Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gender Differences in the Relationship Between Periodontal Disease, Tooth Loss, and Atherosclerosis

Background and Purpose— Males carry a disproportionate burden of cardiovascular disease. Because males also bear a higher burden of periodontal disease, we investigated the existence of gender differences in the postulated relationship between periodontal infections, tooth loss, and subclinical atherosclerosis. Methods— A total of 1710 randomly enrolled participants between the ages of 45 and 75 with no history of myocardial infarction or stroke received a clinical periodontal examination, carotid scan using high-resolution B-mode ultrasound, and extensive measurements for conventional cardiovascular risk factors (age, education, smoking, alcohol, body mass index, diabetes, systolic blood pressure, low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol, and triglycerides) as well as markers of healthy lifestyle and social network. Results— In both genders, measures of current and long-term periodontitis worsened as tooth loss increased. In males but not females, an ≈10% difference in carotid artery plaque prevalence was observed between the lowest and highest tertiles of tooth loss (P <0.05) and long-term periodontitis (P =0.05) after multivariate adjustment. Similar patterns were observed for intima–media thickness. The influence of gender on carotid artery plaque prevalence was most evident among the younger age group (<59 years). Between genders, carotid plaque prevalence differed by 10%, 15%, and 25% across increasing levels of tooth loss, and by 5%, 15%, and 25% across increasing levels of long-term periodontitis. Conclusions— Our data suggest that tooth loss and long-term periodontitis are related to subclinical atherosclerosis in men but not women. Gender variations in cardiovascular morbidity or mortality may be explained partly by the differential contributions of novel risk factors across genders.
Extremal I-Limit Points Of Double Sequences

The concept of ideal convergence was introduced by P. Kostyrko et al in 2000. This concept was extended to the double sequences by B.C. Tripathy in 2005. Throughout this paper we will present multidimensional ideal analogues of the results presented by J.A. Fridy and C. Orhan in 1997. To achieve this goal, multidimensional ideal analogues of the definitions for I-bounded sequences, Iinferior and I-superior will be presented.
How private-sector farm advisors change their practices: An Australian case study

There is increasing interest in the extent to which private-sector farm advisors support farmer responses to emerging challenges, such as climate variability or new forms of agricultural production. However, scholars have paid limited attention to what motivates farm advisors to develop their knowledge and how they go about changing their practice in areas outside their disciplinary expertise. This paper presents a qualitative study of the processes of change in the advisory practices of private-sector farm advisors who were provided with formal training as part of an Australian dairy sector extension program. This training focussed on the farm workforce and employment, and involved e ﬀ orts to engage livestock production and agronomic advisors in this challenging area for farm management advice. We drew on theoretical concepts of practice and professional identity formation and found that engagement in the new area created con ﬂ ict with how the advisors thought about their professional identity. Three key processes enabled advisory practice change: envisioning new advisory roles; experimenting with new advisory identities; and legitimisation of new advisory practices from both farmers and the advisors' business. While farming clients' demand for advice increased the advisors' interest in knowledge acquisition, this alone did not provide the environment for individual and collective re ﬂ exivity to cope with the complexity, risk and uncertainty of developing new advisory practices. The support of the dairy industry in forming a new practice community was found to assist the development of new advisory identities. A wider conceptualisation of the advisors' world (their identity, practices and their needs) is required if private-sector advisors are to play a greater role in helping farmers respond to emerging challenges.
An Investigation of Five Types of Personality Trait Continuity: A Two-Wave Longitudinal Study of Spanish Adolescents from Age 12 to Age 15

The present study investigated five types of personality trait continuity using two measurement waves of Spanish adolescents (N = 234). Personality traits were measured with the short form of the Junior Spanish NEO-PI-R (JS NEO-S) at ages 12 and 15. The results showed stability in the personality trait structure, as well as decreases in the mean levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness. The results also showed moderate rank-order consistency. Individual-level changes were more pronounced for neuroticism and conscientiousness. Approximately 90% of the participants showed ipsative consistency. The findings showed some personality trait changes occurred from age 12 to 15, but the changes were less marked than expected during this period of biological and social development. Our results also support the disruption hypothesis, as we found dips in conscientiousness and, to a lesser degree, agreeableness.
Pharmacokinetic and Pharmacodynamic Studies of a Human Serum Albumin-Interferon-α Fusion Protein in Cynomolgus Monkeys

Interferon-α (IFN-α) is indicated for the treatment of certain viral infections including hepatitis B and C, and cancers such as melanoma. The short circulating half-life of unmodified IFN-α makes frequent dosing (daily or three times weekly) over an extended period (6–12 months or more) necessary. To improve the pharmacokinetics of IFN-α and decrease dosing frequency, IFN-α was fused to human serum albumin producing a new protein, Albuferon. In vitro comparisons of Albuferon and IFN-α showed similar antiviral and antiproliferative activities, although Albuferon was less potent on a molar basis than IFN-α. Pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties of the fusion protein were enhanced in monkeys. After a single intravenous injection (30 μg/kg,) clearance was 0.9 ml/h/kg, and the terminal half-life was 68 h. After 30 μg/kg subcutaneous injection, apparent clearance (clearance divided by bioavailability) was 1.4 ml/h/kg, the terminal half-life was 93 h, and bioavailability was 64%. The rate of clearance of Albuferon was approximately 140-fold slower, and the half-life 18-fold longer, than for IFN-α given by the subcutaneous route in other monkey studies. Sera from Albuferon-treated monkeys demonstrated dose-related antiviral activity for ≥8 days based on an in vitro bioassay, whereas antiviral activity from IFN-α-treated animals was only slightly elevated relative to vehicle on day 0. Significant increases in 2′,5′-oligoadenylate synthetase mRNA relative to IFN-α- or vehicle-treated animals were maintained for ≥10 days after subcutaneous dosing. The improved pharmacokinetics of Albuferon are accompanied by an improved pharmacodynamic response suggesting that Albuferon may offer the benefits of less frequent dosing and a potentially improved efficacy profile compared with IFN-α.
A Randomized Trial of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Training for Medical Students: Voice Advisory Mannequin Compared to Guidance Provided by an Instructor

Introduction Current European Resuscitation Guidelines 2010 recommend the use of prompt/feedback devices when training for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). We aimed to assess the quality of CPR training among second-year medical students with a voice advisory mannequin (VAM) compared to guidance provided by an instructor. Methods Forty-three students received a theoretical reminder about CPR followed by a 2-minute pretest on CPR (compressions/ventilations cycle) with Resusci Anne SkillReporter (Laerdal Medical). They were then randomized into a control group (n = 22), trained by an instructor for 4 minutes per student, and an intervention group (n = 21) trained individually with VAM CPR mannequin for 4 minutes. After training, the students performed a 2-minute posttest, with the same method as the pretest. Results Participants in the intervention group (VAM) performed more correct hand position (73% vs. 37%; P = 0.014) and tended to display better compression rate (124 min−1 vs. 135 min−1; P = 0.089). In a stratified analyses by sex we found that only among women trained with VAM was there a significant improvement in compression depth before and after training (36 mm vs. 46 mm, P = 0.018) and in the percentage of insufficient compressions before and after training (56% vs. 15%; P = 0.021). Conclusions In comparison to the traditional training method involving an instructor, training medical students in CPR with VAM improves the quality of chest compressions in hand position and in compression rate applied to mannequins. Only among women was VAM shown to be superior in compression depth training. This technology reduces costs in 14% in our setup and might potentially release instructors’ time for other activities.
Single-Point Velocity Distribution in Turbulence

We show that the tails of the single-point velocity probability distribution function (PDF) are generally non-Gaussian in developed turbulence. By using instanton formalism for the randomly forced Navier-Stokes equation, we establish the relation between the PDF tails of the velocity and those of the external forcing. In particular, we show that a Gaussian random force having correlation scale L and correlation time t produces velocity PDF tails ln P syd ~2 y 4 at y ? yrms, Lyt. For a short-correlated forcing when t ? Lyyrms there is an intermediate asymptotics ln P syd ~2 y 3 at Lyt ? y ? yrms. [S0031-9007(97)04610-3]
Clinical and Echocardiographic Outcomes After Bariatric Surgery in Obese Patients With Left Ventricular Systolic Dysfunction

Background—Obesity is a risk factor for development of left ventricular systolic dysfunction (LVSD) and can complicate LVSD management, especially for individuals in whom cardiac transplantation is indicated. Bariatric surgery is increasingly recognized as a safe and effective intervention to achieve marked weight loss, but experience is limited in the LVSD population. Methods and Results—We retrospectively reviewed patients with obesity and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) <50% who underwent bariatric surgery at a tertiary center 2004 to 2013. An analysis of outcomes and efficacy compared 42 surgical patients with LVSD to 2588 without known LVSD. The LVSD group had greater baseline prevalence of comorbidities and showed a slight excess of early postoperative heart failure and myocardial infarction. However, patients with LVSD achieved good weight loss efficacy (mean decrease 22.6%) and no excess in mortality at 1 year. An overlapping cohort of 38 patients with LVSD had both pre- and postoperative echocardiographic images available for review by 2 blinded readers. Obese nonsurgical controls were matched on age, sex, initial LVEF, and interval between echocardiograms. There was a mean pre- to postoperative LVEF improvement of +5.1% ±8.3 (P=0.0005) for surgical subjects, but not for controls (+3.4%±10.5, P=0.056). Among surgical subjects, 11 patients had an LVEF improvement of >10%, whereas only 6 improved by >10% among nonsurgical controls. Conclusions—At experienced centers, bariatric surgery may be a safe and effective intervention for obese patients with LVSD. Bariatric surgery was associated with an improvement in LVEF, although the magnitude of change was on the cusp of clinical significance.
Computation Offloading for Frame-Based Real-Time Tasks with Resource Reservation Servers

Computation offloading concept has been recently adopted to improve the performance of embedded systems by moving some computation-intensive tasks (partially or wholly) to a powerful remote server. In this paper, we consider a computation offloading problem for frame-based real-time tasks, in which all the tasks have the same arrival time and the same relative deadline/period, by adopting the total bandwidth server (TBS) as resource reservations in the server side (remote execution unit). We prove that the problem is N P-complete and propose two algorithms in this paper. The first algorithm is a greedy algorithm with low complexity and provides a quick heuristic approach to decide which tasks to be offloaded and how the tasks are scheduled. The maximum finishing time of the solution derived from the greedy algorithm is at most twice of the finishing time (make span, maximal on the client and on the server) of any schedule. The second algorithm is a dynamic programming approach, which builds a three-dimensional table and requires pseudo-polynomial time complexity, to make an optimal decision for computation offloading. The algorithms are evaluated with a case study of a surveillance system and synthesized benchmarks.
Logical equivalence checking of asynchronous circuits using commercial tools

We propose a method for logical equivalence check (LEC) of asynchronous circuits using commercial synchronous tools. In particular, we verify the equivalence of asynchronous circuits which are modeled at the CSP-level in SystemVerilog as well as circuits modeled at the micro-architectural level using conditional communication library primitives. Our approach is based on a novel three-valued logic model that abstracts the detailed handshaking protocol and is thus agnostic to different gate-level implementations, making it applicable to a variety of different design styles. Our experimental results with commercial LEC tools on a variety of computational blocks and an asynchronous microprocessor demonstrate the applicability and limitations of the proposed approach.
A compact DD neutron generator–based NAA system to quantify manganese (Mn) in bone in vivo

A deuterium-deuterium (DD) neutron generator–based neutron activation analysis (NAA) system has been developed to quantify metals, including manganese (Mn), in bone in vivo. A DD neutron generator with a flux of up to 3*109 neutrons s−1 was set up in our lab for this purpose. Optimized settings, including moderator, reflector, and shielding material and thickness, were selected based on Monte Carlo (MC) simulations conducted in our previous work. Hand phantoms doped with different Mn concentrations were irradiated using the optimized DD neutron generator irradiation system. The Mn characteristic γ-rays were collected by an HPGe detector system with 100% relative efficiency. The calibration line of the Mn/calcium (Ca) count ratio versus bone Mn concentration was obtained (R2 = 0.99) using the hand phantoms. The detection limit (DL) was calculated to be about 1.05 μg g−1 dry bone (ppm) with an equivalent dose of 85.4 mSv to the hand. The DL can be reduced to 0.74 ppm by using two 100% HPGe detectors. The whole body effective dose delivered to the irradiated subject was calculated to be about 17 μSv. Given the average normal bone Mn concentration of 1 ppm in the general population, this system is promising for in vivo bone Mn quantification in humans.
Security Assurance of Services through Digital Security Certificates

Service Oriented Computing (SOC) has facilitated a paradigm shift in software provisioning models: software gets consumed as a "service" providing enormous benefits, however lack of security assurance of third-party services is hampering their wider adoption in business- and security-critical domains. Security certification typically provides the required assurance, however applying it as is to SOC is infeasible, given that the natural language representation of resulting certificates is a major obstacle for typical SOC scenarios like service discovery, service composition and so on. To overcome the limitations of existing security certificates we present the concept of a digital security certificate for services. It is realized by a language which enables the representation of a security certificate in a structured, machine processable manner that would enable automated reasoning to be performed on them and thus make it feasible for certified security features to be part of typical SOC scenarios.
On the metallicities of UM 133, UM 283 and UM 382

The study of group properties of the extremely metal-deficient gas-rich local dwarfs is very promising for the understanding the galaxy formation process at high redshifts. About 20 such objects have been picked up from the literature in the recent review by Kunth & Ostlin(2000). However part of these galaxies got low metallicity as a result of earlier observations, and can have rather large uncertainties in their cited element abundances. Before to perform the detailed studies of such galaxies as of some extreme group, it is useful to revise their metallicities. We present the results of the SAO 6m telescope spectrophotometry of two Blue Compact Galaxies (BCG) reported from earlier studies as very metal-poor objects. Well measured [O III] line 4363 A allows to deduce the temperature in HII regions and get reliable abundances of chemical elements. For UM 133 we derive 12+log(O/H) = 7.63+/-0.02, coincident with the published value. UM 382, according to our data, is significantly more metal-rich: its 12+log(O/H) = 7.82+/-0.03 in comparison to the published value 7.45. The third galaxy, UM 283 seems have got its very low 12+log(O/H) = 7.59 due to a misprint. We used its published emission line intensities and derived instead the value of 7.95. Thus the latter two galaxies should NOT be considered as the extremely metal-poor BCGs.
Performance of SVM based on PUK kernel in comparison to SVM based on RBF kernel in prediction of yarn tenacity

A new kernel function of SVM based on the Pearson VII function has been applied and compared with the commonly applied kernel functions, i.e. the polynomial and radial basis function (RBF), to predict yarn tenacity. It is found that the SVM model based on Pearson VII kernel function (PUK) shows the same applicability, suitability, performance in prediction of yarn tenacity as against SVM based RBF kernel. The comparison with the ANN model shows that the two SVM models give a similar predictive performance than ANN model.
Effects of Structural and Electronic Disorder in Topological Insulator Sb2Te3 Thin Films

Advisor: Professor Lia Krusin-Elbaum Topological quantum matter is a unique and potentially transformative protectorate against disorder-induced backscattering. The ultimate disorder limits to the topological state, however, are still not known – understanding these limits is critical to potential applications in the fields of spintronics and information processing. In topological insulators spin-orbit interaction and time-reversal-symmetry invariance guarantees – at least up to a certain disorder strength – that charge transport through 2D gapless Dirac surface states is robust against backscattering by non-magnetic disorder. Strong disorder may destroy topological protection and gap out Dirac surface states, although recent theories predict that under severe electronic disorder a quantized topological conductance might yet reemerge. Very strong electronic disorder, however, is not trivial to install and quantify, and topological matter under such conditions thus far has not been experimentally tested. This thesis addresses the behavior of three-dimensional (3D) topological insulator (TI) films in a wide range of structural and electronic disorder. We establish strong positional disorder in thin (20-50 nm) Sb2Te3 films, free of extrinsic magnetic dopants. Sb2Te3 is a known 2 generation topological insulator in the low-disorder crystalline state. It is also a known phase-change material that undergoes insulator–to–metal transition with the iv
Mitochondrial phylogenies in the light of pseudogenes and Wolbachia: re-assessment of a bark beetle dataset

Abstract Phylogenetic studies based on mtDNA become increasingly questioned because of potential pitfalls due to mitochondrial pseudogenes and mitochondrial selective sweeps. While the inclusion of nuclear markers should preferentially be considered for future studies, there is no need to abandon mtDNA as long as tests for the known mtDNA artefacts are performed. In this study we presentadditionaldata and test previous phylogeographical studies of Pityogenes chalcographus. We did not detect nuclear copies (numts) of the previously used mitochondrial markers by performing a combined long range/nested PCR of the COI gene and by an in silico analysis of the COI sequence data. This confirms the robustness of our previous phylogenetic study of Pityogenes chalcographus. Results of an in-situ hybridization of Wolbachia in Pityogenes chalcographus confirm the presence of this endosysmbiont in this species. However, we did not detect a correlation between infection status, geographical region and mtDNA haplotypes. The hybridisation data also support a previous hypothesis that infections do not result from parasitoids or parasitic nematodes, insect surface or laboratory contaminations and are hence a true infection of Pityogenes chalcographus. We conclude that the deep structure found in mitochondrial populations of Pityogenes chalcographus indeed represents the evolutionary history of European populations.
Nonrandom Processes Maintain Diversity in Tropical Forests

An ecological community's species diversity tends to erode through time as a result of stochastic extinction, competitive exclusion, and unstable host-enemy dynamics. This erosion of diversity can be prevented over the short term if recruits are highly diverse as a result of preferential recruitment of rare species or, alternatively, if rare species survive preferentially, which increases diversity as the ages of the individuals increase. Here, we present census data from seven New and Old World tropical forest dynamics plots that all show the latter pattern. Within local areas, the trees that survived were as a group more diverse than those that were recruited or those that died. The larger (and therefore on average older) survivors were more diverse within local areas than the smaller survivors. When species were rare in a local area, they had a higher survival rate than when they were common, resulting in enrichment for rare species and increasing diversity with age and size class in these complex ecosystems.
Antibody‐Dependent Cytotoxicity Mediated by Cells Eluted from Synovial Tissues of Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis and Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis

Cell suspensions containing an average of 78% lymphocytes were obtained from synovial tissues of 26 patients with rheumatoid arthritis and 10 patients with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. These cells were shown to mediate cytotoxicity against 51Cr‐labeled chicken erythrocytes sensitized with a rabbit anti‐chicken erythrocyte antiserum. Nylon column filtration of the cells increased the proportion of lymphocytes and usually also the cytotoxicity, which suggested that at least some of the effector cells were lymphocytes. The cytotoxic activity of the cells obtained from rheumatoid synovial tissue was always lower than that obtained with the patients' peripheral blood lymphocytes. No significant change in cytotoxicity of normal peripheral blood lymphocytes was observed after these cells had been treated in the same manner as the rheumatoid synovial tissues.