Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Early versus Late Start of Isokinetic Hamstring-Strengthening Exercise after Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction with Patellar Tendon Graft

Backgound Hamstring strengthening after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction is a vital component of the rehabilitation program. Purpose The objective of this trial was to investigate the effects of hamstring isokinetic training used in the early phase of the rehabilitation program on the stability, strength, symptoms, and functional outcomes of patients throughout 12 months after anterior cruciate ligament surgery. Study Design Randomized controlled clinical trial; Level of evidence, 2. Methods Forty-eight men underwent anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction with an ipsilateral bone—patellar tendon—bone autograft. The patients were randomly assigned to perform daily isokinetic hamstring exercises at postoperative 3 weeks (group I) or to perform daily isokinetic hamstring exercises at postoperative 9 weeks (group II). The patients were evaluated monthly for the first 4 months and at the 12th month for postoperative hamstring and quadriceps strength, as well as for knee function via the Cincinnati Knee Rating Scale and International Knee Documentation Committee form. Results Hamstring isometric strength at 30° of knee flexion (at the first and second months) and concentric isokinetic strength (at 2, 3, 4, and 12 months) at the angular velocity of 60 deg/s were significantly (P < .05-.01) greater in group I compared with group II. Average scores of the Cincinnati Knee Rating Scale for symptoms were significantly (P < .05-.001) higher in group I compared with group II at all evaluation periods. Walking and stair-climbing scores at 1, 2, 3, and 4 months and squatting score at all evaluation periods were also better (P < .05-.01) in group I compared with group II. In addition, group I exhibited better (P < .01-.001) Lachman test results compared with group II for all postoperative evaluation periods. The International Knee Documentation Committee final rating scores were significantly (P < .01) greater at 2, 3, and 4 months in group I compared with group II. Conclusion The results of this study suggest that hamstring as well as quadriceps strength can be increased via early hamstring strengthening after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction with no negative impact on knee function.
A Software Birthmark Based on Dynamic Opcode n-gram

A kind of dynamic opcode n-gram software birthmark is proposed in this paper based on Myles' software birthmark (in which static opcode n-gram set is regarded as the software birthmark). The dynamic opcode n-gram set is regarded as the software birthmark which is extracted from the dynamic executable instruction sequence of the program. And the new birthmark can not only keep the advantages of feature n-gram set based on static opcode, but also possesses high robustness to code compression, encryption, packing. The algorithm which is to evaluate the similarity of the birthmarks of two programs is improved employing the theory of Probability and Statistic. As a result, the time complexity of the improved algorithm decreases to 0(n) from O(n2), while the space complexity keeps unchanged. Finally, the validity of the scheme is proved by experiments.
Aiding human discovery of handwriting recognition errors

Handwriting recognizers occasionally misinterpret digital ink input, requiring users to compare their ink input and the recognizer output to identify and correct errors. Technologies like Anoto pens can make this error discovery and correction task more difficult, because verification of recognizer output may occur many hours after data input and may involve the verification of many documents. In this paper, we explore the design space for error discovery aids geared toward "out-of-the-moment" verification. We present three discovery techniques, a visual proximity technique, a multimodal technique, and a character manipulation technique, and analyze the performance of our techniques. Experimental results show that the visual proximity technique outperforms all others in number of errors caught, and is also significantly better than a control technique. This paper is the first experimental study of techniques that aid in the discovery of handwriting recognition errors.
Recurrent Modification of a Conserved Cis-Regulatory Element Underlies Fruit Fly Pigmentation Diversity

The development of morphological traits occurs through the collective action of networks of genes connected at the level of gene expression. As any node in a network may be a target of evolutionary change, the recurrent targeting of the same node would indicate that the path of evolution is biased for the relevant trait and network. Although examples of parallel evolution have implicated recurrent modification of the same gene and cis-regulatory element (CRE), little is known about the mutational and molecular paths of parallel CRE evolution. In Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies, the Bric-à-brac (Bab) transcription factors control the development of a suite of sexually dimorphic traits on the posterior abdomen. Female-specific Bab expression is regulated by the dimorphic element, a CRE that possesses direct inputs from body plan (ABD-B) and sex-determination (DSX) transcription factors. Here, we find that the recurrent evolutionary modification of this CRE underlies both intraspecific and interspecific variation in female pigmentation in the melanogaster species group. By reconstructing the sequence and regulatory activity of the ancestral Drosophila melanogaster dimorphic element, we demonstrate that a handful of mutations were sufficient to create independent CRE alleles with differing activities. Moreover, intraspecific and interspecific dimorphic element evolution proceeded with little to no alterations to the known body plan and sex-determination regulatory linkages. Collectively, our findings represent an example where the paths of evolution appear biased to a specific CRE, and drastic changes in function were accompanied by deep conservation of key regulatory linkages.
Linear superposition coding for the Gaussian MAC with quantized feedback

We propose a linear transceiver scheme for the symmetric two-user multiple access channel with additive white Gaussian noise and quantized feedback. The quantized feedback link is modeled as an information bottleneck subject to a rate constraint. We introduce a superposition scheme that splits the transmit power of each user between an Ozarow-like code (designed for perfect rate-limited feedback) and a conventional code that ignores the feedback. We study the achievable sum rate as a function of the feedback quantization rate and we show that sum rate maximization leads to a difference of convex functions problem that we solve via the convex-concave procedure.
Data-Intensive Workload Consolidation for the Hadoop Distributed File System

Workload consolidation, sharing physical resources among multiple workloads, is a promising technique to save cost and energy in cluster computing systems. This paper highlights a number of challenges associated with workload consolidation for Hadoop; as one of the current state-of-the-art data-intensive cluster computing systems. Through a systematic step-by-step procedure, we investigate challenges for efficient server consolidation in Hadoop environments. To this end, we first investigate the inter-relationship between last level cache (LLC) contention and throughput degradation for consolidated workloads on a single physical server employing Hadoop distributed file system (HDFS). We then investigate the general case of consolidation on multiple physical servers so that their throughput never falls below a desired/predefined utilization level. We use our empirical results to model consolidation as a classic two-dimensional bin packing problem and then design a computationally efficient greedy algorithm to achieve minimum throughput degradation on multiple servers. Results are very promising and show that our greedy approach is able to achieve near optimal solutions in all experimented cases.
The Behavioral Ecology of Intermittent Locomotion

SYNOPSIS. Most physiological and ecological approaches to animal locomotion are based on steady state assumptions, yet movements of many animals are interspersed with pauses lasting from milliseconds to minutes. Thus, pauses, along with changes in the duration and speed of moves, form part of a dynamic system of intermittent locomotion by which animals adjust their locomotor behavior to changing circumstances. Intermittent locomotion occurs in a wide array of organisms from protozoans to mammals. It is found in aerial, aquatic and terrestrial locomotion and in many behavioral contexts including search and pursuit of prey, mate search, escape from predators, habitat assessment and general travel. In our survey, animals exhibiting intermittent locomotion paused on average nearly 50% of their locomotion time (range 6–94%). Although intermittent locomotion is usually expected to increase energetic costs as a result of additional expenditure for acceleration and deceleration, a variety of energetic benefits can arise when forward movement continues during pauses. Endurance also can be improved by partial recovery from fatigue during pauses. Perceptual benefits can arise because pauses increase the capacity of the sensory systems to detect relevant stimuli. Several processes, including velocity blur, relative motion detection, foveation, attention and interference between sensory systems are probably involved. In animals that do not pause, alternative mechanisms for stabilizing the perceptual field are often present. Because movement is an important cue for stimulus detection, pauses can also reduce unwanted detection by an organism’s predators or prey. Several models have attempted to integrate energetic and perceptual processes, but many challenges remain. Future advances will require improved quantification of the effects of speed on perception.
Randomness and Structure in Collaboration Networks: A Random Matrix Analysis

We investigate the Geom collaboration network under the random matrix theory framework. While the spectral density exhibiting triangular shape with high degeneracy at zero emphasizes on the complexity of interactions in underlying system, the spectral fluctuations provide a measure of the complexity. The short-range correlations follow the random matrix prediction, suggesting the existence of a minimal amount of randomness in the interactions between authors, whereas the long-range correlations deviating from the random matrix prediction implicate more directionality in collaboration behavior leading to less randomness. A higher degeneracy at -1 eigenvalue in the Geom collaboration network as compared with its configuration model indicates a large number of close to complete subgraphs in the network, suggesting collaboration groups among scientists. These structures can be considered to convey the same school of thoughts, whereas the randomness in spectra might be arising due to the intermingling of different collaboration modules. These results lead us to propagate that a blend of directional advancement and the mixing of schools of thoughts is essential for the steady development of a particular field of research.
Superconvergent Functional Estimates from Summation-By-Parts Finite-Difference Discretizations

Diagonal-norm summation-by-parts (SBP) operators can be used to construct time-stable high-order accurate finite-difference schemes. However, to achieve both stability and accuracy, these operators must use $s$-order accurate boundary closures when the interior scheme is $2s$-order accurate. The boundary closure limits the solution to $(s+1)$-order global accuracy. Despite this bound on solution accuracy, we show that functional estimates can be constructed that are $2s$-order accurate. This superconvergence requires dual-consistency, which depends on the SBP operators, the boundary condition implementation, and the discretized functional. The theory is developed for scalar hyperbolic and elliptic partial differential equations in one dimension. In higher dimensions, we show that superconvergent functional estimates remain viable in the presence of curvilinear multiblock grids with interfaces. The generality of the theoretical results is demonstrated using a two-dimensional Poisson problem and a nonlinear hyperbolic system—the Euler equations of fluid mechanics.
A novel hybrid approach to automated negation detection in clinical radiology reports.

OBJECTIVE Negation is common in clinical documents and is an important source of poor precision in automated indexing systems. Previous research has shown that negated terms may be difficult to identify if the words implying negations (negation signals) are more than a few words away from them. We describe a novel hybrid approach, combining regular expression matching with grammatical parsing, to address the above limitation in automatically detecting negations in clinical radiology reports. DESIGN Negations are classified based upon the syntactical categories of negation signals, and negation patterns, using regular expression matching. Negated terms are then located in parse trees using corresponding negation grammar. MEASUREMENTS A classification of negations and their corresponding syntactical and lexical patterns were developed through manual inspection of 30 radiology reports and validated on a set of 470 radiology reports. Another 120 radiology reports were randomly selected as the test set on which a modified Delphi design was used by four physicians to construct the gold standard. RESULTS In the test set of 120 reports, there were a total of 2,976 noun phrases, of which 287 were correctly identified as negated (true positives), along with 23 undetected true negations (false negatives) and 4 mistaken negations (false positives). The hybrid approach identified negated phrases with sensitivity of 92.6% (95% CI 90.9-93.4%), positive predictive value of 98.6% (95% CI 96.9-99.4%), and specificity of 99.87% (95% CI 99.7-99.9%). CONCLUSION This novel hybrid approach can accurately locate negated concepts in clinical radiology reports not only when in close proximity to, but also at a distance from, negation signals.
Dependable Grid Services

The provision of dependable computer systems by deploying diverse, redundant components in order to mask or provide recovery from component failures has mostly been restricted to systems with very high criticality. In this paper we present an architecture and prototype implementation of an approach to providing such redundancy at low cost in service-based infrastructures. In particular we consider services that are supplied by composing a number of component services and consider how service discovery, automatic monitoring and failure detection have the potential to create composed services that are more dependable than might be possible using a straightforward approach. The work is still in its early stages and so far no evaluation of the approach has been carried out.
The Energy Content of Wet Corn Distillers Grains for Lactating Dairy Cows*

Forty-five energy balances were completed with 12 multiparous, lactating Holstein cows in a study designed to determine the energy content of wet corn dis-tillers grains. Treatments were applied in a repeated switchback design and consisted of total mixed diets containing 31.4% corn silage, 18.4% alfalfa hay, and either 30.7% rolled corn and 16.7% soybean meal or 17.0% rolled corn and 31.2% wet corn distillers grains (dry matter basis). Replacement of corn and soybean meal with wet corn distillers grains reduced dry matter intake 10.9% but did not affect milk production. Neither digestible nor metabolizable energy were affected by diet composition. Heat and milk energy output did not differ by diet, but body energy retained was 2.8 Mcal/ d less in cows fed the wet corn distillers grains diet. Multiple regression estimates of maintenance metabo-lizable energy requirement and partial efficiencies of metabolizable energy used for lactation and body energy deposition did not differ by diet. Pooled estimates were 136.2, 0.66, and 0.85, kcal of metabolizable energy/ body weight 0.75 per day, respectively. Calculated by difference , wet corn distillers grains was estimated to contain 4.09, 3.36, and 2.27 Mcal/kg of dry matter as digestible , metabolizable, and lactational net energy, respectively. These energy estimates were 7 to 11% and 10 to 15%, respectively, greater than those reported for dried corn distillers grains by the 1989 and 2001 dairy NRC publications. 1815 ergy, ME = metabolizable energy, ME m = metabolizable energy for maintenance.
Priming of neutrophils for enhanced release of oxygen metabolites by bacterial lipopolysaccharide. Evidence for increased activity of the superoxide-producing enzyme

We investigated the capacity of bacterial endotoxin (lipopolysaccharide, LPS) to modify the oxidative metabolic response to membrane stimulation of human neutrophils. Neutrophils were pretreated for 60 min with LPS, 10 ng/ml, then stimulated by exposure to fixed immune complexes, the chemotactic peptide formyl-methionyl-leucyl- phenylalanine (FMLP), or phorbol myristate acetate. Release of superoxide anion (O-2) was up to 7-times greater in cells preincubated with LPS, depending upon the stimulus used. Consumption of oxygen and release of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) were similarly increased, using FMLP as stimulus. The enhancement was accompanied by a reduction in lag time and an increase in the rate of the response, but the duration of the oxidative events was not changed. The molecular basis for the augmented oxidative response of LPS-pretreated cells was investigated. Preincubation with LPS at 0 degrees C prevented priming, but preincubation in the presence of cycloheximide or chelation of extracellular calcium ion did not. Neutrophils preincubated with LPS had slightly decreased numbers of binding sites and equivalent binding affinity for radiolabeled FMLP. Possible changes in the enzyme responsible for the oxidative burst were analyzed by studying NADPH- dependent generation of O-2 by particulate fractions from cells preincubated with LPS or buffer, then stimulated before cell disruption. The fraction prepared from LPS-pretreated neutrophils exhibited greater release of O-2 over a wide range of concentrations of NADPH. The calculated apparent Km for NADPH was equivalent in the two fractions, but the Vmax was increased 2.5-fold in the subcellular fraction from LPS-pretreated cells. These results suggest that LPS could increase neutrophil-mediated host defense or the tissue damage associated with endotoxemia by enhancing the generation of oxygen metabolites by neutrophils. These results also support the concept that the neutrophil is not an end-stage cell in regard to function or metabolic activity.
Open-ended coevolution and the emergence of complex irreducible functional units in iterated number sequence games

We present three related number sequence games as simple models of coevolution and demonstrate that they produce escalating arms races and irreducible functional units of unbounded size. We argue that our results imply that the models also show unbounded evolutionary activity according to a previous formal definition. Furthermore, we examine the robustness of the coevolutionary dynamics under different parameter regimes. We propose number sequence games as benchmarks for coevolutionary algorithms, and make some suggestions on adjusting task difficulty and choosing selection methods in coevolutionary algorithms.
The effect of nicotine on striatal dopamine release in man: A [11C]raclopride PET study

In common with many addictive substances and behaviors nicotine activates the mesolimbic dopaminergic system. Brain microdialysis studies in rodents have consistently shown increases in extrasynaptic DA levels in the striatum after administration of nicotine but PET experiments in primates have given contradicting results. A recent PET study assessing the effect of smoking in humans showed no change in [11C]raclopride binding in the brain, but did find that “hedonia” correlated with a reduction in [11C]raclopride binding suggesting that DA may mediate the positive reinforcing effects of nicotine. In this experiment we measured the effect of nicotine, administered via a nasal spray, on DA release using [11C]raclopride PET, in 10 regular smokers. There was no overall change in [11C]raclopride binding after nicotine administration in any of the striatal regions examined. However, the individual change in [11C]raclopride binding correlated with change in subjective measures of “amused” and “happiness” in the associative striatum (AST) and sensorimotor striatum (SMST). Nicotine concentration correlated negatively with change in BP in the limbic striatum. Nicotine had significant effects on cardiovascular measures including pulse rate, systolic blood pressure (BPr), and diastolic BPr. Baseline [11C]raclopride binding potential (BP) in the AST correlated negatively with the Fagerström score, an index of nicotine dependence. These results support a role for the DA system in nicotine addiction, but reveal a more complex relationship than suggested by studies in animals. Synapse 61:637–645, 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Infectious Burden and Carotid Plaque Thickness: The Northern Manhattan Study

Background and Purpose— The overall burden of prior infections may contribute to atherosclerosis and stroke risk. We hypothesized that serological evidence of common infections would be associated with carotid plaque thickness in a multiethnic cohort. Methods— Antibody titers to 5 common infectious microorganisms (ie, Chlamydia pneumoniae, Helicobacter pylori, cytomegalovirus, and herpesvirus 1 and 2) were measured among stroke-free community participants and a weighted index of infectious burden was calculated based on Cox models previously derived for the association of each infection with stroke risk. High-resolution carotid duplex Doppler studies were used to assess maximum carotid plaque thickness. Weighted least squares regression was used to measure the association between infectious burden and maximum carotid plaque thickness after adjusting for other risk factors. Results— Serological results for all 5 infectious organisms were available in 861 participants with maximum carotid plaque thickness measurements available (mean age, 67.2±9.6 years). Each individual infection was associated with stroke risk after adjusting for other risk factors. The infectious burden index (n=861) had a mean of 1.00±0.35 SD and a median of 1.08. Plaque was present in 52% of participants (mean, 0.90±1.04 mm). Infectious burden was associated with maximum carotid plaque thickness (adjusted increase in maximum carotid plaque thickness 0.09 mm; 95% CI, 0.03 to 0.15 mm per SD increase of infectious burden). Conclusion— A quantitative weighted index of infectious burden, derived from the magnitude of association of individual infections with stroke, was associated with carotid plaque thickness in this multiethnic cohort. These results lend support to the notion that past or chronic exposure to common infections, perhaps by exacerbating inflammation, contributes to atherosclerosis. Future studies are needed to confirm this hypothesis and to define optimal measures of infectious burden as a vascular risk factor.
Superreplication of options on several underlying assets

We investigate the conditions on a hedger, who overestimates the (time- and level-dependent) volatility, to superreplicate a convex claim on several underlying assets. It is shown that the classic Black-Scholes model is the only model, within a large class, for which overestimation of the volatility yields the desired superreplication property. This is in contrast to the one-dimensional case, in which it is known that overestimation of the volatility with any time- and level-dependent model guarantees superreplication of convex claims.