Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Occupational lead exposure and amino acid profiles and liver function tests in industrial workers

The aim of the present study is to determine the effect of blood lead on the plasma levels of amino acids and serum liver enzymes in industrial workers in United Arab Emirates (UAE). This comparison study consisted of 100 industrial workers (exposed) and 100 non-industrial workers (non-exposed), matched for age, sex and nationality selected from Al-Ain, Abu-Dhabi Emirates. Industrial workers had higher proportion (19%) of smokers than non-industrial workers (11%) which was not considered to be statistically significantly different. Industrial workers had significantly higher mean of blood lead level (77.5 - 42.8 w g dl -1 ) than non-industrial workers (19.8 - 12.3 w g dl -1 ). The amino acid analysis showed higher values among industrial than non-industrial workers for histidine, isoleucine, leucine, threonine, lysine, valine, methionine and arginine (essential amino acids, ( p <0.0001). Ornithine, taurine, glutamic acid, serine, glycine, proline and alanine (non-essential amino acids) showed significantly higher values in industrial when compared with the non-industrial workers ( p <0.0001). Plasma liver function test, cardiac enzymes and renal function test were carried out on industrial and non-industrial workers. The results revealed alkaline phosphatase ( p =0.012) and lactate dehydrogenase ( p =0.029) were significantly higher in industrial than in non-industrial workers. On the basis of this study, it can be concluded that a substantial difference in amino acid profiles, blood lead and LFT between exposed and non-exposed was found. These results might be related to lead exposure and might have affects on the kidneys or liver.
Relation between Red Cell Distribution Width and Fibroblast Growth Factor 23 Cleaving in Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease and Heart Failure

Objective In chronic kidney disease (CKD), both anemia and deregulated phosphate metabolism are common and predictive of adverse outcome. Previous studies suggest that iron status influences phosphate metabolism by modulating proteolytic cleavage of FGF23 into C-terminal fragments. Red cell distribution width (RDW) was recently identified as a strong prognostic determinant for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, independently of iron status. We assessed whether RDW is associated with FGF23 cleaving in CKD patients with heart failure. Materials and Methods The associations between RDW and either intact FGF23 (iFGF23), C-terminal FGF23 (cFGF23, reflecting iFGF23 and C-terminal fragments together) and the iFGF23/cFGF23 ratio were analyzed in 52 patients with CKD (eGFR 34,9 ± 13.9 ml/min/1.73m2) and chronic heart failure (CHF). Associations between RDW and FGF23 forms were studied by linear regression analysis adjusted for parameters of renal function, iron metabolism, phosphate metabolism and inflammation. Results Median cFGF23 levels were 197.5 [110–408.5] RU/ml, median iFGF23 levels were 107.3 [65.1–162.2] pg/ml and median FGF23 ratio was 0.80 [0.37–0.86]. Mean RDW was 14.1 ± 1.2%. cFGF23 and RDW were associated (β = 1.63x10-3, P <0.001), whereas iFGF23 and RDW were not (β = -1.38x10-3, P = 0.336). The iFGF23/cFGF23 ratio was inversely associated with RDW. The difference between cFGF23 and iFGF23 (cFGF23- iFGF23) was positively associated with RDW (β = 1.74x10-3, P< 0.001). The association between cFGF23 and RDW persisted upon multivariable linear regression analysis, adjusted for parameters of renal function, phosphate metabolism, iron metabolism and inflammation (β = 0.97x10-3, P = 0.047). Conclusion RDW is associated with cFGF23 but not with iFGF23 levels in patients with CKD and CHF. This suggests a connection between RDW and FGF23 catabolism, independent of iron status and inflammation. Future studies are needed to unravel underlying mechanisms and whether these pertain to the link between RDW and outcome.
Site of attachment of encephalomyocarditis virus on human erythrocytes

Previous studies of the attachment of encephalomyocarditis (EMC) virus to human erythrocytes concluded that the glycophorins, a family of human erythrocyte sialoglycoproteins, act as EMC virus receptors. Evidence is presented that the major glycophorin species, glycophorin A, is the receptor for EMC virus attachment to human erythrocytes. Comparison of the structures of glycophorins A and B and sialoglycopeptides released by chymotrypsin and trypsin treatment of erythrocytes confirmed our previous suggestion (A. T. H. Burness and I. U. Pardoe, J. Gen. Virol. 64:1137-1148, 1983) that attachment of EMC virus to glycophorin A involves the region containing amino acids 35 to approximately 70 (numbered from the NH2 terminus), four of which (amino acids 37, 44, 47, and 50) are glycosylated. In addition, we provide evidence that the segment containing amino acids 35 to 39 with an oligosaccharide side chain on threonine-37 is particularly important for EMC virus attachment.
A Dynamic Location Management Scheme for Wirless Networks Using Cascaded Correlation Neural Network

—In this paper we propose a novel intelligent technique for reducing the location update and paging cost. This paper focuses on the location management procedure, which is the process that allows the network to identify the exact location of a mobile terminal (MT) for a call delivery. Location management occurs in two stages: locations updates and call delivery. When a mobile terminal moves from one location area to another it performs a location update procedure that provides the network with its location information. On the other hand, call delivery means that the network is queried for location information on the called MT. In order to actually deliver the call, the network needs to identify the exact location of the called MT using a paging procedure. In this paper we present a user pattern learning strategy using intelligent algorithm called Cascaded Correlation Neural Network to find the called MT's current cell, within its registered Location Area, in the most accurate and efficient way possible. We compare the proposed algorithm with cayrici's strategy and standard UMTS procedure. The search cost and update cost are used for performance analysis. The experimental results show that the proposed technique is more efficient than the other existing techniques.
The wild-derived inbred mouse strain SPRET/Ei is resistant to LPS and defective in IFN-β production

Although activation of Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4)-positive cells is essential for eliminating Gram-negative bacteria, overactivation of these cells by the TLR4 ligand LPS initiates a systemic inflammatory reaction and shock. Here we demonstrate that SPRET/Ei mice, derived from Mus spretus, exhibit a dominant resistance against LPS-induced lethality. This resistance is mediated by bone marrow-derived cells. Macrophages from these mice exhibit normal signaling and gene expression responses that depend on the myeloid differentiation factor 88 adaptor protein, but they are impaired in IFN-β production. The defect appears to be specific for IFN-β, although the SPRET/Ei IFN-β promoter is normal. In vivo IFN-β induction by LPS or influenza virus is very low in SPRET/Ei mice, but IFN-β-treatment restores the sensitivity to LPS, and IFN type 1 receptor-deficient mice are also resistant to LPS. Because of the defective induction of IFN-β, these mice are completely resistant to Listeria monocytogenes and highly sensitive to Leishmania major infection. Stimulation of SPRET/Ei macrophages leads to rapid down-regulation of IFN type 1 receptor mRNA expression, which is reflected in poor induction of IFN-β-dependent genes. This finding indicates that the resistance of SPRET/Ei mice to LPS is due to disruption of a positive-feedback loop that amplifies IFN-β production. In contrast to TLR4-deficient mice, SPRET/Ei mice resist both LPS and sepsis induced with Klebsiella pneumoniae.
Metataxonomic approach to decipher the polymicrobial burden in diabetic foot ulcer and its biofilm mode of infection

Chronic diabetic foot is a global burden affecting millions of people, and the chronicity of an ulcer is directly linked to the diverse bacterial burden and its biofilm mode of infection. The bacterial diversity of 100 chronic diabetic ulcer samples was profiled via traditional culturing method as well as metagenomic approach by sequencing the 16S rRNA V3 hyper‐variable region on Illumina Miseq Platform (Illumina, Inc., San Diego, CA). All the relevant clinical metadata, including duration of diabetes, grade of ulcer, presence of neuropathy, and glycaemic level, were noted and correlated with the microbiota. The occurrence and establishment of bacterial biofilm over chronic wound tissues was revealed by Fluorescent in situ Hybridization and Scanning Electron Microscopy. The biofilm‐forming ability of predominant bacterial isolates was studied via crystal violet assay and Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy. The dominant phyla obtained from bacterial diversity analysis were Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, and Actinobacteria. The dominant aerobic pathogens identified by culture method are Pseudomonas, Proteus, Enterococcus, and Staphylococcus, whereas high‐throughput sequencing revealed heightened levels of Streptococcus and Corynebacterium along with 22 different obligate anaerobes. The biofilm occurrence in chronic diabetic ulcer infection is well analysed. Herein, we illustrate the comprehensive pattern of bacterial infection and identify the community composition of chronic wound pathogenic biofilm.
Early and effective use of ketamine for treatment of phantom limb pain

Treatment for phantom limb pain is difficult and challenging. There is often suboptimum treatment with fewer than 10% receiving lasting relief. Treatments based broadly on other neuropathic pains may not be appropriate for a clinical success. We report a case of phantom limb pain, which proved resistant to multiple analgesics, including opioids and continuous epidural blockade. Treatment with intravenous (IV) ketamine as an alternate day infusion, gave complete remission of phantom limb pain. This demonstrates an early and effective use of a potent NMDA antagonist for treatment of phantom limb pain. Mechanisms underlying phantom limb pain are briefly discussed.
Learning Structured Embeddings of Knowledge Bases

Many Knowledge Bases (KBs) are now readily available and encompass colossal quantities of information thanks to either a long-term funding effort (e.g. WordNet, OpenCyc) or a collaborative process (e.g. Freebase, DBpedia). However, each of them is based on a different rigorous symbolic framework which makes it hard to use their data in other systems. It is unfortunate because such rich structured knowledge might lead to a huge leap forward in many other areas of AI like nat- ural language processing (word-sense disambiguation, natural language understanding, .), vision (scene classification, image semantic annotation, .) or collaborative filtering. In this paper, we present a learning process based on an innovative neural network architecture designed to embed any of these symbolic representations into a more flexible continuous vector space in which the original knowledge is kept and enhanced. These learnt embeddings would allow data from any KB to be easily used in recent machine learning meth- ods for prediction and information retrieval. We illustrate our method on WordNet and Freebase and also present a way to adapt it to knowledge extraction from raw text.
Surveillance video coding via low-rank and sparse decomposition

Surveillance videos are usually with a static or gradually changed background. The state-of-the-art block-based codec, H.264/AVC, is not sufficiently efficient for encoding surveillance videos since it cannot exploit the strong background temporal redundancy in a global manner. In this paper, motivated by the recent advance on low-rank and sparse decomposition (LRSD), we propose to apply it for the compression of surveillance videos. In particular, the LRSD is employed to decompose a surveillance video into the low-rank component, representing the background, and the sparse component, representing the moving objects. Then, we design different coding methods for the two different components. We represent the frames of the background by very few independent frames based on their linear dependency, which dramatically removes the temporal redundancy. Experimental results show that, for the compression of surveillance videos, the proposed scheme can significantly outperform H.264/AVC, up to 3 dB PSNR gain, especially at relatively low bit rates.
Two circulation regimes of the wind-driven Arctic Ocean

The major goal of this paper is to demonstrate the existence in the Arctic Ocean of two regimes of wind-forced circulation. We simulated the vertically averaged currents, sea level heights, and ice drift in the Arctic Ocean from 1946 to 1993 using a two-dimensional, wind-forced, barotropic model that includes frictional coupling between the ocean and ice. The model has a spatial resolution of 55.5 km and is driven by winds, river runoff, and an imposed but realistic sea level slope between the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans. There is a good agreement between velocities from observed buoy motions and velocities of modeled ice drift even though the model lacks ocean baroclinicity and ice thermodynamics. The results indicate that wind-driven motion in the central Arctic alternates between anticyclonic and cyclonic circulation, with each regime persisting for 5–7 years, based upon our analysis of the modeled sea level and ice motion. Anticyclonic wind-driven motion in the central Arctic appeared during 1946–1952, 1958–1963, 1972–1979, and 1984–1988, and cyclonic motion appeared during 1953–1957, 1964–1971, 1980–1983, and 1989–1993. Shifts from one regime to another are forced by changes in the location and intensity of the Icelandic low and the Siberian high. The two regimes may help explain the significant, basin-scale changes in the Arctic's temperature and salinity structure observed recently, the Great Salinity Anomaly, and the variability of ice conditions in the Arctic Ocean.
Studies of spontaneous combustion of coal in Shendong underground mines and surface stockpiles

iv TABLE OF CONTENT . vi LIST OF FIGURES . xii LIST OF TABLES . xix LIST OF SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS . xxi 1 GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 1 1.1 Background . 1 1.2 Problem statement . 4 1.3 Research objectives . 6 1.4 Research timeframe . 6 1.5 Thesis outline . 7 2 BASICS OF SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION OF COAL . 10 2.1 Fundamentals of coal self-heating and oxidation kinetics . 10 2.1.1 Mechanistic understanding of the hazard . 10 2.1.2 A brief study of coal oxidation kinetics . 13 2.2 Numerical solutions to self-heating of coal mass . 22 2.3 Theoretical basis of coal heating . 25 2.3. 1 Energy conservation . 25 2.3. 2 Mass conservation . 27 2.3. 3 Momentum balance . 29 2.3. 4 Continuity . 30 2.4 Experimental methods . 30
REMOVAL OF POLLUTANTS FROM WASTEWATER BY COAL BOTTOM ASH

ABSTRACT Coal bottom ash produced from a thermal power plant was used in a batch experiment to investigate the adsorption characteristic of this bottom ash. The adsorbate solutions were synthetic wastewaters contained copper (Cu2+) or COD and a sanitary landfill leachate. The influences of various factors, such as contact time, pH, initial adsorbate concentration and temperature on the sorption have been studied. Experimental results show that coal bottom ash had a good adsorption capacity for copper and COD and could reduce the concentrations of various pollutants in the leachate. The adsorption capacities of each gram of coal bottom ash were 0.48 mg Cu (at pH 4 and temperature 25°C) and 7.5 mg COD (at pH 5 and temperature 25°C); their adsorption behaviors conformed to Freundlich's adsorption model. In treating leachate, the removal efficiencies of COD, NH3–N, total Kjeldah nitrogen, phosphorus, Fe3+, Mn2+ and Zn2+ were 47, 39.4, 31.1, 92.9, 96.5, 94.3 and 82.2%, respectively. Based on these results we can conclude that it is possible to use coal bottom ash for removing pollutants from wastewaters. The adsorption capacities of coal bottom ash for pollutants were also determined.
High-Temperature Piezoelectric Sensing

Piezoelectric sensing is of increasing interest for high-temperature applications in aerospace, automotive, power plants and material processing due to its low cost, compact sensor size and simple signal conditioning, in comparison with other high-temperature sensing techniques. This paper presented an overview of high-temperature piezoelectric sensing techniques. Firstly, different types of high-temperature piezoelectric single crystals, electrode materials, and their pros and cons are discussed. Secondly, recent work on high-temperature piezoelectric sensors including accelerometer, surface acoustic wave sensor, ultrasound transducer, acoustic emission sensor, gas sensor, and pressure sensor for temperatures up to 1,250 °C were reviewed. Finally, discussions of existing challenges and future work for high-temperature piezoelectric sensing are presented.
Media Violence Exposure and Frontal Lobe Activation Measured by Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Aggressive and Nonaggressive Adolescents

Objective: To understand better the relation between media violence exposure, brain functioning, and trait aggression, this study investigated the association between media violence exposure and brain activation as measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in groups of normal adolescents and adolescents with disruptive behavior disorder (DBD) with aggressive features. Methods: Seventy-one participants underwent neuropsychologic evaluation and assessment of exposure to violent media. Subjects also were evaluated with fMRI while performing a counting Stroop (CS) task. Results: Frontal lobe activation was reduced in aggressive subjects compared with control subjects. In addition, differences in frontal lobe activation were associated with differences in media violence exposure. Specifically, activation during performance of the CS in control subjects with high media violence exposure resembled that seen in DBD subjects. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that media violence exposure may be associated with alterations in brain functioning whether or not trait aggression is present.
The Stoplight Program: A Proactive Physical Therapy Intervention for Children With Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Chemotherapy may cause neuromuscular impairments that can have life-long effects. The Stoplight Program (SLP) was developed as a proactive physical therapy (PT) intervention directed at impairments in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). In this program evaluation, we assessed the feasibility of the SLP delivered as part of standard care and identified body function and activity patterns in patients who received the intervention. Children ages 1 to 22 years, diagnosed with ALL, received an assessment by a physical therapist as part of usual care. The SLP intervention used 3 levels to categorize the impairment levels and intensity of PT. Of the children (n = 135) screened, 46% completed 5 intervention visits and 32% completed the program and met discharge criteria. At initial assessment, 46% of children ages 1 to 5 years and 67% of children ages 6 to 22 years had abnormal motor function. Those completing the program tested within the healthy norms. Research is needed on variables that influence adherence to a PT program and the range of functional impairment and activity limitations in this population.
Observation Distance and Recognition of Photographs of Celebrities' Faces

Subjects were tested to assess the distance at which they could recognize the faces of celebrities (more specifically, a set of 44 portrait photographs of movie and television actors). The set of test photographs was shown initially at a distance of 200 ft. and then closer in increments of 20 ft. When the actor in a given photograph was identified, either by name, character role, or by the movie or television show in which the actor had starred, the recognition-distance was recorded and the photograph was removed from the test set. Those which were not recognized (even at the closest distance) were not included in the data summaries or statistical analysis. In calculating recognition-distance for each photograph, the values were adjusted to reflect the distance at which recognition would have occurred if all the faces were of normal size. The upper limit for recognition, as defined by the distance above which only 10% of the faces are identified, was just over 160 ft. for women, and just under 200 ft. for men. There was also a significant difference in mean recognition distance between women and men. The large range of recognition-distance (across photographs and across subjects) argues that the distance is not controlled primarily by the feature detail provided in a given photograph or by the discrimination and recall skills of the observer. More likely it is a function of diverse memory associations, so that the distance at which each photograph is recognized will depend on such factors as frequency and recency of exposure, perceived attractiveness, and how much the subject admires the celebrity.
Integrated control of hypertension by olmesartan medoxomil and hydrochlorothiazide and rationale for combination

Hypertension affects nearly one-third of all individuals in the US, yet one-half of all treated patients achieve blood pressure (BP) controlled to recommended goals. The percentage of patients with uncontrolled BP is likely to be much higher when considering the number of patients who are not even aware of their hypertensive state. Elevated BP is associated with increased risks of cardiovascular events and end-organ damage. Antihypertensive monotherapy is not always sufficient to achieve BP goals, and thus more aggressive treatment regimens need to be considered. Antihypertensive combination therapy, which may improve tolerability, offers the benefit of targeting different mechanisms of action. Numerous outcomes studies support the use of a renin–angiotensin system inhibitor as a first-line choice in antihypertensive therapy. This review discusses the benefits of combination therapy with the angiotensin type II receptor blocker olmesartan medoxomil (OM) paired with the thiazide diuretic hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ). The pharmacokinetic properties of OM will be reviewed in addition to efficacy studies that support OM + HCTZ combination therapy over other possible antihypertensive combinations. Finally, a rationale for choosing HCTZ over another diuretic, chlorthalidone, will also be discussed based on pharmacokinetic differences, clinical concerns, and trends in use.