LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Weight loss associated with a daily intake of three apples or three pears among overweight women.

OBJECTIVE
We investigated the effect of fruit intake on body weight change.


METHODS
Hypercholesterolemic, overweight (body mass index > 25 kg/m2), and non-smoking women, 30 to 50 y of age, were randomized to receive, free of charge, one of three dietary supplements: apples, pears, or oat cookies. Women were instructed to eat one supplement three times a day in a total of six meals a day. Participants (411 women) were recruited at a primary care center of the State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Fifty-one women had fasting blood cholesterol levels greater than 6.2 mM/L (240 mg/dL) and 49 were randomized. Subjects were instructed by a dietitian to eat a diet (55% of energy from carbohydrate, 15% from protein, and 30% from fat) to encourage weight reduction at the rate of 1 kg/mo.


RESULTS
After 12 wk of follow-up, the fruit group lost 1.22 kg (95% confidence interval = 0.44-1.85), whereas the oat group had a non-significant weight loss of 0.88 kg (0.37-2.13). The difference between the two groups was statistically significant (P = 0.004). To explore further the body weight loss associated with fruit intake, we measured the ratio of glucose to insulin. A significantly greater decrease of blood glucose was observed among those who had eaten fruits compared with those who had eaten oat cookies, but the glucose:insulin ratio was not statistically different from baseline to follow-up. Adherence to the diet was high, as indicated by changes in serum triacylglycerols, total cholesterol, and reported fruit intake. Fruit intake in the oat group throughout treatment was minimal.


CONCLUSIONS
Intake of fruits may contribute to weight loss.
Argumentation Mining in Persuasive Essays and Scientific Articles from the Discourse Structure Perspective

This paper provides an analysis of some argumentation in a biomedical genetics research article as a step towards developing a corpus of articles annotated to support research on argumentation. We present a specification of several argumentation schemes and inter-argument relationships to be annotated.
Retricoin: Bitcoin based on compact proofs of retrievability

Bitcoin [24] is a fully decentralized electronic cash system. The generation of the proof-of-work in Bitcoin requires large amount of computing resources. However, this huge amount of energy is wasted as one cannot make something useful out of it. In this paper, we propose a scheme called Retricoin which replaces the heavy computational proof-of-work of Bitcoin by proofs of retrievability that have practical benefits. To guarantee the availability of an important but large file, we distribute the segments of the file among the users in the Bitcoin network. Every user who wants to mine Bitcoins must store a considerable portion of this file and prove her storage to other peers in the network using proofs of retrievability. The file can be constructed at any point of time from the users storing their respective segments untampered. Retricoin is more efficient than the existing Permacoin scheme [23] in terms of storage overhead and network bandwidth required to broadcast the proof to the Bitcoin network. The verification time in our scheme is comparable to that of Permacoin and reasonable for all practical purposes. We also design an algorithm to let the miners in a group (or pool) mine collectively.
Clinical implications of provocation tests for coronary artery spasm: safety, arrhythmic complications, and prognostic impact: multicentre registry study of the Japanese Coronary Spasm Association.

AIMS
Provocation tests of coronary artery spasm are useful for the diagnosis of vasospastic angina (VSA). However, these tests are thought to have a potential risk of arrhythmic complications, including ventricular tachycardia (VT), ventricular fibrillation (VF), and brady-arrhythmias. We aimed to elucidate the safety and the clinical implications of the spasm provocation tests in the nationwide multicentre registry study by the Japanese Coronary Spasm Association.


METHODS AND RESULTS
A total of 1244 VSA patients (M/F, 938/306; median 66 years) who underwent the spasm provocation tests were enrolled from 47 institutes. The primary endpoint was defined as major adverse cardiac events (MACEs). The provocation tests were performed with either acetylcholine (ACh, 57%) or ergonovine (40%). During the provocation tests, VT/VF and brady-arrhythmias developed at a rate of 3.2 and 2.7%, respectively. Overall incidence of arrhythmic complications was 6.8%, a comparable incidence of those during spontaneous angina attack (7.0%). Multivariable logistic regression analysis demonstrated that diffuse right coronary artery spasm (P < 0.01) and the use of ACh (P < 0.05) had a significant correlation with provocation-related VT/VF. During the median follow-up of 32 months, 69 patients (5.5%) reached the primary endpoint. The multivariable Cox proportional hazard model revealed that mixed (focal plus diffuse) type multivessel spasm had an important association with MACEs (adjusted hazard ratio, 2.84; 95% confidence interval, 1.34-6.03; P < 0.01), whereas provocation-related arrhythmias did not.


CONCLUSION
The spasm provocation tests have an acceptable level of safety and the evaluation of spasm type may provide useful information for the risk prediction of VSA patients.
Regulation of thyroid hormone sensitivity by differential expression of the thyroid hormone receptor during Xenopus metamorphosis.

During amphibian metamorphosis, a series of dynamic changes occur in a predetermined order. Hind limb morphogenesis begins in response to low levels of thyroid hormone (TH) in early prometamorphosis, but tail muscle cell death is delayed until climax, when TH levels are high. It takes about 20 days for tadpoles to grow from early prometamorphosis to climax. To study the molecular basis of the timing of tissue-specific transformations, we introduced thyroid hormone receptor (TR) expression constructs into tail muscle cells of Xenopus tadpoles. The TR-transfected tail muscle cells died upon exposure to a low level of thyroxine (T4). This cell death was suggested to be mediated by type 2 iodothyronine deiodinase (D2) that converts T4 to T3-the more active form of TH. D2 mRNA was induced in the TR-overexpressing cells by low levels of TH. D2 promoter contains a TH-response element (TRE) with a lower affinity for TR. These results show that the TR transfection confers the ability to respond to physiological concentrations of TH at early prometamorphosis to tail muscle cells through D2 activity and promotes TH signaling. We propose the positive feedback loop model to amplify the cell's ability to respond to low levels of T4.
Synergistic contribution of CD14 and HLA loci in the susceptibility to Buerger disease

Buerger disease (BD) is an occulusive vascular disease of unknown etiology. Although cigarette smoking is a well-known risk factor of BD, genetic factors may also play a role in the etiology. Because chronic bacterial infection such as oral periodontitis is suggested to be involved in the pathogenesis of BD, gene polymorphisms involved in the infectious immunity might be associated with BD as the genetic factor(s). We have previously reported that HLA-DRB1*1501 and B54 was associated with BD in Japanese. In this study, polymorphisms in HLA-DPB1, DRB1 and B were analyzed in 131 Japanese BD patients and 227 healthy controls. In addition, we investigated a functional promoter polymorphism, −260 C > T, of CD14 that is a main receptor of bacterial lipopolysaccharide. It was found that the frequencies of CD14 TT genotype [37.4 vs. 24.2%, P = 0.008 OR = 1.87, 95% confidence interval (CI); 1.18, 2.97], DRB1*1501 (34.4 vs. 13.2%, P c = 4.4 × 10−5, OR = 3.44, 95%CI; 2.06, 5.73) and DPB1*0501 (79.4 vs. 55.1%, P c = 4.7 × 10−5, OR = 3.14, 95%CI; 1.93, 5.11) were significantly higher in the patients than in the controls, demonstrating that at least three genetic markers were associated with BD. Stratification analyses of these associated markers suggested synergistic roles of the genetic factors. Odds ratios ranged from 4.72 to 12.57 in individuals carrying any two of these three markers. These findings suggested that the susceptibility to BD was in part controlled by genes involved in the innate and adaptive immunity.
A Choice of Future m2m Access Technologies for Mobile Network Operators

It is predicted that by the early years of the next decade over 20 billion devices will be wirelessly connected in the Internet of Things (IoT). Many of these will use short-range wireless systems such as Bluetooth Smart, Wi-Fi or Zigbee, but, if so, they will depend on some private infrastructure being in-place, accessible and reliable. A ubiquitous public cellular network that was easy to use, penetrated deeply into almost all locations, and allowed for truly low-cost/low-energy devices capable of operating for years on a small battery, would be of enormous benefit. It would serve many existing machine-to-machine (m2m) applications such as metering, remote sensing, and telemetry; but more importantly would fuel the rapid development of the mass Internet of Things market by providing reliable and accessible connectivity for even the most low-cost/low-energy device. It would be a platform for substantial revenue growth for mobile network operators globally. Today's cellular networks have a few shortcomings in relation to the new demands from IoT. Whilst existing cellular technologies give in-building service they do not provide sufficiently deep coverage for some m2m applications such as metering. No current cellular technology (Rel-11 and earlier) can support very long terminal operating life on a small battery. Today, cellular GSM/GPRS comes closest to serving this market but does not sufficiently provide all characteristics of the ubiquitous cellular network for IoT. LTE, the latest cellular radio access technology, has been designed from the ground up to provide efficient mobile broadband data communications. Both LTE and UMTS/HSPA devices in their current forms are significantly more expensive than GSM/GPRS. This White Paper discusses two alternative approaches to address these concerns: an evolution of LTE; or the development of a dedicated new radio access technology. Either approach must combine the following characteristics: • Use licensed spectrum to allow controlled quality of service and provide global coverage, ideally over existing cellular bands using existing sites, transceivers and antennas • Support deep coverage for low-rate services into highly-shadowed locations such as basements, meter closets, manholes and even under ground • Support low-cost devices that could even be disposable. • Provide an adapted IPR licensing regime based on the FRAND principles and reflecting the reduced functionality that the new standard will provide for the specific M2M market (low cost, high volume). • Support very low device energy consumption allowing devices to operate for a decade or more on small primary batteries without …
A deep neural network approach for sentence boundary detection in broadcast news

This paper presents a deep neural network (DNN) approach to sentence boundary detection in broadcast news. We extrac t prosodic and lexical features at each inter-word position i n the transcripts and learn a sequential classifier to label these positions as either boundary or non-boundary. This work is rea lized by a hybrid DNN-CRF (conditional random field) architec ture. The DNN accepts prosodic feature inputs and non-linea rly maps them into boundary/non-boundary posterior probabili ty outputs. Subsequently, the posterior probabilities are co mbined with lexical features and the integrated features are model ed by a linear-chain CRF. The CRF finally labels the inter-word positions as boundary or non-boundary by Viterbi decoding. Ex periments show that, as compared with the state-of-the-art DTCRF approach [1], the proposed DNN-CRF approach achieves 16.7% and 4.1% reduction in NIST boundary detection error in reference and speech recognition transcripts, respective ly.
Rapid diagnosis of tuberculosis using Xpert MTB/RIF assay - Report from a developing country 

OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of the Xpert MTB/RIF assay for the detection of M. tuberculosis in pulmonary and extrapulmonary specimens and to compare it with conventional techniques.


METHODS
During a period of 10 months from December 2012 through September 2013, two hundred and forty five clinically TB suspects were enrolled for Xpert MTB\RIF assay. The cohort comprised of 205 suspects of pulmonary TB and 40 of extrapulmonary TB (EPTB). The 40 EPTB samples included pus aspirated from different sites of the body (n=19), pleural fluid (n=11), ascitic fluid (n=7), pericardial fluid, CSF and urine one each. Ziehl-Neelsen (ZN) Stained smear microscopy, culture on LJ media and Xpert MTB/RIF assay was performed on samples from these patients.


RESULTS
M. tuberculosis (MTB) were detected by Xpert MTB/RIF test in 111 (45.3%) out of 245 samples. Of these, 85 (34.7%) were smear positive on ZN staining and 102 (41.6%) were positive on LJ cultures. Rifampicin resistance was detected in 16 (6.5%) patients. Nine out of 19 pus samples (47.3%) were positive for MTB by Gene Xpert, 03 (15.8%) on ZN staining and 04 (21%) on LJ culture. MTB could not be detected in any other extrapulmonary sample.


CONCLUSION
Xpert MTB/RIF is a sensitive method for rapid diagnosis of Tuberculosis, especially in smear negative cases and in EPTB as compared to the conventional ZN staining. Among EPTB cases the highest yield of positivity was shown in Pus samples. For countries endemic for TB GeneXpert can serve as a sensitive and time saving diagnostic modality for pulmonary and EPTB.
Knowledge Management Applied to E-government Services: The Use of an Ontology

This paper is about the development and use of an ontology of egovernment services. We identify the knowledge required to deliver egovernment transaction services. Based on the SmartGov project, we describe the use of a domain map to assist in knowledge management and motivate the use of an ontology as a domain map. We describe the development of the egovernment service ontology and give a few examples of its definitions. We explain why the SmartGov project has adopted taxonomies, derived from the ontology, as its domain map. We highlight issues in ontology development and maintenance.
Relationship Between Achievement Goal Orientations and Use of Learning Strategies

This study aims to identify students' achievement goal orientations, learning strategies they use and the relationship between goal orientations and learning strategies. The sample included 189 students taking an educational psychology course at the undergraduate level. They filled out a questionnaire on goal orientations and learning strategies. Results indicate that the students are very close to mastery orientation and somewhat ego-social as a whole. Students use deep cognitive strategies often while they use surface and metacognitive strategies sometimes. Mastery orientation predicts the use of deep cognitive and metacognitive strategies, but when such an orientation is salient, less surface cognitive strategy use is expected. Egosocial orientation predicts surface cognitive strategy use, but does not relate to deep and metacognitive strategy use at all. Finally, work-avoidant orientation negatively correlated with both deep cognitive and metacognitive strategy use. (Contains 7 tables and 40 references.) (SLD) ******************************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ******************************************************************************** 1 RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ACHIEVEMENT GOAL ORIENTATIONS AND USE OF LEARNING STRATEGIES PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY
The cultural contagion of conflict.

Anecdotal evidence abounds that conflicts between two individuals can spread across networks to involve a multitude of others. We advance a cultural transmission model of intergroup conflict where conflict contagion is seen as a consequence of universal human traits (ingroup preference, outgroup hostility; i.e. parochial altruism) which give their strongest expression in particular cultural contexts. Qualitative interviews conducted in the Middle East, USA and Canada suggest that parochial altruism processes vary across cultural groups and are most likely to occur in collectivistic cultural contexts that have high ingroup loyalty. Implications for future neuroscience and computational research needed to understand the emergence of intergroup conflict are discussed.
Gradient Pursuits

Sparse signal approximations have become a fundamental tool in signal processing with wide-ranging applications from source separation to signal acquisition. The ever-growing number of possible applications and, in particular, the ever-increasing problem sizes now addressed lead to new challenges in terms of computational strategies and the development of fast and efficient algorithms has become paramount. Recently, very fast algorithms have been developed to solve convex optimization problems that are often used to approximate the sparse approximation problem; however, it has also been shown, that in certain circumstances, greedy strategies, such as orthogonal matching pursuit, can have better performance than the convex methods. In this paper, improvements to greedy strategies are proposed and algorithms are developed that approximate orthogonal matching pursuit with computational requirements more akin to matching pursuit. Three different directional optimization schemes based on the gradient, the conjugate gradient, and an approximation to the conjugate gradient are discussed, respectively. It is shown that the conjugate gradient update leads to a novel implementation of orthogonal matching pursuit, while the gradient-based approach as well as the approximate conjugate gradient methods both lead to fast approximations to orthogonal matching pursuit, with the approximate conjugate gradient method being superior to the gradient method.
Cellular HIV-1 DNA quantification and short-term and long-term response to antiretroviral therapy.

BACKGROUND
The aim of our study was to determine whether HIV-1 DNA level before antiretroviral therapy (ART) was associated with short- and long-term virological and immunological responses.


METHODS
Patients starting first-line protease inhibitor-containing regimens were enrolled in a prospective multicentre cohort in 1998-99. HIV-1 DNA was quantified using real-time PCR at baseline and after 1 year of ART. The association between HIV-1 DNA and virological and immunological responses after 1 and 7 years on ART was studied in multivariate regression models along with other biological and clinical variables. Virological failure (VF) at month 12 (M12) was defined as a plasma HIV-1 RNA >500 copies/mL. Time to death or two plasma HIV-1 RNA >500 copies/mL between M12 and M84 was studied for long-term VF.


RESULTS
HIV-1 DNA levels were measured in 148 patients. The median baseline peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) HIV-1 DNA was 3.7 log(10) copies/10(6) PBMCs. At M12, the median PBMC HIV-1 DNA was 2.99 log(10) copies/10(6) PBMCs. The median decrease in PBMC HIV-1 DNA between M0 and M12 was -0.7 log(10) copies/10(6) PBMCs. Higher baseline PBMC HIV-1 DNA and plasma HIV-1 RNA were independently associated with a higher risk of VF at M12. Only the baseline plasma HIV-1 RNA was independently associated with long-term virological response. The baseline CD4 cell count was the only parameter associated with short- and long-term immunological responses.


CONCLUSIONS
HIV-1 DNA impacted the virological response in our cohort. Further research is warranted to study the impact of HIV-1 DNA with currently recommended first-line cART.
Validation of the Modified Fatigue Impact Scale in Parkinson's disease.

INTRODUCTION
Fatigue is a common symptom in Parkinson's disease (PD); however, a multidimensional scale that measures the impact of fatigue on functioning has yet to be validated in this population. The aim of this study was to examine the validity of the Modified Fatigue Impact Scale (MFIS), a self-report measure that assesses the effects of fatigue on physical, cognitive, and psychosocial functioning, in a sample of nondemented PD patients.


METHODS
PD patients (N = 100) completed the MFIS, the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS-X), and several additional measures of psychosocial, cognitive, and motor functioning. A Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and item analysis using Cronbach's alpha were conducted to determine structural validity and internal consistency of the MFIS. Correlational analyses were performed between the MFIS and the PANAS-X fatigue subscale to evaluate convergent validity and between the MFIS and measures of depression, anxiety, apathy, and disease-related symptoms to determine divergent validity.


RESULTS
The PCA identified two viable MFIS subscales: a cognitive subscale and a combination of the original scale's physical and psychosocial subscales as one factor. Item analysis revealed high internal consistency of all 21 items and the items within the two subscales. The MFIS had strong convergent validity with the PANAS-X fatigue subscale and adequate divergent validity with measures of disease stage, motor function, and cognition.


CONCLUSION
Overall, this study demonstrates that the MFIS is a valid multidimensional measure that can be used to evaluate the impact of fatigue on cognitive and physical/social functioning in PD patients without dementia.
IoT based smart greenhouse

This work is primarily about the improvement of current agricultural practices by using modern technologies for better yield. This work provides a model of a smart greenhouse, which helps the farmers to carry out the work in a farm automatically without the use of much manual inspection. Greenhouse, [1], [2] being a closed structure protects the plants from extreme weather conditions namely: wind, hailstorm, ultraviolet radiations, and insect and pest attacks. The irrigation of agriculture field is carried out using automatic drip irrigation, which operates according to the soil moisture threshold set accordingly so as optimal amount of water is applied to the plants. Based on data from soil health card, proper amount of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and other minerals can be applied by using drip fertigation techniques. Proper water management tanks are constructed and they are filled with water after measuring the current water level using an ultrasonic sensor. Plants are also provided the requisite wavelength light during the night using growing lights. Temperature and air humidity are controlled by humidity and temperature sensors and a fogger is used to control the same. A tube well is controlled using GSM [3] module (missed call or sms). Bee-hive boxes are deployed for pollination and boxes are monitored using ultrasonic sensors to measure honey and send mails to the buyers when they are filled. Further, the readings collected from storage containers are uploaded to cloud service (Google drive) and can be forwarded to an e-commerce company.
Online minimization knapsack problem

Article history: Received 6 November 2014 Received in revised form 17 September 2015 Accepted 19 September 2015 Available online 28 September 2015 Communicated by A. Marchetti-Spaccamela