Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Summary of effects of parental smoking on the respiratory health of children and implications for research

BACKGROUND Two recent reviews have assessed the effect of parental smoking on respiratory disease in children. METHODS The results of the systematic quantitative review published as a series inThorax are summarised and brought up to date by considering papers appearing on Embase or Medline up to June 1998. The findings are compared with those of the review published recently by the Californian Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Areas requiring further research are identified. RESULTS Overall there is a very consistent picture with odds ratios for respiratory illnesses and symptoms and middle ear disease of between 1.2 and 1.6 for either parent smoking, the odds usually being higher in pre-school than in school aged children. For sudden infant death syndrome the odds ratio for maternal smoking is about 2. Significant effects from paternal smoking suggest a role for postnatal exposure to environmental tobacco smoke. Recent publications do not lead us to alter the conclusions of our earlier reviews. While essentially narrative rather than systematic and quantitative, the findings of the Californian EPA review are broadly similar. In addition they have reviewed studies of the effects of environmental tobacco smoke on children with cystic fibrosis and conclude from the limited evidence that there is a strong case for a relationship between parental smoking and admissions to hospital. They also review data from adults of the effects of acute exposure to environmental tobacco smoke under laboratory conditions which suggest acute effects on spirometric parameters rather than on bronchial hyperresponsiveness. It seems likely that such effects are also present in children. CONCLUSIONS Substantial benefits to children would arise if parents stopped smoking after birth, even if the mother smoked during pregnancy. Policies need to be developed which reduce smoking amongst parents and protect infants and young children from exposure to environmental tobacco smoke. The weight of evidence is such that new prevalence studies are no longer justified. What are needed are studies which allow comparison of the effects of critical periods of exposure to cigarette smoke, particularly in utero, early infancy, and later childhood. Where longitudinal studies are carried out they should be analysed to look at the way in which changes in exposure are related to changes in outcome. Better still would be studies demonstrating reversibility of adverse effects, especially in asthmatic subjects or children with cystic fibrosis.
Neurobeachin, a Regulator of Synaptic Protein Targeting, Is Associated with Body Fat Mass and Feeding Behavior in Mice and Body-Mass Index in Humans

Neurobeachin (Nbea) regulates neuronal membrane protein trafficking and is required for the development and functioning of central and neuromuscular synapses. In homozygous knockout (KO) mice, Nbea deficiency causes perinatal death. Here, we report that heterozygous KO mice haploinsufficient for Nbea have higher body weight due to increased adipose tissue mass. In several feeding paradigms, heterozygous KO mice consumed more food than wild-type (WT) controls, and this consumption was primarily driven by calories rather than palatability. Expression analysis of feeding-related genes in the hypothalamus and brainstem with real-time PCR showed differential expression of a subset of neuropeptide or neuropeptide receptor mRNAs between WT and Nbea+/− mice in the sated state and in response to food deprivation, but not to feeding reward. In humans, we identified two intronic NBEA single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that are significantly associated with body-mass index (BMI) in adult and juvenile cohorts. Overall, data obtained in mice and humans suggest that variation of Nbea abundance or activity critically affects body weight, presumably by influencing the activity of feeding-related neural circuits. Our study emphasizes the importance of neural mechanisms in body weight control and points out NBEA as a potential risk gene in human obesity.
Oxidative Stress Levels Are Reduced in Postmenopausal Women with Exercise Training Regardless of Hormone Replacement Therapy Status

ABSTRACT This study investigated whether postmenopausal women on HRT would experience a greater reduction in oxidative stress after 24 weeks of aerobic exercise training compared to postmenopausal women not on HRT. Plasma thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), an indicator of oxidative stress, was measured in 48 previously sedentary postmenopausal women on HRT (n = 21) and not on HRT (n = 27) before and after 24 weeks of aerobic exercise training. Baseline levels of TBARS differed significantly between groups after controlling for age, BMI, and fasting blood glucose (P = 0.03). There was a significant reduction in TBARS after 24 weeks of training in the overall group. When analyzed separately, both postmenopausal women on HRT and those not on HRT had a significant reduction in TBARS; however, there was no significant difference between groups (−0.71 ± 0.14 nmol/ml in non-HRT users vs. −0.50 ± 0.16 nmol/ml in HRT users; P = 0.33) even after controlling for age, BMI, and baseline levels of TBARS. Our results showed that aerobic exercise training significantly decreased oxidative stress in postmenopausal women; however, both HRT users and non-HRT users benefited equally.
Structural Basis for Multimeric Heme Complexation through a Specific Protein-Heme Interaction

To elucidate the heme acquisition system in pathogenic bacteria, we investigated the heme-binding properties of the third NEAT domain of IsdH (IsdH-NEAT3), a receptor for heme located on the surfaces of pathogenic bacterial cells, by using x-ray crystallography, isothermal titration calorimetry, examination of absorbance spectra, mutation analysis, size-exclusion chromatography, and analytical ultracentrifugation. We found the following: 1) IsdH-NEAT3 can bind with multiple heme molecules by two modes; 2) heme was bound at the surface of IsdH-NEAT3; 3) candidate residues proposed from the crystal structure were not essential for binding with heme; and 4) IsdH-NEAT3 was associated into a multimeric heme complex by the addition of excess heme. From these observations, we propose a heme-binding mechanism for IsdH-NEAT3 that involves multimerization and discuss the biological importance of this mechanism.
Detection of JAK2V617F tyrosine kinase mutation and estimation of serum erythropoietin in blood donors who have high hematocrit

Background: JAK2V617F mutation is the most prevalent molecular abnormality in myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) and has become a valuable marker for diagnosis of MPNs. Almost all patients with polycythemia vera (PV) have this acquired mutation. However, it has also been found in many other hematological diseases, and some studies even detected the presence of JAK2V617F in normal blood samples.Objectives: To discuss the actual need to defer blood donors with high hematocrit.Patients and methods: This prospective case control study was started on 16th of December 2012 and completed on 8th of July 2013, and enrolled 94 male blood donors who attended the National Blood Transfusion Center (NBTC) in Baghdad, Iraq. Their age range was between 21 and 62 years, and their hematocrit was ≥ 0.48 l/l. A control group of 20 patients known to have JAK2V617F positive PV were also included. The following investigations were done for both the study and the control groups: complete blood count, serum erythropoietin, and real time PCR for JAK2V617F detection.Results: The present study found that 21.3% (20/ 94) of healthy blood donors were positive for JAK2V617F mutation. The mutant ratio was higher in the PV control than positive JAK2V617F donors (p=0.001). Out of 20 donors who have positive JAK2V617F mutation, 90% were smokers, and 22.8% (18/79) of all smokers were positive for JAK2V617F, while 13.3% (2/15) of non-smokers showed positivity for the mutation, the difference between various types of smoking and the level of JAK2V617F mutation among study groups was statistically insignificant with a p-value of 0.356. There is a frequent association of pruritis with JAK2 positivity as the percentage of pruritis in JAK2V617F positive blood donors was 40%. There was significant statistical difference between donors with positive JAK2V617F mutation and the PV control group for the hematocrit, total WBC count, absolute neutrophil count, and platelet count with p-values of (0.002), (0.001), (0.001), and (0.001) respectively.Conclusion: The frequency of JAK2V617F mutation was much higher than that anticipated for blood donors. The blood donated from individuals with upper normal hematocrit does not necessarily denote to complete safety of blood as being devoid of JAK2V617F mutation.
Risk of leukemia after platinum-based chemotherapy for ovarian cancer.

BACKGROUND Platinum-based chemotherapy is the cornerstone of modern treatment for ovarian, testicular, and other cancers, but few investigations have quantified the late sequelae of such treatment. METHODS We conducted a case-control study of secondary leukemia in a population-based cohort of 28,971 women in North America and Europe who had received a diagnosis of invasive ovarian cancer between 1980 and 1993. Leukemia developed after the administration of platinum-based therapy in 96 women. These women were matched to 272 control patients. The type, cumulative dose, and duration of chemotherapy and the dose of radiation delivered to active bone marrow were compared in the two groups. RESULTS Among the women who received platinum-based combination chemotherapy for ovarian cancer, the relative risk of leukemia was 4.0 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.4 to 11.4). The relative risks for treatment with carboplatin and for treatment with cisplatin were 6.5 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.2 to 36.6) and 3.3 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.1 to 9.4), respectively. We found evidence of a dose-response relation, with relative risks reaching 7.6 at doses of 1000 mg or more of platinum (P for trend <0.001). Radiotherapy without chemotherapy (median dose, 18.4 Gy) did not increase the risk of leukemia. CONCLUSIONS Platinum-based treatment of ovarian cancer increases the risk of secondary leukemia. Nevertheless, the substantial benefit that platinum-based treatment offers patients with advanced disease outweighs the relatively small excess risk of leukemia.
Deletion of MtrA Inhibits Cellular Development of Streptomyces coelicolor and Alters Expression of Developmental Regulatory Genes

The developmental life cycle of Streptomyces species includes aerial hyphae formation and spore maturation, two distinct developmental processes that are controlled, respectively, by two families of developmental regulatory genes, bld and whi. In this study, we show that the response regulator MtrA (SCO3013) is critical for normal development of aerial hyphae in S. coelicolor and related species. ΔmtrA, a deletion mutant of the response regulator gene mtrA, exhibited the bald phenotype typical of bld mutants defective in aerial mycelium formation, with formation either much delayed or absent depending on the culture medium. Transcriptional analysis indicated that MtrA activates multiple genes involved in formation of aerial mycelium, including chp, rdl, and ram genes, as well as developmental regulatory genes of the bld and whi families. However, the major regulatory gene bldD showed enhanced expression in ΔmtrA, suggesting it is repressed by MtrA. electrophoretic mobility shift assays indicated that MtrA binds upstream of several genes with altered expression in ΔmtrA, including bldD and whiI, and sequences similar to the consensus binding sequence for MtrA of another actinomycete, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, were found in the bound sites. A loosely conserved recognition sequence containing two short, direct repeats was identified for MtrA of S. coelicolor and was validated using mutational analysis. MtrA homologs are widely distributed among Streptomyces species, and as with S. coelicolor, deletion of the mtrA homologs sve_2757 from S. venezuelae and sli_3357 from S. lividans resulted in conditional bald morphology. Our study suggests a critical and conserved role for MtrA in Streptomyces development.
Analytical Magnetic Field Distribution of Slotless Brushless Machines With Inset Permanent Magnets

An analytical open-circuit magnetic field distribution for slotless brushless machines with inset permanent magnets is presented. Three different magnetization patterns (radial, parallel, and Halbach) have been considered and their results compared with each other. The induced back-electromotive force (EMF) is also presented for each magnetization pattern. The effects of iron inter-pole on the magnetic flux density and back-EMF have been studied. To verify the model, the results have been compared with those obtained from finite element analyses (FEA).
Sketching Articulation and Pose for Facial Meshes

We present a methodology for articulating and posing meshes, in particular facial meshes, using sketching as input. Our method focuses on the use of two sketched curves, a reference and target curve. Our articulation system uses these curves to deform selected regions of a mesh in order to specify articulation. Likewise, our posing system uses reference and target curves to find an optimal pose in an articulation space of a mesh. This mesh can be articulated using our sketch-based approach or through alternative methods. Through our method, we seek to make articulation and posing more intuitive and simple for a novice to learn while also providing a method for more experienced users to prototype complex deformations.
Hybrid Control of a Vision-Guided Robot Arm by EOG, EMG, EEG Biosignals and Head Movement Acquired via a Consumer-Grade Wearable Device

Simultaneous acquisition of electrooculogram, jaw electromyogram, electroencephalogram, and head movement via consumer-grade wearable devices has become possible. Such devices offer new opportunities to deploy practical biosignal-based interfaces for assistive robots; however, they also pose challenges related to the available signals and their characteristics. In this proof-of-concept study, we demonstrate the possibility of successful control of a 5 + 1 degrees-of-freedom robot arm based on a consumer wireless headband in the form of four control modes predicated on distinct signal combinations. We propose a control approach hybrid at two levels, which seeks a compromise between robot controllability and maintaining the user goal rather than being process-focused. First, robot arm steering combines discrete and proportional aspects. Second, after the robot has been steered toward the approximate target direction, a sparse approach is followed and the user only needs to issue a single command, after which steering adjustment and grasping are performed automatically under stereoscopic vision guidance. We present in detail the associated algorithms, whose implementation is publicly available. Within this framework, we also demonstrate the control of arm posture and grasping force based, respectively, on object visual features and user input. We regard the interface proposed herein as a viable blueprint for future work on controlling wheelchair-mounted and meal-assisting robot arms.
An Insight into the Commercial Viability of Green Roofs in Australia

Construction industries around the world have, in recent history, become increasingly concerned with the sustainability of building practices. Inherently, the development of the built environment results in partial or complete destruction of the natural environment. Advanced European and North American countries have turned to green roofs as a means of sustainable development. Australia, on the other hand, has yet to fully realize the potential of green roof technology. In the first case, an extensive review of green roof literature was undertaken to establish the dominant perspectives and over-riding themes within the established body of international literature. The collection of primary data took the form of qualitative, semi-structured interviews with a range of construction practitioners and green roof experts; landscape architects, consultants and academics. The information gained from the interviews facilitated the primary aim of the paper; to critically analyse the state-of-practice in the Australian green roof industry. Green roofs, despite their proven sustainability benefits and their international success, have experienced a relatively sluggish uptake in the Australian construction industry. With this being said, the Australian green roof industry is considered to have promising potential for the future; should there be legislative changes made in its favour or greater education within the industry. To advance the local industry, it was found that government authorities are required to adapt policy settings to better encourage the use of green roofs, whilst industry bodies are required to host better, more targeted educational programs.
The Minor-Merger-driven Nuclear Activity in Seyfert Galaxies: A Step toward the Simple Unified Formation Mechanism of Active Galactic Nuclei in the Local Universe

Seyfert nuclei are typical active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in the local universe, which are thought to be powered by gas accretion onto a supermassive black hole (SMBH). The dynamical effect exerted either by nonaxisymmetric gravitational potential (such as a stellar bar) or by interaction with other galaxies has been often considered to cause the efficient gas fueling. However, recent systematic studies for large samples of Seyfert nuclei have shown that (1) Seyfert nuclei do not prefer barred galaxies as their hosts, and (2) only ≃10% of Seyfert galaxies have companion galaxies. These findings again raise the question: "What is important in the fueling of nuclear activity? " Here we suggest that an alternative fueling mechanism, the minor-merger-driven (i.e., mergers between a gas-rich disk galaxy and a bound, less-massive satellite galaxy) fueling appears consistent with almost all important observational properties of Seyfert galaxies. Nucleated (i.e., either an SMBH or a dense nuclear star cluster) galaxies and satellites seem necessary to ensure that the gas in the host disk is surely fueled into the very inner region (e.g., ≪1 pc). Taking account that local quasars may be formed by major mergers between/among galaxies, we propose that all the AGNs in the local universe were made either by minor or by major mergers.
Evaluation of postural instability in stroke patient during quiet standing

This study was designed to investigate the postural instability in stroke survivals during quiet standing. Eleven stroke patients and 11 healthy volunteers (gender- and age-matched) were recruited for this experiment. The center of pressure (COP) signals from both planta in anterior-posterior (AP) and medial-lateral (ML) directions were recorded using a three-dimensional motion capture system (BTS Bioengineering Corp, Italy) when subjects stood on the two adjacent force platforms quietly with their eyes open (EO) for 30 s and with their eyes close (EC) for another 30 s. The standard deviation (SD) for the two limbs and the inter-limb cross correlation-coefficient (CC) of COP series were calculated under EO and EC conditions, respectively. Patients showed significant differences in SD of AP-COP between two sides under EO (p < 0.05) and EC (p < 0.001) conditions. The SD of the ML-COP on non-paretic limb of patients was higher than that of controls under EC (p < 0.05). Lower CC values of AP-COP was found in patients versus controls under two vision conditions (p < 0.05), and the values in two groups increased significantly after removal of vision information (p < 0.05). Stroke led to an increased postural sway and decreased inter-limb coordination during quiet standing. This study may facilitate the evaluation of the standing instability in stroke survivors and may improve the strategies for rehabilitation.
On Efficient Data Exchange in Multicore Architectures

In contemporary multicore architectures, three trends can be observed: (i) A growing number of cores, (ii) shared memory as the primary means of communication and data exchange and (iii) high diversity between platform architectures. Still, these platforms are typically programmed manually on a core-by-core basis; the most helpful tool that is widely accepted are library implementations of frequently used algorithms. This complicated task of multicore programming will grow further in complexity with the increasing numbers of cores. In addition, the constant change in architecture designs and thus in platform-specific programming demands will continue to make it laborious to migrate existing code to new platforms. State-of-the-art methods of automatic multicore code generation only partially meet the requirements of modern multicore platforms. They typically have a high overhead for different threads when growing numbers of cores and thus shrinking thread granularities demand the opposite. Also, they typically use message passing models for implementing data exchange when memory sharing should be the natural mode of data exchange. As a result, they often fail to produce efficient code, especially when large data throughput is required. This thesis proposes a data-oriented approach to multicore programming. It shows how dividing a program into discrete tasks with clearly specified inputs and outputs helps to formalise the problem of optimising high data throughput applications for a large range of multicore architectures, at the same time enabling an efficient, low-overhead implementation. In detail, its contributions are as follows. • Inefficiencies in existing programming models are demonstrated for the cases of the CAL actor language and Kahn process networks. Methods are shown to reduce these inefficiencies. • Ladybirds, a specificationmodel and language for parallel programs is presented. A Ladybirds program consists of a tasks with clearly defined inputs and outputs and of dependencies between them. It is explained how Ladybirds aims at execution efficiency also in the domains of data placement and transport and what steps are necessary to get from a Ladybirds specification to executable program code.The examples of comfortable debugging and ofminimising state retention overhead for transient systems underline the usability and versatility of Ladybirds. • An optimisation method for Ladybirds programs on the Kalray MPPA platform is presented. It tries to place data on different memory banks such as to avoid access conflicts. Afterwards, the Ladybirds optimisation problem for