Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Thallium 201 Imaging and Gated Cardiac Blood Pool Scans in Patients with Ischemic and Idiopathic Congestive Cardiomyopathy: A Clinical and Pathologic Study

In ischemic cardiomyopathy (CM) fibrosis replaces large segments of myocardium, but in idiopathic congestive CM the myocardium contains only small foci of fibrosis or is morphologically normal. As coronary disease and myocardial infarction may be clinically silent, it is not always possible to distinguish ischemic from idiopathic congestive CM during life without cardiac catheterization. To determine whether noninvasive methods, thallium 201 myocardial (TI) imaging and technetium 99m gated cardiac blood pool scans (GCBPS), could separate the entities, we evaluated radioisotope images of the heart in 13 patients with ischemic, and eight patients with idiopathic congestive CM, and 14 patients with normal hearts. Diagnosis was established by cardiac catheterization and/or autopsy in each of the 35 patients. The 14 normals could be readily distinguished from CM, and ischemic could be distinguished from idiopathic dilated CM in 20 of 21 patients. All patients with myocardiopathy showed hypokinetic and dilated left ventricles, but right ventricular dilatation was evident mainly in those with idiopathic CM. TI images in the ischemic type had defects of greater than 40% of image circumference which corresponded to segmental wall motion abnormalities on GCBPS, whereas those with the idiopathic congestive form were homogeneous or had defects of less than 20% of image circumference. Autopsy studies in 7 of 35 patients correlated TI defects of greater than 20% of circumference with transmural myocardial fibrosis.
Glyceraldehyde preserves glucose concentrations in whole blood specimens.

BACKGROUND Glucose concentrations decrease in blood specimens during transport/processing, primarily because of continuing metabolism (glycolysis) by erythrocytes. Several means to reduce the loss of glucose in blood specimens have been developed, but all have major drawbacks. Glyceraldehyde, which has antiglycolytic activity, was assessed for potential in preserving glucose in blood specimens. METHODS Heparinized blood from volunteers was treated with glyceraldehyde and other agents. After incubation for various times, plasma concentrations of glucose and other common analytes were determined with prevalent commercial analyzers. RESULTS The racemic mixture of glyceraldehyde (D,L-GA) preserved glucose concentrations for up to 8 h at room temperature. Half-maximal effect was attained with 0.9 mmol/L D,L-GA. Trials of the D and L stereoisomers individually indicated that the L isomer (L-GA) was responsible for all or most of the antiglycolytic activity of the racemic mixture. Other related compounds were ineffective. Measurements of most common clinical laboratory analytes were unaffected by the presence of D,L-GA or L-GA. CONCLUSIONS Glyceraldehyde (D,L-GA or L-GA) effectively preserves glucose concentrations in whole blood specimens for up to 8 h. Specimens collected with D,L-GA or L-GA are suitable for analysis of many analytes commonly comeasured with glucose.
The gut microbiota and host health: a new clinical frontier

Over the last 10–15 years, our understanding of the composition and functions of the human gut microbiota has increased exponentially. To a large extent, this has been due to new ‘omic’ technologies that have facilitated large-scale analysis of the genetic and metabolic profile of this microbial community, revealing it to be comparable in influence to a new organ in the body and offering the possibility of a new route for therapeutic intervention. Moreover, it might be more accurate to think of it like an immune system: a collection of cells that work in unison with the host and that can promote health but sometimes initiate disease. This review gives an update on the current knowledge in the area of gut disorders, in particular metabolic syndrome and obesity-related disease, liver disease, IBD and colorectal cancer. The potential of manipulating the gut microbiota in these disorders is assessed, with an examination of the latest and most relevant evidence relating to antibiotics, probiotics, prebiotics, polyphenols and faecal microbiota transplantation.
Student alienation and commitment to school : a multivariate analysis of the effects of home and school environments

This study investigates secondary school students' attitudes to school in relation to the type of school they attend and their home background. In recent years a number of new open space secondary schools have been built in Australia and, in addition, many longestablished schools have introduced an open approach to teaching and learning as a form of innovation. It has been suggested that students in open schools are more likely to have a positive attitude to school than students in traditional schools. TO test the validity of this suggestion the present study examines the prevalence of alienation and its opposite commdtment to school among students from a variety of home backgrounds in different types of secondary schools. Student alienation is defined in terms of seven dimensions: Misfeasance, Self-estrangement, Value Isolation, Social Powerlessness, . Meaninglessness, Social Isolation and Task Powerlessness. It is investigated in a theoretical framework which incorporates the interactions between the students and their home and school environments. The educational environment of the home is defined in terms of four domains: Stimulus, Parental Attitude, Parental Support and Parental Contact. Four types of school: Open, Innovative, Conventional and Traditional are identified on the basis of certain organizational aspects and teaching practices fostered in the schools. In April, 1975 data were collected from a random sampl e of students who were completing their final year of compulsory schooling i n three Australian States: South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria. In each State approximately 30 students from each of four large metropolitan co-educational secondary schools together with their parents and teachers took part in' the study. Data they provided were used to
Impact of a pedometer-based goal-setting intervention on children’s motivation, motor competence, and physical activity in physical education

ABSTRACT Background: School physical education (PE) programs provide a prime environment for interventions that attempt to develop school-aged children’s motor competence and overall physical fitness, while also stimulating competence motivation to engage in physical activity during childhood. It is generally recognized that a pedometer-based intervention strategy combined with a goal-setting strategy may be effective in increasing physical activity participation among school-aged children. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of an 8-week pedometer-based goal-setting intervention on children’s motivation in PE, motor competence, and physical activity. Methods: A pretest–posttest comparison group design was used with the 8-week intervention (3 days/week for 24 sessions). Participants were 273 (boys = 136, girls = 137) students recruited from 3 elementary schools in the US. Classes in each school were randomly allocated to three experimental conditions: (1) an intervention group with a personalized pedometer weekly target to reach in their PE class (N = 110), (2) an intervention group with the fixed pedometer target range to reach in each PE class based on the recommended criteria (N = 90), or (3) a control group without intervention (N = 73). Analysis/results: The factorial repeated measures MANOVA indicated significant multivariate effects for the group [F(6, 528) = 12.954, p < . 001]. Post hoc analyzes showed that both experimental groups had significantly higher expectancy-value beliefs, motor competence, and physical activity compared to the control group (p < .001). Conclusions: Health practitioners should be aware that goal-directed action can contribute to school students’ PE-related achievement motivation, motor competence, and achieving the recommended 60 min of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity.
Cloud Resolving Simulations of Mixed-Phase Arctic Stratus Observed during BASE: Sensitivity to Concentration of Ice Crystals and Large-Scale Heat and Moisture Advection

The authors’ previous idealized, two-dimensional cloud resolving model (CRM) simulations of Arctic stratus revealed a surprising sensitivity to the concentrations of ice crystals. In this paper, simulations of an actual case study observed during the Beaufort and Arctic Seas Experiment are performed and the results are compared to the observed data. It is again found in the CRM simulations that the simulated stratus cloud is very sensitive to the concentration of ice crystals. Using midlatitude estimates of the availability of ice forming nuclei (IFN) in the model, the authors find that the concentrations of ice crystals are large enough to result in the almost complete dissipation of otherwise solid, optically thick stratus layers. A tenuous stratus can be maintained in the simulation when the continuous input of moisture through the imposed large-scale advection is strong enough to balance the ice production. However, in association with the large-scale moisture and warm advection, only by reducing the concentration of IFN to 0.3 of the midlatitude estimate values can a persistent, optically thick stratus layer be maintained. The results obtained from the reduced IFN simulation compare reasonably well with observations. The longwave radiative fluxes at the surface are significantly different between the solid stratus and liquidwater-depleted higher ice crystal concentration experiments. This work suggests that transition-season Arctic stratus can be very vulnerable to anthropogenic sources of IFN, which can alter cloud structure sufficiently to affect the rates of melting and freezing of the Arctic Ocean. The authors find that the Hallett‐Mossop riming splintering mechanism is not activated in the simulations because the cloud droplets are very small and cloud temperatures are outside the range supporting efficient rime splintering. Thus, the conclusions drawn from the results presented in this paper may be applicable to only a limited class of Arctic stratus.
Delayed Entry into First Marriage: Further Evidence on the Becker-Landes-Michael Hypothesis

In their pioneering research, Becker, Landes and Michael (1977) found that beyond age 30 there is a positive relationship between women's age at first marriage and marital instability. They interpreted this finding as a "poor-match" effect emerging as the biological clock begins to tick. In analyses of the 2006-2010 National Surveys of Family Growth (NSFG), we find evidence of the existence of this effect: women who delay marriage disproportionately make unconventional matches, which are generally associated with high marital instability (N = 3,184). We also find, however, that their unions are very solid. We develop and test competing hypotheses that can account for these patterns. In addition, noting that women's delayed transition to first marriage has been accompanied by higher proportions of women entering marriage with 16 years of schooling or more, we examine changes across the last three NSFG cycles in the education - marital instability association.
College sophomores in the laboratory: Influences of a narrow data base on social psychology's view of human nature.

For the 2 decades prior to 1960, published research in social psychology was based on a wide variety of subjects and research sites. Content analyses show that since then such research has overwhelmingly been based on college students tested in academic laboratories on academiclike tasks. How might this heavy dependence on one narrow data base have biased the main substantive conclusions of sociopsychological research in this era? Research on the full life span suggests that, compared with older adults, college students are likely to have less-crystallized attitudes, less-formulated senses of self, stronger cognitive skills, stronger tendencies to comply with authority, and more unstable peer group relationships. The laboratory setting is likely to exaggerate all these differences. These peculiarities of social psychology's predominant data base may have contributed to central elements of its portrait of human nature. According to this view people (a) are quite compliant and their behavior is easily socially influenced, (b) readily change their attitudes and (c) behave inconsistently with them, and (d) do not rest their self-perceptions on introspection. The narrow data base may also contribute to this portrait of human nature's (e) strong emphasis on cognitive processes and to its lack of emphasis on (f) personality dispositions, (g) material self-interest, (h) emotionally based irrationalities, (i) group norms, and (j) stage-specific phenomena. The analysis implies the need both for more careful examination of sociopsychological propositions for systematic biases introduced by dependence on this narrow data base and for increased reliance on adults tested in their natural habitats with materials drawn from ordinary life.
Touch input on curved surfaces

Advances in sensing technology are currently bringing touch input to non-planar surfaces, ranging from spherical touch screens to prototypes the size and shape of a ping-pong ball. To help interface designers create usable interfaces on such devices, we determine how touch surface curvature affects targeting. We present a user study in which participants acquired targets on surfaces of different curvature and at locations of different slope. We find that surface convexity increases pointing accuracy, and in particular reduces the offset between the input point perceived by users and the input point sensed by the device. Concave surfaces, in contrast, are subject to larger error offsets. This is likely caused by how concave surfaces hug the user's finger, thus resulting in a larger contact area. The effect of slope on targeting, in contrast, is unexpected at first sight. Some targets located downhill from the user's perspective are subject to error offsets in the opposite direction from all others. This appears to be caused by participants acquiring these targets using a different finger posture that lets them monitor the position of their fingers more effectively.
Key observation selection for effective video synopsis

Millions of video surveillance cameras distribute around the world, and capture tremendous number of video data endlessly. Video browsing by frame is time consuming and inefficient, since needless information is abundant in the raw videos. Video synopsis is an effective way to solve this problem by producing a short video abstraction, while keeping the essential activities of the original video. However, traditional video synopsis only eliminates redundancy in spatial and temporal domain, while neglects redundancy in content domain. However, too many observations will make synopsis video confusing and degrade synopsis efficiency. In this paper, we present a novel video synopsis method based on key observation selection. Key observation selection is conducted for activity to eliminate content redundancy. We have demonstrated the effectiveness of our approach on real surveillance videos.
Random Distribution for Data Survival in Unattended Wireless Sensor Networks

In Unattended Wireless Sensor Networks, data are stored locally and wait for a sink to offload. Since there is no real time communication between the sensors and the sink, a powerful mobile adversary can corrupt the collected data between the sink visits. In this paper, we propose simple and effective algorithms to limit data corruption in homogeneous unattended wireless sensor networks, without implementing cryptography. The key feature of our algorithms is to randomly distribute the data. We evaluate their performance using numerical simulation. The proposed algorithms successfully defeat the adversary objectives even when it has enough energy and time to corrupt all the nodes in the entire network.
Match outcome and distances covered at various speeds in match play by elite German soccer players

The aim of the present study is to examine how various playing positions and end result (i.e. won, drawn or lost match) affect the total covered distance and distances covered at low and high-intensity by German Bundesliga soccer players. Match performance data were collected from 350 soccer players competing in the German Bundesliga during the 2014/2015 domestic season. A total of 4393 individual match observations were undertaken on outfield players. The analysis was carried out using the Impire AG motion analysis system recording all movements of players in all 306 matches. The examined variables included total distance covered and distance covered in low-intensity and high-intensity running. The analysis of distance covered at high intensity shows that central defenders and full-backs covered shorter distances in won matches than in lost matches (p ≤ 0.01). Furthermore, forwards covered significantly longer distances in won matches than in drawn and lost matches (p ≤ 0.05). In conclusion, the results indicate the importance of considering match outcome and playing positions in the assessment of physical aspects of soccer players’ performance.
Eosinophil Inversely Associates with Type 2 Diabetes and Insulin Resistance in Chinese Adults

Context Limited population-based study focused on relationship between eosinophil and type 2 diabetes (T2D). Objectives We aimed to evaluate the relationship between peripheral eosinophil percentage and glucose metabolism and insulin resistance in a large sample size of Chinese population aged 40 and older. Design and Methods A cross-sectional study was performed among 9,111 Chinese adults including 3,561 men and 5,550 women. The glucose metabolism status was confirmed by 75-g oral glucose tolerance test. Homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance index and serum insulin levels were used to evaluate insulin resistance. Homeostasis model assessment-B was used to evaluate β cell function. Results The average age of participants was 58.5 years. The prevalence of T2D decreased across the tertiles of eosinophil percentage (21.3%, 18.2% and 16.9%, P<0.0001). Each one tertile increase of eosinophil percentage inversely associated with risk of T2D when referred not only to normal glucose tolerance (NGT) (odds ratio (OR) 0.81, 95% CI 0.76–0.87, P< 0.0001), but also to impaired glucose regulation (OR 0.89, 95% CI 0.83–0.97, P = 0.006), respectively, after adjustment for the confounding factors. Compared with the first tertile, the third tertile of eosinophil percentage associated with a 23% decrease of insulin resistance in NGT participants after full adjustments (P = 0.005). Each 1-standard deviation of increment of eosinophil percentage associated with a 37% decrease of insulin resistance (P = 0.005). Conclusions Higher peripheral eosinophil percentage was associated with decreased risk of T2D. The inverse relation to insulin resistance was detected in NGT participants.
High range resolution multichannel DVB-T passive radar

The exploitation of multiple DVB-T channels for a passive radar system has been considered to enhance the radar range resolution. A preliminary study has focused on the AF analysis to verify the suitability of a multichannel DVB-T signal for radar applications. The theoretical study has been supported by preliminary measurements relative to three adjacent DVB-T channels. Experimental results in an aerial scenario through the use of SDR hardware have been carried out and showed a clear improvement in range resolution when using multichannel rather than single channel DVB-T signals. It may be proven in the near future that target classification of noncooperative target radar imaging will be enabled by a high resolution DVB-T passive radar that is obtained by exploiting multichannel DVB-T signals.
Initial Experiences with Laparoscopy-assisted and Total Laparoscopy for Anatomical Liver Resection: A Preliminary Study

Although laparoscopic surgery has become more popular, its technical difficulties have limited the applications of this technique to liver surgery. We report here on our experience with liver resection with using the laparoscopy-assisted (Lap-Assist) and total laparoscopic (Total-Lap) methods. From April 2001 to June 2003, a total of 20 laparoscopic anatomical resections of the liver were retrospectively reviewed. These were comprised of 10 cases in which the Lap-Assist method was used (these were performed during the early study period), and 10 cases in which the Total-Lap was used (these were done in the later study period). In the Lap-Assist group, the following resections were performed: 7 cases of left lateral sectionectomy, a case of left hemihepatectomy, a case of right hemihepatectomy and a case of open conversion. In the Total-Lap group, 6 cases of left hemihepatectomy and 4 cases of left lateral sectionectomy were performed. The sizes of the incisions were 8.7 cm and 4.6 cm, respectively, (p=0.000). There were no differences in the operation times, the transfusion amounts, the starting days of the patients' diets, the complication rates or the durations of the hospital stay between the two groups. Both the laparoscopy-assisted method and the total laparoscopic method are feasible to use for performing anatomical liver resection.
EMFtoCSP: A tool for the lightweight verification of EMF models

The increasing popularity of MDE results in the creation of larger models and model transformations, hence converting the specification of MDE artefacts in an error-prone task. Therefore, mechanisms to ensure quality and absence of errors in models are needed to assure the reliability of the MDE-based development process. Formal methods have proven their worth in the verification of software and hardware systems. However, the adoption of formal methods as a valid alternative to ensure model correctness is compromised for the inner complexity of the problem. To circumvent this complexity, it is common to impose limitations such as reducing the type of constructs that can appear in the model, or turning the verification process from automatic into user assisted. Since we consider these limitations to be counterproductive for the adoption of formal methods, in this paper we present EMFtoCSP, a new tool for the fully automatic, decidable and expressive verification of EMF models that uses constraint logic programming as the underlying formalism.
Reproductive patterns and pregnancy outcomes in women with congenital heart disease – a Swedish population‐based study

Objective. To study women diagnosed with congenital heart disease (CHD) with respect to characteristics related to their own births, their subsequent likelihood of giving birth and the obstetric and neonatal outcomes of their pregnancies. Design. Population‐based register study. Population. All women born in 1973–1983 who were alive and living in Sweden at 13 years of age (n=500 245). Methods. Women diagnosed with CHD (n=2 216) were compared with women without CHD (n=492 476). A total of 188 867 mother‐firstborn‐offspring pairs were identified and available for analysis. Results. Mothers of women with CHD were more often older and single/unmarried. Women with CHD were more often born preterm or small‐for‐gestational age (SGA) than women without CHD, more likely to have been born with a cesarean section, to have given birth during the study period, and to be younger at the time of their first pregnancy. Women with CHD were also more prone to give birth to children preterm or SGA and their babies were more often delivered by cesarean section with a higher frequency of congenital abnormality. Conclusions. Women with CHD were more likely to have been born preterm or SGA and these outcomes were repeated in the next generation. Women with CHD should not be discouraged from pregnancy. Prenatal diagnostics should be discussed and offered to these women, as there is an increased risk for congenital abnormalities.