Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bone mineral density and dietary patterns in older adults: the Framingham Osteoporosis Study.

BACKGROUND Several nutrients are known to affect bone mineral density (BMD). However, these nutrients occur together in foods and dietary patterns, and the overall effects of dietary choices are not well understood. OBJECTIVE We evaluated associations between dietary patterns and BMD in older adults. DESIGN Of the original Framingham Heart Study subjects, 907 aged 69-93 y completed food-frequency questionnaires as part of an osteoporosis study. We defined dietary patterns by cluster analysis. BMD was measured at the proximal right femur (femoral neck, trochanter, Ward's area) with a dual-photon absorptiometer and at the 33% radial shaft with a single-photon absorptiometer. We regressed BMD measures onto the cluster variable, adjusting for potential confounders. RESULTS Six dietary patterns were identified, with relatively greater proportions of intake from meat, dairy, and bread; meat and sweet baked products; sweet baked products; alcohol; candy; and fruit, vegetables, and cereal. After adjustment for multiple comparisons, men in the last group had significantly (P = 0.05) greater BMD than did 2-4 other groups at the hip sites and the candy group at the radius. Men in the candy group had significantly (P < 0.05) lower BMD than did those in the fruit, vegetables, and cereal group for 3 of the 4 sites. Women in the candy group had significantly (P < 0.01) lower BMD than did all but one other group at the radius. CONCLUSIONS Dietary pattern is associated with BMD. High fruit and vegetable intake appears to be protective in men. High candy consumption was associated with low BMD in both men and women.
Brief Intense Stair Climbing Improves Cardiorespiratory Fitness

Purpose Sprint interval training (SIT) is a time-efficient strategy to improve cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF); however, most protocols have been studied in laboratory settings and require specialized equipment. We investigated the efficacy of brief intense stair climbing as a practical model of SIT to improve CRF. Methods Two separate studies, each consisting of an acute and chronic phase, were conducted in a total of 31 sedentary women (age = 24 ± 10 yr, body mass index = 23 ± 4 kg·m−2). Results The acute phase of study 1 established that the mean HR, blood [lactate], and RPE were similar when participants (n = 8) performed an SIT protocol that involved 3 × 20-s “all-out” efforts of either continuously ascending stairs or cycling. The chronic phase demonstrated that CRF, as determined by peak oxygen uptake (V˙O2peak), increased by 12% or ~1 MET (8.27 ± 1.05 to 9.25 ± 1.01 METs, P = 0.002) when participants (n = 12) performed the 3 × 20-s stair climbing protocol 3 d·wk−1 for 6 wk. The acute phase of study 2 established that HR and RPE were similar when participants (n = 11) performed three different stair climbing protocols: the 3 × 20-s continuous ascent model used in study 1 and two 3 × 60-s models of ascending and descending either one or two flights of stairs (P > 0.05). The chronic phase demonstrated that V˙O2peak increased by 7% (8.91 ± 1.30 to 9.51 ± 1.52 METs, P = 0.01) when the same group of participants performed the one-flight 3 × 60-s protocol 3 d·wk−1 for 6 wk. The Cederholm index determined from an oral glucose tolerance test was 57 ± 17 and 64 ± 21 mg·L−2·mmol−1·mU−1·min−1 before and after training, respectively (P = 0.056). Conclusion Brief, intense stair climbing is a practical, time-efficient strategy to improve CRF in previously untrained women.
Dietary Soy and Soy Isoﬂavones Have Gender-Speciﬁc Effects on Plasma Lipids and Isoﬂavones in Golden Syrian F 1 B Hybrid Hamsters

The speciﬁc components of soy responsible for its beneﬁcial effects on plasma lipids are unknown. Golden Syrian F 1 B Hybrid hamsters (75 male, 74 female) were evaluated for the effect of dietary soy and soy isoﬂavones on plasma lipids. They were fed the following diets for 16 wk: casein/lactalbumin (C/L), soy protein with isoﬂavones [Soy( (cid:1) )], soy protein with isoﬂavones removed [Soy( (cid:2) )], Soy( (cid:2) ) plus isoﬂavone extract (IF), and C/L (cid:1) IF. At necropsy, plasma total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol (HDLC), LDL (cid:1) VLDL cholesterol (LDL (cid:1) VLDLC), isoﬂavones, and uterine and accessory gland weights were measured. Male hamsters fed the three soy-containing diets had lower LDL (cid:1) VLDLC concentrations than those fed the two C/L diets ( P (cid:3) 0.01), and those fed Soy( (cid:2) ) (cid:1) IF did not differ from those fed Soy( (cid:1) ). In females, diet did not affect plasma LDL (cid:1) VLDLC concentration. Females fed Soy( (cid:1) ) or Soy( (cid:2) ) had higher HDLC ( P (cid:3) 0.05) than those fed C/L. HDLC was not affected by diet in males. Due to higher equol production ( P (cid:3) 0.01), males had greater plasma isoﬂavone concentrations ( P (cid:3) 0.01) than females. There was a positive association between plasma total isoﬂavones and LDL (cid:1) VLDLC ( r (cid:4) 0.65, P (cid:3) 0.05) in females. These data suggest gender differences in plasma lipid and isoﬂavone responses to soy- based diets in Syrian F 1 B Hybrid hamsters, which offer an opportunity to explore effects of sex hormones on isoﬂavone metabolism and the effects of isoﬂavones on lipid metabolism. J. Nutr. 132: 3585–3591, 2002.
Failure of excess dietary lysine to antagonize arginine in young pigs.

Experiments were conducted with young pigs to evaluate the effects of excess lysine when added to diets marginal in arginine. The basal diet was formulated to contain 1.15% lysine and 0.53% arginine. Lysine levels above this were achieved by incremental additions of L-lysine.HCl (experiment 1) or L-lysine acetate (experiment 2). Neither weight gain nor gain-feed ratio was lowered in pigs fed twice the recommended level of lysine (i.e., 2.30%). Lysine levels three or four times the basal level, however, lowered both weight gain and feed intake with no commensurate reduction in feed efficiency. Therefore, lysine appeared to reduce growth via amino acid imbalance rather than antagonism. In pigs equally fed isonitrogenous diets, urea N excretion in the urine was lower in those fed 3.45% supplemental lysine (4.6% total lysine) than in those fed the basal diet. This was offset by a dramatic elevation in urinary excretion of basic amino acids. Urinary excretion of lysine accounted for 26.2% of the lysine consumed by pigs fed 3.45% supplemental lysine. Free lysine levels as well as alpha-aminoadipic acid levels were markedly higher in plasma, liver, kidney and muscle of pigs fed excess lysine than in those fed the basal diet. Tissue levels of arginase and ornithine transcarbamoylase were uninfluenced by the level of lysine ingested.
Is birth weight a risk factor for ischemic heart disease in later life?

BACKGROUND An inverse association between birth weight and ischemic heart disease (IHD) has been seen in observational studies. OBJECTIVE We wanted to determine the strength and consistency of the association between birth weight and subsequent IHD. DESIGN We conducted a systematic review of observational studies. RESULTS Seventeen published studies of birth weight and subsequent IHD were identified that included a total of 144,794 singletons. Relative risk estimates for the association between birth weight and IHD were available from 16 of these studies. Additional data from 2 unpublished studies of 3801 persons were also included. In total, the analyses included data from 18 studies on 4210 nonfatal and 3308 fatal IHD events in 147,009 persons. The mean weighted estimate for the association between birth weight and the combined outcome of nonfatal and fatal IHD was 0.84 (95% CI: 0.81, 0.88) per kilogram of birth weight (P<0.0001). No significant heterogeneity was observed between estimates in different studies (P=0.09), nor was there evidence of publication bias (P=0.3, Begg test). Neither restricting the analysis to fatal IHD events nor adjusting for socioeconomic status had any appreciable effect on the findings. CONCLUSIONS These findings are consistent with a 1 kg higher birth weight being associated with a 10-20% lower risk of subsequent IHD. However, even if causal, interventions to increase birth weight are unlikely to reduce the incidence of IHD materially. Further studies are needed to determine whether the observed association reflects a stronger underlying association with a related exposure or is due (at least in part) to residual confounding.
Under consideration for publication in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming 1 On the Stable Model Semantics for Intensional Functions

Several extensions of the stable model semantics are available to describe “intensional” functions—functions that can be described in terms of other functions and predicates by logic programs. Such functions are useful for expressing inertia and default behaviors of systems, and can be exploited for alleviating the grounding bottleneck involving functional fluents. However, the extensions were defined in different ways under different intuitions. In this paper we provide several reformulations of the extensions, and note that they are in fact closely related to each other and coincide on large syntactic classes of logic programs.
Linking demographic processes and foraging ecology in wandering albatross—Conservation implications

Abstract Population dynamics and foraging ecology are two fields of the population ecology that are generally studied separately. Yet, foraging determines allocation processes and therefore demography. Studies on wandering albatrosses Diomedea exulans over the past 50 years have contributed to better understand the links between population dynamics and foraging ecology. This article reviews how these two facets of population ecology have been combined to better understand ecological processes, but also have contributed fundamentally for the conservation of this long‐lived threatened species. Wandering albatross research has combined a 50‐year long‐term study of marked individuals with two decades of tracking studies that have been initiated on this species, favoured by its large size and tameness. At all stages of their life history, the body mass of individuals plays a central role in allocation processes, in particular in influencing adult and juvenile survival, decisions to recruit into the population or to invest into provisioning the offspring or into maintenance. Strong age‐related variations in demographic parameters are observed and are linked to age‐related differences in foraging distribution and efficiency. Marked sex‐specific differences in foraging distribution, foraging efficiency and changes in mass over lifetime are directly related to the strong sex‐specific investment in breeding and survival trajectories of the two sexes, with body mass playing a pivotal role especially in males. Long‐term study has allowed determining the sex‐specific and age‐specific demographic causes of population decline, and the tracking studies have been able to derive where and how these impacts occur, in particular the role of long‐line fisheries.
Subwavelength nanostructures integrated with polymer‐packaged iii–v solar cells for omnidirectional, broad‐spectrum improvement of photovoltaic performance

Reduction in surface and interface reflectance via the integration of subwavelength nanostructures in flexible polymer packaging material combined with incorporation of dielectric nanoislands into a conventional two‐layer antireflection coating has been demonstrated, analyzed and optimized. Transmittance measurements of moth‐eye textured polymer packaging sheets with different tapered pillar heights fabricated by reactive‐ion etching and nanosphere lithography provide insights into the choice of the optimum nanostructure dimensions. Detailed computational modeling and simulations elucidate the physical nature of the antireflection performance of dielectric nanoisland structures integrated with a commercial two‐layer antireflection coating, and provide guidance for design of the nanoisland structure for optimum antireflection performance. Measurements show that the integration of appropriately designed nanostructures in both polymer packaging material and conventional antireflection layers enables substantial increases in external quantum efficiency (E.Q.E.) and short‐circuit current density (Jsc) over a broad range of incident angles, compared to structures with conventional bilayer antireflection coatings and unpatterned polymer packaging sheets. A 1.1× increase in Jsc, derived directly from E.Q. E. measurements, at normal incidence, increasing to 1.67× improvement at 80° angle of incidence, suggests that such an approach is promising for a variety of photovoltaic applications, particularly those where solar tracking is not feasible or practical. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Malnutrition in subacute care.

BACKGROUND Dramatic weight loss and hypoalbuminemia often follow acute hospitalization. OBJECTIVE The objective was to examine the prevalence of undernutrition in a subacute-care facility. DESIGN We evaluated 837 patients consecutively admitted over 14 mo to a 100-bed subacute-care center. Nutritional status was assessed by anthropometric measurements, biochemical markers, and a Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) score. Primary outcome measures included length of stay and death. Secondary measures included readmission to an acute-care hospital and placement at discharge. RESULTS The subjects' mean (+/- SD) age was 76 +/- 13 y and 61% were women. Eighteen percent of the subjects had a body mass index (in kg/m(2)) <19. With the use of 35 g/L as a cutoff, 53% of the subjects had hypoalbuminemia. Only 8% of the subjects were classified as being well nourished according to the MNA. Almost one-third (29%) of the subjects were malnourished and almost two-thirds (63%) were at risk of malnutrition. Thus, >91% of subjects admitted to subacute care were either malnourished or at risk of malnutrition. The Geriatric Depression Score was higher in malnourished subjects than in nutritionally at-risk subjects (P = 0.05). Length of stay differed by 11 d between the malnourished group and the nutritionally at-risk group (P = 0.007). In the MNA-assessed group of largely malnourished subjects, 25% of subjects required readmission to an acute-care hospital compared with 11% of the well-nourished group (P = 0.06). Mortality was not found to be related to BMI. CONCLUSION Malnutrition reaches epidemic proportions in patients admitted to subacute-care facilities. Whether this reflects nutritional neglect in acute-care hospitals or is the result of profound illness is unclear. Nevertheless, strict attention to nutritional status is mandatory in subacute-care settings.
An expert system for the prediction of stroke disease by different least squares support vector machines models

Objective: One of the important life-threatening ailment is stroke across the world. The current paper was performed to classify the outcome of stroke by using Least-Squares Support Vector Machines (LSSVMs) models. Materials and Methods: The medical dataset related to stroke disease was achieved from the clinical database of the emergency medicine department. 28 predictors were recorded in raw dataset. For dimension reduction, correlations between input and target (stroke) variables were evaluated. Different LS-SVMs models were performed with radial basis function (RBF), linear and polynomial kernels. 5- fold cross-validation was used in composing stages to achieve the best model using all of the data. The accuracy and the Area under Receiver Operating Curve (AUC ROC) values were used for performance assessment. Results: At first, feature selection stage was performed. 14 input variables were determined after this stage. Whole dataset was partitioned into 5 sub-datasets (D1, D2, D3, D4, D5) to use all data both training and testing. LS-SVMs models performance were evaluated by using 5-fold cross validation method. Accuracy and AUC values of the models were used as performance criteria. The best model performance was evaluated with LS-SVMs model using linear kernel. That model average accuracy was 86.6%. The best accuracy was evaluated with LS-SVM model using linear kernel on dataset D5 was 94%. As a consequence, the LS-SVMs model can be used for predicting the outcome of stroke. Conclusion: The results point out that LS-SVMs with linear kernel have much more accuracy and AUC values for predicting stroke disease. The suggested LS-SVMs with linear kernel may produce beneficial prediction results related to stroke disease. In future studies, several data mining techniques may be tested and assembled for better classification performance of stroke disease.
The case test-negative design for studies of the effectiveness of influenza vaccine in inpatient settings

Abstract Background: The test-negative design (TND) to evaluate influenza vaccine effectiveness is based on patients seeking care for acute respiratory infection, with those who test positive for influenza as cases and the test-negatives serving as controls. This design has not been validated for the inpatient setting where selection bias might be different from an outpatient setting. Methods: We derived mathematical expressions for vaccine effectiveness (VE) against laboratory-confirmed influenza hospitalizations and used numerical simulations to verify theoretical results exploring expected biases under various scenarios. We explored meaningful interpretations of VE estimates from inpatient TND studies. Results: VE estimates from inpatient TND studies capture the vaccine-mediated protection of the source population against laboratory-confirmed influenza hospitalizations. If vaccination does not modify disease severity, these estimates are equivalent to VE against influenza virus infection. If chronic cardiopulmonary individuals are enrolled because of non-infectious exacerbation, biased VE estimates (too high) will result. If chronic cardiopulmonary disease status is adjusted for accurately, the VE estimates will be unbiased. If chronic cardiopulmonary illness cannot be adequately be characterized, excluding these individuals may provide unbiased VE estimates. Conclusions: The inpatient TND offers logistic advantages and can provide valid estimates of influenza VE. If highly vaccinated patients with respiratory exacerbation of chronic cardiopulmonary conditions are eligible for study inclusion, biased VE estimates will result unless this group is well characterized and the analysis can adequately adjust for it. Otherwise, such groups of subjects should be excluded from the analysis.
A molecular analysis of hybridization between native westslope cutthroat trout and introduced rainbow trout in southeastern British Columbia , Canada

Restriction site variation in the Ikaros gene intron was used to assess the incidence of westslope cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarki lewisi), rainbow trout (O. mykiss) and interspecific hybrids at 11 localities among eight streams tributary to the upper Kootenay River system in south-eastern British Columbia, Canada. Out of 356 fish assayed by this technique, hybrids (n=16) were found at seven of the 11 sites across five different streams. Rainbow trout (n=6) were found at two of the 11 sites. Analysis of hybrids with a second genetic marker (heat shock 71 intron) indicated that most represented either backcrosses to both westslope cutthroat and rainbow trout, or post F1 hybrids. Mitochondrial DNA analysis indicated that hybrid matings occur between male rainbow trout and female westslope cutthroat trout and vice versa. Comparison of present hybridization in five tributaries relative to an allozyme-based analysis in the mid-1980s, that documented hybrids in only a single tributary of seven that were common to the two studies, suggests that hybridization and introgression has increased in upper Kootenay River tributaries. The present analysis is a conservative estimate of genetic interaction between the species because introgression was not tested in the majority of samples. Identification of genetically pure westslope cutthroat trout populations, and why they might be resistant to introgression from rainbow trout, are crucial conservation priorities for this unique subspecies of cutthroat trout. 2001 The Fisheries Society of the British Isles
When Science Replaces Religion: Science as a Secular Authority Bolsters Moral Sensitivity

Scientific and religious thinking compete with each other on several levels. For example, activating one generally weakens the other. Since priming religion is known to increase moral behaviour and moral sensitivity, priming science might be expected to have the opposite effect. However, it was recently demonstrated that, on the contrary, science priming increases moral sensitivity as well. The present set of studies sought to replicate this effect and test two explanations for it. Study 1 used a sentence unscrambling task for implicitly priming the concept of science but failed to replicate its effect on moral sensitivity, presumably due to a ceiling effect. Study 2 replicated the effect with a new measure of moral sensitivity. Study 3 tested whether science-related words create this effect by activating the idea of secular authority or by activating analytic thinking. It was demonstrated that words related to secular authority, but not words related to analytic thinking, produced a similar increase in moral sensitivity. Religiosity level of the participants did not influence this basic finding. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that science as a secular institution has overtaken some of the functions of religion in modern societies.
The structure of the tetanus toxin reveals pH‐mediated domain dynamics

The tetanus neurotoxin (TeNT) is a highly potent toxin produced by Clostridium tetani that inhibits neurotransmission of inhibitory interneurons, causing spastic paralysis in the tetanus disease. TeNT differs from the other clostridial neurotoxins by its unique ability to target the central nervous system by retrograde axonal transport. The crystal structure of the tetanus toxin reveals a “closed” domain arrangement stabilised by two disulphide bridges, and the molecular details of the toxin's interaction with its polysaccharide receptor. An integrative analysis combining X‐ray crystallography, solution scattering and single particle electron cryo‐microscopy reveals pH‐mediated domain rearrangements that may give TeNT the ability to adapt to the multiple environments encountered during intoxication, and facilitate binding to distinct receptors.