Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of Age on the Association Between Waist-to-Height Ratio and Incidence of Cardiovascular Disease: The Suita Study

Background Waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) has been shown to be a useful screening tool for metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease (CVD). We investigated the association of WHtR with CVD incidence by age group. Methods We conducted a 13.0-year cohort study of Japanese adults (2600 men and 2888 women) with no history of CVD. WHtR was calculated as waist circumference (cm) (WC) divided by height (cm). We stratified participants by sex and age group (30–49, 50–69, ≥70 years). Using the Cox proportional hazards model, we calculated hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% CIs for CVD in relation to WHtR quartile for participants aged 50 to 69 years and 70 years or older. Results Men aged 50 to 69 years in the highest quartile had significantly increased risks of CVD and coronary heart disease as compared with the lowest quartile; the HRs (95% CI) were 1.82 (1.13–2.92) and 2.42 (1.15–5.12), respectively. Women aged 50 to 69 years in the highest quartile had a significantly increased risk of stroke (HR, 2.43; 95% CI, 1.01–5.85). No significant results were observed in men or women aged 70 years or older. The likelihood ratio test showed that the predictive value of WHtR was greater than that of WC among men aged 50 to 69 years. Conclusions The association between WHtR and CVD risk differed among age groups. WHtR was useful in identifying middle-aged Japanese at higher risk of CVD and was a better predictor than WC of CVD, especially in men.
Glycemic Control, Coping, and Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms in Adolescents With Type 1 Diabetes

OBJECTIVE This study examines how active coping and withdrawal, psychological (internalizing and externalizing) symptoms, and glycemic control (A1C values) influence each other across time in adolescents with type 1 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS One hundred and nine adolescents participated in a four-wave longitudinal study spanning four years (mean age at Time 1 was 13.77). Patients were visited at home and completed questionnaires measuring coping and psychological symptoms. The treating physicians were contacted to obtain A1C values. Cross-lagged path analysis from a structural equation modeling approach was used for data analysis. RESULTS Clinically meaningful pathways between coping and glycemic control were found across time. Active coping prospectively predicted lower A1C levels, which, in turn, predicted active coping. Higher A1C levels and higher psychological symptoms consistently predicted avoidance coping across time. Finally, psychological symptomatology constituted an important link in the observed longitudinal chain of effects. More specifically, higher A1C values and symptomatology at Time 1 positively predicted withdrawal at Time 2, which, in turn, positively predicted symptomatology at Time 3. Next, symptomatology at Time 3 positively predicted higher A1C values at Time 4, thus coming full circle. CONCLUSIONS Coping with everyday stress, psychological symptoms, and glycemic control were interrelated across time. Evidence was obtained for reciprocal pathways and mutually reinforcing mechanisms, indicating the need to monitor coping strategies and psychological symptoms along with glycemic control in optimizing clinical care in adolescents with type 1 diabetes.
The Src family kinases Hck, Fgr, and Lyn are critical for the generation of the in vivo inflammatory environment without a direct role in leukocyte recruitment

Kovács et al. examine the role of the Src family kinases Hck, Fgr, and Lyn in immune cell–mediated inflammation. Using arthritis and skin inflammation models, the authors show that mice lacking hematopoietic Hck, Fgr, and Lyn are protected from these inflammatory diseases, showing loss of myeloid cell recruitment and lack of inflammatory mediator production. Unexpectedly, the three kinases are dispensable for the intrinsic migratory ability of myeloid cells. These finding may have clinical implications in rheumatic and skin diseases.
Understanding contribution of microstructure to fracture behaviour of sintered steels

Microstructural features of sintered steels, which comprise both phases and porosity, strongly condition the mechanical behaviour of the material under service conditions. Many research activities have dealt with this relationship since better understanding of the microstructure–property correlation is the key of improvement of current powder metallurgy (PM) steels. Up to now, fractographic investigation after testing has been successfully applied for this purpose and, more recently, the in situ analysis of crack evolution through the microstructure as well as some advanced computer assisted tools. However, there is still a lack of information about local mechanical behaviour and strain distributions at the microscale in relation to the local microstructure of these steels, i.e. which phases in heterogeneous PM microstructures contribute to localisation of plastic deformation or which phases can impede crack propagation during loading. In the present work, these questions are addressed through the combination of three techniques: (i) in situ tensile testing (performed in the SEM) to monitor crack initiation and propagation; (ii) digital image correlation technique to trace the progress of local strain distributions during loading; (iii) fractographic examination of the loaded samples. Three PM steels, all obtained from commercially available powders but presenting different microstructures, are examined: a ferritic–pearlitic Fe–C steel, a bainitic prealloyed Fe–Mo–C steel and a diffusion alloyed Fe–Ni–Cu–Mo–C steel, with more heterogeneous microstructure (ferrite, pearlite, upper and lower bainite, martensite and Ni rich austenite).
Upstream reciprocity and the evolution of gratitude

If someone is nice to you, you feel good and may be inclined to be nice to somebody else. This every day experience is borne out by experimental games: the recipients of an act of kindness are more likely to help in turn, even if the person who benefits from their generosity is somebody else. This behaviour, which has been called ‘upstream reciprocity’, appears to be a misdirected act of gratitude: you help somebody because somebody else has helped you. Does this make any sense from an evolutionary or a game theoretic perspective? In this paper, we show that upstream reciprocity alone does not lead to the evolution of cooperation, but it can evolve and increase the level of cooperation if it is linked to either direct or spatial reciprocity. We calculate the random walks of altruistic acts that are induced by upstream reciprocity. Our analysis shows that gratitude and other positive emotions, which increase the willingness to help others, can evolve in the competitive world of natural selection.
SUMOylation regulates nucleo-cytoplasmic shuttling of Elk-1

The transcription factor Elk-1 is a nuclear target of mitogen-activated protein kinases and regulates immediate early gene activation by extracellular signals. We show that Elk-1 is also conjugated to SUMO on either lysines 230, 249, or 254. Mutation of all three sites is necessary to fully block SUMOylation in vitro and in vivo. This Elk-1 mutant, Elk-1(3R), shuttles more rapidly to nuclei of Balb/C cells fused to transfected HeLa cells. Coexpression of SUMO-1 or -2 strongly reduces shuttling by Elk-1 without affecting that of Elk-1(3R), indicating that SUMOylation regulates nuclear retention of Elk-1. Accordingly, overexpression of Elk-1(3R) in PC12 cells, where cytoplasmic relocalization of Elk-1 has been linked to differentiation, enhances neurite extension relative to Elk-1. The effect of Elk-1, but not of the 3R mutant, was blocked upon cotransfection with SUMO-1 or -2 and enhanced by coexpression with mutant Ubc-9. Thus, SUMO conjugation is a novel regulator of Elk-1 function through the control of its nuclear-cytoplasmic shuttling.
Robotic microsurgery in male infertility and urology—taking robotics to the next level

The initial reports of robotic assisted microsurgery began to appear in the early 1990s. Animal and early human studies were the initial publications. Larger series papers have recently been published from a few institutions. The field of robotic assisted microsurgery is still in evolution and so are adjunctive tools and instruments. It is clearly a different and unique skill set—is it microsurgery or is it robotic surgery, or both. It is clear from history that the art of surgery evolves over time to encompass new technology as long as the outcomes are better for the patient. Our current robotic platforms may not be ideal for microsurgery, however, the use of adjunctive tools and instrument refinement will further its future potential. This review article presents the current state of the art in various robotic assisted microsurgical procedures in male infertility and urology. Some novel applications of taking microsurgery to areas not classically accessible (intra-abdominal vasovasostomy) and adjunctive tools will also be presented.
Insights into insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes from knockout mouse models.

The pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes is characterized by two major features: peripheral insulin resistance and impaired insulin secretion from pancreatic β cells (1, 2). The application of transgenic mouse technology to the study of diabetes has been extensively reviewed (3). Here, I review the application of a complementary approach, gene knockout technology, to the problem of understanding insulin resistance and its sequelae. After reviewing the phenotypes of animals with individual targeted mutations in homozygous or heterozygous form, I turn to the effects of double mutations and show that interactions between mediators of insulin signaling can account for the development of overt diabetes. Gene knockout technology allows the investigator to generate homozygous null mutant mice and to examine the effects of a total lack of a particular gene product. Resultant phenotypes are expected to reflect physiological functions of the specific gene in vivo. The effects of gene dosage can be studied by focusing on heterozygous null mutants. Moreover, crossing of various heterozygous and/or homozygous knockout animals can be used to reconstitute alterations in multiple genes. Conditional (i.e., tissue-specific or inducible) knockouts can also be created using the Cre/loxP system (4). This tool expands the application of the knockout approach to allow the study of mutations that would be lethal if expressed systemically, and it allows the study of specific effects of mutations in a particular tissue without influences from the other tissues.
On Understanding the Divergence of Online Social Group Discussion

We study online social group dynamics based on how group members diverge in their online discussions. Previous studies mostly focused on the link structure to characterize social group dynamics, whereas the group behavior of content generation in discussions is not well understood. Particularly, we use Jensen-Shannon (JS) divergence to measure the divergence of topics in user-generated contents, and how it progresses over time. We study Twitter messages (tweets) in multiple real-world events (natural disasters and social activism) with different times and demographics. We also model structural and user features with guidance from two socio-psychological theories, social cohesion and social identity, to learn their implications on group discussion divergence. Those features show significant correlation with group discussion divergence. By leveraging them we are able to construct a classifier to predict the future increase or decrease in group discussion divergence, which achieves an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.84 and an F-1 score (harmonic mean of precision and recall) of 0.8. Our approach allows to systematically study collective diverging group behavior independent of group formation design. It can help to prioritize whom to engage with in communities for specific topics of needs during disaster response coordination, and for specific concerns and advocacy in the brand management.
Isolated obstruction of the right coronary artery.

Twelve patients with isolated narrowing (70 percent or more) or complete obstruction of the right coronary artery were studied. Five patients had subtotal occlusion, and only one had evidence of infarction. Seven patients had complete obstruction of the right coronary artery: one had good collateral circulation, a normal resting electrocardiogram (ECG) and ventriculogram; four had clinical, ECG and ventriculographic evidence of infarction, but the asynergy was relatively localized and part of the diaphragmatic surface of the left ventricle had been protected by a normal circumflex artery with important posterolateral branches. The other two patients, with a small circumflex artery, had extensive ECG changes and diaphragmatic asynergy.
Policies for Caching OLAP Queries in Internet Proxies

The Internet now offers more than just simple information to the users. Decision makers can now issue analytical, as opposed to transactional, queries that involve massive data (such as, aggregations of millions of rows in a relational database) in order to identify useful trends and patterns. Such queries are often referred to as Online-analytical processing (OLAP). Typically, pages carrying query results do not exhibit temporal locality and, therefore, are not considered for caching at Internet proxies. In OLAP processing, this is a major problem as the cost of these queries is significantly larger than that of the transactional queries. This paper proposes a technique to reduce the response time for OLAP queries originating from geographically distributed private LANs and issued through the Web toward a central data warehouse (DW) of an enterprise. An active caching scheme is introduced that enables the LAN proxies to cache some parts of the data, together with the semantics of the DW, in order to process queries and construct the resulting pages. OLAP queries arriving at the proxy are either satisfied locally or from the DW, depending on the relative access costs. We formulate a cost model for characterizing the respective latencies, taking into consideration the combined effects of both common Web access and query processing. We propose a cache admittance and replacement algorithm that operates on a hybrid Web-OLAP input, outperforming both pure-Web and pure-OLAP caching schemes
Compensation in Repetitive Control System for Aperiodic Disturbances and Input Dead Zone

Abstract This paper extends the equivalent-input-disturbance (EID) approach to deal with the problem of aperiodic disturbance rejection for a plant with an input dead zone in a repetitive-control system so as to improve control performance for the tracking of a periodic signal. Since a dead zone greatly degrades control performance, we apply the EID approach to design a compensator for the nonlinearity by treating it as an input-dependent disturbance. An EID estimator is constructed by making the best use of a full-order generalized state observer (GSO). And a method of designing the GSO is explained. The EID estimate, which exhibits the synthetic effect of the nonlinearity and the aperiodic disturbance, is incorporated into a repetitive control law to compensate for the nonlinearity and the aperiodic disturbance. This method does not require any information about the dead zone. It guarantees perfect tracking for periodic reference input and satisfactory compensation of input dead zone and aperiodic disturbance at the same time. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of this method.
The evolution of Ks-selected galaxies in the GOODS/CDFS deep ISAAC field

We present estimated redshifts and derived properties of a sample of 1663 galaxies with K-s = 2.5, the bright end of the K-s-band LF shows no sign of decline, and is progressively well reproduced by the ERGs with increasing redshift. We also explore the evolution of massive systems present in our sample: up to 20-25 per cent of the population of local galaxies with assembled stellar mass M > 1 x 10(11) M-circle dot) has been formed before redshift z similar to 4, and contains similar to 45-70 per cent of the stellar mass density of the Universe at that redshift. Within our sample, the comoving number density of these massive systems is then essentially constant down to redshift z similar to 1.5, by which point most of them have apparently evolved into (I - K-s)-selected ERGs. The remaining massive systems observed in the local Universe are assembled later, at redshifts z
Severe Metabolic Acidosis and Renal Failure in an HIV-1 Patient Receiving Tenofovir

A 55-y-old male developed severe metabolic acidosis and renal failure during tenofovir therapy. Increased tenofovir exposure due to low body weight and chronic stable renal insufficiency could have enhanced the risk of nephrotoxicity, and creatinine clearance should be estimated before initiation of tenofovir.
A Semantic Model to Study Neural Organization of Language in Bilingualism

A neural network model of object semantic representation is used to simulate learning of new words from a foreign language. The network consists of feature areas, devoted to description of object properties, and a lexical area, devoted to words representation. Neurons in the feature areas are implemented as Wilson-Cowan oscillators, to allow segmentation of different simultaneous objects via gamma-band synchronization. Excitatory synapses among neurons in the feature and lexical areas are learned, during a training phase, via a Hebbian rule. In this work, we first assume that some words in the first language (L1) and the corresponding object representations are initially learned during a preliminary training phase. Subsequently, second-language (L2) words are learned by simultaneously presenting the new word together with the L1 one. A competitive mechanism between the two words is also implemented by the use of inhibitory interneurons. Simulations show that, after a weak training, the L2 word allows retrieval of the object properties but requires engagement of the first language. Conversely, after a prolonged training, the L2 word becomes able to retrieve object per se. In this case, a conflict between words can occur, requiring a higher-level decision mechanism.
Establishment of an experimental glaucoma animal model: A comparison of microbead injection with or without hydroxypropyl methylcellulose

The present study aimed to compare microbead injection with and without hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPM) in order to establish an experimental animal model of glaucoma. This model was established in C57BL/6 mice and transgenic mice expressing cyan fluorescent protein (CFP) under the control of the Thy1 promoter in retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). C57BL/6 mice aged between 12 and 20 weeks old were randomly separated into three groups, which received different injections into the anterior chamber of the eye. Group A (microbead) received 2 µl microbeads (10×106 beads/ml) and 1 µl air. Group B (microbeads + HPM) received 2 µl microbeads and 1 µl HPM. Group C (control group) received 2 µl PBS and 1 µl air. The intraocular pressure (IOP) was measured with a tonometer under topical anesthesia daily for 1 month. A single injection of microbeads, with or without HPM, induced consistent IOP elevation when compared with the control group. Thy1-CFP mice received an injection of 2 µl microbeads and 1 µl HPM into the anterior chamber of the eyes, and the number of CFP+ RGCs was subsequently assessed in vivo by confocal scanning laser microscopy in the same area of the retina weekly for 6 weeks. The results from in vivo imaging of Thy1-CFP mice were comparable with the immunohistochemical staining results from the C57BL/6 mice. The combined injection of microbeads and HPM induced longer and higher peaks of IOP elevation when compared with the microbeads alone. The rate of RGC loss following the administration of microbeads alone was 25.0±1.3% 6 weeks after the initial IOP elevation, while it was 33.2±1.9% following the administration of microbeads + HPM. These results indicate that the injection of microbeads + HPM is a more effective method of establishing a mouse model with chronic elevation of IOP. In addition, the in vivo imaging that can be used with this technique provides an effective and noninvasive approach for monitoring the progress of RGC loss.
Consistent Recovery of Sensory Stimuli Encoded with MIMO Neural Circuits

We consider the problem of reconstructing finite energy stimuli encoded with a population of spiking leaky integrate-and-fire neurons. The reconstructed signal satisfies a consistency condition: when passed through the same neuron, it triggers the same spike train as the original stimulus. The recovered stimulus has to also minimize a quadratic smoothness optimality criterion. We formulate the reconstruction as a spline interpolation problem for scalar as well as vector valued stimuli and show that the recovery has a unique solution. We provide explicit reconstruction algorithms for stimuli encoded with single as well as a population of integrate-and-fire neurons. We demonstrate how our reconstruction algorithms can be applied to stimuli encoded with ON-OFF neural circuits with feedback. Finally, we extend the formalism to multi-input multi-output neural circuits and demonstrate that vector-valued finite energy signals can be efficiently encoded by a neural population provided that its size is beyond a threshold value. Examples are given that demonstrate the potential applications of our methodology to systems neuroscience and neuromorphic engineering.
Mechanical behavior of individual WS_2 nanotubes

The Young’s modulus of WS_2 nanotubes is an important property for various applications. Measurements of the mechanical properties of individual nanotubes are challenged by their small size. In the current work, atomic force microscopy was used to determine the Young’s modulus of an individual multiwall WS_2 nanotube, which was mounted on a silicon cantilever. The buckling force was measured by pushing the nanotube against a mica surface. The average Young’s modulus of an individual WS_2 nanotube, which was calculated by using Euler’s equation, was found to be 171 GPa. First-principle calculations of the Young’s modulus of MoS_2 single-wall nanotubes using density-functional–based tight-binding method resulted in a value (230 GPa) that is close to that of the bulk material. Furthermore, the diameter dependence of the Young’s modulus in both zigzag and armchair configuration was studied and was found to approach the bulk value for nanotubes with few-nanometer diameters. Similar behavior is expected for WS_2 nanotubes. The mechanical behavior of the WS_2 nanotubes as atomic force microscope imaging tips gave further support for the measured Young’s modulus.
Noninvertible Minutia Cylinder-Code Representation

Although several fingerprint template protection methods have been proposed in the literature, the problem is still unsolved, since enforcing nonreversibility tends to produce an excessive drop in accuracy. Furthermore, unlike fingerprint verification, whose performance is assessed today with public benchmarks and protocols, performance of template protection approaches is often evaluated in heterogeneous scenarios, thus making it very difficult to compare existing techniques. In this paper, we propose a novel protection technique for Minutia Cylinder-Code (MCC), which is a well-known local minutiae representation. A sophisticate algorithm is designed to reverse MCC (i.e., recovering original minutiae positions and angles). Systematic experimentations show that the new approach compares favorably with state-of-the-art methods in terms of accuracy and, at the same time, provides a good protection of minutiae information and is robust against masquerade attacks.