Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of Dietary Conjugated Linoleic Acid and Biopolymer Encapsulation on Lipid Metabolism in Mice

Forty mice were randomly divided into four groups on the basis of the diet to be fed as follows: 5% (low) fat diet (T1: LF); 20% (high) fat diet (T2: HF); 20% fat containing 1% conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) (T3: HFC); and 20% fat containing 1% CLA with 0.5% biopolymers (T4: HFCB). The high-fat with CLA diet groups (HFC and HFCB) and the low-fat diet group (LF) tended to have lower body weights and total adipose tissue weights than those of the high-fat diet group (HF). Serum leptin and triglyceride were significantly lower in the high fat with CLA-fed groups (HFC and HFCB) and the low-fat diet group (LF) than those in the high-fat diet group (HF). It is noteworthy that the high-fat with CLA and biopolymers group (HFCB) showed the lowest serum triglyceride and cholesterol concentrations. In the high-fat-fed group (HF), voluntary travel distance as a measure of physical activity decreased after three weeks of feeding. However, the CLA-fed groups showed increased physical activity. The groups fed high-fat diets supplemented with CLA alone and with CLA and biopolymers had higher viscosity of small intestinal contents than that in the low- and high-fat dietary groups.
Performance of 3-D architecture silicon sensors after intense proton irradiation

Silicon detectors with a three-dimensional architecture, in which the n- and p-electrodes penetrate through the entire substrate, have been successfully fabricated. The electrodes can be separated from each other by distances that are less than the substrate thickness, allowing short collection paths, low depletion voltages, and large current signals from rapid charge collection. While no special hardening steps were taken in this initial fabrication run, these features of three dimensional architectures produce an intrinsic resistance to the effects of radiation damage. Some performance measurements are given for detectors that are fully depleted and working after exposures to proton beams with doses equivalent to that from slightly more than ten years at the B-layer radius (50 mm) in the planned Atlas detector at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.
Using Distance Estimates in Heuristic Search : A Re-evaluation

Traditionally, heuristic search algorithms have relied on an estimate of the cost-to-go to speed up problem-solving. In many domains, operators have different costs and estimated cost-to-go is not the same as estimated search-distance-togo. We investigate further accelerating search by using a distance-to-go function. We evaluate two previous proposals: Dynamically weighted A ∗ and A∗ ǫ . We present a revision to dynamically weighted A ∗ which improves its performance substantially in domains where solutions are not at fixed depths. We show how to incorporate search distance to go estimates into weighted A ∗ in order to improve its performance in pathfinding problems. We present a proof showing that weighted A∗ can ignore duplicate states, leading to large improvements in performance for pathfinding problems. Introduction Heuristic search is used to solve a wide variety of problems. If sufficient resources are available, optimal solutions ca n be found using A search with an admissible heuristic (Hart, Nilsson, and Raphael 1968). In practical settings we are willing to accept suboptimal solutions in order to reduce th computation required to find an answer. We consider the setting in which one wants the fastest possible search where the solution is guaranteed to be within a bounded factor of the optimal solution. For a given factor w, we call an algorithm w-admissible if it is guaranteed to return a solution that is n o more thanw times more expensive than an optimal solution. The purpose of bounded suboptimal search is not to find a solution whose cost is within a given bound of the optimal, but rather, given a desired quality bound produce an acceptable solution as quickly as possible. The hope is that as requirements on solution quality are relaxed, the algorithm will find solutions faster. Many bounded suboptimal algorithms behave more like a greedy search on a cost-to-go heuristic as the bound is loosened. When the heuristics is reasonably accurate, greedy searches find solutions of reasonable but unbounded quality in few expansions. Bounded suboptimal algorithms attempt to make a controlled transition between performing like A ∗ when the bound is near optimal, and greedy search where the bound is lax. In some benchmark domains all actions have the same cost, and so becoming greedy with respect to the cost of a solution is equivalent to becoming greedy with respect N o d es G en er at ed 1,500,000
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences Managing Obesity in Primary Care Practice: a Narrative Review

This narrative review examines randomized controlled trials of the management of obesity in primary care practice, in light of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' decision to support intensive behavioral weight loss counseling provided by physicians and related health professionals. Mean weight losses of 0.1–2.3 kg were observed with brief (10-to 15-min) behavioral counseling delivered by primary care providers (PCPs) at monthly to quarterly visits. Losses increased to 1.7–7.5 kg when brief PCP counseling was combined with weight loss medication. Col-laborative treatment, in which medical assistants delivered brief monthly behavioral counseling in conjunction with PCPs, produced losses of 1.6–4.6 kg in periods up to two years. Remotely delivered, intensive (>monthly contact) behavioral counseling, as offered by telephone, yielded losses of 0.4–5.1 kg over the same period. Further study is needed of the frequency and duration of visits required to produce clinically meaningful weight loss (>5%) in primary care patients. In addition, trials are needed that examine the cost-effectiveness of PCP-delivered counseling, compared with that potentially provided by registered dietitians or well-studied commercial programs.
Application-tailored database systems: a case of aspects in an embedded database

Current techniques used to design and implement database systems do not provide support for efficient implementation of crosscutting concerns in the database software, e.g., failure detection, database policies such as concurrency control and scheduling, and synchronization. Aspect-oriented software development (AOSD) is a new technique that provides an efficient way of modularizing crosscutting concerns in software systems. In This work we evaluate the effectiveness of applying AOSD to database systems thereby paving way for successful application of aspect languages to the database domain. Our focus is on embedded database systems, as a representative for a class of database systems. We show, by analyzing and re-engineering one commercial well-known embedded database system (Berkeley database), that aspect-orientation has promise, especially in enabling development of tailorable, maintainable, and evolvable database systems.
A study on the distribution of methylchloroform and n-octane in the mouse during and after inhalation.

The distribution of methylchloroform and n-octane, respectively, in the blood, liver, kidney, and brain of mice was studied at different inspired air concentrations and after different exposure times. The air concentration varied between 10 and 10,000 ppm; and the exposure time, between 0.5 and 24 h. The resulting solvent concentrations in kidney and brain were about the same, but the liver concentrations were usually somewhat higher for both solvents. There was a linear dependence between inspired air concentration and tissue concentrations at fixed exposure times. A correlation between blood and organ concentrations was observed in animals exposed at different inhalation air concentrations but not in animals exposed only at one fixed concentration. The ratios between the concentrations of the solvents in the organs and blood were higher for n-octane than for methylchloroform. The ratios increased as the exposure concentration increased for all organs studied in the case of n-octane but only for the liver in the case of methylchloroform. When the exposure dose, i.e., inspired air concentration X time, was generated in different ways, a high concentration during a short exposure resulted in a ten times higher organ concentration than a low concentration during a long exposure. The liver, kidney, and brain concentrations generally did not differ more than twice between methylchloroform and n-octane after exposure of the same concentration and duration. The blood concentration, however, was much less in n-octane exposed animals than in methylchloroform exposed ones. A pharmacokinetic model with both uptake and elimination of the first order fitted the empirical data better for methylchloroform than a model with zero order uptake and first order elimination. Postexposure concentrations of methylchloroform were linear in a semilog graph. A one-compartment pharmacokinetic model was in accordance with the experimental data for methylchloroform. For n-octane, however, at least a two-compartment model must be assumed.
The Detection of the Hidden Design of Meaning

Meaning is a marvellous and dreadful matter, as it is neither totally intelligible nor totally unintelligible. It cannot be considered as an univocal, closed and fixed entity, atomic in nature, universally shared and invariable in time. Rather, meaning has a complex design, composed by different facets: a referential, an inferential, and a differential one. This standpoint, which overcomes the truth-conditional semantics as well as the structural one, entails that meaning is patterned in nature, based on the encyclopaedic knowledge and connected with mental concepts. The meaning dilemma between variability and stability is crucial for every semantic theory, as meaning flexibility, grounded on the daily experience, displays a large range of linguistic phenomena like the defeasibility of semantic traits, fuzzy boundaries, radial categorization, semantic gradualness and polysemy, the interconnection between the literal and non-literal semantic domain as well as the context dependence. The semantic variability calls for an inferential process, as modal meaning is not an immediate and fully evident datum; rather, it is generated by communicators during their interaction in a dynamic way in the light of the principle of semantic and pragmatic synchrony. At the same time, meaning shows stability over time owing to its conventional nature. Without semantic stability it would be ungraspable. As patterned, meaning is coded in some way and follows at least some standard features to be taken by default. Presumptive meanings basically depend on context regularity and communicative formats. On this platform the meaning compositionality appears to be a critical issue. Traditionally, such compositionality has been faced by the feature semantics in which meaning is composed by a finite set of necessary and sufficient conditions. More recently, the prototype theory in its extended version afforded another explication of meaning compositionality by proposing the distinction between essential and typical features. In the present chapter a new model based on the T-patterns detection has been briefly advanced and illustrated, as, based on empirical observations extracted from the flow of communicative events, it seems to arrange quite well both with the variability and the stability of meaning. The detection of T-patterns enables to appreciate the hidden design of meaning encompassed in an utterance or in a nonverbal item not generally and in an abstract way but locally and in a contingent manner. The attention is focused onway but locally and in a contingent manner. The attention is focused on the local management of meaning, as each moment communicators have the opportunity of organizing, regulating, managing and monitoring their communicative interaction through the most effective choice between different
Delirium and severe illness: Etiologies, severity of delirium and phenomenological differences

Abstract Objective: Our aim was to examine the characteristics of delirium in the severely medically ill cancer population on the basis of sociodemographic and medical variables, delirium severity, and phenomenology, as well as severity of medical illness. Method: All subjects in the database were recruited from psychiatric referrals at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). Sociodemographic and medical variables, as well as the Karnofsky Performance Status (KPS) scale and Memorial Delirium Assessment Scale (MDAS) scores were recorded at baseline. Subsequently, these variables were analyzed with respect to the severity of the medical illness. Results: Out of 111 patients, 67 qualified as severely medically ill. KPS scores were 19.7 and 30.7 in less severe illness. There were no significant differences with respect to age, history of dementia, and MDAS scores. Although the severity of delirium did not differ, an increased frequency and severity of consciousness disturbance, disorientation, and inability to maintain and shift attention did exist. With respect to etiologies contributing to delirium, hypoxia and infection were commonly associated with severe illness. In contrast, corticosteroid administration was more often associated with less severe illness. There were no differences with respect to opiate administration, dehydration, and CNS disease, including brain metastasis. Significance of Results: Delirium in the severely medically ill cancer population has been characterized by an increased disturbance of consciousness, disorientation, and an inability to maintain and shift attention. However, the severity of illness did not predict severity of delirium. Furthermore, hypoxia and infection were etiologies more commonly associated with delirium in severe illness, whereas the administration of corticosteroids was associated with less severe illness.
Porosity content dependence of TDDB lifetime and flat band voltage shift by Cu diffusion in porous spin-on low-k

The porosity dependence of Cu diffusion into the spin-on low-k dielectric having the same matrix with various porogen contents was studied using time dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) and capacitance voltage (C-V) measurements. Abrupt changes of the time to dielectric breakdown and the flat-band-voltage shift were observed when the porosity of the low-k was between 20% and 30%. Such a characteristic agrees with positronium annihilation lifetime spectroscopy (PALS) data, which indicates that the interconnectability of the pores abruptly increased for porosity between 20 and 30%. All the results suggest that the interconnection of pores in the low-k dramatically reduces the reliability of interconnects. The activation energy of Cu diffusion in the spin-on low-k dielectric without porosity was calculated to be 1.51 eV.
Using Katsurada's determination of the Eisenstein series to compute Siegel eigenforms

We compute Hecke eigenform bases of spaces of level one, degree~three Siegel modular forms and 2-Euler factors of the eigenforms through weight 22. Our method uses the Fourier coefficients of Siegel Eisenstein series, which are fully known and computationally tractable by the work of H. Katsurada; we also use P. Garrett's decomposition of the pullback of the Eisenstein series through the Witt map. Our results support I. Miyawaki's conjectural lift, and they give examples of eigenforms that are congruence neighbors.
Functional Recovery after Lesion of a Central Pattern Generator

In cases of neuronal injury when regeneration is restricted, functional recovery can occur through reorganization of the remaining neural circuitry. We found an example of such recovery in the central pattern generator (CPG) for the escape swim of the mollusc Tritonia diomedea. The CPG neurons are bilaterally represented and each neuron projects an axon through one of two pedal commissures. Cutting the posterior pedal commissure [pedal nerve 6 (PdN6)] in the animal or in the isolated brain caused a deficit in the swim behavior and in the fictive motor pattern, respectively, each of which recovered over the course of 20 h. Locally blocking spiking activity in PdN6 with sodium-free saline and/or tetrodotoxin disrupted the motor pattern in a reversible manner. Maintained blockade of PdN6 led to a functional recovery of the swim motor pattern similar to that observed in response to cutting the commissure. Among the CPG neurons, cerebral neuron 2 (C2) makes functional connection onto the ventral swim interneuron-B (VSI) in both pedal ganglia. Cutting or blocking PdN6 eliminated C2-evoked excitation of VSI in the pedal ganglion distal to the lesion. Associated with the recovery of the swim motor pattern, the synaptic action of C2 onto VSI in the proximal pedal ganglion changed from being predominantly inhibitory to being predominantly excitatory. These results show that the Tritonia swim CPG undergoes adaptive plasticity in response to the loss of critical synaptic connections; reversal of synaptic action in the CPG may be at least partially responsible for this functional recovery.
Projections of the future course of the primary vCJD epidemic in the UK: inclusion of subclinical infection and the possibility of wider genetic susceptibility

The incidence of variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (vCJD) in the United Kingdom appears to be in decline, with only four deaths reported this year (to 6 September 2004). However, results of a survey of lymphoreticular tissues have suggested a substantially higher prevalence of vCJD than expected from the clinical data alone. There are two plausible explanations for this discrepancy: first, a proportion of those infected will not develop clinical disease (subclinical infection); and second, the genetic group in which no clinical cases of vCJD have yet occurred is susceptible. Using mathematical models for the primary transmission of bovine spongiform encephalopathy to humans, we explore the impact of these hypotheses on case predictions. Under the first hypothesis, the results suggest relatively few future cases will arise via primary transmission, but that these cases are a small proportion of those infected, with most having subclinical infection. Under the second hypothesis, results suggest a maximum fivefold increase in cases, but this hypothesis is unable to account for the discrepancy between clinical cases and the estimated prevalence. Predictions of future cases of vCJD therefore remain uncertain, particularly given the recent identification of additional cases infected via blood transfusion.
Radiographic measurement of the quadriceps angle in dogs

The direction of the force of the quadriceps muscle group is expressed by the value of the quadriceps angle, between the long axis of the muscle rectus femoris and the patellar ligament. This value is often modified in dogs with patellar luxation, a common orthopaedic disease of the stifle joint in both small and large dogs. The aims of the present study were to give a reference value for the quadriceps angle in healthy small and medium-large breed dogs. The medical records of healthy dogs and their pelvic limb radiographs (2014–2016) were reviewed. The radiographs were then divided into two groups: Group A (small dogs <15 kg body weight) and Group B (medium-large dogs >15 kg). The quadriceps angle of each pelvic limb was assessed using a digital software program in order to compare values between the two groups. The radiographs of 160 dogs, 80 per group were studied along with the assessment of the 320 pelvic limbs. The median quadriceps angle values obtained were in contrast with the literature: in Group A, it was 18.3° and, in Group B, it was 8.7°; moreover, the quadriceps angle value for Group A was statistically higher than for Group B (p<0.0001). No significant difference was present between males and females, or between right and left hindlimbs. In Group B, the Labrador Retriever breed influenced the quadriceps angle (p = 0.0005). The outcome of this survey provides an objective parameter, or additional information, to explain the different quadriceps mechanisms of small and medium-large dogs. In future studies the QA range values assessed in the two size groups may be useful in defining the magnitude of the malalignment of the extensor mechanism in both healthy dogs and ones with patellar luxation.
Spatio-temporal pyramidal accordion representation for human action recognition

We propose in this paper a spatio-temporal pyramid representation (STPR) of the video based Accordion image. The Accordion image allows the pixels having a high temporal correlation to be put in space adjacency. The STPR introduces spatial and temporal layout information to the local SIFT features computed on the Accordion image. It consists in applying firstly, a temporal pyramid decomposition on the video to divide it into a sequence of increasingly finer temporal blocks and secondly in performing a spatial pyramid representation on the Accordion images relative to the temporal blocks. The Multiple Kernel Learning approach is used to combine the multi-histograms coming from different Spatio-Temporal Pyramid levels. Experiments using the human action recognition datasets (Hollywood2 and Olympic sports) show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
PilT is required for PI(3,4,5)P3‐mediated crosstalk between Neisseria gonorrhoeae and epithelial cells

The retractile type IV pilus participates in a number of fundamental bacterial processes, including motility, DNA transformation, fruiting body formation and attachment to host cells. Retraction of the N. gonorrhoeae type IV pilus requires a functional pilT. Retraction generates substantial force on its substrate (> 100 pN per retraction event), and it has been speculated that epithelial cells sense and respond to these forces during infection. We provide evidence that piliated, Opa non‐expressing Neisseria gonorrhoeae activates the stress‐responsive PI‐3 kinase/Akt (PKB) pathway in human epithelial cells, and activation is enhanced by a functional pilT. PI‐3 kinase inhibitors wortmannin and LY294002 reduce cell entry by 81% and 50%, respectively, illustrating the importance of this cascade in bacterial invasion. PI‐3 kinase and its direct downstream effectors [PI(3,4,5)P3] and Akt are concentrated in the cell cortex beneath adherent bacteria, particularly at the periphery of the bacterial microcolonies. Furthermore, [PI(3,4,5)P3] is translocated to the outer leaflet of the plasma membrane. Finally, we show that [PI(3,4,5)P3] stimulates microcolony formation and upregulates pilT expression in vitro. We conclude that N. gonorrhoeae activation of PI‐3 kinase triggers the host cell to produce a lipid second messenger that influences bacterial behaviour.