Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Long-term weight loss maintenance for obesity: a multidisciplinary approach

The long-term weight management of obesity remains a very difficult task, associated with a high risk of failure and weight regain. However, many people report that they have successfully managed weight loss maintenance in the long term. Several factors have been associated with better weight loss maintenance in long-term observational and randomized studies. A few pertain to the behavioral area (eg, high levels of physical activity, eating a low-calorie, low-fat diet; frequent self-monitoring of weight), a few to the cognitive component (eg, reduced disinhibition, satisfaction with results achieved, confidence in being able to lose weight without professional help), and a few to personality traits (eg, low novelty seeking) and patient–therapist interaction. Trials based on the most recent protocols of lifestyle modification, with a prolonged extended treatment after the weight loss phase, have also shown promising long-term weight loss results. These data should stimulate the adoption of a lifestyle modification-based approach for the management of obesity, featuring a nonphysician lifestyle counselor (also called “lifestyle trainer” or “healthy lifestyle practitioner”) as a pivotal component of the multidisciplinary team. The obesity physicians maintain a primary role in engaging patients, in team coordination and supervision, in managing the complications associated with obesity and, in selected cases, in the decision for drug treatment or bariatric surgery, as possible more intensive, add-on interventions to lifestyle treatment.
Unlocking the Social Trap: Inequality, Trust and the Scandinavian Welfare State

Recent research suggests that economic inequality thwarts attempts to establish a welfare state. The corollary of this view is that today's welfare states had witnessed an equality revolution already before the rise of social policies aiming at redistribution. The paper brings this insight to bear on the creation of the welfare state in Sweden, for many the very model of a universal welfare state, and enquires into whether equality really predated the formation of universal welfare policies in the 1950s. We present evidence on inequality based on labor market outcomes and corroborate the view that there has been a sharp reduction in inequality during the 1930s and 1940s. Hence Sweden underwent a true equality revolution prior to the establishment of the welfare state. A leveling of incomes is a necessary precondition for the rise of the universal welfare state, we suggest, because of trust, which correlates negatively with inequality. High trust levels solve the problems associated with collective goods and boosts support for universal solutions of income security. The paper provides a narrative in which the formation of institutions, the removal of large income differentials, and the creation of higher trust levels interacted in the 1930s and 1940s to form the foundation for the welfare state in the 1950s. It adopts a dynamic view of trust by departing from the assumption that trust arises endogenously as a concomitant to changes in the underlying fundamentals like income inequality and redesigned institutional frameworks.
Search in Power-Law Networks

Many communication and social networks have power-law link distributions, containing a few nodes that have a very high degree and many with low degree. The high connectivity nodes play the important role of hubs in communication and networking, a fact that can be exploited when designing efficient search algorithms. We introduce a number of local search strategies that utilize high degree nodes in power-law graphs and that have costs scaling sublinearly with the size of the graph. We also demonstrate the utility of these strategies on the GNUTELLA peer-to-peer network.
Evidence That Mutation Is Universally Biased towards AT in Bacteria

Mutation is the engine that drives evolution and adaptation forward in that it generates the variation on which natural selection acts. Mutation is a random process that nevertheless occurs according to certain biases. Elucidating mutational biases and the way they vary across species and within genomes is crucial to understanding evolution and adaptation. Here we demonstrate that clonal pathogens that evolve under severely relaxed selection are uniquely suitable for studying mutational biases in bacteria. We estimate mutational patterns using sequence datasets from five such clonal pathogens belonging to four diverse bacterial clades that span most of the range of genomic nucleotide content. We demonstrate that across different types of sites and in all four clades mutation is consistently biased towards AT. This is true even in clades that have high genomic GC content. In all studied cases the mutational bias towards AT is primarily due to the high rate of C/G to T/A transitions. These results suggest that bacterial mutational biases are far less variable than previously thought. They further demonstrate that variation in nucleotide content cannot stem entirely from variation in mutational biases and that natural selection and/or a natural selection-like process such as biased gene conversion strongly affect nucleotide content.
Feasibility Study of Providing Backward Compatibility with MPTCP to WiGig/IEEE 802.11ad

To make WiGig/IEEE 802.11ad backward compatible with the legacy Wi-Fi, a multi-band device that is capable of WiGig and Wi-Fi is necessarily equipped a function of fast switchover between the WiGig and Wi-Fi link. It is expected that the switching action is done as quickly as possible in order to minimize negative effects on an ongoing application. The IEEE 802.11ad standard defines the switching operation within the scope of fast session transfer (FST) protocol. To properly run FST, the device needs extra layer-2 entities that simultaneously manage the PHY/MAC states of multiple radios. Although introducing WiGig radios is a trivial task, installing those entities on an existing legacy Wi-Fi network is unfortunately a challenging one. This work presents an experimental feasibility study of achieving the backward compatibility without FST. We initially analyze the feasible capability of multipath transmission control protocol (MPTCP). We then setup a real- world testbed and evaluate different operational modes of MPTCP, aiming to find the most suitable one. Our experimental results show that the fast switchover between a multi-Gigabit WiGig and a legacy Wi-Fi link is achievable with the MPTCP's backup mode.
Drug resistance mutations and newly recognized treatment‐related substitutions in the HIV‐1 protease gene: Prevalence and associations with drug exposure and real or virtual phenotypic resistance to protease inhibitors in two clinical cohorts of antiretroviral experienced patients

This study aimed at identifying HIV‐1 protease amino acid changes associated with protease inhibitor (PI) exposure and susceptibility. New amino acid substitutions were correlated with the number of experienced PIs, reaching statistical significance only for those at positions 3, 44, and 74. The correspondence multivariate model demonstrated that ≥3 experienced PIs and substitutions or mutations at positions 3, 46, 54, 73, 74, and 84 were correlated with PI cross‐resistance, including resistance for lopinavir and amprenavir in this cohort of patients who were naive for these drugs. J. Med. Virol. 74:29–33, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Neural responses to facial and vocal expressions of fear and disgust

Neuropsychological studies report more impaired responses to facial expressions of fear than disgust in people with amygdala lesions, and vice versa in people with Huntington's disease. Experiments using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have confirmed the role of the amygdala in the response to fearful faces and have implicated the anterior insula in the response to facial expressions of disgust. We used fMRI to extend these studies to the perception of fear and disgust from both facial and vocal expressions. Consistent with neuropsychological findings, both types of fearful stimuli activated the amygdala. Facial expressions of disgust activated the anterior insula and the caudate–putamen; vocal expressions of disgust did not significantly activate either of these regions. All four types of stimuli activated the superior temporal gyrus. Our findings therefore (i) support the differential localization of the neural substrates of fear and disgust; (ii) confirm the involvement of the amygdala in the emotion of fear, whether evoked by facial or vocal expressions; (iii) confirm the involvement of the anterior insula and the striatum in reactions to facial expressions of disgust; and (iv) suggest a possible general role for the perception of emotional expressions for the superior temporal gyrus.
Long‐term safety, efficacy, dosing, and development of resistance with botulinum toxin type B in cervical dystonia

Short‐term studies of cervical dystonia (CD) have demonstrated botulinum toxin type B (Bot B) to be safe and efficacious at doses of 5,000 to 10,000 units, but few long‐term studies have been published and the safety and efficacy of higher doses has not been established. Additionally, there are few studies describing the development of resistance to Bot B in those with and without prior resistance to botulinum toxin type A (Bot A). We reviewed our experience with 24 patients treated with Bot B for up to 64 months. Patients were treated with Bot B for 26.2 ± 20.4 months (range, 3–64 months) with a mean treatment dose of 14,828 ± 6,824 units (range, 2,500–28,000 units). At last follow‐up, 12 patients demonstrated ongoing benefit, 8 patients had become secondarily resistant, and 4 patients were primary nonresponders possibly due to the severity and nature of their CD. Nine of the 12 continued responders and 7 of the 8 secondary nonresponders to Bot B had prior probable or definite clinical resistance to Bot A. No severe adverse events related to Bot B were seen. Treatment of patients with severe CD who continue to show a beneficial response to Bot B injections commonly requires doses of 15,000 units and rarely greater than 20,000 units. Patients may continue to respond for up to 64 months. Prior Bot A resistance may be a risk factor for the development of resistance to Bot B; nevertheless, Bot B can be a useful long‐term alternative in some Bot A‐resistant CD patients. © 2004 Movement Disorder Society
Helping children who have experienced family violence: A discussion of the issues raised by the PARKAS program

This paper looks at some of the difficulties that practitioners face when developing intervention programs for children who have experienced abuse or family violence. It argues that different intervention strategies have developed in Australia, the USA and Britain for children who have been physically abused and for children who have been sexually abused or who have experienced family violence, and that these strategies reflect the different ways in which these problems were identified rather than being based on rigorous evaluative methodologies that identify what is actually effective in intervening in children's lives.
Changes in zooplankton community, and seston and zooplankton fatty acid profiles at the freshwater/saltwater interface of the Chowan River, North Carolina

The variability in zooplankton fatty acid composition may be an indicator of larval fish habitat quality as fatty acids are linked to fish larval growth and survival. We sampled an anadromous fish nursery, the Chowan River, during spring of 2013 in order to determine how the seston fatty acid composition varied in comparison with the zooplankton community composition and fatty acid composition during the period of anadromous larval fish residency. The seston fatty acid profiles showed no distinct pattern in relation to sampling time or location. The mesozooplankton community composition varied spatially and the fatty acid profiles were typical of freshwater species in April. The Chowan River experienced a saltwater intrusion event during May, which resulted in brackish water species dominating the zooplankton community and the fatty acid profile showed an increase in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), in particular eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). The saltwater intrusion event was followed by an influx of freshwater due to high precipitation levels in June. The zooplankton community composition once again became dominated by freshwater species and the fatty acid profiles shifted to reflect this change; however, EPA levels remained high, particularly in the lower river. We found correlations between the seston, microzooplankton and mesozooplankton fatty acid compositions. Salinity was the main factor correlated to the observed pattern in species composition, and fatty acid changes in the mesozooplankton. These data suggest that anadromous fish nursery habitat likely experiences considerable spatial variability in fatty acid profiles of zooplankton prey and that are correlated to seston community composition and hydrodynamic changes. Our results also suggest that sufficient prey density as well as a diverse fatty acid composition is present in the Chowan River to support larval fish production.
Waist Circumference Cutoff Points to Predict Obesity, Metabolic Syndrome, and Cardiovascular Risk in Turkish Adults

Objective. The waist circumference (WC) cutoff levels defined for the Caucasian people may not be representative for different ethnic groups. We determined sex specific WC cutoff points to predict obesity, metabolic syndrome, and cardiovascular risk in Turkish adults. Design and Methods. The demographic characteristics of 1898 adult males and 2308 nonpregnant females from 24 provinces of 7 different regions of Turkey (mean age 47 ± 14 yrs) were evaluated. Results. The WC levels of 90 cm and 100 cm define overweight and obese males while the levels of 80 cm and 90 cm define overweight and obese females. With these cutoff values, 239 additional males (12.6%) are diagnosed as overweight and 148 additional males (7.8%) as obese. Instead, 120 females (5.1%) are free of being labeled as obese. Conclusions. This is the first nationwide study to show the action levels of WC for overweight and obese Turkish adults. The ideal cutoff levels of WC to predict metabolic syndrome are 90 cm and 80 cm for Turkish adult men and women, respectively. These values are easy to implement and suggested to be used by the physicians dealing with cardiometabolic disorders in Turkey.
Social attribution processes and comorbid psychiatric symptoms in children with Asperger syndrome

The factors that place children with Asperger syndrome at risk for comorbid psychiatric symptoms, such as anxiety and depression, remain poorly understood. We investigated the possibility that the children's emotional and behavioral difficulties are associated with social information and attribution processing. Participants were children with either Asperger syndrome (n = 31) or typical development (n = 33). To assess social information and attribution processing, children responded to hypothetical social vignettes.They also completed self-report measures of social difficulties and psychological functioning. Their parents provided information on social competence and clinical presentation. Children with Asperger syndrome showed poor psychosocial adjustment, which was related to their social information and attribution processing patterns. Cognitive and social-cognitive abilities were associated with aspects of social information processing tendencies, but not with emotional and behavioral difficulties. Results suggest that the comorbid symptoms of children with Asperger syndrome may be associated with their social perception, understanding, and experience.
Seasonal variation in human brain serotonin transporter binding.

CONTEXT It is a common experience in temperate zones that individuals feel happier and more energetic on bright and sunny days and many experience a decline in mood and energy during the dark winter season. Brain serotonin is involved in the regulation of physiologic functions, such as mating, feeding, energy balance, and sleep. Although these behaviors and serotonin-related conditions show a clear seasonal pattern in humans, the molecular background of seasonal changes in serotonin function is entirely unknown. The serotonin transporter is a key element in regulating intensity and spread of the serotonin signal. OBJECTIVES To detect seasonal variations in serotonin transporter binding in the living human brain and to detect correlations between serotonin transporter binding and duration of daily sunshine. DESIGN Regional serotonin transporter binding potential values, an index of serotonin transporter density, were assessed from December 1, 1999, to December 9, 2003, in a consecutive sample of healthy volunteers. Binding potential values were related to meteorologic data. SETTING Tertiary care psychiatric hospital. PARTICIPANTS Volunteer sample of 88 drug-naive healthy individuals. INTERVENTION Carbon 11-labeled 3-amino-4-(2-dimethylaminomethyl-phenylsulfanyl)-benzonitrile positron emission tomography. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Regional serotonin transporter binding potential values. RESULTS Serotonin transporter binding potential values were significantly higher in all investigated brain regions in individuals investigated in the fall and winter compared with those investigated in the spring and summer (P = .01 to .001). Moreover, binding potential values showed negative correlations with average duration of daily sunshine in all brain regions (rho = -0.21 to -0.39; P = .05 to <.001), such that higher values occurred at times of lesser light. CONCLUSIONS Serotonin transporter binding potential values vary throughout the year with the seasons. Since higher serotonin transporter density is associated with lower synaptic serotonin levels, regulation of serotonin transporter density by season is a previously undescribed physiologic mechanism that has the potential to explain seasonal changes in normal and pathologic behaviors.
Assessment of coronary heart diseases in diabetics in al-Madinah al-Munawarah

Background Coronary heart disease is highly prevalent and a major cause of morbidity and mortality in diabetic patients. The aim of this study was to assess the major risk factors and their predictor score for coronary heart diseases in diabetic patients. Methods The present study was conducted in al-Madinah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Using a cross-sectional case control study, 262 outpatient diabetics and 264 matched control subjects were examined for the risk factors and risk predictor scores for ischemic heart disease. The mean age of the patient and control groups was 49.61 ± 12.93 years and 48.39 ± 11.60 years, respectively. Results Diabetic patients had significantly higher positive family history of diabetes, but no significant difference regarding their family history of hypertension. There was a significantly higher body mass index (33.67 kg/m2), glycosylated hemoglobin (7.26%), significantly higher cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein, and triglyceride in diabetics compared to control. Diabetic patients had higher risk for developing coronary heart disease with a mean risk score of 6.07 while the control subject risk score was −6.81. However, females showed significantly higher risk for coronary heart diseases than did males. Conclusion Our study replicates the known fact of higher risk in diabetes, but higher risk of coronary heart disease in female diabetics compared with male diabetics.
Body temperature and thermal environment in a generalized arboreal anthropoid, wild mantled howling monkeys (Alouatta palliata).

Free-ranging primates are confronted with the challenge of maintaining an optimal range of body temperatures within a thermally dynamic environment that changes daily, seasonally, and annually. While many laboratory studies have been conducted on primate thermoregulation, we know comparatively little about the thermal pressures primates face in their natural, evolutionarily relevant environment. Such knowledge is critical to understanding the evolution of thermal adaptations in primates and for comparative evaluation of humans' unique thermal adaptations. We examined temperature and thermal environment in free-ranging, mantled howling monkeys (Alouatta palliata) in a tropical dry forest in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. We recorded subcutaneous (Tsc ) and near-animal ambient temperatures (Ta ) from 11 animals over 1586.5 sample hours during wet and dry seasons. Howlers displayed considerable variation in Tsc , which was largely attributable to circadian effects. Despite significant seasonal changes in the ambient thermal environment, howlers showed relatively little evidence for seasonal changes in Tsc . Howlers experienced warm thermal conditions which led to body cooling relative to the environment, and plateaus in Tsc at increasingly warm Ta . They also frequently faced cool thermal conditions (Ta < Tsc ) in which Tsc was markedly elevated compared with Ta . These data add to a growing body of evidence that non-human primates have more labile body temperatures than humans. Our data additionally support a hypothesis that, despite inhabiting a dry tropical environment, howling monkeys experience both warm and cool thermal pressures. This suggests that thermal challenges may be more prevalent for primates than previously thought, even for species living in nonextreme thermal environments.
Glucose-Induced Monoubiquitination of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae Galactose Transporter Is Sufficient To Signal Its Internalization

ABSTRACT In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the addition of glucose to cells growing on galactose induces internalization of the galactose transporter Gal2p and its subsequent proteolysis in the vacuole. Here we report that the essential step in Gal2p down-regulation is its ubiquitination through the Ubc1p-Ubc4p-Ubc5p triad of ubiquitin-conjugating enzymes and Npi1/Rsp5p ubiquitin-protein ligase. Moreover, Gal2p appears to be stabilized in mutant cells defective in the ubiquitin-hydrolase Npi2p/Doa4p, and the mutant phenotype can be reversed by overexpression of ubiquitin. An analysis of the fate of Gal2p in cells overexpressing wild-type ubiquitin as well as its variants incompetent to form polyubiquitin chains showed that monoubiquitination of Gal2p is sufficient to signal internalization of the protein into the endocytic pathway.