Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Clinical usefulness of the virtual reality-based postural control training on the gait ability in patients with stroke

This study is a single blind randomized controlled trial to determine the effect of virtual reality-based postural control training on the gait ability in patients with chronic stroke. Sixteen subjects were randomly assigned to either experimental group (VR, n= 8) or control group (CPT, n= 8). Subjects in both groups received conventional physical therapy for 60 min per day, five days per week during a period of four weeks. Subjects in the VR group received additional augmented reality-based training for 30 min per day, three days per week during a period of four weeks. The subjects were evaluated one week before and after participating in a four week training and follow-up at one month post-training. Data derived from the gait analyses included spatiotemporal gait parameters, 10 meters walking test (10 mWT). In the gait parameters, subjects in the VR group showed significant improvement, except for cadence at post-training and follow-up within the experimental group. However, no obvious significant improvement was observed within the control group. In between group comparisons, the experimental group (VR group) showed significantly greater improvement only in stride length compared with the control group (P< 0.05), however, no significant difference was observed in other gait parameters. In conclusion, we demonstrate significant improvement in gait ability in chronic stroke patients who received virtual reality based postural control training. These findings suggest that virtual reality (VR) postural control training using real-time information may be a useful approach for enhancement of gait ability in patients with chronic stroke.
A practical theory of micro-solar power sensor networks

Building a micro-solar power system is challenging because it must address long-term system behavior under highly variable solar energy and consider a large design space. We develop a practical theory of micro-solar power systems that is materialized in a simulation suite that models component and system behavior over a long time scale and in an external environment that depends on time, location, weather, and local variations. This simulation provides sufficient accuracy to guide specific design choices in a large design space. Unlike the many macro-solar calculators, this design tool models detailed behavior of milliwatt systems in the worst conditions, rather than typical behavior of kilowatt systems in the best conditions. Our simulation suite is validated with a concrete design of micro-solar power systems, the HydroWatch node. With our simulation suite, micro-solar power systems can be designed in a systematic fashion. Putting the model and empirical vehicle together, the design choices in each component of a micro-solar power system are studied to reach a deployable candidate. The deployment is evaluated by analyzing the effects of different solar profiles across the network. The analysis from the deployment can be used to refine the next system-design iteration.
The effect of aging on blood and plasma viscosity. An 11.6 years follow-up study.

OBJECTIVE Alterations of blood and plasma viscosity can promote atherosclerosis. The relationship between viscosity and aging is still controversial. The present study evaluated the influence of aging on blood and plasma viscosity in a group of subjects followed for 11.6 years. METHODS Forty-five subjects have been evaluated twice 11.6 years apart for hemorheological parameters and coronary heart disease (CHD) risk factors. Plasma viscosity and blood viscosity have been measured with a cone-plate viscometer. Tk has been calculated as index of red blood cell rigidity. CHD risk factors, i.e. obesity, hypertension, hyperlipidemia and diabetes, have been evaluated by routine methods. RESULTS Hematocrit and plasma viscosity did not change during the study, whereas blood viscosity (shear rate 225/sec: 4.46 ± 0.49 vs. 4.81 ± 0.54 cP, p < 0.0001; shear rate 45/sec: 6.19 ± 0.67 vs. 6.65 ± 0.79 cP, p < 0.0001) and Tk (0.80 ± 0.05 vs. 0.83 ± 0.06, p < 0.005) significantly increased. The percent variation in blood viscosity was not associated with the percent variation in any of the CHD risk factors. Furthermore, the increase in blood viscosity was similar in males and females and in subjects with CHD risk profile worsening or not. CONCLUSION The present findings demonstrate that blood viscosity increases with age. This increase seems independent of classical CHD risk factors and is disjoined from haematocrit and plasma viscosity, suggesting a possible direct effect of aging on red blood cells.
Modeling and Performance Analysis of Service Discovery Strategies in Ad Hoc Networks (Extended Abstract)

We define post-query strategies: these are time dependent post-query protocols that are being executed in rounds. We show how existing service discovery protocols, like Jini, Bluetooth, and SLP fit within this framework. We propose several new post-query strategies that can be used for locating a service in an ad-hoc network. These include: non-adaptive, deterministic, randomized, memoryless, incremental, and greedy. We analyze and evaluate several of these strategies and present results of our simulations. Our methodology for evaluating the performance and efficiency of such service discovery protocols can be useful in the context of ad-hoc networks.
The Effect of Titanium Tetrafluoride and Sodium Hypochlorite on the Shear Bond Strength of Methacrylate and Silorane Based Composite Resins: an In-Vitro Study

Statement of the Problem: The bond strength of composites with different adhesive systems with dentin is an important factor in long term durability of composite restorations. The effect of titanium tetrafluoride (TiF4) as anti caries agent and sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) as disinfectant on the shear bond of nanofilled and silorane based composite resins have not been investigated in previous studies. Purpose: This study was conducted to determine bond strength between dentin and two composite systems, by means of shear bond test using TiF4 and NaOCl. Materials and Method: Middle dentin of 60 intact extracted maxillary premolar teeth were exposed by sectioning the crowns at a depth of 2mm from central groove and parallel to the occlusal surface. Standardized smear layer was created using a 600-grit silicon carbide paper and then samples were embedded in acrylic resin blocks. Then the samples were randomly divided into 6 \groups summarized as Group I: Z350, Group II: Z350+ NaOCl, Group III: Z350+ TiF4, Group IV: P90, Group V: P90+ NaOCl, Group VI: P90+ TiF4 according to manufacturer’s instruction. Then samples were subjected to shear bond strength (SBS) test using universal testing machine and data were analyzed using ANOVA and Tukey tests (p< 0.05). Results: Application of 5% NaOCl caused a significant decrease in SBS of nanofilled composite resin (p= 0.004), and also silorane based composite resin (p= 0.006). Application of 4% TiF4 caused a significant increase in SBS of silorane based composite resin (p= 0.001). The effect of TiF4 on nanofilled composite was not statistically significant. Conclusion: Using TiF4 has a positive effect on increasing the shear bond while NaOCl has negative effect on bond strength.
Locally-connected and convolutional neural networks for small footprint speaker recognition

This work compares the performance of deep Locally-Connected Networks (LCN) and Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) for text-dependent speaker recognition. These topologies model the local time-frequency correlations of the speech signal better, using only a fraction of the number of parameters of a fully connected Deep Neural Network (DNN) used in previous works. We show that both a LCN and CNN can reduce the total model footprint to 30% of the original size compared to a baseline fully-connected DNN, with minimal im-pact in performance or latency. In addition, when matching parameters, the LCN improves speaker veriﬁcation performance, as measured by equal error rate (EER), by 8% relative over the baseline without increasing model size or computation. Similarly, a CNN improves EER by 10% relative over the baseline for the same model size but with increased computation.
Tissue Specific Promoters in Colorectal Cancer

Colorectal carcinoma is the third most prevalent cancer in the world. In the most advanced stages, the use of chemotherapy induces a poor response and is usually accompanied by other tissue damage. Significant progress based on suicide gene therapy has demonstrated that it may potentiate the classical cytotoxic effects in colorectal cancer. The inconvenience still rests with the targeting and the specificity efficiency. The main target of gene therapy is to achieve an effective vehicle to hand over therapeutic genes safely into specific cells. One possibility is the use of tumor-specific promoters overexpressed in cancers. They could induce a specific expression of therapeutic genes in a given tumor, increasing their localized activity. Several promoters have been assayed into direct suicide genes to cancer cells. This review discusses the current status of specific tumor-promoters and their great potential in colorectal carcinoma treatment.
Cognitive Functioning and Self-Management in Older People With Diabetes

The extent to which diabetes is responsible for cognitive dysfunction in older people continues to be investigated. Research is also being conducted to better understand why people with diabetes find self-management of their illness a challenge and to develop behavioral interventions to help older people improve their diabetes self-management. There is little research combining these two issues, that is, whether the level and type of cognitive impairment associated with diabetes affects people’s self-management. In this article, we review the evidence for deficits in cognitive functioning in older people with diabetes (predominantly type 2) and consider the implications for diabetes self-management. Case-control and epidemiological studies comparing cognitive functioning of older people with and without diabetes have yielded inconsistent findings. However, one may draw the broad conclusion that there is some evidence of decline in more complex aspects of cognitive function, such as verbal memory, learning, and psychomotor efficiency. Cognitive functioning is probably also adversely affected by age, illness duration, glycemic control, and the presence of other co-morbid conditions. People with diabetes are at increased risk for dementia. This research is limited by lack of consensus on cognitive measures across studies and small sample sizes limiting power to detect differences. We summarize the findings from our study relating cognitive functioning to self-management behaviors for older people with type 2 diabetes, in which we found only a few associations. On the basis of the available evidence, we conclude that the cognitive impairment associated with relatively uncomplicated type 2 diabetes in older adults is unlikely to adversely affect self-management of the illness.
Identification of Methyl Coenzyme M Reductase A (mcrA) Genes Associated with Methane-Oxidizing Archaea

ABSTRACT Phylogenetic and stable-isotope analyses implicated two methanogen-like archaeal groups, ANME-1 and ANME-2, as key participants in the process of anaerobic methane oxidation. Although nothing is known about anaerobic methane oxidation at the molecular level, the evolutionary relationship between methane-oxidizing archaea (MOA) and methanogenic archaea raises the possibility that MOA have co-opted key elements of the methanogenic pathway, reversing many of its steps to oxidize methane anaerobically. In order to explore this hypothesis, the existence and genomic conservation of methyl coenzyme M reductase (MCR), the enzyme catalyzing the terminal step in methanogenesis, was studied in ANME-1 and ANME-2 archaea isolated from various marine environments. Clone libraries targeting a conserved region of the alpha subunit of MCR (mcrA) were generated and compared from environmental samples, laboratory-incubated microcosms, and fosmid libraries. Four out of five novel mcrA types identified from these sources were associated with ANME-1 or ANME-2 group members. Assignment of mcrA types to specific phylogenetic groups was based on environmental clone recoveries, selective enrichment of specific MOA and mcrA types in a microcosm, phylogenetic congruence between mcrA and small-subunit rRNA tree topologies, and genomic context derived from fosmid sequences. Analysis of the ANME-1 and ANME-2 mcrA sequences suggested the potential for catalytic activity based on conservation of active-site amino acids. These results provide a basis for identifying methanotrophic archaea with mcrA sequences and define a functional genomic link between methanogenic and methanotrophic archaea.
Wavelet thresholding of multivalued images

In this paper, a denoising technique for multivalued images exploiting interband correlations is proposed. A redundant wavelet transform is applied and denoising is applied by thresholding wavelet coefficients. Specific functions of the wavelet coefficients are defined that exploit interscale and/or interband correlation of the signal. Three functions are studied: the square of the wavelet coefficients, products of coefficients at adjacent scales, and products of coefficients from different bands. For these functions, the signal and noise probability density functions (pdf) become more separated. The high signal correlation between bands is exploited by summing these products over all bands, in this way separating noise and signal pdfs even more. The noise pdf of the proposed quantities is derived analytically and from this, a wavelet threshold is derived. The technique is demonstrated to outperform single band wavelet thresholding on multispectral remote sensing images and on multimodal MRI images.
Is resistance to anti-tuberculosis drugs associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus? A register review in Beijing, China

Background China has a high burden of drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) and diabetes mellitus (DM). Objective The objectives of this study were to determine the following in patients with culture-confirmed TB: 1) demographic characteristics and disease patterns in relation to the presence or absence of type 2 diabetes and 2) presence or absence of drug resistance to isoniazid (INH), rifampicin (RMP) or both in relation to duration of diabetes and control of diabetes. Design This is a cross-sectional and retrospective study involving record reviews. Results There were 621 patients with culture-positive TB, of whom 187 (30%) had previously known or new type 2 diabetes. In those with diabetes, there was a significantly higher proportion of males, persons aged ≥35 years and patients registered with new TB (p<0.05). Prevalence of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) was 6.2% in new patients (N=422) and 62.3% in previously treated patients (N=199), with no significant differences between those with and without diabetes. In patients with diabetes, there was no association of drug resistance with diabetes duration or disease control [assessed by fasting blood glucose (FBG) at 1 week]. Conclusion A high proportion of patients with TB in a tertiary health facility, Beijing, China, had diabetes, but there was no association between type 2 diabetes and drug-resistant TB. Further prospective studies are needed to confirm these findings.
Analytical performance of time‐resolved fluorometry‐based Innotrac Aio!™ cardiac marker immunoassays

The results of an evaluation of the Innotrac Aio! ™ cardiac markers are presented. This system is based on dry‐chemistry, time‐resolved fluorometry. All assay‐specific reagents are dry‐coated into assay‐specific cups, and only the generic assay buffer is required. The levels of precision attained with pooled serum samples and control materials were acceptable for cTnI and CK‐MB. Myoglobin assay showed higher CV, 5.6–9.5%. The linearity studies were performed in concentration ranges of 0.1–76 μg/L for cTnI, 0.7–450 μg/L for CK–MB and 0.6–1500 μg/L for myoglobin. The markers were found to be linear within the ranges tested. The correlation coefficient between the Aio! and AxSYM cTnI assays was 0.960, and the slope was 0.07. The correlation coefficients between the Aio! and AxSYM CK‐MB and myoglobin assays were 0.995 and 0.971, respectively. They involved some differences in the measured concentrations (Aio! CK‐MB was about 9% higher than AxSYM CK‐MB, and Aio! myoglobin was 19% higher than AxSYM). Comparative studies with all the markers, using EDTA whole blood and lithium heparin plasma specimens and lithium heparin whole blood and plasma, yielded the following results: the slopes were close to 1.0 for all correlations, with the exception of that between CK‐MB EDTA whole blood and lithium heparin (0.83). High correlation coefficients were obtained (≥0.97). The carryover results for all the cardiac markers were good, 0.0%, 0.0%, and 0.3% for cTnI, CK‐MB, and myoglobin, respectively. The analytical detection limits were 0.01 μg/L for cTnI, 0.8 μg/L for CK‐MB and 0.5 μg/L for myoglobin. The stability of the analytes in the lithium heparin samples at room temperature was also studied and was found to be decreased by from 10% (myoglobin and CK‐MB) to 17% (cTnI) in 8 h. Innotrac Aio! provides a rapid and easy quantitative measurement of cardiac TnI, CK‐MB, and myoglobin within <18 min. This system is therefore suitable for use in emergency departments, coronary care units or central laboratory settings.
Loss of the Major GABAA Receptor Subtype in the Brain Is Not Lethal in Mice

The α1β2γ2 is the most abundant subtype of the GABAA receptor and is localized in many regions of the brain. To gain more insight into the role of this receptor subtype in the modulation of inhibitory neurotransmission, we generated mice lacking either the α1 or β2 subunit. In agreement with the reported abundance of this subtype, >50% of total GABAA receptors are lost in both α1−/− and β2−/− mice. Surprisingly, homozygotes of both mouse lines are viable, fertile, and show no spontaneous seizures. Initially half of the α1−/− mice died prenatally or perinatally, but they exhibited a lower mortality rate in subsequent generations, suggesting some phenotypic drift and adaptive changes. Both adult α1−/− and β2−/− mice demonstrate normal performances on the rotarod, but β2−/− mice displayed increased locomotor activity. Purkinje cells of the cerebellum primarily express α1β2γ2 receptors, and in electrophysiological recordings from α1−/− mice GABA currents in these neurons are dramatically reduced, and residual currents have a benzodiazepine pharmacology characteristic of α2- or α3-containing receptors. In contrast, the cerebellar Purkinje neurons from β2−/− mice have only a relatively small reduction of GABA currents. In β2−/− mice expression levels of all six α subunits are reduced by ∼50%, suggesting that the β2 subunit can coassemble with α subunits other than just α1. Our data confirm that α1β2γ2 is the major GABAA receptor subtype in the murine brain and demonstrate that, surprisingly, the loss of this receptor subtype is not lethal.
Basal sympathetic predominance in periodic limb movements in sleep with obstructive sleep apnea

Because the impact of periodic limb movements in sleep (PLMS) is controversial, no consensus has been reached on the therapeutic strategy for PLMS in obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). To verify the hypothesis that PLMS is related to a negative impact on the cardiovascular system in OSA patients, this study investigated the basal autonomic regulation by heart rate variability (HRV) analysis. Sixty patients with mild‐to‐moderate OSA who underwent polysomnography (PSG) and completed sleep questionnaires were analysed retrospectively and divided into the PLMS group (n = 30) and the non‐PLMS group (n = 30). Epochs without any sleep events or continuous effects were evaluated using HRV analysis. No significant difference was observed in the demographic data, PSG parameters or sleep questionnaires between the PLMS and non‐PLMS groups, except for age. Patients in the PLMS group had significantly lower normalized high frequency (n‐HF), high frequency (HF), square root of the mean of the sum of the squares of difference between adjacent NN intervals (RMSSD) and standard deviation of all normal to normal intervals index (SDNN‐I), but had a higher normalized low frequency (n‐LF) and LF/HF ratio. There was no significant difference in the Epworth Sleepiness Scale, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, the Short‐Form 36 and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale between the two groups. After adjustment for confounding variables, PLMS remained an independent predictor of n‐LF (β = 0.0901, P = 0.0081), LF/HF ratio (β = 0.5351, P = 0.0361), RMSSD (β = −20.1620, P = 0.0455) and n‐HF (β = −0.0886, P = 0.0134). In conclusion, PLMS is related independently to basal sympathetic predominance and has a potentially negative impact on the cardiovascular system of OSA patients.
Investing in Threatened Species Conservation: Does Corruption Outweigh Purchasing Power?

In many sectors, freedom in capital flow has allowed optimization of investment returns through choosing sites that provide the best value for money. These returns, however, can be compromised in countries where corruption is prevalent. We assessed where the best value for money might be obtained for investment in threatened species that occur at a single site, when taking into account corruption. We found that the influence of corruption on potential investment decisions was outweighed by the likely value for money in terms of pricing parity. Nevertheless global conservation is likely to get best returns in terms of threatened species security by investing in “honest” countries than in corrupt ones, particularly those with a high cost of living.
Fitness landscapes and difficulty in genetic programming

The structure of the fitness landscape on which genetic programming operates is examined. The landscapes of a range of problems of known difficulty are analyzed in an attempt to determine which landscape measures correlate with the difficulty of the problem. The autocorrelation of the fitness values of random walks, a measure which has been shown to be related to perceived difficulty using other techniques, is only a weak indicator of the difficulty as perceived by genetic programming. All of these problems show unusually low autocorrelation. Comparison of the range of landscape basin depths at the end of adaptive walks on the landscapes shows good correlation with problem difficulty, over the entire range of problems examined. <<ETX>>