pinecone/core-2020-05-10-deduplication huggingface dataset:
γ-Glutamyltransferase, but not markers of hepatic fibrosis, is associated with cardiovascular disease in older people with type 2 diabetes mellitus: the Edinburgh Type 2 Diabetes Study

AIMS/HYPOTHESIS: We examined the association of prevalent and incident cardiovascular disease (CVD) with chronic liver disease in a cohort of community-based people with type 2 diabetes, in order to clarify the relationship between these two important conditions. \ud
\ud
METHODS: 1,066 participants with type 2 diabetes aged 60–75 years underwent assessment of a range of liver injury markers (non-specific injury, steatosis, steatohepatitis, fibrosis, portal hypertension). Individuals were followed up for incident cardiovascular events. \ud
\ud
RESULTS: At baseline there were 370/1,033 patients with prevalent CVD, including 317/1,033 with coronary artery disease (CAD). After a mean follow-up of 4.4 years there were 44/663 incident CVD events, including 27/663 CAD events. There were 30/82 CVD-related deaths. Risk of dying from or developing CVD was no higher in participants with steatosis than in those without (HR 0.90; 95% CI 0.40, 2.00; p > 0.05). The only notable relationship was with γ-glutamyltransferase (GGT) (incident CVD: adjusted HR for doubling GGT 1.24 [95% CI 0.97, 1.59] p = 0.086; incident CAD: adjusted HR 1.33 [95% CI 1.00, 1.78] p = 0.053), suggesting that in our study population, chronic liver disease may have little effect on the development of, or mortality from, CVD. \ud
\ud
CONCLUSIONS/INTERPRETATION: An independent association between GGT and CVD warrants further exploration as a potentially useful addition to current cardiovascular risk prediction models in diabetes. However, overall findings failed to suggest that there is a clinical or pathophysiological association between chronic liver disease and CVD in elderly people with type 2 diabetes. \ud
\ud
ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00125-015-3575-y) contains peer-reviewed but unedited supplementary material, which is available to authorised users
Why One Model is Never Enough: A Defense of Explanatory Holism

Traditionally, a scientific model is thought to provide a good scientific explanation to the extent that it satisfies certain scientific goals that are thought to be constitutive of explanation (e.g. generating understanding, identifying mechanisms, making predictions, identifying high-level patterns, allowing us to control and manipulate phenomena). Problems arise when we realize that individual scientific models cannot simultaneously satisfy all the scientific goals typically associated with explanation. A given model’s ability to satisfy some goals must always come at the expense of satisfying others. This has resulted in philosophical disputes regarding which of these goals are in fact necessary for explanation, and as such which types of models can and cannot provide explanations (e.g. dynamical models, optimality models, topological models, etc). Explanatory monists argue that one goal will be explanatory in all contexts, while explanatory pluralists argue that the goal will vary based on pragmatic considerations. In this paper, I argue that such debates are misguided, and that both monists and pluralists are incorrect. Instead of any goal being given explanatory priority over others in a given context, the different goals are all deeply dependent on one another for their explanatory power. Any model that sacrifices some explanatory goals to attain others will always necessarily undermine its own explanatory power in the process. And so when forced to choose between individual scientific models, there can be no explanatory victors. Given that no model can satisfy all the goals typically associated with explanation, no one model in isolation can provide a good scientific explanation. Instead we must appeal to collections of models. Collections of models provide an explanation when they satisfy the web of interconnected goals that justify the explanatory power of one another
HF spectrum activity prediction model based on HMM for cognitive radio applications

Although most of the research on Cognitive Radio is focused on communication bands above the HF upper limit (30 MHz), Cognitive Radio principles can also be applied to HF communications to make use of the extremely scarce spectrum more efficiently. In this work we consider legacy users as primary users since these users transmit without resorting to any smart procedure, and our stations using the HFDVL (HF Data+Voice Link) architecture as secondary users. Our goal is to enhance an efficient use of the HF band by detecting the presence of uncoordinated primary users and avoiding collisions with them while transmitting in different HF channels using our broad-band HF transceiver. A model of the primary user activity dynamics in the HF band is developed in this work to make short-term predictions of the sojourn time of a primary user in the band and avoid collisions. It is based on Hidden Markov Models (HMM) which are a powerful tool for modelling stochastic random processes and are trained with real measurements of the 14 MHz band. By using the proposed HMM based model, the prediction model achieves an average 10.3% prediction error rate with one minute-long channel knowledge but it can be reduced when this knowledge is extended: with the previous 8 min knowledge, an average 5.8% prediction error rate is achieved. These results suggest that the resulting activity model for the HF band could actually be used to predict primary users activity and included in a future HF cognitive radio based station
Experimental investigation of hydrodynamics of melt layer during laser cutting of steel

In laser cutting process, understanding of hydrodynamics of melt layer is significant, because it is an important factor which controls the final quality. In this work, we observed hydrodynamics of melt layer on kerf front in the case of laser cutting of steel with inert gas. The observation shows that the melt flow on the kerf front exhibits strong instability, depending on cutting velocity. In intermediate range of velocity, the flow on the central part of the kerf front is continuous, whereas the flow along the sides is discontinuous. It is firstly confirmed that the instability in the side flow is the cause of the striation initiation from the top part of the kerf. The origin of the instability is discussed in terms of instabilities in thermal dynamics and hydrodynamics. The proposed model shows reasonable agreement with experimental results
Scientific Progress: Knowledge versus Understanding

What is scientific progress? On Alexander Bird's epistemic account of scientific progress, an episode in science is progressive precisely when there is more scientific knowledge at the end of the episode than at the beginning. Using Bird's epistemic account as a foil, this paper develops an alternative understanding-based account on which an episode in science is progressive precisely when scientists grasp how to correctly explain or predict more aspects of the world at the end of the episode than at the beginning. This account is shown to be superior to the epistemic account by examining cases in which knowledge and understanding come apart. In these cases, it is argued that scientific progress matches increases in scientific understanding rather than accumulations of knowledge. In addition, considerations having to do with minimalist idealizations, pragmatic virtues, and epistemic value all favor this understanding-based account over its epistemic counterpart
Susceptibility of Helicobacter pylori to essential oil of Dittrichia viscosa subsp. revoluta

The essential oil of Dittrichia viscosa subsp. revoluta and its fractions were assessed for anti-Helicobacter activity. The essential oil was isolated by hydrodistillation, submitted to flash column chromatography and analysed by gas chromatography, gas-chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry and 13C-nuclear magnetic resonance. The anti-Helicobacter activity was determined by incorporation of the crude essential oil and oxygenated fractions of the oil into the culture medium. At a concentration of 0.025 µL/mL no recovery was registered when one of the oxygenated fractions of the oil, mainly constituted by 3-methoxy cuminyl isobutyrate (about 40%), was used. This fraction revealed a higher activity against the six H. pylori strains tested when compared with the other oxygenated fractions. The crude essential oil at a concentration of 0.33 µL/mL reduced the initial population of H. pylori CCUG 15818 of 8.52 ± 0.30 log10 cfu/mL to 7.67 ± 0.22 log10 cfu/mL. The susceptibility of several Helicobacter pylori strains to the oxygenated fraction of Dittrichia viscosa subsp. revoluta essential oil suggests the possible use of these natural products in combating this widespread infection. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ptr.228
First in vivo MRI assessment of a self-assembled metallostar compound endowed with a remarkable high field relaxivity

{Fe[Gd2bpy(DTTA)2(H2O)4]3}4- is a self-assembled, metallostar-structured potential MRI contrast agent, with six efficiently relaxing Gd3+ centres confined into a small molecular space. Its proton relaxivity is particularly remarkable at very high magnetic fields (r1 = 15.8 mM-1 s-1 at 200 MHz, 37°C, in H2O). Here we report the first in vivo MRI feasibility study, complemented with dynamic gamma scintigraphic imaging and biodistribution experiments using the 153Sm-enriched compound. Comparative MRI studies have been performed at 4.7 T in mice with the metallostar and the small molecular weight contrast agent gadolinium(III)-1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane-1,4,7,10-tetraacetate ([Gd(DOTA)(H2O)]- = GdDOTA). The metallostar was well tolerated by the animals at the concentrations of 0.0500 (high dose) and 0.0125 (low dose) mmol Gd kg-1 body weight; (BW). The signal enhancement in the inversion recovery fast low angle shot (IR FLASH) images after the high-dose metallostar injection was considerably higher than after GdDOTA injection (0.1 mmol Gd kg-1 BW), despite the higher dose of the latter. The high-dose metallostar injection resulted in a greater drop in the spin-lattice relaxation time (T1), as calculated from the inversion recovery true fast imaging with steady-state precession (IR TrueFISP) data for various tissues, than the GdDOTA or the low dose metallostar injection. In summary, these studies have confirmed that the approximately four times higher relaxivity measured in vitro for the metallostar is retained under in vivo conditions. The pharmacokinetics of the metallostar was found to be similar to that of GdDOTA, involving fast renal clearance, a leakage to the extracellular space in the muscle tissue and no leakage to the brain. As expected on the basis of its moderate molecular weight, the metallostar does not function as a blood pool agent. The dynamic gamma scintigraphic studies performed in Wistar rats with the metallostar compound having 153Sm enrichment also proved the renal elimination pathway. The biodistribution experiments are in full accordance with the MR and scintigraphic imaging. At 15 min post-injection the activity is primarily localized in the urine, while at 24 h post-injection almost all radioactivity is cleared from tissues and organs. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cmmi.9
Perfectionism and eating attitudes in Portuguese university students

The main objective was to explore which are the dimensions of perfectionism that are linked to disordered eating behaviour (EB) in a large non-clinical sample of both genders.One thousand one hundred and sixty-three undergraduate students of the University of Coimbra completed the Portuguese versions of the multidimensional perfectionism scale (MPS) and the eating attitudes test (EAT-40).In both genders, the MPS total score was associated with the EAT total score and all EAT dimensions (except for socially prescribed perfectionism in females).Self-oriented perfectionism (SOP) and socially prescribed perfectionism (SPP) were associated with EAT total score, diet concerns (DC) and bulimic behaviour (BB) in females while in males the social prescribed perfectionism (SPP) was the useful predictor of EAT total score, BB and social pressure to eat (SPE).These results confirm that in general high levels of perfectionism are associated with abnormal EB. This was the case for both genders for SPP but for SOP for females only. The association for other oriented perfectionism (OOP) was greater for males than for females. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/erv.73
Preparation and characterisation of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)/poly(neutral red) modified carbon film electrodes, and application as sensors for hydrogen peroxide

Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) films have been prepared for the first time on carbon-film electrodes (CFE) in aqueous solution using electropolymerisation by potential cycling, potentiostatically and galavanostatically. Characterisation of the modified electrodes was done by cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and the stability of the polymer films was probed. The coated electrodes were tested for application as hydrogen peroxide sensors, by oxidation and reduction. A novel polymer film was also formed by modification of CFE by co-electropolymerisation of EDOT and the phenazine dye neutral red (NR) – (PEDOT/PNR) with a view to enhancing the properties for sensor applications. It was found that hydrogen peroxide reduction at the PEDOT/PNR coated electrodes could be carried out at a less negative potential, the sensor performance comparing very favourably with that of other polymer-modified electrodes reported in the literature
Determination of S-curves with applications to the theory of
  nonhermitian orthogonal polynomials

This paper deals with the determination of the S-curves in the theory of
non-hermitian orthogonal polynomials with respect to exponential weights along
suitable paths in the complex plane. It is known that the corresponding complex
equilibrium potential can be written as a combination of Abelian integrals on a
suitable Riemann surface whose branch points can be taken as the main
parameters of the problem. Equations for these branch points can be written in
terms of periods of Abelian differentials and are known in several equivalent
forms. We select one of these forms and use a combination of analytic an
numerical methods to investigate the phase structure of asymptotic zero
densities of orthogonal polynomials and of asymptotic eigenvalue densities of
random matrix models. As an application we give a complete description of the
phases and critical processes of the standard cubic model
On gravitational waves emitted by an ensemble of rotating neutron stars

We study the possibility to detect the gravitational wave background generated by all the neutron stars in the Galaxy with only one gravitational wave interferometric detector. The proposed strategy consists in squaring the detector's output and searching for a sidereal modulation. The shape of the squared signal is computed for a disk and a halo distribution of neutron stars. The required noise stability of the interferometric detector is discussed. We argue that a possible population of old neutron stars, originating from a high stellar formation rate at the birth of the Galaxy and not emitting as radio pulsars, could be detected by the proposed technique in the low frequency range of interferometric experiments
Prediction intervals in conditionally heteroscedastic time series with stochastic components

Differencing is a very popular stationary transformation for series with stochastic trends. Moreover, when the differenced series is heteroscedastic, authors commonly model it using an ARMA-GARCH model. The corresponding ARIMA-GARCH model is then used to forecast future values of the original series. However, the heteroscedasticity observed in the stationary transformation should be generated by the transitory and/or the long-run component of the original data. In the former case, the shocks to the variance are transitory and the prediction intervals should converge to homoscedastic intervals with the prediction horizon.We show that, in this case, the prediction intervals constructed from the ARIMA-GARCH models could be inadequate because they never converge to homoscedastic intervals. All of the results are illustrated using simulated and real time series with stochastic levels.Publicad
Data Mining with Enhanced Neural Networks-CMMSE

Abstract This paper presents a new method to extract knowledge from existing data sets, that is, to extract symbolic rules using the weights of an Artificial Neural\ud
Network. The method has been applied to a neural network with special architecture named Enhanced Neural Network (ENN). This architecture improves the results that have been obtained with multilayer perceptron (MLP). The relationship among the knowledge stored in the weights, the performance of the network and the new implemented algorithm to acquire rules from the weights is explained. The method itself gives a model to follow in the knowledge acquisition with ENN
Competition between collective and noncollective excitation modes at high spin in 124Ba

High-spin states in Ba-124 were investigated in two experiments using the Ni-64(Ni-64, 4n)Ba-124 reaction at three different beam energies. In-beam gamma-ray coincidences were measured with the Euroball and Gammasphere detector arrays. In the experiment with Euroball, the CsI detector array Diamant was employed to discriminate against charged-particle channels. Six new rotational bands were observed in Ba-124, and previously known bands were extended to higher spins. One of the bands shows a transition from collective to noncollective behavior at high spins. Configuration assignments are suggested on the basis of comparison with cranked shell model and cranked Nilsson-Strutinsky calculations
2D fuzzy anti-de Sitter space from matrix models

We study the fuzzy hyperboloids AdS 2 and dS 2 as brane solutions in matrix models. The unitary representations of SO(2 , 1) required for quantum field theory are identified, and explicit formulae for their realization in terms of fuzzy wavefunctions are given. In a second part, we study the ( A ) dS 2 brane geometry and its dynamics, as governed by a suitable matrix model. In particular, we show that trace of the energy-momentum tensor of matter induces transversal perturbations of the brane and of the Ricci scalar. This leads to a linearized form of Henneaux-Teitelboim-type gravity, illustrating the mechanism of emergent gravity in matrix models
Moduli dynamics as a predictive tool for thermal maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills at large N

Maximally supersymmetric ( p + 1)-dimensional Yang-Mills theory at large N and finite temperature, with possibly compact spatial directions, has a rich phase structure. Strongly coupled phases may have holographic descriptions as black branes in various string duality frames, or there may be no gravity dual. In this paper we provide tools in the gauge theory which give a simple and unified picture of the various strongly coupled phases, and transitions between them. Building on our previous work we consider the effective theory describing the moduli of the gauge theory, which can be computed precisely when it is weakly coupled far out on the Coulomb branch. Whilst for perturbation theory naive extrapolation from weak coupling to strong gives little information, for this moduli theory naive extrapolation from its weakly to its strongly coupled regime appears to encode a surprising amount of information about the various strongly coupled phases. We argue it encodes not only the parametric form of thermodynamic quantities for these strongly coupled phases, but also certain transcendental factors with a geometric origin, and allows one to deduce transitions between the phases. We emphasise it also gives predictions for the behaviour of other observables in these phases
Phase space tweezers for tailoring cavity fields by quantum Zeno
  dynamics

We discuss an implementation of Quantum Zeno Dynamics in a Cavity Quantum
Electrodynamics experiment. By performing repeated unitary operations on atoms
coupled to the field, we restrict the field evolution in chosen subspaces of
the total Hilbert space. This procedure leads to promising methods for
tailoring non-classical states. We propose to realize `tweezers' picking a
coherent field at a point in phase space and moving it towards an arbitrary
final position without affecting other non-overlapping coherent components.
These effects could be observed with a state-of-the-art apparatus
Theoretical analysis and numerical verification of the consistency of viscous smoothed-particle-hydrodynamics formulations in simulating free-surface flows

The theoretical formulation of the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method deserves great care because of some inconsistencies occurring when considering free-surface inviscid flows. Actually, in SPH formulations one usually assumes that (i) surface integral terms on the boundary of the interpolation kernel support are neglected, (ii) free-surface conditions are implicitly verified. These assumptions are studied in detail in the present work for free-surface Newtonian viscous flow. The consistency of classical viscous weakly compressible SPH formulations is investigated. In particular, the principle of virtual work is used to study the verification of the free-surface boundary conditions in a weak sense. The latter can be related to the global energy dissipation induced by the viscous term formulations and their consistency. Numerical verification of this theoretical analysis is provided on three free-surface test cases including a standing wave, with the three viscous term formulations investigated
Simple and efficient water soluble thioligands for rhodium and iridium catalyzed biphasic hydrogenation

The activity of catalytic systems derived from the interaction between Rh(CO)2acac and [Ir(COD)Cl]2,
respectively, with the water soluble thioligands (L)-Cysteine (1) and (S)-Captopril (2), was tested in the
aqueous biphasic hydrogenation of some representative ,-unsaturated compounds as 2-cyclohexen-
1-one (I), trans-cinnamaldehyde (V) and [3-(1,3-benzodioxol-5-yl)-2-methylpropenal] (X), precursor of
the fragrance Helional® (XI). The precatalyst Rh/Cap was able to hydrogenate cyclohexenone even at low
pressure at 60 ◦C in a neutral medium while Rh/Cy required either higher pressure and temperature or an
alkaline medium. The iridium based catalysts, Ir/Cy and Ir/Cap, showed an analogous trend though their
activities were lower than those of the related rhodium catalysts. All the catalysts were easily recycled
without significant loss of activity. The rhodium catalysts were also used in the hydrogenation of the
above aldehydes V and X and their activity was strongly enhanced when ethylene glycol was used as
organic solvent or co-solvent
How Can Evolution Learn?

The theory of evolution links random variation and selection to \ud
incremental\ud
adaptation. In a different intellectual domain, learning theory \ud
links incremental\ud
adaptation (e.g., from positive and/or negative reinforcement) \ud
to intelligent\ud
behaviour. Specifically, learning theory explains how \ud
incremental adaptation\ud
can acquire knowledge from past experience and use it to direct \ud
future behaviours\ud
toward favourable outcomes. Until recently such cognitive \ud
learning\ud
seemed irrelevant to the ‘uninformed’ process of evolution. In \ud
our opinion,\ud
however, new results formally linking evolutionary processes to \ud
the principles\ud
of learning might provide solutions to several evolutionary \ud
puzzles – the evolution\ud
of evolvability, the evolution of ecological organisation, and \ud
evolutionary\ud
transitions in individuality. If so, the ability for evolution \ud
to learn might explain\ud
how it produces such apparently intelligent designs