Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A functional variant of the neuropeptide S receptor‐1 gene modulates clinical outcomes and healthcare utilization in patients with systolic heart failure: results from the Interdisciplinary Network Heart Failure (INH) Study

Psychopathologies may occur in heart failure (HF) and can be associated with adverse outcomes. Amongst neuropeptide S receptor gene functional sequence variants, the T‐allele [asparagine(107)isoleucine, NPSR1 rs324981] has been identified as a risk factor for increased anxiety/overinterpretation of bodily symptoms. We investigated all‐cause death and re‐hospitalization (composite primary endpoint, CPEP) and healthcare utilization in patients hospitalized for decompensated systolic HF with the TT vs. the AT/AA genotype.
Effect of extruded whole soybean dietary concentrate on conjugated linoleic acid concentration in milk in Jersey cows under pasture conditions.

Contradictory results has been found on the effects of soybean supplementation and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) content in milk on feeding systems based on fresh forage The objective of the study was to evaluate the effect of a dietary supplement with different quantities of extruded whole soybean on the production and composition of milk, and CLA concentration or their isomers in Jersey cows under pasture conditions. Twenty-one Jersey cows were randomly assigned into 3 groups of 7 animals each. The cows were supplemented with a dietary concentrate (5 kg d-1), and each group received one of the three next treatments: control without soybean (0-SB), with extruded whole soybean at 0.5 kg d-1 (0.5-SB) or at 1 kg d-1 (1-SB). The basic diet was a pasture composed of Lolium perenne (70%), Trifolium repens (25%) and other species. The duration of the study was 75 d. Milk production (p = 0.706) and protein production (p = 0.926) were not affected by treatments. Fat (p = 0.015) and protein (p = 0.045) content as well as fat production (p = 0.010) were lower in the 1-SB group. There was no effect of the inclusion of extruded soybean on total CLA content (p = 0.290) or the content of cis-9, trans-11 (p = 0.582), trans-10, cis-12 (p = 0.136) and cis-10, cis-12 (p = 0.288) isomers. However, concentrations of all isomers were affected by the nutritional quality of the pasture, with low values observed at greater maturity stages of pasture.
The endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle biopsy learning curve for mediastinal and hilar lymph node diagnosis.

The learning curve required for the endobronchial ultrasoundguided transbronchial needle biopsy (EBUS-TBNA) of mediastinal or hilar lymph nodes is unclear, and the evidence is scarce and contradictory. 1 4 Two of the evidentiary studies 2 , 3 only analyzed the learning curve of EBUS-TBNA for lung cancer diagnosis and staging and did not include the use of this technique in the study of lymph nodes affected by other pathologies. Other factors that might be infl uenced by learning have also not been examined. 2 4 To address these issues, we conducted a prospective study to describe the learning curve of an experienced bronchoscopy team in a unselected sample of patients with mediastinal or hilar lymph nodes. Team performance was analyzed not only in terms of the diagnostic yield of the procedure, but also to evaluate procedure length, number of lymph node passes performed to obtain adequate samples, and number of lymph nodes studied per patient. We included unselected consecutive patients with mediastinal or hilar lymph node . 10 mm in the short axis on CT scan or . 5 mm in the presence of PET scan-positive uptake. The study involved a team of two bronchoscopists with . 10 years experience in diagnostic bronchoscopy, including conventional transbronchial needle biopsy. The bronchoscopists had previously conducted extensive theoretical training and several practical workshops and performed between fi ve and 10 supervised procedures. The learning curve was evaluated by analyzing consecutive groups of 20 patients, the number of adequate samples obtained, and the diagnostic accuracy of the procedure. We also recorded the other variables shown in Table 1 . Over a period of 13 months, EBUS-TBNA was performed for 215 lymph nodes in 120 patients (71 with lung cancer, 16 with extrapulmonary carcinomas, seven with lymphomas, and 26 with several nonmalignant pathologies). Table 1 shows these values in groups of 20 consecutive patients. No serious complications were reported. The present study demonstrated that the diagnostic effectiveness of EBUS-TBNA clearly improved with an increasing number of procedures performed, allowing for access to a greater number of lymph nodes without increasing the length of the procedure by reducing the number of punctures in each nodal station. Analyzing the studies included in systematic reviews and published meta-analyses, 5 , 6 the diagnostic accuracy of EBUS-TBNA is between 85% and 98%. Accordingly, and based on our fi ndings, we could argue that the minimal diagnostic yield is achieved with procedure 60 but can be improved and even reach optimal results after 100 patients. We hope that this study and others in the same line help scientifi c societies to establish specifi c recommendations for learning linear EBUS-TBNA. 1 , 7
Multi-Scale, Categorical Object Detection and Pose Estimation using Hough Forest in RGB-D Images

Autonomous Intelligent Systems Institute for Computer Science Master of Science Multi-Scale, Categorical Object Detection and Pose Estimation using Hough Forest in RGB-D Images by Ishrat Badami Classification and localization of objects enables a robot to plan and execute tasks in unstructured environments. Much work on the detection and pose estimation of objects in the robotics context focused on object instances. We propose here a novel approach that detects object classes and finds the canonical pose of the detected objects in RGB-D images using Hough forests. In Hough forests each random decision tree maps local image patch to one of its leaves through a cascade of binary decisions over a patch appearance, where each leaf casts probabilistic Hough vote in Hough space encoded in object location, scale and orientation. We propose depth and surfel pair-feature as an additional appearance channels to introduce scale, shape and geometric information about the object. Moreover, we exploit depth at various stages of the processing pipeline to handle variable scale efficiently. Since obtaining large amounts of annotated training data is a cumbersome process, we use training data captured on a turn-table setup. Although the training examples from this domain do not include clutter, occlusions or varying background situations. Hence, we propose a simple but effective approach to render training images from turn-table dataset which shows the same statistical distribution in image properties as natural scenes. We evaluate our approach on publicly available RGB-D object recognition benchmark datasets and demonstrate good performance in varying background and view poses, clutter, and occlusions.
Anemic Stess as a Trigger of Myelogenous Leukemia in the Unirradiated RF Mouse

Ninety-six percent of mice that were bled of 50 percent of their blood volume when they were 9 weeks old succumbed to myelogenous leukemia by 15 months after phlebotomy, the majority of them dying between 7 and 10 months after this treatment. These results suggest that (i) anemia is an effective stress for triggering myelogenous leukemia in animals that are predisposed to the disease, (ii) the RF mouse is "naturally" prone to the development of myelogenous leukemia, and (iii) the concept of two-step de novo induction of myelogenous leukemia appears to be applicable in this animal.
Epistasis for real encoding in genetic algorithms

Epistasis is a well known tool introduced by Davidor (1991) to understand and predict the performance of a genetic algorithm using binary encoding. The meaning of variance of epistasis is analyzed using Walsh basis; it is established that this variance can be viewed as a measure of the quality of a linear approximation. Variance of epistasis is therefore easier to estimate using the well known context of polynomial approximation regarding Euclidian distance. This approach also leads to the extension of variance of epistasis to real encoding without considering the notion of schema. Following this new definition, numerical analysis tools can also be applied to compute efficiently this generalized variance of epistasis.
Non-Thermal Radio Frequency Stimulation Inhibits the Tryptophan Synthase Beta Subunit in the Algae Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

To demonstrate the ability of the Nativis signal transduction technology (Butters et al. 2014) to modulate the expression of algae mRNA and protein, we tested if we can alter specific enzyme levels in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. We inhibited the synthesis of the enzyme tryptophan synthase beta subunit (MAA7) by applying the signal derived from a published siRNA (Zhao et al. 2009). With lower levels of MAA7, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii can grow in the presence of the prodrug 5-Fluoroindole (5-FI), because less 5-Fluoroin-dole can be converted to the toxic 5-Fluoro-L-tryptophan (5-FT). We find a 24% (±5%) increase of growth with the signal versus no signal. To see if that effect was due to the reduction of the amount of mRNA encoding MAA7, we used Real-Time Quantitative PCR (RT-QPCR) to measure the levels of MAA7 mRNA. To normalize the MAA7 mRNA level, we compared them to the levels of a mRNA that is not affected by the signal (G protein beta subunit-like polypeptide, Cblp). Two conditions increase the effectiveness of the signal. One can either treat the cell cultures during the logarithmic growth phase (starting the cultures at density of 0.104 OD at 750 nm). Or one can treat the cultures at a later stage of the logarithmic growth, but treating them for a longer time (8.7% versus 3.5% of the culture time). Under these conditions we found around a 50% decrease in the mRNA levels for MAA7. Treating the cultures at the earlier growth phase or at a later growth phase is less effective, with only a 20% effect.
Activated vitamin D attenuates left ventricular abnormalities induced by dietary sodium in Dahl salt-sensitive animals

Observations in hemodialysis patients suggest a survival advantage associated with activated vitamin D therapy. Left ventricular (LV) structural and functional abnormalities are strongly linked with hemodialysis mortality. Here, we investigated whether paricalcitol (PC, 19-nor-1,25(OH)2D2), an activated vitamin D compound, attenuates the development of LV abnormalities in the Dahl salt-sensitive (DSS) rat and whether humans demonstrate comparable findings. Compared with DSS rats fed a high-salt (HS) diet (6% NaCl for 6 weeks), HS+PC was associated with lower heart and lung weights, reduced LV mass, posterior wall thickness and end diastolic pressures, and increased fractional shortening. Blood pressures did not significantly differ between the HS groups. Plasma brain natriuretic peptide levels, and cardiac mRNA expression of brain natriuretic peptide, atrial natriuretic factor, and renin were significantly reduced in the HS+PC animals. Microarray analyses revealed 45 specific HS genes modified by PC. In a retrospective pilot study of hemodialysis patients, PC-treated subjects demonstrated improved diastolic function and a reduction in LV septal and posterior wall thickness by echocardiography compared with untreated patients. In summary, PC attenuates the development of LV alterations in DSS rats, and these effects should be examined in human clinical trials.
Bladder cancer: the curious case of a not so rare disease.

DOI:10.1097/MOU.0000000000000098 Bladder cancer is alarmingly common in the world ranking ninth in cancer incidence, with approximately 356 000 new cases each year and more than 145 000 deaths per year [1,2]. In 2014, 74 690 new cases are estimated to be diagnosed in the USA alone and 15 580 patients will die from bladder cancer [3]. In Europe, over 120 000 new cases are diagnosed each year with a 5-year prevalence of around 410 000 according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (EUCAN). Because of high recurrence rates, intensive surveillance strategies, and expensive treatment costs, the management of bladder cancer contributes significantly to medical costs [4,5]. In the USA, bladder cancer is the most expensive cancer accounting for almost 3.7 billion US dollars (2001 values) in direct costs. In this issue of Current Opinion in Urology, Matthew Mossanen and John L. Gore (pp. 487–491) discuss in a well balanced and thoughtful article the direct and indirect financial costs of bladder cancer. As the authors clearly show, the costs of bladder cancer are high for both the person with cancer and for the society as a whole. These data indicate the need for increased prevention, earlier diagnosis, and new therapies that may assist in reducing direct and indirect costs. Policy makers charged with providing estimates of cancer costs to Congress and other Policy bodies should incorporate such data obtained from different sources for a more comprehensive picture of the economic burden of cancer. If the society and decision-makers are made aware of these numbers, we will surely see a shift in the resources devoted to bladder cancer. Finally, inexplicably, for most pharmaceutical companies, bladder cancer has a low prioritization in their corporate targets for diseasespecific drug development. The low funding from public and private sources has been one of the main limitations to the advancement of bladder cancer care with no change in survival over the last 30 years. Despite its frequency, associated personal distress, lethal potential, and socioeconomic burden, bladder cancer lacks public awareness and research funding. In contrast to other malignancies such as breast and prostate cancer, which are in the middle
A Single-40 Gb/s Dual-20 Gb/s Serializer IC With SFI-5.2 Interface in 65 nm CMOS

This paper presents a 40 Gb/s serializer IC in 65 nm bulk CMOS technology. The IC has an SFI5.2-compliant 10 Gb/s input interface and supports two different output modes, single 40 Gb/s for OC-768 VSR and dual 20 Gb/s for DQPSK. The IC is evaluated on a PCB and error-free operation is confirmed. The chip consumes 1.8 W for the 40 G mode, and 1.6 W for the 20 G mode from 1.2 V and 3.3 V power supplies.
Compartmental origin of the striato‐entopeduncular projection in the rat

The mammalian neostriatum is divisible into neurochemically and cytoarchitectonically distinct striosome and matrix compartments. This compartmentalization is respected by many afferent and efferent projections of the striatum. The distribution of distinct types of neuroactive substances and receptors and the unique connections of the striosome and matrix suggest a functional segregation between these compartments. The present study examines the organization of efferent projections from each of the striatal compartments to the entopeduncular nucleus (EPN), a major output cente of the basal ganglia.
Modeling to support reliability enhancement during product development with applications in the U.K. Aerospace industry

Reliability improvement is the conceptual norm but has not been achieved by all sectors of industry. The U.K. aerospace industry is one that has aspired to make the transition from a culture of reliability demonstration to enhancement. This paper presents action research that examines the challenges facing this industry. A statistical model is developed to help measure the likely impact of failure modes on operational performance, hence providing a basis for managing the enhancement process. The model, which has general applicability to other product development processes, is stated and justified. The industrial interventions are described and an analysis of findings is presented. The proposed model is better than traditional approaches because it provides a systematic process to capture and integrate data from different sources to estimate reliability by directly measuring the engineering improvement achieved through product design and development. The estimates can be used to inform a traceable coherent argument about the level and growth in reliability to management and the customer as well as to provide insight into the impact of alternative engineering modifications to the design team. The modeling process has contributed to the partial transition to reliability enhancement of a consortium of companies who have changed their standard operating procedures to reflect the lessons learned from the research intervention. The insights gained contribute to an understanding of how the U.K. aerospace industry is changing its management of reliability enhancement in design.
Social Network Effects on Productivity and Job Security: Evidence from the Adoption of a Social Networking Tool

By studying the change in employees' network positions before and after the introduction of a social networking tool, I find that information-rich networks (low in cohesion and rich in structural holes), enabled by social media, have a positive effect on various work outcomes. Contrary to the notion that network positions are difficult to alter, I show that social media can induce a change in network structure, one from which individuals can derive economic benefits. In addition, I consider two intermediate mechanisms by which an information-rich network is theorized to improve work performance---information diversity and social communication---and quantify their effects on productivity and job security. Analysis shows that productivity, as measured by billable revenue, is more associated with information diversity than with social communication. However, the opposite is true for job security. Social communication is more correlated with reduced layoff risks than with information diversity. This, in turn, suggests that information-rich networks enabled through the use of social media can drive both work performance and job security, but that there is a trade-off between engaging in social communication and gathering diverse information.
An Empirical Investigation of Antecedents of Internet Abuse in the Workplace

This study examined the extent to which employees engage in Internet abuse, and whether any of 15 antecedents predict the amount of that abuse. Data were collected from 571 Usenet users in an on-line survey. Aggregating the time for each of the eleven listed methods of Internet abuse revealed a total of 5.8 hours per week, on average. Most of the antecedents in two of the three Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) categories (Attitudes and Subjective Norms), were significant, and none of the antecedents in the third TPB category (Perceived Behavioral Control) showed significance. addiction, self-justification, job satisfaction, peer culture, and supervisor culture were significant predictors of Internet abuse. Exploratory demographic factors computer experience, gender, and firm revenue also showed predictive power.
A Review of Criticisms of Integrated Assessment Models and Proposed Approaches to Address These, through the Lens of BECCS

This paper reviews the many criticisms that Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs)—the bedrock of mitigation analysis—have received in recent years. Critics have asserted that there is a lack of transparency around model structures and input assumptions, a lack of credibility in those input assumptions that are made visible, an over-reliance on particular technologies and an inadequate representation of real-world policies and processes such as innovation and behaviour change. The paper then reviews the proposals and actions that follow from these criticisms, which fall into three broad categories: scrap the models and use other techniques to set out low-carbon futures; transform them by improving their representation of real-world processes and their transparency; and supplement them with other models and approaches. The article considers the implications of each proposal, through the particular lens of how it would explore the role of a key low-carbon technology—bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), to produce net negative emissions. The paper concludes that IAMs remain critically important in mitigation pathways analysis, because they can encompass a large number of technologies and policies in a consistent framework, but that they should increasingly be supplemented with other models and analytical approaches.
A highly accurate numerical solution of a biharmonic equation

A computational solution of a partial differential equation (PDE) involves a discretization procedure by which the continuous equation is replaced by a discrete algebraic equation. The discretization procedure consists of an approximation of the derivatives in the governing PDE by differences of the dependent variables, which are computed only at discrete points (grid or mesh points). The discretization of the continuous problem inevitably introduces an error in computing the derivatives and, as a result, an error in the computational solution. In general, one starts with a given PDE and uses a discretization procedure for developing a finite-difference equation (FDE) that is a linear relation between discrete values of the unknown function computed on grid point. Then, with the aid of a Taylor series expansion about the node at which the derivative is evaluated, the PDE can be rewritten in the following form: PDE = FDE + TE, where the remainder, TE, is
Animal-to-Animal Variation in Fecal Microbial Diversity among Beef Cattle

ABSTRACT The intestinal microbiota of beef cattle are important for animal health, food safety, and methane emissions. This full-length sequencing survey of 11,171 16S rRNA genes reveals animal-to-animal variation in communities that cannot be attributed to breed, gender, diet, age, or weather. Beef communities differ from those of dairy. Core bovine taxa are identified.
Desempeño de distintas parametrizaciones de esquemas de cúmulos en la simulación de precipitaciones convectivas en los Andes centrales

Es este trabajo se examina el desempeno de tres esquemas de parametrizaciones de cumulos en el modelo WRF en la simulacion de precipitaciones convectivas en el area de los Andes Centrales, para eventos ocurridos en los meses de enero y febrero del 2013 y 2014. Todas las simulaciones se realizaron con salidas de resolucion horaria empleando los esquemas Kain–Fritsch (KF), Betts–Miller–Janjic (BMJ), y Grell–Devenyi (GD), ademas de simulaciones explicitas de cumulos. Las precipitaciones simuladas se compararon con datos horarios y diarios de precipitacion acumulada y estimaciones satelitales diarias del producto 3B42 de TRMM. Debido a que el esquema KF posee mejores resultados en cuanto a distribucion espacial y que el esquema GD predice mejor las cantidades de agua precipitada, la eleccion de una parametrizacion adecuada parece ser dependiente de cada evento.
Statistical Investigation of Random Telegraph Noise ID Instabilities in Flash Cells at Different Initial Trap-filling Conditions

This work investigates the statistical distribution of random telegraph noise drain current instability in flash memory arrays as a function of the initial trap-filling condition. When stationary trap occupancy is established, a symmetrical behavior appears for the positive and the negative tail of the drain current instability distribution. However, when a gate pulse with amplitude different from the read bias is applied just prior to cell drain current monitoring, a preferential direction for the instability results as a consequence of a forced trap state. Finally, the results are explained by our statistical model for random telegraph noise and a defects spectroscopic analysis is presented.