Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multi-label Classification of Anemia Patients

This work examines the application of machine learning to an important area of medicine which aims to diagnose paediatric patients with β-thalassemia minor, iron deficiency anemia or the co-occurrence of these ailments. Iron deficiency anemia is a major cause of microcytic anemia and is considered an important task in global health. Whilst existing methods, based on linear equations, are proficient at distinguishing between the two classes of anemia, they fail to identify the co-occurrence of this issues. Machine learning algorithms, however, can induce non-linear decision boundaries that enable accurate classification within complex domains. Through a multi-label classification technique, known as problem transformations, we convert the learning task to one that is appropriate for machine learning and examine the effectiveness of machine learning algorithms on this domain. Our results show that machine learning classifiers produce good overall accuracy and are able to identify instances of the co-occurrence class unlike the existing methods.
Influence of delivery devices on efficacy of inhaled fluticasone propionate: a comparative study in stable asthma patients.

BACKGROUND Inhaled corticosteroids are the preferred treatment for long-term control of all grades of persistent asthma. These are administered by various delivery devices with very little information whether these devices can affect the efficacy of inhaled corticosteroids. Fluticasone propionate is a relatively new inhalational corticosteroid compared to older ones like beclomethasone and budesonide. Aims & Objective: To assess the relative efficacy of fluticasone propionate administered from different delivery devices to adult patients of chronic stable bronchial asthma as measured by pulmonary function test parameters. MATERIAL AND METHODS This prospective study was undertaken to assess the relative efficacy of fluticasone propionate administered from different delivery devices to adult patients of chronic stable bronchial asthma as measured by pulmonary function test parameters. Fourty eight subjects were administered, fluticasone propionate (250 μg) by dry powder inhaler, metered dose inhaler, metered dose inhaler with spacer and fluticasone (1mg) via nebulizer consecutively each week for four weeks under direct supervision. Pulmonary function test was done before and one hour after administration of the drug on each visit. RESULTS After excluding nine patients who were lost to follow up, data was analysed for the remaining thirty nine patients and no significant difference in peak expiratory flow rate (p=0.77), forced expiratory volume in one second (p=0.95), forced vital capacity (p=0.24) and forced expiratory volume in one second and forced vital capacity ratio (p=0.22) was seen after giving fluticasone by different devices. CONCLUSION Fluticasone propionate delivered by different devices like dry powder inhaler, metered dose inhaler, metered dose inhaler with spacer and nebulizer have similar effect on lung function in patients of chronic stable bronchial asthma and may be used interchangeably.
On the Hardness of Approximating Max k-Cut and its Dual

We study the Max k-Cut problem and its dual, the Min k-Partition problem. In the Min k-Partition problem, given a graph G=(V,E) and positive edge weights, we want to find an edge set of minimum weight whose removal makes G k-colorable. For the Max k-Cut problem we show that, if P! =NP, no polynomial time approximation algorithm can achieve a relative error better than (1/34)k. It is well known that a relative error of 1/k is obtained by a naive randomized heuristic. For the Min k-Partition problem, we show that for k<2 and for every epsilon<0, there exists a constant alpha such that the problem cannot be approximated within alpha|V^(2-epsilon)|, even for dense graphs. Both problems are directly related to the frequency allocation problem for cellular (mobile) telephones, an application of industrial relevance.
Diet and General Health: Dietary Counselling

Dietary guidelines are designed to maintain an adequate intake of nutrients and to protect against diet-related disease, particularly cardiovascular disease and obesity. Current population dietary guidelines advocate a reduction in total fat intake, particularly saturated fat intake, to 25–35% of the energy intake and an increased intake of carbohydrate to more than 55% of the dietary energy intake, which should mainly be derived from starch. There is a positive relationship between total sugar intake and the incidence of dental caries where dental hygiene is poor and exposure to fluoride is low. However, this relationship is stronger for frequency of consumption of sugary foods. The frequent consumption of acidic food and beverages should be also avoided as this can result in erosion of the tooth enamel. Risk of caries can be minimised by good oral hygiene, appropriate exposure to fluoride and by restricting the intake sugar containing snacks between meals to no more than four occasions per day. A need for randomized controlled trials to assess the effectiveness of dietary modification on oral health in adults is identified.
Eccentric Viewing Training in the Home Environment: Can it Improve the Performance of Activities of Daily Living?

Macular degeneration has a severe impact on a person's ability to perform activities of daily living. This study investigated the impact of in-home training in eccentric viewing on near acuity and performance of activities of daily living. The results suggest that eccentric viewing can ameliorate the impact of the loss of vision that is due to macular degeneration.
The Fountain of Youth: A Tale of Parabiosis, Stem Cells, and Rejuvenation

Abstract Transfusion (or drinking) of blood or of its components has been thought as a rejuvenation method since ancient times. Parabiosis, the procedure of joining two animals so that they share each others blood circulation, has revitalized the concept of blood as a putative drug. Since 2005, a number of papers have reported the anti-ageing effect of heterochronic parabiosis, which is joining an aged mouse to a young partner. The hallmark of aging is the decline of regenerative properties in most tissues, partially attributed to impaired function of stem and progenitor cells. In the parabiosis experiments, it was elegantly shown that factors derived from the young systemic environment are able to activate molecular signaling pathways in hepatic, muscle or neural stem cells of the old parabiont leading to increased tissue regeneration. Eventually, further studies have brought to identify some soluble factors in part responsible for these rejuvenating effects, including the chemokine CCL11, the growth differentiation factor 11, a member of the TGF-β superfamily, and oxytocin. The question about giving whole blood or specific factors in helping rejuvenation is open, as well as the mechanisms of action of these factors, deserving further studies to be translated into the life of (old) human beings.
Self‐motion and the origin of differential spatial scaling along the septo‐temporal axis of the hippocampus

Spatial scaling of place specific activity in the hippocampus varies systematically from the septal pole (high resolution) to the temporal pole (low resolution). Place fields get progressively larger, and the probability of observing a field in a given environment gets progressively smaller. It was previously found that decoupling movement in space from ambulation, by having the animal actively ride on a mobile platform, results in marked enlargement of the spatial scale factor in the dorsal hippocampus and a reduction in the increase in theta rhythm power with running speed, suggesting that a self‐motion signal determines the spatial scale at which the hippocampal population vector updates. These results led to the hypothesis that the gain of the self‐motion signal may vary systematically along the septo‐temporal axis of the hippocampus. To test this hypothesis, EEG theta rhythm and ensembles of CA1 pyramidal cells and interneurons were recorded from the extreme dorsal and middle portions of the hippocampus. Pyramidal cell population vectors representing successive locations became decorrelated over substantially shorter distances in the dorsal than in the middle hippocampus. Dorsal pyramidal cells had smaller place fields, higher mean and peak firing rates, and higher intrinsic oscillation frequencies during track running than that of middle pyramidal cells. Both dorsal pyramidal cells and interneurons had more elevated mean rates during running, compared with rest, than that of the corresponding cell classes in the middle hippocampus, and both cell classes increased their rates more as a function of speed in the dorsal hippocampus.
Comments on Schiefele and Raabe (2011): Flow is a Multifaceted Experience Defined by Several Components

Schiefele and Raabe (2011) propose that flow could best be described as a state of being strongly immersed in the activity. Although this may be the most important component of flow and represent the core of the construct, it disregards the fact that the flow experience is an experience with different components. Merely taking one aspect, and considering all other aspects, such as being concentrated on the task, as not being a constitutive part of flow leads to the problems mentioned in this comment. More generally, it represents a misunderstanding that flow can be reduced to one component alone.
Tenses cotidianas na transio da primeira srie: um enfoque de desenvolvimento

This paper focuses on daily hassles during the transition to first grade. A theoretical framework has been posited to generate hypotheses and integrate research results on the stress of this transition. Framework is based on current knowledge on psychosocial stress during childhood, followed by a developmental view of child stress. The paper comprises three sections. The first one focuses on childhood psychosocial stress in four research fields: relationship between psychosocial stress and adjustment; daily hassles; a developmental view of the stress-adjustment relation; school as a source of daily hassles. In the second section, results on the first grade transition are given and contribute through indirect evidence towards the children's coping with the transition. The conceptual framework is presented in the last section, comprising an articulation between adaptive tasks and daily hassle domains, as well as hypotheses on the impact of transition on development. Relevant research issues are suggested on the basis of the proposed framework.
Beyond question answering : understanding the information need of the user

Intelligent interaction between humans and computers has been a dream of artificial intelligence since the beginning of digital era and one of the original motivations behind the creation of artificial intelligence. A key step towards the achievement of such an ambitious goal is to enable the Question Answering systems understand the information need of the user. In this thesis, we attempt to enable the QA system's ability to understand the user's information need by three approaches. First, an clarification question generation method is proposed to help the user clarify the information need and bridge information need gap between QA system and the user. Next, a translation based model is obtained from the large archives of Community Question Answering data, to model the information need behind a question and boost the performance of question recommendation. Finally, a fine-grained classification framework is proposed to enable the systems to recommend answered questions based on information need satisfaction.
Optimal Control of a Mean-Reverting Inventory

Motivated by empirical observations, we assume that the inventory level of a company follows a mean-reverting process. The objective of the management is to keep this inventory level as close as possible to a given target; there is a running cost associated with the difference between the actual inventory level and the target. If inventory deviates too much from the target, management may perform an intervention in the form of either a purchase or a sale of an amount of the goods. There are fixed and proportional costs associated with each intervention. The objective of this paper is to find the optimal inventory levels at which interventions should be performed as well as the magnitudes of the interventions to minimize the total cost. We solve this problem by applying the theory of stochastic impulse control. Our analysis yields the optimal policy, which at times exhibits a behavior that is not intuitive.
Contrasting Effects of Two Lipid Cofactors of Prion Replication on the Conformation of the Prion Protein

Recent studies introduced two experimental protocols for converting full-length recombinant prion protein (rPrP) purified from E.coli into the infectious prion state (PrPSc) with high infectivity titers. Both protocols employed protein misfolding cyclic amplification (PMCA) for generating PrPSc de novo, but used two different lipids, 1-palmitoyl-2-oleolyl-sn-glycero-3-phospho(1’-rac-glycerol) (POPG) or phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), as conversion cofactors. The current study compares the effect of POPG and PE on the physical properties of native, α-helical full-length mouse rPrP under the solvent conditions used for converting rPrP into PrPSc. Surprisingly, the effects of POPG and PE on rPrP physical properties, including its conformation, thermodynamic stability, aggregation state and interaction with a lipid, were found to be remarkably different. PE was shown to have minimal, if any, effects on rPrP thermodynamic stability, cooperativity of unfolding, immediate solvent environment or aggregation state. In fact, little evidence indicates that PE interacts with rPrP directly. In contrast, POPG was found to bind to and induce dramatic changes in rPrP structure, including a loss of α-helical conformation and formation of large lipid-protein aggregates that were resistant to partially denaturing conditions. These results suggest that the mechanisms by which lipids assist conversion of rPrP into PrPSc might be fundamentally different for POPG and PE.
Effect of intra‐aortic balloon pumping on left ventricular function: Evaluation by radionuclide ventriculography

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of intra‐aortic balloon pumping (IABP) on left ventricular (LV) performance in ten patients (group I) with pump failure and in ten patients (group II) with angina pectoris. Left ventricular ejection fraction, regional ejection fraction, systolic chordal shortening and volumes were measured by first‐pass radionuclide ventriculography using a computerized multicrystal gamma camera. Patients in group I had significantly lower ejection fractions, regional ejection fractions and systolic chordal shortening and larger end‐diastolic and end‐systolic volumes than patients in group II, both on (p>0.0001) and off (p<0.004) IABP. With IABP, the ejection fraction increased by 0±0.5% in group I and 5.8±1.7% in group II (p=0.004); the regional ejection fraction increased by 0.1 ±0.9% in group I and 10.3±2.1% in group II (p=0.0004); the systolic chordal shortening increased by 1.1 ±0.6% in group I and 6.5 ±1.1% in group II (p=0.0006); the end‐diastolic volume decreased by ‐0.4±6% in group I and 14±4% in group II (p=0.07); and the end‐systolic volume decreased by ‐1±6% in group I and ‐21 ±5% in group II (p=0.02). Thus, IABP results in improvement in left ventricular performance in patients with angina pectoris but not in patients with pump failure.
Teacher education for diversity

This research reports the findings from three Queensland universities regarding preservice teachers' attitudes towards people with disabilities. The Interactions With Disabled Persons Scale (Gething, 1991) was administered to investigate the effect of personal attributes on preservice teachers' acceptance of and social interactions with people with disabilities. The findings indicate that only four percent of preservice teachers surveyed had undertaken any compulsory courses and only 18 percent had taken elective units in teaching children with special needs. Preservice teachers who had at least weekly contact with people with disabilities perceived less discomfort with such interactions than did those who had less contact. Additionally, postgraduate students experienced greater discomfort than undergraduates did. The implications of these findings for the development of compulsory preservice courses that focus on diversity and for subsequent changes in content at the participating universities are discussed.
Allergic Conjunctivitis at Sheikh Zayed Regional Eye Care Center, Gambia

Purpose: To assess the prevalence of allergic conjunctivitis in Gambia and to determine its epidemiologic features, seasonal variations and associated ocular and systemic conditions. Methods: Records of patients clinically diagnosed with allergic conjunctivitis between April 2007 and March 2008 were reviewed. Variables including age, sex, date of presentation, and systemic and ocular findings were recorded. Results: A total of 7,912 patients were visited within the study period, out of which 624 (7.9%) were diagnosed with allergic conjunctivitis. The disease was equally distributed in male and female subjects, with high preponderance in children (54.5%). Most patients (60.7%) presented during the dry season as compared to the rainy season. Refractive error was the most common ocular condition associated with the condition present in 7.4% of patients while the most common systemic association was asthma, reported in 1.4% of cases. Conclusion: Allergic conjunctivitis in Gambia is more common in children than in adults and has seasonal variation with more patients presenting during dry seasons. Refractive errors are the most common ocular problem associated with the disease and asthma is a systemic association.
Toll-like receptor 4 stimulation with the detoxified ligand monophosphoryl lipid A improves Alzheimer’s disease-related pathology

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia worldwide. The pathogenesis of this neurodegenerative disease, currently without curative treatment, is associated with the accumulation of amyloid β (Aβ) in brain parenchyma and cerebral vasculature. AD patients are unable to clear this toxic peptide, leading to Aβ accumulation in their brains and, presumably, the pathology associated with this devastating disease. Compounds that stimulate the immune system to clear Aβ may therefore have great therapeutic potential in AD patients. Monophosphoryl lipid A (MPL) is an LPS-derived Toll-like receptor 4 agonist that exhibits unique immunomodulatory properties at doses that are nonpyrogenic. We show here that repeated systemic injections of MPL, but not LPS, significantly improved AD-related pathology in APPswe/PS1 mice. MPL treatment led to a significant reduction in Aβ load in the brain of these mice, as well as enhanced cognitive function. MPL induced a potent phagocytic response by microglia while triggering a moderate inflammatory reaction. Our data suggest that the Toll-like receptor 4 agonist MPL may be a treatment for AD.
Designing open-loop plans for planar micro-manipulation

This paper describes a test-bed for planar micro manipulation tasks and a framework for planning based on quasi-static models of mechanical systems with frictional contacts. We show how planar peg-in-the-hole assembly tasks can be designed using randomized motion planning techniques with Mason's models for quasi-static manipulation. Finally, we present simulation and experimental results in support of our methodology
orphine sulphate induced histopathological and histochemical hanges in the rat liver ouad

In this study, the histopathological and histochemical changes due to chronic usage of morphine sulphate in liver were assessed in rats with both light and electron microscopes. Twenty male albino rats (Rattus norvegicus) (130–150 g) were included and divided into four groups. Normal saline (5 ml) was given orally as placebo in the control group (N = 5). Morphine groups (N = 5) received morphine orally at a single dose of 5 ml/kg/day for 10, 20 and 30 days (groups II, III and IV), respectively. Liver specimens from all groups were evaluated for histopathological and histochemical changes. Light microscopy revealed severe centrilobular congestion, portal fibrosis with bile ductal proliferation and an increased
Examining the relationship between imagery use and mental toughness

The motivational functions of imagery include images of feeling confident, in control, and mentally tough (Hall et al., 1998). Despite the important contribution of mental toughness to athletic performance (Jones et al., 2007), little quantitative research has been devoted to examining this construct, or to developing strategies to enhance or maintain mental toughness. The present study investigated the relationship between imagery use and mental toughness. Participants included 151 varsity athletes (Mage = 20.70 ± 1.84). Imagery use was assessed using the Sport Imagery Questionnaire (Hall et al., 1998) and mental toughness with the Mental Toughness 48 Inventory (Clough et al., 2002). Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that the motivational functions of imagery significantly predicted mental toughness, while the cognitive functions contributed minimally to the variance in mental toughness. Findings from the present study suggest that imagery use may be an effective strategy for developing or enhancing mental toughness in athletes.
Interaction of Mint3 with Furin regulates the localization of Furin in the trans-Golgi network

Furin is a proprotein convertase that cycles between the plasma membrane, endosomes and the trans-Golgi network (TGN), maintaining a predominant distribution in the latter. Mint3, a member of the Mint protein family, is involved in the signaling and trafficking of membrane proteins. Until now, little has been known about the roles of Mint3 in the localization or trafficking of Furin. Here, using co-immunoprecipitation and immunofluorescence assays, we show that Mint3 interacts with Furin in the Golgi compartment of HeLa cells. Knockdown of endogenous Mint3 expression by RNA interference disrupts the TGN-specific localization of Furin and increases its distribution in endosomes. We further demonstrate that the phosphotyrosine-binding (PTB) domain of Mint3 is essential for the binding of Furin and that this binding affects the TGN-specific localization of Furin. Moreover, mutation studies of Furin indicate that Mint3 regulates Furin distribution mainly through interaction with the acidic peptide signal of Furin. Collectively, these data suggest that the interaction between the PTB domain of Mint3 and the acidic peptide signal of Furin regulates the specific localization of Furin in the TGN.