Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mechanistic Approaches to Detect, Target, and Ablate the Drivers of Atrial Fibrillation.

Ablation strategies to treat atrial fibrillation (AF) have evolved from the initial focal pulmonary vein ablation approach of Haissaguerre et al1 to new technical developments aimed at simplifying the procedure and increasing its safety.2 However, ablation procedures are still associated with unsatisfactory rates of long-term success, particularly in persistent and long-term AF.3 We submit that such disappointing outcomes are the result of the intrinsic limitations of a strategy that has relied mainly on anatomic landmarks during the past 2 decades, and paid scant attention to the underlying mechanisms of the arrhythmia. Recently, approaches aimed at localizing and targeting AF sources based on careful analysis of the fibrillatory patterns often obtained via multiple electrode mapping systems (basket-catheter mapping, body surface mapping, and electrocardiographic imaging [ECGI]) have resulted in an increased specificity of ablation procedures, and long-term freedom from AF.4–7 Such mechanistically based ablation techniques have the potential to enable translational insights from experimental animal models into further improved AF ablation therapy. Indeed, they are a direct result of insights into the dynamic behavior of AF drivers, obtained from experimental optical mapping studies and computer simulations of AF dynamics. The purpose of this article is to briefly review the following: (1) competing theories attempting to explain mechanisms underlying AF maintenance, (2) different methodologies to map electric activity during AF, (3) the most recent mechanistic ablation approaches aimed at targeting AF drivers and their outcomes, and (4) the controversies and near-future directions in the quest to increase the understanding of AF mechanisms and improve ablation outcomes. ### Mechanisms Underlying AF Maintenance #### Historical Perspective: Reentry, Ectopic Foci, Random Wavelets, Complex Fractionated Atrial Electrograms, and Endo-Epicardial Breakthroughs AF mechanisms have a long history of controversy.8 During the first half of the 20th century, 2 theories were prevalent: the concept of reentry around an anatomic obstacle (circus movement reentry),9 and the ectopic focus theory.10 Focus isolation …
[Efficacy of acupuncture as adjunctive treatment on infertility patients with polycystic ovary syndrome].

OBJECTIVE To observe the efficacy differences between acupuncture combined with medication and medication alone for infertility patients with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). METHODS According to random number table, a total of 60 infertility patients with PCOS were randomly assigned into an observation group and a control group, 30 cases in each one. The patients in the control group were treated with diane-35 from the 3rd day into menstruation, and one menstrual cycle was taken as a session of treatment. At the same time of using diane-35, the patients in the observation group were treated with acupuncture at Guanyuan (CV 4), Qihai (CV 6), Sanyinjiao (SP 6), Zusanli (ST 36), Zigong (EX-CA 1), Shenshu (BL 23), Pishu (BL 20), Weishu (BL 21) and Ganshu (BL 18) during non-menstruation period; the acupuncture was given once every two days, three treatments per week. The patients in both groups were treated for two sessions. The basic sex hormone and body mass index (BMI) were compared between the two groups before and after treatment. After ovulation induction treatment, the endometrial thickness, amount of mature follicle, ovulation rate, clinical pregnancy rate, occurrence rate of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) and the number of early spontaneous abortion were compared between the two groups during ovulation. RESULTS After treatment, the luteinizing hormone (LH), testosterone (T) and BMI reduced in the observation group (all P<0.05), while only LH reduced in the control group (P<0.05). The reducing of estradiol (E2), T and BMI in the observation group was more significant than that in the control group (all P<0.05). The ovulation rate was 93.3% (28/30) in the observation group, which was higher than 80.0% (24/30) in the control group (P<0.05). The rate of clinical pregnancy was 43.3% (13/30) in the observation group, which was higher than 33.3% (10/30) in the control group (P<0.05). The differences of endometrial thickness, amount of mature follicle, occurrence rate of OHSS and number of early spontaneous abortion were not significant between the two groups (all P>0.05). CONCLUSION Acupuncture as adjunctive treatment could improve BMI, reduce the levels of LH, E2 and T, increase ovulation reaction and effectively shorten reproduction cycles in infertility patients with PCOS.
Histopathological and ultrastractural alterations in skin , gills , liver and muscle of Siganus canaliculatus and Epinephelus morio caught from Jeddah and Yanbu coast as bio-indicators of oil hydrocarbons pollution

This study aims to investigate the histological alteration in skin, gills, liver and muscle as well the ultrastructure alteration in the liver of Siganus canaliculatus (S. canaliculatus) and Epinephelus morio (E. morio )caught from different sites at Jeddah and Yanbou coast as a bio-indicator for oil pollution. Skin, gills, Livers and muscle of ten fishes of a similar size of each Siganus canaliculatus and Epinephelus morio were used in this study. Tissues samples were immediately taken and prepared for histopathological and ultrastructure alterations investigation. Such alterations were high in fishes collected from the polluted sites either from Jeddah or Yanbu when compared with their corresponding fishes collected from the reference sites. Fishes collected from Jeddah were more polluted than that collected from Yanbu. The highest affected organ was the skin followed by the gills and liver, while the muscles were the lowest ones. Moreover S. canaliculatus fishes were seriously affected than E. morio. The E. morio is highly resistant than S. canaliculatus. The present study indicates that S. canaliculatus was highly affected and showed severe tissue alterations than E. morio. The skin, gills, hepatic and muscular histopathological and hepatic ultrasturctural changes were useful indicators or markers for investigation of oil hydrocarbon pollution. [Mohamed Afifi, Ali Alkaladi, Osama Abu-Zinada and Nabil Zaki Zahed. Histopathological and ultrastractural alterations in skin, gills, liver and muscle of Siganus canaliculatus and Epinephelus morio caught from Jeddah and Yanbu coast as bio-indicators of oil hydrocarbons pollution. Life Sci J 2014;11(8):880-888]. (ISSN:10978135). http://www.lifesciencesite. com. 131
Cultural influences on infant feeding practices.

1. Suzinne Pak-Gorstein, MD, PhD, MPH* 2. Aliya Haq, MS, RD† 3. Elinor A. Graham, MD, MPH* 1. *Harborview Medical Center, Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash 2. †Harborview Medical Center, Children and Teens Clinic, and Women, Infant, and Children Nutrition Program, Seattle, Wash After completing this article, readers should be able to: 1. Provide examples of specific cultural beliefs and traditions that affect infant feeding practices. 2. Describe the influence of acculturation in the United States (US) on infant feeding practices among immigrant mothers. 3. Recognize the problem of infant overfeeding among particular groups. 4. Outline a culturally sensitive approach to elicit personal and cultural beliefs regarding infant feeding and to provide effective infant feeding counseling for mothers from different cultural backgrounds. “… all different cultures, whether in a tropical village or in a highly urbanized and technologically sophisticated community, contain some practices and customs which are beneficial to the health and nutrition of the group, and some which are harmful. No culture has a monopoly on wisdom or absurdity. ” Jellife D . Child Nutrition in Developing Countries: A Handbook for Fieldworkers. Washington, DC: United States Public Health Service; 1968 Healthy infant feeding practices, including exclusive breastfeeding and delayed introduction of complementary foods, are promoted by health clinicians as well as by numerous national and international organizations. However, mothers base their infant feeding decisions on an array of factors, including their experiences, family demands, socioeconomic circumstances, and cultural beliefs. As the number of children from immigrant families in the US increases, more pediatric clinicians are working not only with families of color who have a long heritage of living in the US spanning many generations, but also with families new to the US whose cultural backgrounds are markedly different from their own. Health professionals are faced with a growing challenge to appreciate the cultural beliefs influencing infant feeding practices for both recent immigrants as well as for resident US ethnic groups. Discussions regarding infant feeding often are the initial interaction between clinician and mother and, as such, are important in building a foundation of trust and rapport …
Mapping the Galactic Halo. I. The “Spaghetti” Survey

We describe a major survey of the Milky Way halo designed to test for kinematic substructure caused by destruction of accreted satellites. We use the Washington photometric system to identify halo stars efficiently for spectroscopic follow-up. Tracers include halo giants (detectable out to more than 100 kpc), blue horizontal-branch (BHB) stars, halo stars near the main-sequence turnoff, and the "blue metal-poor stars" of Preston, Beers, & Shectman. We demonstrate the success of our survey by showing spectra of stars we have identified in all these categories, including giants as distant as 75 kpc. We discuss the problem of identifying the most distant halo giants. In particular, extremely metal-poor halo K dwarfs are present in approximately equal numbers to the distant giants for V > 18, and we show that our method will distinguish reliably between these two groups of metal-poor stars. We plan to survey 100 deg2 at high Galactic latitude and expect to increase the numbers of known halo giants, BHB stars, and turnoff stars by more than an order of magnitude. In addition to the strong test that this large sample will provide for the question, Was the Milky Way halo accreted from satellite galaxies? we will improve the accuracy of mass measurements of the Milky Way beyond 50 kpc via the kinematics of the many distant giants and BHB stars we find. We show that one of our first data sets constrains the halo density law over Galactocentric radii of 5–20 kpc and z-heights of 2–15 kpc. The data support a flattened power-law halo with b/a of 0.6 and exponent -3.0. More complex models with a varying axial ratio may be needed with a larger data set.
Thermal effects of tissue optics in symbiont‐bearing reef‐building corals

Reflectance spectroscopy and microscale temperature measurements were used to investigate links between optical and thermal properties of corals. Coral tissue heating showed a species‐specific linear correlation to the absorptance of incident irradiance. Heat budgets estimated from absorptance and thermal boundary layer measurements indicated differences in the relative contribution of convection and conduction to heat loss in Porites lobata and Stylophora pistillata, and a higher heat conduction into the skeleton of the thin‐tissued branching S. pistillata as compared to the massive thick‐tissued P. lobata. Decreasing absorptance associated with bleaching resulted in decreased surface warming of coral tissue. Action spectra of coral tissue heating showed elevated efficiency of heating at wavelengths corresponding to absorption maxima of major zooxanthellae photopigments. Generally, energy‐rich radiation (< 500 nm) showed the highest heating efficiency. Species‐specific relationships between coral tissue heating and absorptance can be strongly affected by differences in the thermal properties of the skeleton and/or tissue arrangement within the skeletal matrix, indicating a yet unresolved potential for coral shape, size, and tissue thickness to affect heat dissipation and especially the conduction of heat into the coral skeleton.
Cell boundary analysis using radial search for dual staining techniques

In medical image analysis and segmentation, many conventional methods work very well on good quality tissue section images, but often fail when the images are not of good quality. Active contours or snakes are widely used in medical image processing applications especially for boundary detection. However, the problems with initialization and poor performance of snakes on noisy images limit their efficacy. As an alternative, this research presents an efficient and robust method to segment cell nuclei and their respective boundaries for low contrast cell images using a combination of a radial search and interpolation methods. This radial search method can be used in medical image analysis and segmentation applications for images which are very noisy or whose structural regions are not very clear. The processes in this method consists of (1) extracting the location of the cell nuclei (2) finding the edge information of the given image (3) applying radial search on the edge image patch for finding the radial initialization and finally (4) using an interpolation method to find the desired boundary points, which describe the potential boundary points to best fit to that candidate shape or cell. The results shown on the images of branch aorta of rabbit are suggesting that the proposed radial search method correctly finds the boundaries even on very low contrast images, which can be used for further medical image analysis.
A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN YOUNG AND ELDERLY INDIAN MALES ON AUDIO-VISUAL REACTION TIME

Background: With the advancing age there is an increase in the incidence of falls and thereby morbidity. An important aspect of increase in the incidence of these mishaps may be due to the effect of age on reaction time. Objectives; Hence, the present study was undertaken to study the effect of advancing age on Auditory, Visual Reaction times. Method: 50 Normal healthy male subjects were distributed in two groups according to age (18-28 yrs) and (45-55 yrs) and their Audio-Visual reaction time was found out with the help of Audio-Visual reaction time apparatus. Results: Assessed by using Student „t‟ test. It was found that Audio-Visual reaction time increases as the age advances and Audio-Visual reaction time is significantly different amongst the two studied age groups which showed that as the age advances there is effect of of ageing on the myelination of neurones. Conclusion: Delayed Audio-Visual reaction time in elderly age group suggests that they should be more cautious during general movements as well as during driving.
Sensitisation to cereal flour allergens is a major determinant of elevated exhaled nitric oxide in bakers

Objective Various studies of the usefulness of fractional exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) in occupational settings remain inconclusive. The objective was to investigate the determinants of increased FeNO in bakery workers. Methods A cross-sectional study of 424 supermarket bakery workers used a questionnaire and serum specific IgE to wheat, rye and α-amylase. FeNO during the work shift were assessed using a hand-held portable sampling device (NIOX MINO). Results The median FeNO was 15 ppb, in atopics 21 ppb and current smokers 12 ppb. Increased FeNO was strongly associated with IgE to wheat independent of smoking and atopy status. In the multivariate model, IgE to wheat, current smoking, atopy and age were significantly associated with FeNO. Stratified analysis in a subgroup of atopic non-smokers demonstrated the strongest relationship between FeNO and various clinical endpoint such as wheat (OR=9.43) or rye (OR=11.76) sensitisation, work-related allergic rhinitis (OR=8.13) or asthma (OR=5.44), and probable baker's asthma (OR=6.72). Conclusions Sensitisation to cereal flour allergens rather than asthma symptoms is a major determinant of elevated FeNO among bakers. This relationship is modified by atopy and current smoking status.
Equations of viscous flow of silicate liquids with different approaches for universality of high temperature viscosity limit

The Vogel-Fulcher-Tammann (VFT), Avramov and Milchev (AM) as well as Mauro, Yue, Ellison, Gupta and Allan (MYEGA) functions of viscous flow are analysed when the compositionally independent high temperature viscosity limit is introduced instead of the compositionally dependent parameter �∞. Two different approaches are adopted. In the first approach, it is assumed that each model should have its own (average) hightemperature viscosity parameter �∞. In that case, �∞ is different for each of these three models. In the second approach,it is assumedthat the high-temperatureviscosity is a truly universalvalue, independentof the model. In this case, the parameter �∞ would be the same and would have the same value: log�∞ =−1.93dPa·s for all three models. 3D diagrams can successfully predict the difference in behaviour of viscous functions when average or universal high temperature limit is applied in calculations. The values of the AM functions depend, to a greater extent, on whether the average or the universal value for �∞ is used which is not the case with the VFT model. Our tests and values of standard error of estimate (SEE) show that there are no general rules whether the average or universal high temperature viscosity limit should be applied to get the best agreement with the experimental functions.
Biomaterials for Tendon/Ligament and Skin Regeneration

Tendon/ligament injury or skin injuries due to diseases, trauma, and surgery are common. Timely functional repair and tissue regeneration is a key to improve the quality of life of the patient while reducing health care cost. Tendon/ligament/skin is also enriched in a common extracellular matrix (ECM), collagen I, III, and elastin. Tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, the combination of (stem) cells, growth factors, and biomaterial scaffolds, is an emergent field, which has attracted substantial attention over the years. Biomaterials are considered the foundation of regenerative medicine. A key to find a new solution to tendon/ligament/skin healing is to synthesize new functional biomaterials, which have better biomechanical properties, biodegradability, and cell supporting prop ‐ erties. This chapter will review existing FDA‐approved biomaterial‐based therapy, as well as those in development.
Evaluating dengue burden in Africa in passive fever surveillance and seroprevalence studies: protocol of field studies of the Dengue Vaccine Initiative

Introduction Dengue is an important and well-documented public health problem in the Asia-Pacific and Latin American regions. However, in Africa, information on disease burden is limited to case reports and reports of sporadic outbreaks, thus hindering the implementation of public health actions for disease control. To gather evidence on the undocumented burden of dengue in Africa, epidemiological studies with standardised methods were launched in three locations in Africa. Methods and analysis In 2014–2017, the Dengue Vaccine Initiative initiated field studies at three sites in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso; Lambaréné, Gabon and Mombasa, Kenya to obtain comparable incidence data on dengue and assess its burden through standardised hospital-based surveillance and community-based serological methods. Multidisciplinary measurements of the burden of dengue were obtained through field studies that included passive facility-based fever surveillance, cost-of-illness surveys, serological surveys and healthcare utilisation surveys. All three sites conducted case detection using standardised procedures with uniform laboratory assays to diagnose dengue. Healthcare utilisation surveys were conducted to adjust population denominators in incidence calculations for differing healthcare seeking patterns. The fever surveillance data will allow calculation of age-specific incidence rates and comparison of symptomatic presentation between patients with dengue and non-dengue using multivariable logistic regression. Serological surveys assessed changes in immune status of cohorts of approximately 3000 randomly selected residents at each site at 6-month intervals. The age-stratified serosurvey data will allow calculation of seroprevalence and force of infection of dengue. Cost-of-illness evaluations were conducted among patients with acute dengue by Rapid Diagnostic Test. Ethics and dissemination By standardising methods to evaluate dengue burden across several sites in Africa, these studies will generate evidence for dengue burden in Africa and data will be disseminated as publication in peer-review journals in 2018.
The effect of 8 weeks of plyometric and resistance training on agility, speed and explosive power in soccer players

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of plyometric and resistance training on agility, speed and explosive power in soccer players. 30 male soccer players who aged 18-25 voluntarily participated in the study. They were randomly assigned in plyometric (n=15) and resistance (n=15) groups. Both groups performed selected soccer-specified plyometric and resistance training for 8 weeks. Data was analyzed using paired t-test, independent t-test, and covariance statistical methods. The results showed that levels of agility, speed, and explosive power in plyometric training group (p=0.0001), and agility and explosive power in resistance training group (p=0.0001) were significantly improved in post-test compared to pre-test. Between-groups comparison showed better records in agility, speed and explosive power for plyometric compared with resistance training group after eight weeks (respectively p=0.032, p=0.0001 and p=0.002). According to the results, it can be concluded that both plyometric and resistance training exercises increase agility and explosive power and reduce sprint time in football players. Plyometric exercises also showed more favorable effects on study variables compared with resistance exercises. Therefore, these types of training methods are suggested to soccer players and coaches for improving speed and performance skill.
Ideological and Personal Zeal Reactions to Threat Among People With High Self-Esteem: Motivated Promotion Focus

After a mortality salience manipulation, participants completed measures of either ideological zeal (Study 1) or personal project zeal (Study 3). Mortality salience increased both kinds of zeal but only among participants with high self-esteem. High self-esteem was positively correlated with dispositional tendencies toward promotion focus, action orientation, and behavioral activation; it was negatively correlated with behavioral inhibition and rumination (Study 2). These findings clarify the role of dispositional self-esteem in mortality salience research and confirm that, as has been found with various other threats, zealous reactions to mortality salience are most pronounced among participants with high self-esteem. Results support a regulatory focus perspective on zealous reactions to threat. Ideological and personal zeal reflect motivated promotion focus reactions that are rewarding because they decrease the motivational relevance, regulatory fit, and subjective salience of threats.