Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Taiwanese Vegetarians and Omnivores: Dietary Composition, Prevalence of Diabetes and IFG

Introduction Vegetarian diets have been shown to improve glucose metabolism and reduce risk for diabetes in Westerners but whether Chinese vegetarian diets have the same benefits is unknown. Methods We evaluated the association between diet and diabetes/impaired fasting glucose (IFG) among 4384 Taiwanese Buddhist volunteers and identified diabetes/IFG cases from a comprehensive review of medical history and fasting plasma glucose. Results Vegetarians had higher intakes of carbohydrates, fiber, calcium, magnesium, total and non-heme iron, folate, vitamin A, and lower intakes of saturated fat, cholesterol, and vitamin B12. Besides avoiding meat and fish, vegetarians had higher intakes of soy products, vegetables, whole grains, but similar intakes of dairy and fruits, compared with omnivores. The crude prevalence of diabetes in vegetarians versus omnivores is 0.6% versus 2.3% in pre-menopausal women, 2.8% versus 10% in menopausal women, and 4.3% versus 8.1% in men. Polytomous logistic regression adjusting for age, body mass index, family history of diabetes, education, leisure time physical activity, smoking and alcohol, showed that this vegetarian diet was negatively associated with diabetes and IFG in men (OR for diabetes: 0.49, 95% CI: 0.28–0.89; OR for IFG: 0.66, 95% CI: 0.46–0.95); in pre-menopausal women (OR for diabetes: 0.26, 95% CI: 0.06–1.21; OR for IFG: 0.60, 95% CI: 0.35–1.04); and in menopausal women (OR for diabetes: 0.25, 95% CI: 0.15–0.42; OR for IFG: 0.73, 95% CI: 0.56–0.95). Conclusion We found a strong protective association between Taiwanese vegetarian diet and diabetes/IFG, after controlling for various potential confounders and risk factors.
Optimization of Various Culture Media for Tannase Production in Submerged Fermentation by Aspergillus flavus

2 Abstract: Tannase, produced from the fungus Aspergillus flavus by submerged fermentation on different medium was studied. Tannic acid 1 had a higher activity of 70 U/g/min in purified form. The process parameter was optimized and higher production of tannase was found at 35°C and 96 hours of incubation with 2% tannic acid.
Drug utilization study of anti-hypertensive drugs and their adverse effects in patients of a tertiary care hospital -

Background: Hypertension is one of the leading causes of cardiovascular disease. Though many clinical guidelines published recently for the treatment of hypertension, there is substantial variation in the treatment of hypertension in different countries. Aims and objectives: To evaluate the drug utilization pattern among hypertensive patients and their adverse effects attending medicine OPD in a tertiary care teaching hospital. Materials and Methods: A prospective, observational study was conducted by Department of Pharmacology in a tertiary care teaching hospital over a period of six months. The diagnosis and line of treatment to be given was decided by the physician in charge of the Department of Medicine. All the information of ADR was recorded in CDSCO Suspected ADR reporting form. Results: Out of 600 patients, 43.83% were male and 56.17% were female. Maximum patients belonged to age group of 51-60 years (33.5%). Diabetes mellitus (40.33%) was the most common associated disease with hypertension. About half of the patients had received two antihypertensive drugs (49.50%), followed by one (33.16%) and three (15.5%) antihypertensive drugs. Enalapril was the most commonly prescribed antihypertensive drug (79.66%). 95 patients (15.83%) from the total of 600 patients developed ADR. Most common ADR was cough (18.94%) followed by headache (12.63%) and vomiting (10.52%). Enalapril was responsible for about half of the ADR (50.52%) followed by amlodipine (25.26%) and furosemide (25.26%). Conclusion: Rational utilization pattern of antihypertensive drugs was observed. However diuretics and calcium channel blockers prescribed less commonly. Most of the ADRs were probable (55.79%) and mild (30.53%).
Nimesulide in the treatment of advanced cancer pain. Double-blind comparison with naproxen.

In a clinical double-blind study, the analgesic efficacy and the side-effects of nimesulide (Aulin, CAS 51803-78-2) and naproxen administered to 68 patients affected by advanced cancer pain were compared. Patients were treated with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs according to the first step of the pharmacological analgesic scale of the WHO. The dose administered was 200 mg b.i. d. (every 12 h) for nimesulide and 500 mg b.i. d. (every 12 h) for naproxen. From this study the analgesic effect and the tolerability of the two drugs appeared to be similar. Both drugs resulted to be effective with a low incidence of adverse events that may be related to their use.
MEK Inhibition Enhances Paclitaxel-induced Tumor Apoptosis*

The anti-cancer drug paclitaxel (Taxol) alters microtubule assembly and activates pro-apoptotic signaling pathways. Previously, we and others found that paclitaxel activates endogenous JNK in tumor cells, and the activation of JNK contributes to tumor cell apoptosis. Here we find that paclitaxel activates the prosurvival MEK/ERK pathway, which conversely may compromise the efficacy of paclitaxel. Hence, a combination treatment of paclitaxel and MEK inhibitors was pursued to determine whether this treatment could lead to enhanced apoptosis. The inhibition of MEK/ERK with a pharmacologic inhibitor, U0126, together with paclitaxel resulted in a dramatic enhancement of apoptosis that is four times more than the additive value of the two drugs alone. Enhanced apoptosis was verified by the terminal transferase-mediated dUTP nick end labeling assay, by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for histone-associated DNA fragments, and by flow cytometric analysis for DNA content. Specificity of the pharmacologic inhibitor was confirmed by the use of (a) a second MEK/ERK inhibitor and (b) a transdominant-negative MEK. Enhanced apoptosis was verified in breast, ovarian, and lung tumor cell lines, suggesting this effect is not cell type-specific. This is the first report of enhanced apoptosis detected in the presence of paclitaxel and MEK inhibition and suggests a new anticancer strategy.
Gender differences in second language motivation : An investigation of micro- and macro-level influences

The present article is part of a large-scale study conducted in Ontario that investigated gender differences in motivation to learn French. However, for this particular article second language (L2) motivation theory is the primary focus. Over the past 30 years of research, the study of L2 motivation has evolved. There appears to be a definite shift away from the societal (macro-level) approaches that dominated the research of the 1970s and 1980s toward an approach that emphasizes the influence of the L2 classroom. The researcher calls into question this evolution in research. A mixed methodology was used to determine if gender differences in a variety of motivational factors exist among Grade 9 French as a second language (FSL) students. Approximately 500 students in Grade 9 completed a questionnaire. The significant findings of the questionnaire were then explored in interviews with students and teachers. Quantitative results indicated significant differences in regard to several motivational factors. However, the qualitative data emphasized that at the root of these differences were societal influences.
Role of Low-Impact Development in Generation and Control of Urban Diffuse Pollution in a Pilot Sponge City: A Paired-Catchment Study

Low-impact development (LID) is increasingly recognized as one of the most important stormwater source controls on a small scale. However, few studies have reported how LID practices affect the generation and control of urban diffuse pollution at the scale of urban drainage units. In this study, paired conventional and LID drainage units (CDU and LDU) were used to distinguish the role of LID practices in urban sediment accumulation and release at a residential drainage units scale (about 1–2 ha). The urban sediment dynamic build-up process, amounts per unit to equilibrium, amount and percentage of urban sediment washed-off by rainfall, pollutant concentrations during rainfall-runoff processes, and discharge water volume and pollution load from drainage units were all notably different between the paired drainage units. These results indicated that (1) LID practices have a combined effect on urban sediments accumulation and release on a drainage unit scale via reduction of the source area, changes in microtopography and formation of a greater sink area; (2) landscape alterations with LID practices within a small catchment reduced and disconnected areas with impervious surfaces, subsequently reducing the kinetic energy of wash-off and transport for urban sediment; (3) LID practices exerted notable hydrological responses and water quality responses at a micro urban catchment scale by reducing the first flush load and entire process discharge load. The results presented herein will facilitate optimal design for reliable treatment performance and assessment of the effectiveness of LID practices on an urban drainage units scale.
Left Stellectomy in the Prevention of Ventricular Fibrillation Caused by Acute Myocardial Ischemia in Conscious Dogs with Anterior Myocardial Infarction

The potential of left stellectomy in reducing the incidence of ventricular fibrillation associated with acute myocardial ischemia was investigated in a new animal model for sudden death. Thirty-two dogs had an anterior myocardial infarction produced by ligation of the left descending coronary artery. One week later they were randomly allocated to a control or to an experimental group that underwent left stellectomy. One month after ligation while the dogs were conscious, a balloon occluder previously positioned around the circumflex coronary artery was inflated and the ensuing coronary occlusion was maintained for 10 minutes. Ventricular fibrillation occurred in 11 of 17 (65%) control dogs, compared with five of 15 (33%) (p < 0.05) in the experimental group. Among the survivors the incidence of arrhythmias was less in the experimental group compared with the control group. Infarct size (21 ± 2% vs 20 ± 2%), resting heart rate (143 beats/min vs 127 beats/min) and QT, (347 ± 11 msec vs 349 13 msec) were similar between control and experimental groups. The dogs that died had a greater increase in heart rate at 1 minute postocclusion than survivors and also had significantly longer QT intervals.Our study indicates that left stellectomy exerts a major protective effect in reducing the incidence of ventricular fibrillation when conscious dogs with a previous anterior myocardial infarction undergo acute myocardial ischemia. This simple and safe surgical procedure may be considered for a clinical trial in subgroups of patients with ischemic heart disease at very high risk for sudden death.
Evaluation of Models of Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson's disease is one of the most common neurodegenerative diseases. Animal models have contributed a large part to our understanding and therapeutics developed for treatment of PD. There are several more exhaustive reviews of literature that provide the initiated insights into the specific models; however a novel synthesis of the basic advantages and disadvantages of different models is much needed. Here we compare both neurotoxin based and genetic models while suggesting some novel avenues in PD modeling. We also highlight the problems faced and promises of all the mammalian models with the hope of providing a framework for comparison of various systems.
An empirical user-based study of text drawing styles and outdoor background textures for augmented reality

A challenge in presenting augmenting information in outdoor augmented reality (AR) settings lies in the broad range of uncontrollable environmental conditions that may be present, specifically large-scale fluctuations in natural lighting and wide variations in likely backgrounds or objects in the scene. In this paper, we present a user-based study which examined the effects of outdoor background textures, changing outdoor illuminance values, and text drawing styles on user performance of a text identification task with an optical, see-through augmented reality system. We report significant effects for all of these variables, and discuss design guidelines and ideas for future work.
Facial expression recognition with discriminatory graphical models

Discriminating probabilistic graphical models are reliable tools for a sequence labeling task. Conditional Random Fields (CRFs) are discriminative models which will enable us to label a sequence of input data. Other variations of CRFs have been proposed. Hidden Conditional Random Fields (HCRFs) incorporate hidden states to the CRF model and assign a label for the whole input sequence as the model's output. Latent-Dynamic Conditional Random Fields (LDCRFs) also incorporate hidden variable states to the CRFs, in addition, these models are able to label each output variables separately. These models can capture subtle changes among different classes which will help us to achieve better recognition results. In this work we experiment various models and settings in order to achieve better results in facial expression recognition from sequence of videos. We use CRF and LDCRF models and train them with Limited-memory BFGS and Conjugate Gradient parameter learning methods. For each model we use various feature vectors in order to achieve better recognition results. We use Active Appearance Model (AAM) landmark points, Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG) and Uniform Local Binary Pattern (U-LBP) as our feature vectors in our models. We show which combination of learning methods and feature vectors are suitable for CRF and LDCRF discriminative models.
Visual-Based Human Crowds Behavior Analysis Based on Graph Modeling and Matching

Modeling human crowds is an important issue for video surveillance and is a challenging task due to their unpredictable behavior. In this paper, the position of an isolated region that comprises an individual person or a set of occluded persons is detected by background subtraction. Each isolated region is considered a vertex and a human crowd is thus modeled by a graph. To construct a graph, Delaunay triangulation is used to systematically connect vertices and therefore the problem of event detection of human crowds is formulated as measuring the topology variation of consecutive graphs in temporal order. To effectively model the topology variations, local characteristics, such as triangle deformations and eigenvalue-based subgraph analysis, and global features, such as moments, are used and are finally combined as an indicator to detect if any anomalies of human crowd(s) present in the scene. Experimental results obtained by using extensive dataset show that our system is effective in detecting anomalous events for uncontrolled environment of surveillance videos.
The Course of Myasthenia Gravis and Therapies Affecting Outcome a

The course of 1,487 patients with myasthenia gravis followed between 1940 and 1985 for a mean of 18 years provides further evidence that the distribution, severity, and outcome of the disease are determined during the first 1 to 3 (occasionally 5) years after onset, suggesting that injury to acetylcholine receptors occurs mainly during this time. In 14%, the disease remained clinically localized to the extraocular muscles, and in the remaining 86% became generalized, in 87% within a year, with the disease reaching maximum severity within the first year after onset of symptoms in 55%, during the first 3 years in 70%, and during the first 5 years in 85%. Male patients tended to have more rapid progression of disease, higher mortality, and lower rates of remission and improvement than females. From 1940 to 1957, when management relied on anticholinesterase compounds, endotracheal intubation or tracheostomy and negative pressure assisted ventilation for respiratory failure, and thymectomy in 26% of patients and thymomectomy in 8%, 31% of patients with generalized myasthenia gravis died of the disease (29% of these during the first year after onset, 27% during the second and third years, and 17% during the fourth and fifth years), 32% improved, 23% remained unchanged, 10% went into remission, and only 5% were worse during the last year seen than during the worst of the first 3 years (or 5 years in the minority of patients who reached maximum weakness after 3 years). From 1958 to 1965, during which time the management of respiratory failure was improved by positive pressure and volume controlled ventilation and improved intensive care, mortality fell to 14% (p less than 0.005), and a higher proportion remained unchanged (p less than 0.005). From 1966 to 1985, when over half the patients received adrenal cortical steroids, mortality fell to 7% (p less than 0.005) and the proportion who improved rose to 47% (p less than 0.05). Even though the patients who received steroids usually had more severe myasthenia, they had a higher rate of improvement than those who received no steroid, 54% compared to 39% (p less than 0.005). Thymectomy was performed in one-fourth of patients with generalized myasthenia gravis, more frequently in young females and those with more severe weakness, and less often in older males and those with less severe weakness. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
IOFlow: a software-defined storage architecture

In data centers, the IO path to storage is long and complex. It comprises many layers or "stages" with opaque interfaces between them. This makes it hard to enforce end-to-end policies that dictate a storage IO flow's performance (e.g., guarantee a tenant's IO bandwidth) and routing (e.g., route an untrusted VM's traffic through a sanitization middlebox). These policies require IO differentiation along the flow path and global visibility at the control plane. We design IOFlow, an architecture that uses a logically centralized control plane to enable high-level flow policies. IOFlow adds a queuing abstraction at data-plane stages and exposes this to the controller. The controller can then translate policies into queuing rules at individual stages. It can also choose among multiple stages for policy enforcement. We have built the queue and control functionality at two key OS stages-- the storage drivers in the hypervisor and the storage server. IOFlow does not require application or VM changes, a key strength for deployability. We have deployed a prototype across a small testbed with a 40 Gbps network and storage devices. We have built control applications that enable a broad class of multi-point flow policies that are hard to achieve today.
Effects of Intermittent-Endurance Fitness on Match Performance in Young Male Soccer Players

Castagna, C, Impellizzeri, F, Cecchini, E, Rampinini, E, and Barbero Alvarez, JC. Effects of intermittent-endurance fitness on match performance in young male soccer players. J Strength Cond Res 23(7): 1954-1959, 2009-The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of specific endurance (Yo-Yo Intermittent recovery test level 1, Yo-Yo IR1) on match performance in male youth soccer. Twenty-one young, male soccer players (age 14.1 ± 0.2 years) were involved in the study. Players were observed during international championship games of corresponding age categories and completed the Yo-Yo IR1 on a separate occasion. Physical (distance coverage) and physiological match demands were assessed using Global Positioning System technology and heart rate (HR) short-range telemetry, respectively. During the match (two 30-minutes halves), players covered 6,204 ± 731 m, of which 985 ± 362 m (16%) were performed at high intensities (speed >13 km·h−1, HIA). A significant decrement (3.8%, p = 0.003) in match coverage was evident during the second half. No significant (p = 0.07) difference between halves was observed for HIA (p = 0.56) and sprint (speed >18 km·h−1, SPR) distances. During the first and second halves, players attained the 86 ± 5.5 and 85 ± 6.0% of HRmax (p = 0.17), respectively. Peak HR during the first and second halves were 100 ± 4 and 99.4 ± 4.7% of HRmax, respectively. Yo-Yo IR1 performance (842 ± 352 m) was significantly related to match HIA (r = 0.77, p < 0.001) and total distance (r = 0.65, p = 0.002). This study's results showed that specific endurance, as determined by Yo-Yo IR1 performance, positively affects physical match performance in male young soccer players. Consequently, the Yo-Yo IR1 test may be regarded as a valid test to assess game readiness and guide training prescription in male youth soccer players.
Presepsin (Scd14) as a Marker of Serious Bacterial Infections in Chemotherapy Induced Severe Neutropenia

Objective: Timely detection of serious bacterial infections or prediction of sepsis and death is of paramount importance in neutropenic patients especially in oncology settings. The aim of this study was to determine a rapid and secure predictor of sepsis in severe neutropenic cancer children. Methods: In addition to blood culture, we have evaluated serum soluble CD14 on this role and measured it in 39 neutropenic episodes in Mahak pediatric oncology center from September 2012 to January 2013. Fifteen episodes had positive bacterial cultures and 18 had fever. The mean sCD14 values were compared in the presence or absence of fever, positive blood culture and other clinical conditions. Also, mean levels compared in different white cell counts and different four combination settings of fever and blood culture. Findings: It was statistically higher in febrile episodes, in the presence of oral mucositis, indwelling catheter infection, otitis media, and post toxic epidermal necrolysis sepsis and in instances of death within 15 days. Leukocyte count did not affect sCD14 level and in combinations of fever and blood culture, mean sCD14 values were ranked as follow: febrile culture negatives, febrile culture positives, afebrile culture positives and afebrile culture negatives. Conclusion: Although sCD14 was not sensitive in detection of bacteremia, in the absence of clinically detectable source of infection, it was significantly higher in culture positives.
Joint estimation and compensation of frequency, DC-offset, I-Q imbalance and channel in MIMO receivers

Direct-conversion is a low-cost RF architecture that requires fewer external components in chip implementation. It introduces, however, extra RF impairments such as I-Q imbalance and DC-offset that degrade severely the receiver performance if left uncompensated. In this paper, a new method of joint estimation and compensation of frequency, DC-offset, I-Q imbalance and channel is developed for MIMO receivers. Numerical results show that the proposed method has a very good performance; less than 2 dB loss is observed at bit-error rate 10−4, as compared to the ideal receiver. In addition, a new training sequence along with a low-complexity architecture is proposed to reduce largely the receiver complexity with negligible performance loss.
Brazilian Journal of Chemical Engineering CAPILLARY HOLDUP BETWEEN VERTICAL SPHERES S .

The maximum volume of liquid bridge left between two vertically mounted spherical particles has been theoretically determined and experimentally measured. As the gravitational effect has not been neglected in the theoretical model, the liquid interface profile is nonsymmetrical around the X-axis. Symmetry in the interface profile only occurs when either the particle size ratio or the gravitational force becomes zero. In this paper, some equations are derived as a function of the spheres' sizes, gap width, liquid density, surface tension and body force ( gravity/centrifugal) to estimate the maximum amount of liquid that can be held between the two solid spheres. Then a comparison is made between the result based on these equations and several experimental results. Keyword: Capillary Liquid Holdup; Centrifuge; Drainage Bed; Particle; Hydrodynamics.