Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Lack of association of fatness-related FTO gene variants with energy expenditure or physical activity.

CONTEXT A common variant in the first intron of FTO (rs9939609, T/A) is associated with fatness in Caucasians. OBJECTIVE FTO may regulate energy homeostasis through the hypothalamus, and we hypothesized that AA-genotypes of rs9939609 FTO have lower energy expenditure and/or a lower level of physical activity. METHODS The study population included all obese young men (body mass index > or = 31 kg/m(2)) at the mandatory draft board examinations in the Copenhagen area from 1943 to 1977 and a randomly selected control group from this population. Subgroups of 234 obese and 323 controls were examined in 1998-2000 (median age 48 yr). Fat mass (FM), lean body mass (LBM), leisure-time physical activity (LTPA), maximum oxygen uptake (VO(2)max), resting energy expenditure (REE), and glucose-induced thermogenesis (GIT) were measured. The FTO rs9939609 variant was genotyped. A recessive transmission mode fit the data best. Logistic regression was used to assess the odds ratios of the AA-genotype in relation to LTPA, VO(2)max, REE, and GIT. RESULTS The AA-genotype of FTO rs9939609 had higher REE in the age-adjusted model, but the association was eliminated when adjusting for FM and LBM. The AA-genotype was not associated with LTPA, VO(2)max, or GIT. This was not influenced by adjustment for age, FM, or LBM. The AA-genotype had increased FM, even with adjustment for age, LBM, REE, GIT, VO(2)max, and LTPA. Results were similar for FTO rs8050136 and rs7193144. CONCLUSIONS Homozygous carriers of the A-allele of rs9939609 FTO do not have lower REE, GIT, VO(2)max, or LTPA but higher FM, irrespective of LBM, REE, GIT, VO(2)max, and LTPA.
Quantifying the Availability of Vertebrate Hosts to Ticks: A Camera-Trapping Approach

The availability of vertebrate hosts is a major determinant of the occurrence of ticks and tick-borne zoonoses in natural and anthropogenic ecosystems and thus drives disease risk for wildlife, livestock, and humans. However, it remains challenging to quantify the availability of vertebrate hosts in field settings, particularly for medium-sized to large-bodied mammals. Here, we present a method that uses camera traps to quantify the availability of warm-bodied vertebrates to ticks. The approach is to deploy camera traps at questing height at a representative sample of random points across the study area, measure the average photographic capture rate for vertebrate species, and then correct these rates for the effective detection distance. The resulting “passage rate” is a standardized measure of the frequency at which vertebrates approach questing ticks, which we show is proportional to contact rate. A field test across twenty 1-ha forest plots in the Netherlands indicated that this method effectively captures differences in wildlife assemblage composition between sites. Also, the relative abundances of three life stages of the sheep tick Ixodes ricinus from drag sampling were correlated with passage rates of deer, which agrees with the known association with this group of host species, suggesting that passage rate effectively reflects the availability of medium- to large-sized hosts to ticks. This method will facilitate quantitative studies of the relationship between densities of questing ticks and the availability of different vertebrate species—wild as well as domesticated species—in natural and anthropogenic settings.
Constrained actuator coordination by virtual state governing

The coordination of multiple constrained actuators is relevant to several practical systems, including those in automotive and aerospace applications. Often, the usage of a specific group of actuators is to be minimized either because of its operating cost or because of undesired side-effects. In some cases, controllers for each actuator are already available and rather than redesigning the whole control strategy, a coordination scheme can be introduced to regulate the interaction between the different actuator controllers and to enforce system-wide constraints. In this paper we propose a design for such a coordination strategy in the case where two sets of actuators are available, each with a pre-designed and non-modifiable state-feedback controller. The obtained control strategy is shown to recursively enforce constraints on the actuators and on the system state, to be asymptotically stable, and to use the set of expensive actuators only for finite time. An example of satellite attitude control is shown.
Low power IEEE 802.11ah receiver system-level design aiming for IoT applications

Internet of Things (IoT) is a topic of growing interest and intensive research in industry, technological centers and academy, where data communication is one of its most relevant aspects. Since IoT is an open field for new applications, it does not have yet a standard communication protocol. This paper presents the system level design of a WiFi receiver supporting the novel low power standard IEEE 802.11ah with focus on IoT applications. Theoretical performance analysis as well as system level design strategies are presented. Individual blocks of the receiver chain are specified as a condition for future circuit-level design. Simulation results validate the proposed system specifications attending the 802.11ah standard. The presented receiver provides 80.5dB maximum gain, 9 dB minimum noise figure and 69.4 dB of dynamic range. Those performance parameters lead to −99.4 dBm sensitivity, 21 dB and 51 dB for adjacent and non-adjacent maximum channel rejection.
Moderate Traumatic Brain Injury Causes Acute Dendritic and Synaptic Degeneration in the Hippocampal Dentate Gyrus

Hippocampal injury-associated learning and memory deficits are frequent hallmarks of brain trauma and are the most enduring and devastating consequences following traumatic brain injury (TBI). Several reports, including our recent paper, showed that TBI brought on by a moderate level of controlled cortical impact (CCI) induces immature newborn neuron death in the hippocampal dentate gyrus. In contrast, the majority of mature neurons are spared. Less research has been focused on these spared neurons, which may also be injured or compromised by TBI. Here we examined the dendrite morphologies, dendritic spines, and synaptic structures using a genetic approach in combination with immunohistochemistry and Golgi staining. We found that although most of the mature granular neurons were spared following TBI at a moderate level of impact, they exhibited dramatic dendritic beading and fragmentation, decreased number of dendritic branches, and a lower density of dendritic spines, particularly the mushroom-shaped mature spines. Further studies showed that the density of synapses in the molecular layer of the hippocampal dentate gyrus was significantly reduced. The electrophysiological activity of neurons was impaired as well. These results indicate that TBI not only induces cell death in immature granular neurons, it also causes significant dendritic and synaptic degeneration in pathohistology. TBI also impairs the function of the spared mature granular neurons in the hippocampal dentate gyrus. These observations point to a potential anatomic substrate to explain, in part, the development of posttraumatic memory deficits. They also indicate that dendritic damage in the hippocampal dentate gyrus may serve as a therapeutic target following TBI.
More Electron Cloud Studies for KEKB : Long-Term Evolution , Solenoid Patterns , and Fast Blow Up

We report recent electron-cloud studies for the Low Energy Ring (LER) of KEKB, continuing earlier investigations [1, 2]. Here we simulate the build up and decay time of the cloud for various solenoid and C-yoke configurations, discuss the electron density enhancement during the bunch passage [3], and estimate the instability threshold using the Ruth-Wang theory of fast blow up [4, 5]. Geneva, Switzerland December 6, 2000
The Role of Sodium-Dependent Glucose Transporter 1 and Glucose Transporter 2 in the Absorption of Cyanidin-3-O-β-Glucoside in Caco-2 Cells

Anthocyanins have multiple biological activities of benefit to human health. While a few studies have been conducted to evaluate the bioavailability of anthocyanins, the mechanisms of their absorption mechanism remain ill-defined. In the present study, we investigated the absorption mechanism of cyanidin-3-O-β-glucoside (Cy-3-G) in human intestinal epithelial (Caco-2) cells. Cy-3-G transport was assessed by measuring the absorptive and efflux direction. Inhibition studies were conducted using the pharmacological agents, phloridzin, an inhibitor of sodium-dependent glucose transporter 1 (SGLT1), or phloretin, an inhibitor of glucose transporter 2 (GLUT2). The results showed that phloridzin and phloretin significantly inhibited the absorption of Cy-3-G. In addition, Caco-2 cells transfected with small interfering RNA (siRNA) specific for SGLT1 or GLUT2 showed significantly decreased Cy-3-G absorption. These siRNA transfected cells also showed a significantly decreased rate of transport of Cy-3-G compared with the control group. These findings suggest that Cy-3-G absorption is dependent on the activities of SGLT1 and GLUT2 in the small intestine and that SGLT1 and GLUT2 could be a limiting step for the bioavailability of Cy-3-G.
Support for enterprise consolidation of I/O bound services

In this article, we evaluate the performance effects of I/O bound workloads on a specific virtual machine, an important component of an enterprise cloud computing infrastructure. In particular, we demonstrate that (1) the I/O workload of one guest system may adversely affect the I/O performance of another for the XEN hypervisor and (2) the general I/O performance is degraded due to various overheads. Next, we have devised a light‐weight, complementary, backwards‐compatible alternative to hypervisor‐based virtualization techniques called BONSAI. Our software provides low‐overhead I/O performance isolation by transparently applying traffic shaping to system calls in a cost‐effective manner. Using this system, I/O resource consumption can be controlled at a very fine granularity. Furthermore, using video streaming experiments, where we limit the I/O bandwidth available to each service, we show that we are able to achieve the required level of resource isolation on a per process basis with only a negligible CPU overhead and without reducing the I/O performance. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The Costs of Hiding and Faking Emotions: The Case of Extraverts and Introverts

ABSTRACT The present study examined the moderation effects of extraversion on the relationships between hiding and faking emotions, perceived satisfaction from intimate relationships, and reported physical health concerns. Four hundred and four Israeli participants, who were all involved in intimate relationships at the time of the study, responded to the Extraversion scale from the Big-Five Inventory, the DEELS to measure hiding and faking emotions, the SELF to assess physical health concerns, and the short version of the ENRICH to evaluate perceived satisfaction with intimate relationships. The mean age was 32.3 years (SD = 8.2); and the average length of time as a couple was 7.8 years (SD = 8.2). Of the participants, 198 were married (48.5%). The findings indicate that the effect of hiding negative emotions was stronger for perceived satisfaction with intimate relationships and physical health concerns than that for faking positive emotions. Extraverts who showed a higher frequency of hiding their negative emotions were significantly less satisfied with their relationships than introverts and they also tended to report more concerns with their physical health. These results were not found when extraverts reported a high frequency of faking positive emotions. These results are discussed in the context of the trait-behavior-concordance model and stress the importance of distinguishing faking from hiding.
Baseline characteristics of patients from Poland enrolled in the global registry of patients with recently diagnosed atrial fibrillation (RecordAF).

BACKGROUND The RecordAF study is the first worldwide, prospective, observational survey on the management of patients with recently diagnosed atrial fibrillation (AF). AIM This paper presents the baseline characteristics of the Polish patients enrolled in this registry. METHODS The registry enrolled patients > or = 18 years old with recently diagnosed AF (< or = 12 months from diagnosis), eligible for rhythm or rate control strategy. The planned follow-up is 12 months. The aim of the registry is to prospectively assess the efficacy of treatment defined as (a) maintenance of sinus rhythm or (b) optimal rate control, as well as (c) the incidence of cardiovascular events. RESULTS A total of 303 Polish patients were enrolled in 21 centres across Poland (mean age 63 +/- 12 years, M/F ratio 174/129). Hypertension was present in 71.5% of the study subjects, ischaemic heart disease in 18.9%, and diabetes in 12.3%. In 47 (15.6%) patients, no potential cause of AF could be established. Symptoms related to AF were reported by 89.1% of patients. Mean duration of AF history was 2.9 +/- 3.5 months. At the time of inclusion, 191 (63.0%) patients were in sinus rhythm, and 211 (69.6%) patients were assigned to rhythm control strategy. Rhythm control strategy was chosen more frequently in patients with a history of paroxysmal AF and those in sinus rhythm at inclusion. Rate control strategy was chosen more frequently in those with a history of persistent AF in the previous year or presenting with AF at inclusion. CONCLUSIONS Analysis of the baseline characteristics of the Polish population of the RecordAF study indicates a high prevalence of co-morbidities among patients with AF. The choice of treatment strategy was associated with rhythm status at inclusion and AF pattern within the previous 12 months. The RecordAF study will provide prospective data on treatment decisions and treatment success of rhythm- or rate-control strategies in patients with AF treated by office- or hospital-based cardiologists.
Aerobic Exercise Attenuated Bleomycin-Induced Lung Fibrosis in Th2-Dominant Mice

Introduction The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of aerobic exercise (AE) in reducing bleomycin-induced fibrosis in mice of a Th2-dominant immune background (BALB/c). Methods BALB/c mice were distributed into: sedentary, control (CON), Exercise-only (EX), sedentary, bleomycin-treated (BLEO) and bleomycin-treated+exercised (BLEO+EX); (n = 8/group). Following treadmill adaptation, 15 days following a single, oro-tracheal administration of bleomycin (1.5U/kg), AE was performed 5 days/week, 60min/day for 4 weeks at moderate intensity (60% of maximum velocity reached during a physical test) and assessed for pulmonary inflammation and remodeling, and cytokine levels in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL). Results At 45 days post injury, compared to BLEO, BLEO+EX demonstrated reduced collagen deposition in the airways (p<0.001) and also in the lung parenchyma (p<0.001). In BAL, a decreased number of total leukocytes (p<0.01), eosinophils (p<0.001), lymphocytes (p<0.01), macrophages (p<0.01), and neutrophils (p<0.01), as well as reduced pro-inflammatory cytokines (CXCL-1; p<0.01), (IL-1β; p<0.001), (IL-5; p<0.01), (IL-6; p<0.001), (IL-13; p<0.01) and pro-fibrotic growth factor IGF-1 (p<0.001) were observed. Anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 was increased (p<0.001). Conclusion AE attenuated bleomycin-induced collagen deposition, inflammation and cytokines accumulation in the lungs of mice with a predominately Th2-background suggesting that therapeutic AE (15–44 days post injury) attenuates the pro-inflammatory, Th2 immune response and fibrosis in the bleomycin model.
Cephalometry of Mentally Challenged Subjects and Correlation with Intelligence Quotient.

Objectives: Find out the relationship between cephalic indices and intelligence, and compare the same between normal children and subjects with mental retardation. Methods: This study was carried out on 250 children of ages between 6-16yrs. Of these 162 were males and 88 were females. The following measurements were taken to the nearest millimeter: the largest head circumference, head length, head breadth and the head height.The Cephalic index was calculated using the following formula: Maximal Head Breadth/ Maximal Head LengthX100. Based on these indices derived the types of head shapes were classified as dolichocephalic, mesocephalic, brachycephalic and hyperbrachycephalic.Same measurements were carried out on the normal children, and academic performance was noted . Results: The ranges of head length and head breadth were indicative of ‘Microcephalization’ of subjects with mental retardation. It was also noted that the head circumferences of the mentally challenged subjects were lower than normal children, showing the tendency towards microcephaly. The mean cephalic index again points out to brachycephaly and a tendency towards hyperbrachycephaly amongst the subjects with mental retardation. Conclusions: 61.1% of the subjects with severe mental retardation were found to be hyperbrachycephalic which implies that just as hyperbrachycephaly is associated with mental retardation , it is more associated in specific to severe mental retardation. Hence a correlation with dolichocephaly and a better prognosis of MR is deduced.
An investigation of the stability of emerging new psychoactive substances.

The evolving nature of new psychoactive substances (NPS) - often referred to as 'legal highs', 'designer drugs' or 'bath salts' - presents an evolving challenge for toxicologists. Apart from the detection and identification of these compounds, further analytical challenges may arise from the presence of possible metabolites or degradation products which may have to be considered when devising an analytical strategy. Whilst there has been some stability research for some more established drugs of abuse and medicinal products, data on emerging NPS are less abundant. In order to address this need, 13 NPS (4-MEC, MDAI, methoxetamine, 5-MeO-DALT, 6-APB, MPA, 5-IAI, MDAT, 2-AI, AMT, 25C-NBOMe, AH-7921, 5-MAPB) were spiked in blood and plasma and kept at room temperature (20-23 °C). Detection and identification of the suspected breakdown products were carried out by high performance liquid chromatography with diode-array detection (HPLC-DAD), liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), and ultra high performance liquid chromatography with high mass accuracy quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-Q-TOF-MS). 4-MEC became undetectable in blood within 14 days with a corresponding loss of 54% in plasma. A breakdown product was identified as dihydro-4-MEC which was also found in vivo in a case work sample. Storage of AMT led to a range of potential breakdown products which were also found in vivo. The remaining substances were found to be stable for at least 21 days in blood and plasma. This is the first time stability data have been published for these emerging substances and showed that additional compounds found during forensic casework were potential metabolites rather than instability products. In particular, presumptive metabolites of 25C-NBOMe and AH-7921 are presented.
Maternal investment, life-history strategy of the offspring and adult chronic disease risk in South Asian women in the UK

We shows that women who received low maternal investment during fetal life, the primary period when the body's organs develop, develop a ‘fast’ life history strategy. This prioritizes reproduction (indicated by early menarche, higher body fatness) over somatic growth (adult height) and the ability to maintain healthy blood pressure.
The effects of anchor-based semantic priming on judgmental anchoring

Title of Dissertation: THE EFFECTS OF ANCHOR-BASED SEMANTIC PRIMING ON JUDGMENTAL ANCHORING David Paul Sleeth-Keppler, Ph.D., 2004 Dissertation Directed By: Professor Arie W. Kruglanski, Department of Psychology This dissertation proposes a unified conceptualization of a set of seemingly distinct judgmental anchoring effects (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974), including numeric effects (Wilson, Houston, Etling, & Brekke, 1996), semantic effects (e.g., Strack & Mussweiler, 1997) as well as implausible anchoring effects (e.g., Mussweiler & Strack, 2001a). These effects are viewed as special cases of a general, anchor-based, semantic priming mechanism. Specifically, during comparisons between the judgmental target and the anchor, judges are hypothesized to be primed with general semantic notions directly related to the anchor value. These anchorbased semantics, in turn, are hypothesized to mediate anchoring effects. Study 1 supported the hypothesis that anchor-based semantics may be responsible for producing anchoring effects by showing that considerations of implausible (vs. plausible) anchors are associated with higher levels of lexical activation of anchorrelated words (measured in a lexical decision task). This finding maps on to a larger anchoring effect obtained in the implausible vs. plausible anchoring condition. In study 2, participants were primed directly with anchor related words, resulting in a ‘mimicked’ anchoring effect. Study 3 showed that associatively activated concepts, primed via a conditional rule, produce anchoring effects when the target and dimension of the judgment change between the comparative and absolute questions. Study 4 failed to support the prediction that a target change between a comparative task and related absolute numerical estimate, involving the same content domain, inhibits anchoring. Study 5 varied the typical anchoring paradigm by holding the numerical anchor constant and varying the target of the comparative question, producing a purely semantic anchoring effect. Finally, study 6 replicated and extended the findings obtained in study 5, providing additional evidence (from a lexical decision task) that anchor-based semantic notions produce anchoring effects. General discussion focuses on distinctions between the present theory and the existing models of anchoring within the social judgment literature. THE EFFECTS OF ANCHOR-BASED SEMANTIC PRIMING ON JUDGMENTAL ANCHORING.
Permutations and wellfoundedness: the true meaning of the bizarre arithmetic of Quine's NF

Abstract It is shown that, according to NF, many of the assertions of ordinal arithmetic involving the T-function which is peculiar to NF turn out to be equivalent to the truth-in-certain-permutation-models of assertions which have perfectly sensible ZF-style meanings, such as: the existence of wellfounded sets of great size or rank, or the nonexistence of small counterexamples to the wellfoundedness of ∈. Everything here holds also for NFU if the permutations are taken to fix all urelemente.
Nonepileptic Seizures: Classification, Coexistence with Epilepsy, Diagnosis, Therapeutic Approaches, and Consensus

Non-epileptic seizures (NES) is a descriptive term for a diverse group of disorders that refer to paroxysmal events that can be mistaken for epilepsy, but are not due to an epileptic disorder. “Non-epileptic seizure” is the preferred term. As confirmed by Steven Schachter, MD in his 1966 survey of American epileptologists, the majority of respondents considers this to be the preferred term as opposed to many other anachronistic and pejorative terms, which have been suggested. These include “hysteroepilepsy, hysterical seizures, pseudoseizures, pseudo-epileptic seizures, non-epileptic pseudo-seizure, hysterical epilepsy, and non-epileptic attack disorder. ” All of these terms have significant demeaning overtones, or, quite frankly, are inaccurate in terms of the pathophysiology.