Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
G-014 PREVALENCE AND SOME IMPORTANT RISK FACTORS OF HYPERTENSION IN BAN PAEW DISTRICT, SECOND REPORT

Background Hypertension (HT) has been one of the leading global risk factors for health,so it is importantto indicate groups of people with high risk(s) of HT to provide them with lifestyles modification and checking blood pressure (BP) periodically for early detection of HT. Objective To determine the prevalence of HT and some important risk factors in suspected high risk group. Material and Method Randomized villages in Ban Paew District Samuthsakorn Province; Central Thailand which were near the sea. The authors conducted the survey in February – April 2002 and 2003; getting one volunteer from each house who was in the age of 40–69 years (y). Volunteers were advised to fast from 8 p.m. until next morning for blood drawn, checking the weight, height and waist. BP was measured by using the automatic BP; history, physical examination, etc. were done. BP at 140/90 mm. Hg or higher either systole or diastole and also persons with currently treatment would be diagnosed as hypertension. Result Total of 1,079 volunteers with completed data, there were 153 (14.2 %) being known HT; 143 (19.5%) from735 and 62 (32.5 %) from 191volunteers, with no history of HT and not knowing their BP being hypertensive respectively. So a total of 205 (22.1%) from 926 volunteers were hypertensive with 89 (26.6 %) from 335 men, 116 (19.6 %) from 591 women (p = 0.0145), and 32 (3.5%) with isolated systolic hypertension. HT increased significantly in age of 60–69 y more than 50–59 y and 40–49 y; also with BMI over 25 (p = 0.0002), drinking alcohol (p = 0.0384); but no significance with smoking (p = 0.2139), eating salty foods (p = 0.6568); however, the group which ate sour taste had borderline significance for negative risk of hypertension (p = 0.0489). Conclusion The authors reported the prevalence of 22.1% having hypertension in the age group of 40–69 years and very high up to 32.5% in the group of not knowing their BP. Hypertension significantly increased with older age group from 40–49 to 60–69 y, male gender, BMI over 25, drinking alcohol; and with borderline significance for being a negative risk of hypertension in eating sour taste group.
Plasma biomarkers and cystic fibrosis lung disease.

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to determine whether plasma biomarkers reflect changes in lung function and respiratory exacerbations associated with CF lung disease. METHODS Plasma human leukocyte elastase/alpha1 antitrypsin complex (pHLE complex) values were measured in 28 adult CF patients and 47 healthy volunteers and correlated with forced expiratory volume (FEV1) and forced vital capacity (FVC). pHLE complexes were studied during respiratory exacerbations and after antibiotic therapy. Plasma cytokines and sialic acid were also measured. RESULTS pHLE complexes were increased in CF patients (p < 0.01), were inversely correlated with FEV1 (r = 0.71) and FVC (r = 0.67) and returned to normal levels after intravenous antibiotics (p < 0.001). Plasma cytokines did not correlate with lung function. Total sialic acid increased during CF respiratory exacerbations and decreased after antibiotic therapy. CONCLUSION Plasma sialic acid and pHLE complexes reflect clinically meaningful changes in CF lung disease. In contrast, plasma cytokine levels did not correlate with lung function.
Massive Regime Shifts and High Activity of Heterotrophic Bacteria in an Ice-Covered Lake

In winter 2009/10, a sudden under-ice bloom of heterotrophic bacteria occurred in the seasonally ice-covered, temperate, deep, oligotrophic Lake Stechlin (Germany). Extraordinarily high bacterial abundance and biomass were fueled by the breakdown of a massive bloom of Aphanizomenon flos-aquae after ice formation. A reduction in light resulting from snow coverage exerted a pronounced physiological stress on the cyanobacteria. Consequently, these were rapidly colonized, leading to a sudden proliferation of attached and subsequently of free-living heterotrophic bacteria. Total bacterial protein production reached 201 µg C L−1 d−1, ca. five times higher than spring-peak values that year. Fluorescence in situ hybridization and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis at high temporal resolution showed pronounced changes in bacterial community structure coinciding with changes in the physiology of the cyanobacteria. Pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA genes revealed that during breakdown of the cyanobacterial population, the diversity of attached and free-living bacterial communities were reduced to a few dominant families. Some of these were not detectable during the early stages of the cyanobacterial bloom indicating that only specific, well adapted bacterial communities can colonize senescent cyanobacteria. Our study suggests that in winter, unlike commonly postulated, carbon rather than temperature is the limiting factor for bacterial growth. Frequent phytoplankton blooms in ice-covered systems highlight the need for year-round studies of aquatic ecosystems including the winter season to correctly understand element and energy cycling through aquatic food webs, particularly the microbial loop. On a global scale, such knowledge is required to determine climate change induced alterations in carbon budgets in polar and temperate aquatic systems.
Clinical evaluation of generative model based monitoring and comparison with compressive sensing

Generative model based resource efficient monitoring is an emerging data collection technique that has been shown to have compression ratio of around 40 in simulation environment on medical grade data from MIT BIH database. This paper discusses the intermediate outcomes of an ongoing clinical study where GeMREM enabled sensors are deployed on 125 subjects at the St Luke's cardiac hospital. According to the data from 25 patients we see that GeMREM achieves a compression ratio of 33, the reduction attributed to motion artifacts. We also compare the diagnostic accuracy of GeMREM with compressive sensing (CS) based ECG monitoring techniques. The results show that GeMREM although has better resource efficiency, CS is more accurate in representing temporal parameters such as heart rate, standard deviation of heart rate, and heart rate variability. However, interestingly, GeMREM is more accurate in preserving the shape of an ECG beat. Usage of dual basis in CS also cannot achieve shape accuracy comparable to GeMREM. Further, the reconstruction algorithm for GeMREM is almost 20 times faster than that for CS techniques.
Relationship between damage to the cerebellar peduncles and clinical disability in multiple sclerosis.

PURPOSE To assess whether a structural disconnection between the cerebellum and the cerebral hemispheres contributes to cerebellar and brainstem symptoms in multiple sclerosis (MS). MATERIALS AND METHODS This study was approved by the local ethics committee, and written informed consent was obtained from each participant. Brain T2 lesion load, cerebellar white matter and gray matter volumes, and tract-specific measures of the middle and superior cerebellar peduncles were derived from 172 patients with MS and 46 control subjects. Predictors of clinical impairment, which was determined at ambulation and with cerebellar and brainstem functional system scores, were identified by using random forest analysis. RESULTS Of the 172 patients, 112 (65%) had middle cerebellar peduncle T2 lesions and 74 (43%) had superior cerebellar peduncle T2 lesions. T2 lesions in the middle and superior cerebellar peduncles were more common in clinically impaired patients than in unimpaired patients (P = .05 to <.0001). Most conventional magnetic resonance imaging metrics were more abnormal in impaired patients than in unimpaired patients (P = .03 to <.0001). Except for axial diffusivity, diffusivity abnormalities of the middle and superior cerebellar peduncles were more severe in clinically impaired patients than in unimpaired patients (P = .04 to <.0001). A minimal overlap was found between diffusivity abnormalities and T2 lesions. Compared with volumetric measures of T2 lesions or cerebellar atrophy, diffusivity measures of middle or superior cerebellar peduncle damage enabled better differentiation between clinically impaired and unimpaired patients (C statistics: 61%-70%). CONCLUSION The assessment of middle and superior cerebellar peduncle damage contributes to the explanation of cerebellar and/or brainstem symptoms and ambulatory impairment in MS.
Impact of Ligature Coverage on Training Practical Urdu OCR Systems

A major hurdle in the development of practical Urdu Nastaleeq script OCR is the lack of transcribed data, which is a pre-requisite for training machine learning algorithms. Most of the previous research has focused on UPTI, a publicly available data set with no particular focus on performance on real world images. UPTI contains only 6000 of the most probable 26,000 ligatures of Urdu. We build upon UPTI with a new data set, UPTI 2.0 that covers over 18,000 ligatures of Urdu Nastaleeq, hence covering over 70% of the ligatures that can practically occur. We further train a system on UPTI 2.0 and compare its performance against the only commercial Urdu Nastaleeq OCR system to date. Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (BDLSTM) network is employed with Connectionist Temporal Classification (CTC) layer as the recognizer. We show that systems trained on UPTI 2.0 outperform the commercial system.
Evaluating and understanding performance testing in COPD patients.

PURPOSE There is increasing interest in the use of performance tests to assess physical function among patients with debilitating diseases. The purpose of this study was to describe the measurement properties of a performance test battery used in the Reconditioning Exercise and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Trial and to explore how well-selected physiologic and psychosocial measures explained test performance. METHODS To assess test-retest reliability of the performance tests, older patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (n = 30) completed, on two different occasions, a 6-minute walk for distance, a timed stair climb, and a timed elevated-arm task. In addition, stepwise regression analyses were conducted on a larger sample (n = 209) to examine how effective conceptually relevant physiologic and psychosocial variables were at explaining variation in task performance. RESULTS Results showed that all three performance tasks had good test-retest reliability (all coefficients > 0.80) and shared variance in expected directions with VO2peak, forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1), and self-reported disability. Regression analyses suggest that VO2peak, FEV1, self-efficacy, and self-reported disability are important variables to consider in attempts to understand performance-related disability in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). CONCLUSIONS The physical performance test battery appears to be a reliable means of assessing physical functioning in older patients with COPD. Furthermore, findings support the important role that VO2peak plays in task performance and suggest that patients' perceptions should be given careful consideration when attempting to understand physical decline in clinical settings.
Exploring a Methodology with Young Children: Reflections on Using the Mosaic and Ecocultural Approaches

THIS PAPER CRITICALLY REFLECTS on the appropriateness of the methodological framework adopted in an exploratory study of young children's experiences of participation in their early childhood centre and home environments. The Mosaic and Ecocultural approaches informed the study's methodological framework as these approaches were seen to be complementary and child-friendly. While some of the data collection tools were not as successful in the current study as they have been reported in previous research, there was support for the usefulness of the Mosaic approach as an effective, adaptable and child-focused research methodology. Further, the Ecocultural approach was found to provide an appropriate and meaningful way of talking with young children about their daily routines and everyday home life.
Renal flare as a predictor of incident and progressive CKD in patients with lupus nephritis.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Renal flares are common in lupus nephritis. The impact of flares on the development of CKD in lupus nephritis was examined. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS A retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data from the Ohio Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) Study was conducted to determine if renal flares predispose to new CKD or progression of preexisting CKD. Patients in the Ohio SLE Study were followed from 2001 to 2009, with a median follow-up of 6 years. For this analysis, patients with biopsy-proven lupus nephritis and at least 3 years of follow-up were included (n=56). Frequency and duration of renal flares were compared between patients who never developed CKD (n=29) and patients who developed new CKD (n=12) and between patients with preexisting but stable CKD (n=7) and patients who progressed (n=8). Groups were also combined into good (no CKD and stable CKD) or poor (new CKD and progressive CKD) for analysis. RESULTS The new CKD group had more renal flares per year compared with the no CKD group (median=0.56 flares/yr [range=0-2] versus median=0 flares/yr [range=0-1.4]; P<0.001). Additionally, the poor outcome group had more renal flares per year compared with the good outcome group (median=0.50 flares/yr [range=0-2] versus median=0 flares/yr [range=0-1.4]; P<0.001). New or progressive CKD was not preferentially associated with nephritic compared with proteinuric renal flares. Logistic regression showed that spending more than 30% of time in renal flare (odds ratio, 20; 95% confidence interval, 4.6 to 91.3; P<0.001) and age>35 years (odds ratio, 69; 95% confidence interval, 6.3 to 753.6; P<0.001) were independent predictors of the combined end point of developing new or progressive CKD. All four subjects over 35 years of age that spent over 30% of time in renal flare had a poor outcome. CONCLUSION In patients with lupus nephritis, the relative duration of renal flare is an independent predictor of incident and progressive CKD.
The Role of Skill Versus Luck in Poker Evidence From the World Series of Poker

In determining the legality of online poker—a multibillion dollar industry—courts have relied heavily on the issue of whether or not poker is a game of skill. Using newly available data, the authors analyze that question by examining the performance in the 2010 World Series of Poker of a group of poker players identified as being highly skilled prior to the start of the events. Those players identified a priori as being highly skilled achieved an average return on investment of over 30%, compared to a −15% for all other players. This large gap in returns is strong evidence in support of the idea that poker is a game of skill.
Retrieving answers from frequently asked questions pages on the web

We address the task of answering natural language questions by using the large number of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) pages available on the web. The task involves three steps: (1) fetching FAQ pages from the web; (2) automatic extraction of question/answer (Q/A) pairs from the collected pages; and (3) answering users' questions by retrieving appropriate Q/A pairs. We discuss our solutions for each of the three tasks, and give detailed evaluation results on a collected corpus of about 3.6Gb of text data (293K pages, 2.8M Q/A pairs), with real users' questions sampled from a web search engine log. Specifically, we propose simple but effective methods for Q/A extraction and investigate task-specific retrieval models for answering questions. Our best model finds answers for 36% of the test questions in the top 20 results. Our overall conclusion is that FAQ pages on the web provide an excellent resource for addressing real users' information needs in a highly focused manner.
Viscoelastic Properties of Differentiating Blood Cells Are Fate- and Function-Dependent

Although cellular mechanical properties are known to alter during stem cell differentiation, understanding of the functional relevance of such alterations is incomplete. Here, we show that during the course of differentiation of human myeloid precursor cells into three different lineages, the cells alter their viscoelastic properties, measured using an optical stretcher, to suit their ultimate fate and function. Myeloid cells circulating in blood have to be advected through constrictions in blood vessels, engendering the need for compliance at short time-scales (<seconds). Intriguingly, only the two circulating myeloid cell types have increased short time scale compliance and flow better through microfluidic constrictions. Moreover, all three differentiated cell types reduce their steady-state viscosity by more than 50% and show over 140% relative increase in their ability to migrate through tissue-like pores at long time-scales (>minutes), compared to undifferentiated cells. These findings suggest that reduction in steady-state viscosity is a physiological adaptation for enhanced migration through tissues. Our results indicate that the material properties of cells define their function, can be used as a cell differentiation marker and could serve as target for novel therapies.
Smart system for distributed sensing

This paper describes ongoing work for implementing a distributed multi-robot system for measuring various physical properties of the environment in a coordinated manner. Modeling spatial distributions of physical quantities such as temperature, illumination, humidity, gas concentrations, or magnetic flux provides an opportunity to observe how these distributions change in time, how to utilise the information captured by the distributions, and to determine how to adjust the distributions by modifying the environment. The information provided by the models could be useful in numerous applications such as in dynamic optimisation of the heating system of a building for saving energy, in monitoring the air quality in various parts of hospitals and in monitoring the water quality of lakes and rivers (e.g. pH and oxygen levels). Some of the modeled distributions or maps may also carry information which can be used in mobile computing. This article describes the physical robots, which act as mobile measurement instruments in addition to approaches used to model spatial distributions by utilising Gaussian processes, and to coordinate the multi-robot system during the modeling. Preliminary experiments are also presented demonstrating optimal spatial sampling, optimization of measurement paths of multiple robots, mobile robot self-localisation based on the ambient magnetic field of the environment and multi-robot coordination.
The Effect of Matrix Method on Anxiety and Attitude Toward Methamphetamine and Crack Abuse in Males Referring to Addiction Treatment Centers in Tonkabon, Iran

Background: Drug abuse is a major problem in the communities and has many harmful eects on human body. Objectives: The current study aimed to compare the ecacy of matrix method on anxiety and attitude of male crack abusers re- ferred to addiction treatment centers in Tonkabon, Iran, in 2014. PatientsandMethods: The current semi -experimental study included 1,000 males referred to addiction treatment centers in Tonk- abon with crack abuse history in 2014. Based on Morgan sample volume formula, 278 males with anxiety and higher attitude to drug abuse were randomly selected from 1,000 males referred to addiction treatment centers in Tonkabon. Then, 30 subjects were rese- lected out of them and equally assigned into two groups of experimental and control, 15 subjects in each group. The experimental group received 24 sessions of 30 - 60 minutes matrix treatment method in group, but the control group received no training. At the end of training period the post-test was carried out. The research findings confirmed the ecacy of matrix method on anxiety and attitude to crack abuse among those referring to the addition treatment center. Results: The single covariance analysis of ANCOVA indicated that the value of Eta about 72% of variance of anxiety variable and about 76% of variance of drug abuse variable are taken in to account for variable of group. The intervention was eective in reducing anxiety and attitude to crack in males. Evaluating the adjusted mean showed the eectiveness of matrix method on anxiety and attitude to crack abuse in males. Conclusions: The research result showed that matrix method aected the reduction of methamphetamine and attitude to crack abuse in males referred to the addition treatment center.
Torsional Deformation of the Left Ventricular Midwall in Human Hearts With Intramyocardial Markers: Regional Heterogeneity and Sensitivity to the Inotropic Effects of Abrupt Rate Changes

The spiral orientation of left ventricular (LV) fibers suggests that twisting about the ventricular long axis of the apex with respect to the base, i.e., torsional deformation, may be characteristic of LV contraction. To demonstrate this twisting motion, 10 orthotopic human cardiac allograft recipients were studied with biplane cineradiography of tantalum helices implanted within the LV midwall at 12 specific sites. Counterclockwise twisting about the LV long axis (as reviewed from apex to base) accompanied ventricular ejection in all patients. Torsional deformation angles, measured relative to a reference minor axis at the base, were substantially smaller in the anteroapical wall, as compared with counterparts in the apical third of the inferior and lateral walls (anterior = 13.3 ±6.0±, inferior =18.7±6.3±, and lateral = 23.4±10.7±). Torsional angles at the midventricular level were roughly half as much and exhibited similar regional variabilities (anterior = 7.6 ±3.3±, inferior = 9.0±3.3±, lateral = 10.7 ±5.2±, and septal = 8.8±3.8±). Comparison of control beats and the initial beat after abrupt cessation of rapid atrial pacing (126 ± 10 beats/min) with return to the control heart rate (96 ±9 beats/min) permitted the mild positive inotropic effect of tachycardia to be assessed at similar levels of ventricular load. Torsional deformation of the anteroapical and inferoaplcal sites increased significantly (p < 0.05) over control values to 15.6 ±7.5± and 21.2 ±5.5±, respectively. In contrast, torsional deformation of the lateral wall was essentially unchanged. These data provide direct evidence for torsional deformation of the left ventricle in humans, demonstrate that torsion of the LV chamber is nonuniform, and suggest a dependence of LV torsion upon contractile strength that is attenuated in the lateral wall.
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