Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Serum Levels of FGF-21 Are Increased in Coronary Heart Disease Patients and Are Independently Associated with Adverse Lipid Profile

Background Fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF-21) is a metabolic regulator with multiple beneficial effects on glucose homeostasis and lipid metabolism in animal models. The relationship between plasma levels of FGF-21 and coronary heart disease (CHD) in unknown. Methodology/Principal Findings This study aimed to investigate the correlation of serum FGF-21 levels and lipid metabolism in the patients with coronary heart disease. We performed a logistic regression analysis of the relation between serum levels of FGF-21 and CHD patients with and without diabetes and hypertension. This study was conducted in the Departments of Endocrinology and Cardiovascular Diseases at two University Hospitals. Participants consisted of one hundred and thirty-five patients who have been diagnosed to have CHD and sixty-one control subjects. Serum FGF-21 level and levels of fasting blood glucose; triglyceride; apolipoprotein B100; HOMA-IR; insulin; total cholesterol; HDL-cholesterol; LDL-cholesterol; and C-reactive protein were measured. We found that median serum FGF-21 levels were significantly higher in CHD than that of control subjects (P<0.0001). Serum FGF-21 levels in CHD patients with diabetes, hypertension, or both were higher than that of patients without these comorbidities. Serum FGF-21 levels correlated positively with triglycerides, fasting blood glucose, apolipoprotein B100, insulin and HOMA-IR but negatively with HDL-C and apolipoprotein A1 after adjusting for BMI, diabetes and hypertension. Logistic regression analysis demonstrated that FGF-21 showed an independent association with triglyceride and apolipoprotein A1. Conclusions/Significance High levels of FGF-21 are associated with adverse lipid profiles in CHD patients. The paradoxical increase of serum FGF-21 in CHD patients may indicate a compensatory response or resistance to FGF-21.
Modeling, Profiling, and Debugging the Energy Consumption of Mobile Devices

Software energy profilers are the tools to measure the energy consumption of mobile devices, applications running on those devices, and various hardware components. They adopt different modeling and measurement techniques. In this article, we aim to review a wide range of such energy profilers for mobile devices. First, we introduce the terminologies and describe the power modeling and measurement methodologies applied in model-based energy profiling. Next, we classify the profilers according to their implementation and deployment strategies, and compare the profiling capabilities and performance between different types. Finally, we point out their limitations and the corresponding challenges.
Effectiveness of Non-Pharmacological Interventions to Prevent Falls in Older People: A Systematic Overview. The SENATOR Project ONTOP Series

Background Falls are common events in older people, which cause considerable morbidity and mortality. Non-pharmacological interventions are an important approach to prevent falls. There are a large number of systematic reviews of non-pharmacological interventions, whose evidence needs to be synthesized in order to facilitate evidence-based clinical decision making. Objectives To systematically examine reviews and meta-analyses that evaluated non-pharmacological interventions to prevent falls in older adults in the community, care facilities and hospitals. Methods We searched the electronic databases Pubmed, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, PEDRO and TRIP from January 2009 to March 2015, for systematic reviews that included at least one comparative study, evaluating any non-pharmacological intervention, to prevent falls amongst older adults. The quality of the reviews was assessed using AMSTAR and ProFaNE taxonomy was used to organize the interventions. Results Fifty-nine systematic reviews were identified which consisted of single, multiple and multifactorial non-pharmacological interventions to prevent falls in older people. The most frequent ProFaNE defined interventions were exercises either alone or combined with other interventions, followed by environment/assistive technology interventions comprising environmental modifications, assistive and protective aids, staff education and vision assessment/correction. Knowledge was the third principle class of interventions as patient education. Exercise and multifactorial interventions were the most effective treatments to reduce falls in older adults, although not all types of exercise were equally effective in all subjects and in all settings. Effective exercise programs combined balance and strength training. Reviews with a higher AMSTAR score were more likely to contain more primary studies, to be updated and to perform meta-analysis. Conclusions The aim of this overview of reviews of non-pharmacological interventions to prevent falls in older people in different settings, is to support clinicians and other healthcare workers with clinical decision-making by providing a comprehensive perspective of findings.
Do costs fall faster than revenues? Dynamics of renewables entry into electricity markets

In many countries, entry of renewable electricity producers has been supported by subsidies and financed by a tax on electricity consumed. This article is the first to analytically derive the dynamics of the generation mix, subsidy, and tax as renewable capacity increases. This enables us to complement and extend previous work by providing analytical expressions for previously obtained simulation results, and deriving additional results. The analysis yields three main findings. First, the subsidy to renewable may never stop, as the value of the energy produced may decrease faster than the cost as renewable capacity increases. Second, high renewable penetration leads to a discontinuity in marginal values, after which the subsidy and tax grow extremely rapidly. Finally, reducing the occurrence of negative prices, for example by providing renewable producers with financial instead of physical dispatch insurance, yields significant benefits.
Energy Efficiency Optimization for MISO SWIPT Systems With Zero-Forcing Beamforming

This paper considers a power splitting based multiuser multiple-input-single-output (MISO) downlink system with simultaneous wireless information and power transfer, where each single antenna receiver splits the received signal into two streams of different power for decoding information and harvesting energy separately. Assuming that the most common zero-forcing (ZF) beamforming scheme is employed by the base station, we aim to maximize the system energy efficiency in bits per Joule by joint beamforming and power splitting under both the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio constraints and energy harvesting constraints. The energy efficiency optimization (EEO) problem is nonconvex and very hard to solve. In this paper, by exploiting the problem structure, we first simplify the EEO problem to a joint transmit power allocation and receive power splitting problem. Then, with a tactful reformulation, we propose a Lagrangian relaxation (LR) method coupled with Dinkelbach method to address the simplified EEO problem, whilst devising a nearly closed-form solution for the subproblems involved in the Dinkelbach method. It is proven that the proposed LR method is optimum under some condition and can guarantee at least a feasible solution, which is a notable advantage over the existing methods. Besides, we develop a low complexity EEO algorithm by proportionally distributing the total power to users. Finally, numerical results validate the excellent efficiency of the proposed algorithms.
The Direct Interaction between Two Morphogenetic Proteins Is Essential for Spore Coat Formation in Bacillus subtilis

In Bacillus subtilis the protective layers that surround the mature spore are formed by over seventy different proteins. Some of those proteins have a regulatory role on the assembly of other coat proteins and are referred to as morphogenetic factors. CotE is a major morphogenetic factor, known to form a ring around the forming spore and organize the deposition of the outer surface layers. CotH is a CotE-dependent protein known to control the assembly of at least nine other coat proteins. We report that CotH also controls the assembly of CotE and that this mutual dependency is due to a direct interaction between the two proteins. The C-terminal end of CotE is essential for this direct interaction and CotH cannot bind to mutant CotE deleted of six or nine C-terminal amino acids. However, addition of a negatively charged amino acid to those deleted versions of CotE rescues the interaction.
Futbol ve Futsal Branşlarında Spor Yapan Genç Kadınların Saldırganlık Yaklaşımları

Calismada saldirganlik “yikici saldirganlik”, “atilganlik” ve “edilgen saldirganlik” olmak uzere uc boyutta incelenmistir. Bu dogrultuda arastirmanin amaci, ortaogretim kurumlarinda futbol ve futsal takimlarinda spor yapan kadin ogrencilerin saldirganlik duzeylerinin birtakim degiskenlerle iliskisini incelemektir. Arastirma grubunu 2017-2018 egitim-ogretim yilinda Ankara ili merkez ilcelerinde ortaogretim (lise) kurumlarinda egitim goren ve okullarini futbol ve futsal takimlarinda oynayan kadin ogrencilerden rastgele orneklem yontemiyle secilen toplam 153 (futbol n=76, futsal n=77) sporcu kadin ogrenci olusturmaktadir. Bu arastirmada Ipek Ilter (Kiper, 1984) tarafindan gelistirilen, 30 maddeden ve uc alt testten (yikici saldirganlik, atilganlik ve edilgen saldirganlik) olusturulmus saldirganlik envanteri ve kisisel bilgi formu kullanilmistir. Sporcu kadinlarin saldirganlik envanteri alt boyutlarindan ve toplamindan elde edilen puanlarin belirlenmesinde tanimlayici istatistik tekniklerinden, Ss, Range, Min. ve Max. degerler kullanilmistir. Sporcu kadinlarin saldirganlik envanteri alt boyutlarina ve toplamina ait puan ortalamalarinin kisisel degiskenlerine gore farklilasip farklilasmadiginin belirlenmesinde oncelikle verilerin normal dagilim gosterip gostermedigi Kolmogorov-Smirnov testi ile incelenmis ve bu inceleme sonucunda veriler normal dagilim gosterdiginden dolayi uc veya daha fazla kume karsilastirmalari icin Tek Yonlu Varyans Analizi (ANOVA) kullanilmistir. ANOVA sonucu anlamli bulunan farkliliklarin kaynagini belirlemek uzere varyanslarin homojen olmasindan dolayi Tukey HSD coklu karsilastirma testi kullanilmistir. Arastirmada anlamlilik duzeyi 0.05 olarak alinmistir. Genel olarak sporcu kadinlarin saldirganlik duzeylerinin orta seviyede oldugunu, sporcu kadinlarin farkli yaslarda olmasinin saldirganlik duzeylerine bir etkisinin olmadigini, sonuclara gore, sporcu kadinlarin saldirganlik duzeyleri uzerinde ailelerinin gelir seviyelerinin bir etkisinin olmadigi. Babalarin egitim durumunun yukselmesine paralel olarak yikici saldirganlik, atilganlik ve genel saldirganlik duygusuna sahip olma durumlarinin azalacagi belirlenmistir. Ayrica annelerin egitim durumunun yukselmesine paralel olarak yikici saldirganlik duygusuna sahip olma durumlarinin azalacagi gozlemlenmistir. Kardes sayilarinin saldirganlik davranislarina olan etkisi incelendiginde ise kardes sayisi az olan sporcu kadinlarin kardes sayisi fazla olan sporcu kadinlara gore yikici saldirganlik ve genel saldirganlik duygularinin daha yuksek duzeyde oldugu bulunmustur.
Surgical Technique and Peripheral Artery Disease

Invasive treatment for patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD) has changed dramatically. Medicare claims data from 1996 to 2006 reveal an almost doubling of lower-extremity vascular procedures: The use of endovascular repair increased >3-fold, bypass surgery decreased 42%, and the amputation rate decreased by 29%. 1 For patients admitted to hospital for PAD between 1996 and 2005, the likelihood of undergoing surgery decreased from 34.5% to 26.3%. 2 Although the rate of bypass is decreasing, surgery remains an important component in the armamentarium for treating patients with advanced vascular disease. Surgical revascularization is indicated in patients with acceptable surgical risk who require a more durable repair, in those with lesions technically unsuitable for endovascular repair, and in patients who experienced failure of endovascular repair. Despite significant increases in patient morbidity, surgical bypass has become safer over the past 2 decades. Nationally, mortality after surgical bypass decreased from 7% to 4% from the 1980s to mid-1990s. From 1998 to 2003, mortality for open and combined procedures stabilized at 3% to 4%. 3 Data from the National Inpatient Survey comparing outcomes in 1998 and 2007 show significant reductions in complication rates across all categories except infection.4 Several factors may account for improved outcomes: a shift to endovascular therapy or “limited” open surgery to achieve revascularization in high-risk patients; better patient selection; more effective medication regimens consisting of a statin, an antiplatelet agent, and β-blocker; and improved intraoperative care and postoperative management. This review examines the risk of adverse events after vascular surgery, identifies strategies for determining and decreasing cardiac risk, and describes contemporary surgical approaches to treating patients with PAD. Patients with symptomatic PAD frequently have concomitant cerebrovascular or coronary artery disease (CAD) that places them at high risk for adverse cardiovascular outcomes after surgery. Direct reconstruction for aortoiliofemoral disease is …
ProFlex: A Probabilistic and Flexible Data Storage Protocol for Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper presents ProFlex, a proactive data distribution protocol for heterogeneous wireless sensor networks (HWSNs). ProFlex guarantees robustness in data retrieval by intelligently managing data replication among selected storage nodes in the network. Contrarily to related protocols in the literature, ProFlex considers the resource constraints of sensor nodes and constructs multiple data replication structures, which are managed by more powerful nodes. Additionally, ProFlex takes profit of the higher communication range of such powerful nodes in the network and use the long link to improve data distribution. When compared with Supple -- a related protocol, we show by simulation that Proflex increases the network resilience under failures circumstances, decreases the overhead of transmitted messages, and decreases the number of hops to find a specific data in the network.
2 Our mid 1990 s analysis of Sweden 2 . 1 Salient facts about Sweden

“The main difficulty with the Eurosclerosis hypothesis is one of timing. Although details can be debated, no strong case exists that Europe’s welfare states were much more extensive or intrusive in the 1970s than in the 1960s, and no case at all exists that there was more interference in markets in the 1980s than in the 1970s. Why did a social system that seemed to work extremely well in the 1960s work increasingly badly thereafter? ” Krugman (1987, p. 68)
Integrating Supervised and Unsupervised Classification Methods to Develop a More Accurate Land Cover Classification

The classificationand mapping of land cover provides fundamentalinformation about the characteristics, activities, and status of specific areas on the earth's surface. The quality of the final classificationis critical in providing accurate information for ecologistsand resource managers in decision-making and for developing a landscape-level understanding of an ecosystem. A land cover classificationwas developed for 5 research watershedsin Garland and Saline counties in Arkansas using 2002 LANDSAT7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) satelliteimagery. The supervisedclassificationwas based upon 146 training areas identified from reference data and then applied to the imagery using the maximum likelihood classification algorithm.The unsupervised classificationused an Iterative Self-Organizing Data Analysis Techniques (ISODATA)algorithm to classify the imagery into 300 spectral classes which then were identified from reference data. Data from 171field locations were used to assess the accuracy of the final classificationsusing an error matrix. The supervised classificationhad an overall accuracyof 74.85%compared to 40.94%for the unsupervised classification.However, the dense canopy pine plantation class, whichcomprises 10.69%of the total area of the watersheds(1,216.69ha), was more accurately classifiedin the unsupervised classification(64.29%) than the supervised classification (43.86%). The unsupervised classification of dense canopy pine plantation was incorporated into the supervised classificationto producea final integrated classification with an improved overallaccuracy of 76.61%. Wefound that, where greater accuracy is desired, both classificationmethods shouldbe used and theresults integrated to utilize each method's strengths.
Social media addiction: Its impact, mediation, and intervention

This research examined the relations of social media addiction to college students' mental health and academic performance, investigated the role of self-esteem as a mediator for the relations, and further tested the effectiveness of an intervention in reducing social media addiction and its potential adverse outcomes. In Study 1, we used a survey method with a sample of college students (N = 232) and found that social media addiction was negatively associated with the students' mental health and academic performance and that the relation between social media addiction and mental health was mediated by self-esteem. In Study 2, we developed and tested a two-stage self-help intervention program. We recruited a sample of college students (N = 38) who met criteria for social media addiction to receive the intervention. Results showed that the intervention was effective in reducing the students’ social media addiction and improving their mental health and academic efficiency. The current studies yielded original findings that contribute to the empirical database on social media addiction and that have important theoretical and practical implications.
On The Security Evaluation of Partial Password Implementations

A partial password is a mode of password-based authentication that is widely used, especially in the financial sector. It is based on a challenge-response protocol, where at each login attempt, a challenge requesting characters from randomly selected positions of a pre-shared secret is presented to the user. This mode could be seen as a “cheap way” of preventing for example a malware or a keylogger installed on a user’s device to learn the full password in a single step. Despite of the widespread adoption of this mechanism, especially by many UK banks, there is limited material in the open literature. Questions like how the security of the scheme varies with the sampling method employed to form the challenges or what are the existing server-side implementations are left unaddressed. In this paper, we study questions like how the security of this mechanism varies in relation to the number of challenge-response pairs available to an attacker under different ways of generating challenges. In addition, we discuss possible server-side implementations as (unofficially) listed in different online forums by information security experts. To the best of our knowledge there is no formal academic literature in this direction and one of the aims of this paper is to motivate other researchers to study this topic.
MoS2 Formed on Mesoporous Graphene as a Highly Active Catalyst for Hydrogen Evolution

A highly active and stable electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution is developed based on the in situ formation of MoS2 nanoparticles on mesoporous graphene foams (MoS2/MGF). Taking advantage of its high specific surface area and its interconnected conductive graphene skeleton, MGF provides a favorable microenvironment for the growth of highly dispersed MoS2 nanoparticles while allowing rapid charge transfer kinetics. The MoS2/MGF nanocomposites exhibit an excellent electrocatalytic activity for the hydrogen evolution reaction with a low overpotential and substantial apparent current densities. Such enhanced catalytic activity stems from the abundance of catalytic edge sites, the increase of electrochemically accessible surface area and the unique synergic effects between the MGF support and active catalyst. The electrode reactions are characterized by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. A Tafel slope of ≈42 mV per decade is measured for a MoS2/MGF modified electrode, suggesting the Volmer‐Heyrovsky mechanism of hydrogen evolution.
Bit error probability evaluation in optically preamplified direct-detection OFDM systems using the moment generating function

A novel method that allows the evaluation of the performance of an optically preamplified direct-detection baseband orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system with arbitrary optical and electrical filtering at the optical receiver is proposed. The method is based on the moment generating function of the symbol detected in each OFDM subcarrier after equalization and relies on the assumption that the noise samples at the fast Fourier transform (FFT) block input at the receiver side are practically uncorrelated. It is shown that, for typical filter bandwidths used in direct-detection optical OFDM systems (similar to or exceeding the OFDM signal bandwidth), the proposed method provides reasonably accurate estimates of the bit error probability for different electrical and optical filter types with various bandwidths, and for different numbers of OFDM subcarriers. For filter bandwidths smaller than the OFDM signal bandwidth, the proposed method becomes inaccurate due to the high correlation between the noise samples at the FFT block input.
Funtional vector quantization by neural maps

We propose the utilization of Sobolev-norms in unsupervised and supervised vector quantization for clustering and classification of functional data. Sobolev-norms differ from the usual Minkowski-norm by the incorporation of derivatives such that the functional shape is taken into account. This leads to a more appropriate modelling of functional data. As we figure out, the Sobolev-norm can easily plugged into prototype based adaptive vector quantization algorithms to process functional data adequately. We show for an example application in remote sensing data analysis that this methodology may lead to improved performance of the algorithms.