Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Antro-pyloric contractile patterns and transpyloric flow after meal ingestion in humans

Objective:The present study aimed to evaluate the patterns of antral contractility and pylorus opening and closure in relation to transpyloric flow of a nutrient liquid meal.Methods:Ultrasound images of the antro-pyloro-duodenal tract were continuously tape-recorded in healthy volunteers for 1 h postprandially and were reviewed twice later by independent observers. Episodes and patterns of pylorus opening and closure, antral-wall contractions, and transpyloric flow were assessed separately and their time relations were identified.Results:Transpyloric flow (forward, 56%± 13%; retrograde, 19%± 11%; and to and fro, 25%± 14%) occurred essentially during episodes of prolonged pylorus opening not associated with occlusive antral or duodenal proximal contraction, which represented the antro-pyloro-duodenal common chamber. The antro-pyloro-duodenal common chamber lasted on average 36 ± 12 s and represented 41%± 12% of the total observation period. Different patterns of antral contractions were identified according to whether they reached or occluded the terminal antrum and pylorus. Preterminal antral contractions (46%± 12%) did not propagate beyond the proximal two thirds of the antrum. Terminal antral contractions (54%± 12%) propagated along the entire antrum and could either occlude (20%± 9%) or not occlude (42%± 17%) the lumen. Pyloric opening independent of antral contractions and related to nonocclusive antral contractions could occur equally at the onset of the antro-pyloro-duodenal common chamber. Pyloric closure independent of antral contractions put an end to transpyloric flow in 73%± 6% of the antro-pyloro-duodenal common chamber.Conclusion:The final passage of contents from the stomach to the duodenum after the ingestion of a caloric liquid meal is the result of one or more episodes of uni- or bi-directional transpyloric flow, which are regulated by several motor events. The contractile states of the antrum and pylorus show specific features that variably interrelate to provide mixing and to regulate the transpyloric flow of ingesta. A crucial regulator of transpyloric flow appears to be the spatiotemporal relation between antral contractions and pyloric closure rather than the contractile events per se. An equal number of pyloric openings related, and unrelated, to antral contractions appears to determine the onset of the antro-pyloro-duodenal common chamber and, thus, of transpyloric flow. Pyloric closure unrelated to antral contractions appears to be the main mechanism that interrupts transpyloric flow. In conclusion, it appears that the antro-pyloro-duodenal tract acts as a functional unit in the digestion of a liquid caloric meal.
Polymorphism of the ACE Gene in Dialysis Patients: Overexpression of DD Genotype in Type 2 Diabetic End-Stage Renal Failure Patients

The angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) gene DD homozygote has been suggested to be a significant risk factor for the progression of diabetic nephropathy. We analyzed clinical parameters and ACE genotype distribution between type 2 diabetic patients at the extremes of renal risk, i.e. an end-stage renal failure (ESRF) group (n = 103, group 1) who were on dialysis therapy due to progression of diabetic nephropathy, and a no progression group (n = 88, group 2) who had maintained normal renal function and normoalbuminuria for more than 15 years. There were no significant differences in age, sex, body mass index, HbA1c level, or lipid profiles between the two groups (p > 0.05). Group 1 had a significantly higher prevalence of hypertension [group 1: 82.5% (85/103) vs. group 2: 50.0% (44/88), p < 0.05] and diabetic retinopathy [group 1: 103/103 (100%) vs. group 2: 28/88 (31.8%), p < 0.05] than group 2. Daily urinary albumin excretion was also higher in group 1 than in group 2 [group 1: 2873 ± 2176 mg/day vs. 12 ± 7 g/day, p < 0.05]. The frequencies of the DD, ID, and II genotypes of the ACE gene in group 1 and group 2 were 26.2%, 47.6%, and 26.2%, and 7.9%, 57.9%, and 34.2%, respectively. The ACE genotype frequencies between the two groups were significantly different according to a chi-square test with Bonferroni's correction (p = 0.004). The presence of the DD genotype increased the risk of ESRF 4.286-fold compared to the II genotype [odds ratio 4.286, 95% CI 1.60-11.42, p = 0.005]. The frequency of the D-allele was higher in both male and female patients in group 1 compared to group 2, but reached statistical significance only in males [male, group 1: 50.8% vs. group 2: 35.0%, p = 0.018, female, group 1: 48.8% vs. group 2: 39.5%, p = 0.231]. This study, although limited by sample size, showed that type 2 diabetic ESRF patients more frequently expressed the DD genotype. These findings may substantiate the previously noted relationship between the ACE DD genotype and the progression of diabetic nephropathy in Korean type 2 diabetic patients.
Robust and secure image hashing

Image hash functions find extensive applications in content authentication, database search, and watermarking. This paper develops a novel algorithm for generating an image hash based on Fourier transform features and controlled randomization. We formulate the robustness of image hashing as a hypothesis testing problem and evaluate the performance under various image processing operations. We show that the proposed hash function is resilient to content-preserving modifications, such as moderate geometric and filtering distortions. We introduce a general framework to study and evaluate the security of image hashing systems. Under this new framework, we model the hash values as random variables and quantify its uncertainty in terms of differential entropy. Using this security framework, we analyze the security of the proposed schemes and several existing representative methods for image hashing. We then examine the security versus robustness tradeoff and show that the proposed hashing methods can provide excellent security and robustness.
Climatic Trends in Faisalabad (Pakistan) Over the Last 60 Years (1945-2004)

Meteorological data of 60 years recorded from meteorological observatory main campus, University of Agriculture Faisalabad was analyzed by taking average of daily data of each month. These monthly means of 60 years were used for trend analysis. A line Y = mX + c was fitted to find the trend of change of temperature and rainfall of each month in 60 years. Two normals from 1945 to 1974 and 1975 to 2004 were calculated and compared. Analysis show that the mean temperature of November, December, January, February and March is rising. It means winter is getting warmer; particularly November and December are warming more rapidly. The winter temperature has increased by 0.55C. The temperature of April, May and October is also increasing. The average temperature of June, July and September is decreasing, while the average temperature of August is increasing. The summer temperature as a whole has decreased by 1C during last thirty years. The trend analysis shows that summer season is getting cooled, so climate of Faisalabad is getting mild. Overall increase in temperature is 0.22C, which becomes only 0.9%. Rainfall during summer is increasing particularly in June the rate of increase of rainfall is very high. Rainfall during summer has increased by 68.7 mm. Rainfall for the months of December, January and March is decreasing, while rainfall for the months of November and February is increasing. Trend of rainfall for the months of April, May and October is also increasing. As a whole trend of rainfall is increasing and it has increased by 90.4 mm (from 1975 to 2004) The Normal temperature of Faisalabad on the basis of WMO definition of normal (from 1975 to 2004) is calculated as 24.5C and normal rainfall is calculated as 408 mm.
Investment Recommendation in P2P Lending: A Portfolio Perspective with Risk Management

P2P lending is an online platform to make borrowing and investment transactions. A central question on these platforms is how to align the right products with the right investors, thus helping investors to make better decisions. Along this line, tremendous efforts have been devoted to modeling the credits of products and borrowers from an economic perspective. However, these global models are only exploratory in nature and are not practical. In this paper, we focus on the personalized investment recommendation by reconstructing the two steps for investment decision making: what to buy and how much money to pay. Specifically, we first generate a candidate investment recommendation list for each investor that tackles "what to buy" problem. In this process, we consider various unique properties of investment recommendation. Furthermore, according to the portfolio theory, we optimize the shares of each recommended candidate by incorporating the investments an investor currently holds, thus solving the "how much money to pay" problem. Finally, extensive experimental results on a large-scale real world dataset show the effectiveness of our model under various evaluation metrics.
Gender difference in wellbeing during school lessons among 10–12-year-old children: The importance of school subjects and student–teacher relationships

Aims: The aim of the study was to examine gender difference in self-reported wellbeing during school lessons among Icelandic 10–12-year-old boys and girls, in grades 5–7 in elementary schools. Also, to examine whether factors related to attitudes towards school subjects, student–teacher relationships and student–peer relationships mediated the associations between gender and wellbeing during school lessons. Methods: A cross-sectional anonymous survey was conducted among 88% (in total 11,387 participants) of all registered students aged 10–12 attending grades 5–7 in Iceland. Multivariate logistic regression was used to test main, mediation, and interaction effects. Results: Boys reported significantly less wellbeing during school lessons than girls. Not finding the subjects taught at school fun fully mediated the relationship between gender and self-reported wellbeing during school lessons. Furthermore, when not considering other school-related factors, finding the subjects at school to hard, not liking the teachers, not being praised by teachers, and being bullied in recess partially mediated the relationship between gender and self-reported wellbeing during school lessons. Conclusions: The results suggest that to improve boy’s wellbeing during school lessons, making school subject more appealing to boys is of importance. Furthermore, fostering teacher–student relationships and decreasing bullying of boys in recess should be emphasised.
Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of anatomical sulcal changes associated with aging.

Imaging studies of the human brain indicate that the cortex undergoes anatomic changes during the aging process. With the ability to study the human brain in vivo using magnetic resonance imaging, understanding the nature and location of these changes is of increasing interest. In this work, we investigate cross-sectional and longitudinal age effects on the geometric shape and gray matter (GM) volume for regions of interest on the cortical surface. Each of the regions corresponds to the buried cortex surrounding the sulcal spaces and is termed a "sulcal region. " The study consists of 35 older adults scanned three times over a 4-year time span. The group includes 19 women and 16 men ranging in ages from 59 to 84 years (mean 70.9, standard deviation 6.2). We analyze 8 sulcal regions-the buried cortex surrounding the left and right central, superior frontal, cingulate, and parietooccipital sulci. We examine surface area, GM thickness, GM volume, sulcal depth, local gyrification index, and measures of curvature. Results indicate cross-sectional age effects in mean thickness, GM volume, sulcal depth, and curvature characteristics of sulcal regions. In addition, we found longitudinal decreases in surface area, mean thickness, GM volume, and sulcal depth measures as well as changes in sulcal curvature.
Evaluating the cost and performance of field-scale granular activated carbon systems.

typical ambient allyl chloride concentrations are roughly 1000 times lower (18) than propylene concentrations. It is clear a t this point, however, that a variety of reactive atmospheric hydrocarbons (toluene, propylene, acetaldehyde, allyl chloride) can be converted into products that are potentially much more mutagenic than the reactants themselves. Much more work is necessary, however, to fully establish the potential human health effects brought about by exposure to atmospheric photooxidation products.
Intensifying Therapy for Hypertension Despite Suboptimal Adherence

More intensive management can improve control blood pressure (BP) in hypertensive patients. However, many would posit that treatment intensification (TI) is not beneficial in the face of suboptimal adherence. We investigated whether the effect of TI on BP varies by adherence. We enrolled 819 patients with hypertension, managed in primary care at an academically-affiliated inner-city hospital. We used the following formula to characterize TI: (visits with a medication change−visits with elevated BP)/total visits. Adherence was characterized using electronic monitoring devices (“MEMS caps”). Patients who returned their MEMS caps (671) were divided into quartiles of adherence, whereas patients who did not return their MEMS caps (148) had “missing” adherence. We examined the relationship between TI and the final systolic blood pressure (SBP), controlling for patient-level covariates. In the entire sample, each additional therapy increase per 10 visits predicted a 2.0 mm Hg decrease in final SBP (P<0.001). After stratifying by adherence, in the “best” adherence quartile each therapy increase predicted a 2.1-mm Hg decrease in final SBP, followed by 1.8 for the “next-best” adherence quartile, 2.3 in the third quartile, and 2.4 in the “worst” adherence quartile. The effect size for patients with “missing” adherence was 1.6 mm Hg. The differences between the group with “best” adherence and the other 4 groups were not statistically significant. In this observational study, treatment intensification was associated with similar BP improvement regardless of the patient’s level of adherence. A randomized trial could further examine optimal management of patients with suboptimal adherence.
The RhoGEF Trio Functions in Sculpting Class Specific Dendrite Morphogenesis in Drosophila Sensory Neurons

Background As the primary sites of synaptic or sensory input in the nervous system, dendrites play an essential role in processing neuronal and sensory information. Moreover, the specification of class specific dendrite arborization is critically important in establishing neural connectivity and the formation of functional networks. Cytoskeletal modulation provides a key mechanism for establishing, as well as reorganizing, dendritic morphology among distinct neuronal subtypes. While previous studies have established differential roles for the small GTPases Rac and Rho in mediating dendrite morphogenesis, little is known regarding the direct regulators of these genes in mediating distinct dendritic architectures. Methodology/Principal Findings Here we demonstrate that the RhoGEF Trio is required for the specification of class specific dendritic morphology in dendritic arborization (da) sensory neurons of the Drosophila peripheral nervous system (PNS). Trio is expressed in all da neuron subclasses and loss-of-function analyses indicate that Trio functions cell-autonomously in promoting dendritic branching, field coverage, and refining dendritic outgrowth in various da neuron subtypes. Moreover, overexpression studies demonstrate that Trio acts to promote higher order dendritic branching, including the formation of dendritic filopodia, through Trio GEF1-dependent interactions with Rac1, whereas Trio GEF-2-dependent interactions with Rho1 serve to restrict dendritic extension and higher order branching in da neurons. Finally, we show that de novo dendritic branching, induced by the homeodomain transcription factor Cut, requires Trio activity suggesting these molecules may act in a pathway to mediate dendrite morphogenesis. Conclusions/Significance Collectively, our analyses implicate Trio as an important regulator of class specific da neuron dendrite morphogenesis via interactions with Rac1 and Rho1 and indicate that Trio is required as downstream effector in Cut-mediated regulation of dendrite branching and filopodia formation.
Altruistic Helping in Human Infants and Young Chimpanzees

Human beings routinely help others to achieve their goals, even when the helper receives no immediate benefit and the person helped is a stranger. Such altruistic behaviors (toward non-kin) are extremely rare evolutionarily, with some theorists even proposing that they are uniquely human. Here we show that human children as young as 18 months of age (prelinguistic or just-linguistic) quite readily help others to achieve their goals in a variety of different situations. This requires both an understanding of others' goals and an altruistic motivation to help. In addition, we demonstrate similar though less robust skills and motivations in three young chimpanzees.
Minimax-Optimal Bounds for Detectors Based on Estimated Prior Probabilities

In many signal detection and classification problems, we have knowledge of the distribution under each hypothesis, but not the prior probabilities. This paper is aimed at providing theory to quantify the performance of detection via estimating prior probabilities from either labeled or unlabeled training data. The error or risk is considered as a function of the prior probabilities. We show that the risk function is locally Lipschitz in the vicinity of the true prior probabilities, and the error of detectors based on estimated prior probabilities depends on the behavior of the risk function in this locality. In general, we show that the error of detectors based on the maximum likelihood estimate (MLE) of the prior probabilities converges to the Bayes error at a rate of <formula formulatype="inline"><tex Notation="TeX">$n^{-1/2}$</tex></formula>, where <formula formulatype="inline"> <tex Notation="TeX">$n$</tex></formula> is the number of training data. If the behavior of the risk function is more favorable, then detectors based on the MLE have errors converging to the corresponding Bayes errors at optimal rates of the form <formula formulatype="inline"><tex Notation="TeX">$n^{-(1+\alpha)/2}$</tex> </formula>, where <formula formulatype="inline"><tex Notation="TeX">$\alpha > 0$</tex></formula> is a parameter governing the behavior of the risk function with a typical value <formula formulatype="inline"><tex Notation="TeX">$\alpha = 1$</tex></formula>. The limit <formula formulatype="inline"><tex Notation="TeX">$\alpha \rightarrow{} \infty$</tex></formula> corresponds to a situation where the risk function is flat near the true probabilities, and thus insensitive to small errors in the MLE; in this case, the error of the detector based on the MLE converges to the Bayes error exponentially fast with <formula formulatype="inline"> <tex Notation="TeX">$n$</tex></formula>. We show that the bounds are achievable no matter given labeled or unlabeled training data and are minimax-optimal in the labeled case.
Multimodal and Multi-Tissue Measures of Connectivity Revealed by Joint Independent Component Analysis

The human brain functions as an efficient system where signals arising from gray matter are transported via white matter tracts to other regions of the brain to facilitate human behavior. However, with a few exceptions, functional and structural neuroimaging data are typically optimized to maximize the quantification of signals arising from a single source. For example, functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) is typically used as an index of gray matter functioning whereas diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is typically used to determine white matter properties. While it is likely that these signals arising from different tissue sources contain complementary information, the signal processing algorithms necessary for the fusion of neuroimaging data across imaging modalities are still in a nascent stage. In the current paper we present a data-driven method for combining measures of functional connectivity arising from gray matter sources (FMRI resting state data) with different measures of white matter connectivity (DTI). Specifically, a joint independent component analysis (J-ICA) was used to combine these measures of functional connectivity following intensive signal processing and feature extraction within each of the individual modalities. Our results indicate that one of the most predominantly used measures of functional connectivity (activity in the default mode network) is highly dependent on the integrity of white matter connections between the two hemispheres (corpus callosum) and within the cingulate bundles. Importantly, the discovery of this complex relationship of connectivity was entirely facilitated by the signal processing and fusion techniques presented herein and could not have been revealed through separate analyses of both data types as is typically performed in the majority of neuroimaging experiments. We conclude by discussing future applications of this technique to other areas of neuroimaging and examining potential limitations of the methods.
ISSUE IN MEMORY OF AVRAM GOLDSTEIN Dynorphin – Still an Extraordinarily Potent Opioid Peptide

This issue ofMolecular Pharmacology is dedicated to Dr. Avram Goldstein, the journal’s founding editor and one of the leaders in the development of modern pharmacology. This article focuses on his contributions to the discovery of the dynorphins and evidence that members of this family of opioid peptides are endogenous agonists for the kappa opioid receptor. In his original publication describing the purification and sequencing of dynorphin A, Avram described this peptide as ”extraordinarily potent” (“dyn” from the Greek, dynamis 5 power and “orphin” for endogenous morphine peptide). The name originally referred to its high affinity and great potency in the bioassay that was used to follow its activity during purification, but the name has come to have a second meaning: studies of its physiologic function in brain continue to provide powerful insights to the molecular mechanisms controlling mood disorders and drug addiction. During the 30 years since its discovery, we have learned that the dynorphin peptides are released in brain during stress exposure. After they are released, they activate kappa opioid receptors distributed throughout the brain and spinal cord, where they trigger cellular responses resulting in different stress responses: analgesia, dysphoria-like behaviors, anxietylike responses, and increased addiction behaviors in experimental animals. Avram predicted that a detailed molecular analysis of opiate drug actions would someday lead to better treatments for drug addiction, and he would be gratified to know that subsequent studies enabled by his discovery of the dynorphins resulted in insights that hold great promise for new treatments for addiction and depressive disorders.