Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Balance and aerobic capacity of independent elderly: a longitudinal cohort study.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the variation in aerobic capacity and postural balance of independents elderly for a period of three years. METHODS The aerobic capacity of the volunteers was assessed using a six minutes walk test (6MWT), the postural balance was assessed using the Berg Balance Scale (BBS), the number of falls was self-reported and physical activity level was assessed using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ - long version). Evaluations undertaken in 2008 were compared to those performed in 2005. RESULTS There were no differences in balance and number of falls between 2008 and 2005 (p>0.05). There was a decrease in aerobic capacity over time of 52.46±8.4 meters walked. The IPAQ showed an increase in physical activity on the second evaluation (83.3%). CONCLUSION The present study demonstrated that balance, evaluated using BBS did not change in the active independent elderly for a period of three years. However, over the there year period there was a decrease in aerobic capacity evaluated using the 6MWT.
Integral Images for Block Matching

The integral image representation is a remarkable idea that permits to evaluate the sum of image values over rectangular regions of the image with four operations, regardless of the size of the region. It was first proposed under the name of summed area table in the computer graphics community by Crow’84, in order to efficiently filter texture maps. Itwas later popularized in the computer vision community by Viola & Jones’04 with its use in their real-time object detection framework. In this article we describe the integral image algorithm and study its application in the context of block matching. We investigate tradeoffs and the limits of the performance gain with respect to exhaustive block matching. Source Code The source code and the online demo are accessible from the IPOL web page of this article 1 .
Metabolic abnormalities in lobar and subcortical brain regions of abstinent polysubstance users: magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging.

AIMS The aim of the study was to explore neurometabolic and associated cognitive characteristics of patients with polysubstance use (PSU) in comparison with patients with predominant alcohol use using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy. METHODS Brain metabolite concentrations were examined in lobar and subcortical brain regions of three age-matched groups: 1-month-abstinent alcohol-dependent PSU, 1-month-abstinent individuals dependent on alcohol alone (ALC) and light drinking controls (CON). Neuropsychological testing assessed cognitive function. RESULTS While CON and ALC had similar metabolite levels, persistent metabolic abnormalities (primarily higher myo-inositol) were present in temporal gray matter, cerebellar vermis and lenticular nuclei of PSU. Moreover, lower cortical gray matter concentration of the neuronal marker N-acetylaspartate within PSU correlated with higher cocaine (but not alcohol) use quantities and with a reduced cognitive processing speed. CONCLUSIONS These metabolite group differences reflect cellular/astroglial injury and/or dysfunction in alcohol-dependent PSU. Associations of other metabolite concentrations with neurocognitive performance suggest their functional relevance. The metabolic alterations in PSU may represent polydrug abuse biomarkers and/or potential targets for pharmacological and behavioral PSU-specific treatment.
White Matter Lesions Are Associated With Progression of Medial Temporal Lobe Atrophy in Alzheimer Disease

Background and Purpose— Medial temporal lobe atrophy (MTA) is a hallmark of Alzheimer disease (AD). Its progression is often seen during the course of AD, but its frequency and risk factors remain unclear. Methods— We investigated MTA in 35 patients with AD from whom sequential magnetic resonance imaging scans were available. White matter lesions (WML; for the periventricular [PV] and subcortical [SC] regions separately) and MTA were rated semiquantitatively. Results— In approximately two thirds of all patients, progression of MTA was found. The mean MTA progression was 0.8 (standard deviation: 0.5) and 0.3 (standard deviation: 0.4) for patients with or without PVWML at baseline (P=0.01). Patients who showed progression of PVWML over the course of their disease had a significantly higher mean progression of MTA than those without PVWML progression (0.9 [SD: 0.4]) and 0.4 [SD: 0.5]; P=0.01). Patients with PVWML at baseline had a 40-fold increased risk for progression of MTA compared with those without baseline PVWML (odds ratio=40.0, 95% CI=1.3 to 1.2×103, P=0.03). Patients with progression of PVWML during the course of the disease had an increased risk for MTA progression (odds ratio=3.7 per unit increase of progression of PVWML, 95% CI=1.1 to 12.9, P=0.04). There was higher risk for progression of MTA for those with progression of PVWML than those without (odds ratio=10.9, 95% CI=1.0 to 122.5, P=0.05). This was not found for SCWML. Conclusions— Our findings suggest that the presence and the progression of WML are associated with progression of MTA in AD. WML may be a predictor of the course of the disease and a potential treatment target in AD.
The Evaluation of the Ameliorative Effect of Montelukast Against Arsenic Trioxide-Induced Cardiotoxicity in Rats

Background: Arsenic trioxide (As2O3) is used for treating patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL). The extensive application of this drug has been limited due to its severe cardiotoxicity. Montelukast is a selective leukotriene receptor antagonist with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Objectives: This study evaluated whether montelukast could protect against As2O3-induced cardiotoxicity in vivo. Methods: Thirty-two male Wistar rats (150 to 200 g) were divided to 4 treatment groups: control (0.2 mL of saline, ip), As2O3 (5 mg/kg, ip), As2O3 plus MONT, and MONT (20 mg/kg, po). All drugs were administered daily for 10 days and pretreatment with MONT was performed 1 hour prior to As2O3 administration. Cardiotoxicity was estimated by electrocardiological, biochemical, and histopathological evaluations. Results: The results indicated that the combination treatment of montelukast and As2O3 markedly (P < 0.05) inhibited As2O3-induced lipid peroxidation and attenuated QT interval (QT) prolongation and histopathological alterations. Pretreatment with montelukast also suppressed increased troponin I and creatinine kinase-muscle brain (CK-MB) isoenzyme levels in response to As2O3 (P < 0.01). Conclusions: In conclusion, the current results demonstrated that montelukast possesses beneficial cardio-protective properties against As2O3 toxicity. It was also proposed that these protective effects were mediated by antioxidant modifications of montelukast.
Surface modification of ZnS films by applying an external magnetic field in vacuum chamber

In this paper, ZnS films were prepared using pulsed laser deposition technique in vacuum chamber in the presence and absence of an external magnetic field. The applied magnetic field effects on optical properties and film growth conditions were studied. For this reason, morphological, structural and optical properties of the grown films have been investigated by atomic force microscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy, x-ray diffraction and UV–vis spectroscopy analysis techniques. The structural studies revealed that the ZnS films deposited at 200 °C crystallized in hexagonal structure. The results showed the improvement of the film crystallinity upon grain size increment and the surface morphology modification resulted from applying an external magnetic field. Using the UV–vis spectroscopy data, absorption coefficient (α), refractive index (n) and extinction coefficient (k) of the samples were calculated. The band gap energy (Eg) and Urbach energy were also calculated by Tauc, ASF and DASF methods. The results show that by applying magnetic field, the band gap and Urbach energies reduced, due to improvement in the film crystallinity. For describing the magnetic field effect, a simulation of applied magnetic field effect on vapor flux in vacuum chamber was performed using Multi-Physics COMSOL package.
Configuration Debugging as Search: Finding the Needle in the Haystack

This work addresses the problem of diagnosing configuration errors that cause a system to function incorrectly. For example, a change to the local firewall policy could cause a network-based application to malfunction. Our approach is based on searching across time for the instant the system transitioned into a failed state. Based on this information, a troubleshooter or administrator can deduce the cause of failure by comparing system state before and after the failure. We present the Chronus tool, which automates the task of searching for a failure-inducing state change. Chronus takes as input a user-provided software probe, which differentiates between working and nonworking states. Chronus performs "time travel" by booting a virtual machine off the system's disk state as it existed at some point in the past. By using binary search, Chronus can find the fault point with effort that grows logarithmically with log size. We demonstrate that Chronus can diagnose a range of common configuration errors for both client-side and server-side applications, and that the performance overhead of the tool is not prohibitive.
Variational Inference for Monte Carlo Objectives

Recent progress in deep latent variable models has largely been driven by the development of flexible and scalable variational inference methods. Variational training of this type involves maximizing a lower bound on the log-likelihood, using samples from the variational posterior to compute the required gradients. Recently, Burda et al. (2016) have derived a tighter lower bound using a multi-sample importance sampling estimate of the likelihood and showed that optimizing it yields models that use more of their capacity and achieve higher likelihoods. This development showed the importance of such multi-sample objectives and explained the success of several related approaches. We extend the multi-sample approach to discrete latent variables and analyze the difficulty encountered when estimating the gradients involved. We then develop the first unbiased gradient estimator designed for importance-sampled objectives and evaluate it at training generative and structured output prediction models. The resulting estimator, which is based on low-variance per-sample learning signals, is both simpler and more effective than the NVIL estimator proposed for the single-sample variational objective, and is competitive with the currently used biased estimators.
Nanofabrication of Metallic Nanostructures and Integration with Light Detection Devices

Metallic nanostructures have been investigated with various applications especially for integration with light detection devices. The incident light can be manipulated by those nanostructures to enhance light absorption therefor improve device performance. However, previous studies focused on optical design. The electrical properties of these integrated light detection devices have not been fully considered. The photon generated carriers transport and collection are critical for light detection devices as well. An optimized device platform considering from both the optical and electrical aspects to fully utilize these nanostructures is highly desired for future light detection devices. This dissertation targeted on three objectives, beginning with the fabrication process development of various nanostructures on different substrates. High quality nanostructures were achieved with minimum 20nm gap and 45nm line width. The second objective was developing the metallic fishnet nanostructures integrated Schottky contact a-Si solar cell to improve both light absorption and photon generated carrier collection. The fishnet was designed as the light trapping structure and 2D connected top contact to collect carriers. The third objective was developing metallic nanostructures integrated GeSn photodetectors. The H shape nano antennas were integrated on GeSn photodetectors. Multiple resonant absorption peaks at infrared range were observed using spectroscopic ellipsometry. However, there was no obvious photoresponse value improvement of developed solar cells and H shape antennas integrated GeSn photodetectors. For further investigation, interdigitated electrodes integrated GeSn photodetectors were designed. With less carrier transit time, the responsivity value of the integrated Ge0.991Sn0. 009 photodetector was 72μA/W at 1. 55μm at room temperature which was 6 times higher comparing to device without integration. Meanwhile, with the increased carrier life time by decreasing temperature, the responsivity value of integrated Ge0.93Sn0. 07 detectors at 1. 55μm at 100K was 8.5mA/W which was 200 times higher than the value at 300K. These results suggest relative large surface recombination rate was the dominant loss mechanism in metallic nanostructures integrated light detection devices, as the ratio of carrier life time and transit time determines the gain of photodetector. The light detection devices integrated with metallic nanostructures can be developed to maximize device performance with light trapping effect and carrier collection efficiency.
Comparing Faculty and Student Perceptions Regarding Factors That Affect Student Retention in Online Education

This qualitative study compared faculty and student perceptions regarding factors that affect student retention in online courses in an attempt to more effectively address the problem of attrition. A grounded study method was used to interview students taking online courses, analyze their responses related to the critical factors that affect student retention, and compare them with those given by expert online faculty documented by Gaytan (2013). Among the various findings, two are considered critical: online students would like to receive more instruction from their professors and more comprehensive feedback that would allow them to engage in corrective behaviors to improve performance. Comparing faculty and student responses related to the factors that affect student retention could give online program administrators and faculty advisors a better understanding of these critical factors to be able to respond to the student retention challenge more effectively.
Evaluation of the effect of different conditioning methods on core-veneer bond strength of zirconia restorations an in-vitro study

The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare shear bond strength of zirconia core to veneering porcelain after different methods of surface conditioning of the core. Materials and methods: 40 zirconia blocks were milled in the CAD/CAM system and divided into four groups (n=10). After sintering, Group A, control, no surface conditioning, group B specimens were subjected to air-borne particle abrasion with 110 μ aluminium oxide, Group C specimens were sandblasted with silica coated alumina particles. For Group D a mixture zirconia powder and adhesive were applied on the surface of the specimens before sintering. All these specimens were veneered with dimensions 3mm length, 5mm width and 3mm in height. Specimens were subjected to shear force and the shear bond strength was calculated. Fractured specimens were observed under scanning electron microscope. Results: The mean shear bond strength values in MPa were 40.06, 41.91, and 42.89, 47.24 for group A, B C and D respectively and statistically significant (p<0.05). Group D demonstrated higher shear bond strength than other groups. Scanning electron microscope evaluation showed cohesive fracture in the veneering porcelain in modified zirconia, while the other groups principally fractured at the core-veneer interface. Conclusion: Surface conditioning of zirconia core with zirconia powder slurry significantly improved the shear bond strength.
Smoking and alcohol intake in a rural Indian population and correlation with hypertension and coronary heart disease prevalence.

3148 persons (1982 males and 1166 females) aged more than 20 years in a cluster of three villages were examined. The overall prevalence of smoking was 51% in males (n = 1006) and 5% in females (n = 54). Among male smokers there were 26% light smokers (< or = 5 bidis/day), 51% moderate smokers (6-20/day) and 17% heavy smokers (> 20 day) and in females there were 54% light smokers, 41% moderate smokers and 5% heavy smokers. Smokers were less educated and had higher prevalence of work-related physical activity and alcohol intake. There was a higher prevalence of hypertension and of ECG Q-waves in male smokers. Regular alcohol intake was seen in 19% males (n = 377) and in 2% females (n = 26). Among males there were 43% light drinkers (< or = 28 gm ethanol/day), 32% moderate drinkers (28-56 gm ethanol/day) and 5% heavy drinkers (> 56 gm ethanol/day). Although this group had a higher prevalence of hypertension there was an insignificant difference in CHD prevalence and a significantly lower prevalence of ECG Q-waves. Subgroup analysis has also been performed taking non-smoker-non-alcohol consuming group as controls. It was found that group which comprised of smokers-non-alcohol consumers had a significantly higher prevalence of hypertension and of ECG Q-waves. Alcohol intake-smoker group had a significantly higher prevalence of hypertension. The habits of smoking and alcohol consumption are widely prevalent among males in this rural community. Smoking and alcohol-intake, both individually and collectively, are related to higher prevalence of hypertension as well as CHD. While the prevalence of hypertension is more among the alcohol consumers, smokers have a higher prevalence of CHD.
Inference in Experiments With Matched Pairs

Abstract This article studies inference for the average treatment effect in randomized controlled trials where treatment status is determined according to a “matched pairs” design. By a “matched pairs” design, we mean that units are sampled iid from the population of interest, paired according to observed, baseline covariates and finally, within each pair, one unit is selected at random for treatment. This type of design is used routinely throughout the sciences, but fundamental questions about its implications for inference about the average treatment effect remain. The main requirement underlying our analysis is that pairs are formed so that units within pairs are suitably “close” in terms of the baseline covariates, and we develop novel results to ensure that pairs are formed in a way that satisfies this condition. Under this assumption, we show that, for the problem of testing the null hypothesis that the average treatment effect equals a prespecified value in such settings, the commonly used two-sample t-test and “matched pairs” t-test are conservative in the sense that these tests have limiting rejection probability under the null hypothesis no greater than and typically strictly less than the nominal level. We show, however, that a simple adjustment to the standard errors of these tests leads to a test that is asymptotically exact in the sense that its limiting rejection probability under the null hypothesis equals the nominal level. We also study the behavior of randomization tests that arise naturally in these types of settings. When implemented appropriately, we show that this approach also leads to a test that is asymptotically exact in the sense described previously, but additionally has finite-sample rejection probability no greater than the nominal level for certain distributions satisfying the null hypothesis. A simulation study and empirical application confirm the practical relevance of our theoretical results.
Immigrant children mediators (ICM): Bridging the literacy gap in immigrant communities

Studies and observations of immigrants with limited dominant language literacy reveal their use of various literacy strategies to communicate with and function in the dominant society. One of these is the interpreter strategy whereby immigrants rely on their children to serve as cultural, linguistic, and informational mediators. Sociologist Betty Lee Sung refers to this undertaking of adult responsibilities by immigrant children as the reversal of parent‐child roles. This paper examines the mediation activities and information needs of ICMs, and recommends strategies librarians can use to prepare ICMs to competently mediate for their family and friends. These strategies include teaching them how to find relevant sources of information, how to critically examine the sources of information available to them, and how to consider mediation as a life skill.
Structure-Function Dissection of Pseudorabies Virus Glycoprotein B Fusion Loops

ABSTRACT Conserved across the family Herpesviridae, glycoprotein B (gB) is responsible for driving fusion of the viral envelope with the host cell membrane for entry upon receptor binding and activation by the viral gH/gL complex. Although crystal structures of the gB ectodomains of several herpesviruses have been reported, the membrane fusion mechanism has remained elusive. Here, we report the X-ray structure of the pseudorabies virus (PrV) gB ectodomain, revealing a typical class III postfusion trimer that binds membranes via its fusion loops (FLs) in a cholesterol-dependent manner. Mutagenesis of FL residues allowed us to dissect those interacting with distinct subregions of the lipid bilayer and their roles in membrane interactions. We tested 15 gB variants for the ability to bind to liposomes and further investigated a subset of them in functional assays. We found that PrV gB FL residues Trp187, Tyr192, Phe275, and Tyr276, which were essential for liposome binding and for fusion in cellular and viral contexts, form a continuous hydrophobic patch at the gB trimer surface. Together with results reported for other alphaherpesvirus gBs, our data suggest a model in which Phe275 from the tip of FL2 protrudes deeper into the hydrocarbon core of the lipid bilayer, while the side chains of Trp187, Tyr192, and Tyr276 form a rim that inserts into the more superficial interfacial region of the membrane to catalyze the fusion process. Comparative analysis with gBs from beta- and gamma-herpesviruses suggests that this membrane interaction model is valid for gBs from all herpesviruses. IMPORTANCE Herpesviruses are common human and animal pathogens that infect cells by entering via fusion of viral and cellular membranes. Central to the membrane fusion event is glycoprotein B (gB), which is the most conserved envelope protein across the herpesvirus family. Like other viral fusion proteins, gB anchors itself in the target membrane via two polypeptide segments called fusion loops (FLs). The molecular details of how gB FLs insert into the lipid bilayer have not been described. Here, we provide structural and functional data regarding key FL residues of gB from pseudorabies virus, a porcine herpesvirus of veterinary concern, which allows us to propose, for the first time, a molecular model to understand how the initial interactions by gBs from all herpesviruses with target membranes are established.