place monaurally, and that the suppression of the later-arriving components of the spatial image may be a consequence of this more peripheral processing. This paper compares the potential contributions of onset enhancement (and consequent steady-state suppression) of the envelopes of subband components of speech at both the monaural and binaural levels. Experimental results indicate that substantial improvement in recognition accuracy can be obtained in reverberant environments if the feature extraction includes both onset enhancement and binaural interaction. Recognition accuracy appears to be relatively unaffected by the stage in the suppression processing at which the binaural interaction takes place.
Antiepileptic drug treatment patterns and economic burden of commercially-insured patients with refractory epilepsy with partial onset seizures in the United States

Abstract Objective: To assess the economic burden in direct healthcare utilization and costs for refractory epileptic patients with partial onset seizures (POS) and assess the antiepileptic drug (AED) treatment patterns among these patients. Methods: This retrospective database study analyzed administrative claims of commercially-insured patients with POS from 2004–2008. Healthcare costs and utilization were compared between refractory (defined as ≥3 AEDs) and non-refractory patients by calendar year and AED treatment patterns were described for refractory patients. Results: Of the 79,149 patients identified (mean age 33 years; 54.8% female), 8714 (11%) were classified as refractory. In 2008, average annual healthcare costs for refractory patients were significantly higher than non-refractory patients ($33,613 vs $19,085), also by settings for inpatient ($11,780 vs $6076), outpatient ($13,431 vs $8637), and pharmacy costs ($8402 vs $4372) (all p < 0.001). Among refractory patients, close to one-third of total costs were for POS-related services. Similar trends were observed when assessing POS-related utilization and costs. The differences were consistent across all calendar years examined. Among refractory patients, 80.5% were on monotherapy at the beginning of the follow-up period. Levetiracetam is the common AED in mono/combination therapy as well as add-on/switch-to. Limitations: The onset of seizure cannot be identified, and the indication of each AED could not be confirmed from the pharmacy claims. Only direct medical costs were assessed. Conclusions: Pattern of use was very dynamic, suggesting seizures are not well-controlled. Improving seizure control and reducing economic burden of refractory epilepsy remain important unmet medical needs in this population.
A case of Creatine Transporter Deficiency in a Young Child with Choreoathetosis

We report a case of creatine transporter deficiency in a young boy who has a constellation of symptoms and signs that are similar to what have been reported with the exception of his severe movement disorder. The child had besides developmental motor and cognitive delay very marked choreoathetosis that has been refractory to all treatment. The child presented at an early age with developmental delay and while being investigated he developed involuntary dystonic movements. The child was investigated thoroughly and all other possible causes have been ruled out. The diagnosis was reached through urine creatine:creatinine ratio, decreased creatine uptake in fibroblasts culture, decreased creatine peak on the proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) and by molecular DNA testing.
Heritability of Carotid Artery Atherosclerotic Lesions: An Ultrasound Study in 154 Families

Background and Purpose— Ultrasound examination of the carotid arteries yields several quantitative measures that may serve as intermediate phenotypes in genetic studies. This study was undertaken to compare the heritabilities of 3 ultrasound measures: intima-media thickness (IMT), plaque score, and maximal stenosis. Methods— We studied 565 individuals from 154 families ascertained by an affected parent with carotid artery atherosclerosis. IMT, plaque score, and maximal stenosis of the carotid arteries were examined by B-mode ultrasound and analyzed quantitatively. Heritability estimates were obtained by variance component analysis as implemented in the program SOLAR (sequential oligogenic linkage analysis routines). Covariates were age, sex, weight, height, body mass index (BMI), arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus, amount of nicotine consumed, and plasma levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, LDL/HDL ratio, lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)], triglycerides, factor VIII, factor XIII, fibrinogen, and von Willebrand factor (vWF). Results— After accounting for the covariables age, sex, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and Lp(a), heritability of IMT was estimated as h2=0.61±0.17 (P=0.001). Variation of plaque score was influenced by age, sex, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, hypercholesterolemia, amount of nicotine consumed, factor VIII, and vWF. When these were considered, no significant heritability could be detected. Heritability of stenosis was estimated as h2=0.47±0.07 (P=0.006), with age, sex, BMI, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, amount of nicotine consumed, and LDL/HDL ratio as covariates. Conclusions— Among the 3 ultrasound measures studied, IMT had the highest heritability. IMT was strongly influenced by genetic determinants other than those influencing known risk factors. This makes IMT a promising candidate for use as an intermediate phenotype in genetic studies aiming to identify novel genes for atherosclerosis.
Equilibrium of Redundancy in Relational Model for Optimized Data Retrieval

Conceptual and relational data models of online transaction processing (OLTP) applications are usually created and maintained following the principle of normalization, which implies avoidance of redundancy. Data retrieval from a disk-based normalized relational database often requires complex and inefficient queries that may cause noticeable performance issues when executed on larger volumes of data. Computer professionals sometimes intentionally trade off the strict normal form to optimize data retrieval queries through error-prone manual tuning and denormalization. We propose a fully automatic optimization approach, based on data redundancy, that relies on a formal cost-benefit model. We prove that finding the optimal level of data redundancy, for given workload statistics, is an NP-Complete optimization problem. A detailed reduction of the problem to binary linear programming is presented in the paper. The proposed optimization approach was evaluated using the TPCE benchmark for OLTP systems. The evaluation has shown that the proposed optimization approach is highly scalable, and that it can be efficiently applied to real-life relational data models.
Thrombolysis in Newborns and Infants

Summary This review analyses literature reports from 1970 to 1998 assessing the use of streptokinase (SK), urokinase (UK) or recombinant tissuetype plasminogen activator (rt-PA) for thrombolytic therapy in neonates and infants. From 1970 to 1998 182 infants were reported to have received SK (n = 54; 29.5%), UK (n = 41; 22.5%) or rt-PA (n = 87; 48%). During thrombolytic therapy no concomitant heparin administration or low dose heparin therapy (5 U/kg/h) were recorded. To perform reocclusion prophylactics heparin was reinitiated at the end of thrombolytic therapy usually in the recommended dosage of 20 U/kg/h. The overall thrombolytic patency rate in neonates varied from 39% to 86%. Besides bleeding from local puncture sites or recent catheterisation sites (10.4%), pulmonary embolism was reported in 1.1% of the 182 infants. Major bleeding complications, i.e. pulmonary bleeding (0.6%), gastrointestinal bleeding (0.6%) or intraventricular haemorrhage (IVH 2.7%) are rarely reported side effects and only 2 thrombolysis related deaths due to haemorrhage were mentioned. Bleedings reported in the central nervous system (n = 4) mainly occurred in preterm infants (n = 3). In conclusion, data of this preliminary analysis suggest that there is no big difference (p = 0.09; χ2-test) in the efficacy rate between the 3 thrombolytic agents used in the first year of life. In each case an assessment must be made with respect to the relative benefit conferred by thrombolytic therapy in preventing organ or limb damage versus the potential side effects, costs and inconvenience for the childhood patient. Controlled prospective multicentre studies on thrombolytic therapy in neonates and infants are recommended to evaluate patency rates and adverse effects for the different thrombolytic agents used.
Synonym Acquisition Using Bilingual Comparable Corpora

Various successful methods for synonym acquisition are based on comparing context vectors acquired from a monolingual corpus. However, a domain-specific corpus might be limited in size and, as a consequence, a query term’s context vector can be sparse. Furthermore, even terms in a domain-specific corpus are sometimes ambiguous, which makes it desirable to be able to find the synonyms related to only one word sense. We introduce a new method for enriching a query term’s context vector by using the context vectors of a query term’s translations which are extracted from a comparable corpus. Our experimental evaluation shows, that the proposed method can improve synonym acquisition. Furthermore, by selecting appropriate translations, the user is able to prime the query term to one sense.
Some effects of subinhibitory concentrations of antibiotics on bacteria.

T HE medical value of an antibacterial drug is usually considered to be its contribution to the extermination of a specific microorgan-ism from the site of infection. This is accomplished either by killing the bacteria or by interfering with their multiplication. One laboratory criterion for determining these effects is the survival of the organisms during exposure to the drug. Other criteria are changes in bacterial structure or metabolism. An "all or nothing" effect is rare. Between the extremes of no survivors or no multiplication and no effect or total survival there is a range of effects related primarily to drug concentration. Some of these effects are reviewed in this paper.
Defective dietary control of fatty acid metabolism in four transplantable rat hepatomas: numbers 5123C, 7793, 7795, and 7800.

Summary Fat-free and high-fat (15% corn oil) diets were offered for 2–3 days, with and without prior fasting, to normal rats (Buffalo strain) and to rats bearing the minimal deviation hepatomas: 5123C, 7793, 7795, and 7800. Liver and tumor slices were then assayed for their ability to synthesize longchain fatty acids from acetate-1-14C and to oxidize palmitate-1-14C. In addition, homogenates prepared from these same tissues were examined for their activities of various glycolytic and Krebs-cycle enzymes. The different dietary regimes greatly altered metabolic and enzymic activities in normal and host liver, but not in the hepatomas (with the possible exception of palmitate oxidation by hepatoma 7795). This pattern of insensitivity of the metabolic activity of the hepatomas to the nutritional state of the animal is essentially similar to that already found in the mouse hepatoma BW7756, and may reflect a functional aberration that is fundamental to the neoplastic process.
Practical Support from Fathers and Grandmothers Is Associated with Lower Levels of Breastfeeding in the UK Millennium Cohort Study

Mothers face trade-offs between infant care and subsistence/economic activities. In traditional populations, allomothers such as fathers and grandmothers support mothers with young infants, allowing them to reduce labour activities and focus on breastfeeding. Similarly, the positive impact of social support on breastfeeding has been highlighted in developed populations. However, these studies have generally focused on emotional support from fathers, peers and healthcare professionals. Given the availability of formula milk in developed populations, an evolutionary anthropological perspective highlights that practical support, unlike emotional support, may have negative associations with breastfeeding by enabling substitution of maternal care. Other kin, mainly grandmothers, may also be important allomothers influencing maternal breastfeeding levels. Here we explore the associations between different types of social support mothers receive from fathers/grandmothers and breastfeeding in the UK Millennium Cohort Study. We find frequent grandmother contact and father’s parenting involvement are both associated with lower levels of breastfeeding, suggesting a negative relationship between practical support and breastfeeding. In contrast, father presence, potentially capturing emotional support, is associated with greater breastfeeding initiation. Our findings suggest that practical support and emotional support functions differently, and practical support may not encourage breastfeeding in developed populations.
On Realistic Divisible Load Scheduling in Highly Heterogeneous Distributed Systems

This paper investigates the problem of scheduling discretely divisible applications in highly heterogeneous distributed platforms which deploy modern desktop systems with limited memory as computing nodes. We propose an algorithm for hierarchical load balancing at both inter- and intra-node platform levels which relies on realistic performance models of computation and communication resources. An iterative procedure, based on the proposed algorithm, is also presented for building accurate performance models during the application run-time. The presented approach was evaluated for a 2D FFT batch application executed on a distributed system with four CPU+GPU nodes. The experimental results show the advantages of using the proposed approach by outperforming the "optimal" implementation by at least 4 times on GPU devices.
A random-walk based scoring algorithm with application to recommender systems for large-scale e-commerce

Recommender systems are an emerging technology that helps consumers to find interesting products. A recommender system makes personalized product suggestions by extracting knowledge from the previous users interactions. In this paper, we present ”ItemRank”, a random–walk based scoring algorithm, which can be used to rank products according to expected user preferences, in order to recommend top– rank items to potentially interested users. We tested our algorithm on a standard database, the MovieLens data set, which contains data collected from a popular recommender system on movies, and we compared ItemRank with other state-of-the-art ranking techniques (in particular the algorithms described in [1, 2]). Our experiments show that ItemRank performs better than the other algorithms we compared to and, at the same time, it is less complex than other proposed algorithms with respect to memory usage and computational cost too. The presentation of the method is accompanied by an analysis that helps to discover some intriguing properties of the MovieLens data set, that has been widely exploited as a benchmark for evaluating recently proposed approaches to recommender system (e.g. [1, 3]).
Ceramides in Alzheimer's Disease: Key Mediators of Neuronal Apoptosis Induced by Oxidative Stress and Aβ Accumulation

Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common chronic and progressive neurodegenerative disorder, is characterized by extracellular deposits of amyloid β-peptides (Aβ) and intracellular deposits of hyperphosphorylated tau (phospho-tau) protein. Ceramides, the major molecules of sphingolipid metabolism and lipid second messengers, have been associated with AD progression and pathology via Aβ generation. Enhanced levels of ceramides directly increase Aβ through stabilization of β-secretase, the key enzyme in the amyloidogenic processing of Aβ precursor protein (APP). As a positive feedback loop, the generated oligomeric and fibrillar Aβ induces a further increase in ceramide levels by activating sphingomyelinases that catalyze the catabolic breakdown of sphingomyelin to ceramide. Evidence also supports important role of ceramides in neuronal apoptosis. Ceramides may initiate a cascade of biochemical alterations, which ultimately leads to neuronal death by diverse mechanisms, including depolarization and permeabilization of mitochondria, increased production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), cytochrome c release, Bcl-2 depletion, and caspase-3 activation, mainly by modulating intracellular signalling, particularly along the pathways related to Akt/PKB kinase and mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs). This review summarizes recent findings related to the role of ceramides in oxidative stress-driven neuronal apoptosis and interplay with Aβ in the cascade of events ending in neuronal degeneration.