Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Association between Adolescents' Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviors with Change in BMI and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes

This study aims at identifying the association between physical activity (PA) and sedentary behavior (SB) patterns during adolescents on the future increase in BMI and risk of diabetes during young adulthood. A total of 3,717 participants aged 11 to 21 at baseline who completed Waves I (1994–1995), II (1996), III (2001–2002), and IV (2008) surveys of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) were analyzed. Physical activity and sedentary behavior patterns were assessed using an interviewer-administered questionnaire at Waves I, II, and III. A participant was classified as having diabetes at Wave IV according to WHO guidelines. The k-means cluster analysis was used to identify the number of PA and SB patterns assessed using interviewer-administered questionnaire. The k-means cluster analysis identified three clusters; 575 (15.5%), 2,140 (57.6%), and 1,002 (27.0%) participants belonged to the low PA high SB (LPAHSB), the LPALSB, and the HPALSB cluster respectively. Relative to the LPALSB cluster, the HPALSB cluster had lower increase in BMI from Wave III to Wave IV (P = 0.03), whereas the difference between LPAHSB cluster and LPALSB cluster was not significant (P = 0.09). The odds of developing diabetes at Wave IV was significant for the LPAHSB cluster (OR = 1.69, 95% CI = 1.04, 2.75) but not significant for the HPALSB cluster (OR = 0.87, 95% CI = 0.52, 1.47) relative to the LPALSB cluster. To conclude, PA but not SB during adolescence predicted change in BMI during young adulthood. SB but not PA during adolescence predicted type 2 diabetes during young adulthood.
Evidence for a piwi-Dependent RNA Silencing of the gypsy Endogenous Retrovirus by the Drosophila melanogaster flamenco Gene

In Drosophila melanogaster, the endogenous retrovirus gypsy is repressed by the functional alleles (restrictive) of an as-yet-uncloned heterochromatic gene called flamenco. Using gypsy-lacZ transcriptional fusions, we show here that this repression takes place not only in the follicle cells of restrictive ovaries, as was previously observed, but also in restrictive larval female gonads. Analyses of the role of gypsy cis-regulatory sequences in the control of gypsy expression are also presented. They rule out the hypothesis that gypsy would contain a single binding region for a putative Flamenco repressor. Indeed, the ovarian expression of a chimeric yp3-lacZ construct was shown to become sensitive to the Flamenco regulation when any of three different 5′-UTR gypsy sequences (ranging from 59 to 647 nucleotides) was incorporated into the heterologous yp3-lacZ transcript. The piwi mutation, which is known to affect RNA-mediated homology-dependent transgene silencing, was also shown to impede the repression of gypsy in restrictive female gonads. Finally, a RNA-silencing model is also supported by the finding in ovaries of short RNAs (25–27 nucleotides long) homologous to sequences from within the gypsy 5′-UTR.
Strongly approximately transitive group actions, the Choquet-Deny theorem, and polynomial growth

Let G be a group. A Borel G-space %? with a σ -finite quasi-invariant measure α is called strongly approximately transitive (SAT) if there exists an absolutely continuous probability measure v such that the closed convex hull co(Gv) of the orbit Gv coincides with the space of absolutely continuous probability measures on 3? Call a G-space (Jf, a) purely atomic if a is purely atomic. Boundaries of stationary random walks on countable G are always SAT and provide many examples of nonatomic SAT actions. The class of nonatomic SAT G-spaces also includes certain homogeneous spaces of locally compact groups. Every countable nonamenable group and also some amenable groups admit nonatomic SAT actions. However, if G contains a countable nilpotent subgroup of finite index then every SAT G-space is necessarily purely atomic. This implies the Choquet-Deny theorem for such groups. Existence of nonatomic SAT actions is re-lated to growth conditions. A finitely generated solvable group has polynomial growth if and only if it does not admit nonatomic SAT actions.
Discrimination of large maltooligosaccharides from isobaric dextran and pullulan using ion mobility mass spectrometry

RATIONALE Ion mobility mass spectrometry (IMMS) has previously been shown to resolve small isobaric oligosaccharides, but larger alpha-oligoglucans are also abundant in biology and are of industrial importance. If conformational differences between such isomers are retained in the gas phase, IMMS could be used to address questions in biology and industry. METHODS Negative mode electrospray ionization (ESI) travelling-wave IMMS was used to resolve large isobaric α-glucan ions on the basis of their different gas-phase conformations. α,ω-Dicarboxy-terminated polystyrene was used to calibrate the instrument allowing the collision cross-sections (CCSs) of ions to be determined. RESULTS α-1,4-Linked maltooligosaccharides with a degree of polymerisation of up to 35 could be discriminated from α-1,6-linked dextran and α-1,4/1,6-linked pullulan using IMMS. Fragmentation spectra of ions separated by IMMS could also distinguish isomers. Two conformational isomers of maltohexaose were resolvable by IMMS, likely reflecting extended and V6 helical conformations. IMMS was also able to identify a product within a mixture of maltooligosaccharides treated with the potential anti-tuberculosis drug target Mycobacterium tuberculosis GlgB branching enzyme. CONCLUSIONS Biological samples of complex isobaric oligosaccharides can be analysed using IMMS in the negative mode providing facile analyses and high sensitivity without the need for either derivatisation or chromatographic separation. © 2013 The Authors. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Game theory as a unifying structure for a variety of robot tasks

The use of game theory as a general formalism for representing, comparing, and providing insight into solutions to a wide class of robotics problems is proposed. It is shown how game theory can be applied to problems of multiple robot coordination, high-level strategy planning, information gathering through manipulation and/or sensor planning, and pursuit-evasion scenarios. A very general game structure is considered which has broad application. Some preliminary experiments on a two-robot corridor navigation problem in which the robots have independent tasks, and the equilibria in a dynamic game with a rolling time horizon are used for coordination. <<ETX>>
Laser Pulpotomy–An Effective Alternative to Conventional Techniques: A 12 Months Clinicoradiographic Study

ABSTRACT Background: Vital pulpotomy is a single-stage procedure of surgical amputation of the coronal portion of exposed vital pulp, usually as a means of preserving the vitality and function of the remaining radicular portion. Aims and objectives: The aim of this study was to compare the clinical and radiographic success rates for ferric sulfate (FS), electrosurgery (ES) and laser pulpotomy in human primary molars. Materials and methods: In a randomized clinical trial, 30 primary molars indicated for pulpotomy in children aged 4 to 10 years were treated using either a FS (10 teeth), ES technique (10 teeth) and laser (10 teeth). Following the pulpotomy, the teeth were evaluated for clinical and radiographic success at 3, 6, 9 and 12 months on the basis of the presence of pain, sinus, mobility, internal and external resorption, periapical radiolucency, calcification in the canal and bone loss. Statistical analysis: The data were assessed with Chi-square test. Results: After 12 months of follow-up, both clinical and radiographic success rates were 100% in the laser group but only 80% in both ES and FS groups. There was statistically significant difference between the success rates of three groups (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Laser pulpotomy showed better clinical as well as radiographical results than ES and FS pulpotomy. Laser pulpotomy was also found superior in terms of operating time, patient cooperation, ease of use and pain. Although results of the study showed the failure rates for electrosurgical pulpotomy to be equal to those for FS pulpotomy, electrosurgical pulpotomy being a nonpharmacological technique considered more favorable. Further studies using larger sample size and longer evaluation periods are suggested. How to cite this article: Gupta G, Rana V, Srivastava N, Chandna P. Laser Pulpotomy–An Effective Alternative to Conventional Techniques: A 12 Months Clinicoradiographic Study. Int J Clin Pediatr Dent 2015;8(1):18-21.
Clinical outcomes and cost-effectiveness of an externally applied electroceutical device in managing venous leg ulcers in clinical practice in the UK.

OBJECTIVE To estimate the cost-effectiveness of treating patients with a venous leg ulcer (VLU) with an externally applied electroceutical (EAE) device, plus dressings and compression bandaging or continuing with their previous care plan, from the perspective of the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK. METHOD This was a prospective, single-arm, non-blinded, clinical and economic evaluation of EAE therapy performed in 2013/14. Patients' VLUs were treated with six active units of EAE therapy (each unit for two days) plus dressings and compression bandaging over a period of 12 days. Afterwards, patients were managed with a combination of dressings and bandages. Each patient acted as their own control so that clinical outcomes, resource use and costs associated with the wound over 12 months before the start of EAE therapy were retrospectively compared with the first 12 months after the start of treatment. The relative cost-effectiveness of EAE therapy was estimated at 2013/14 prices. RESULTS Within 12 months of starting EAE therapy 77% of all wounds healed and the other 23% improved. This difference in effectiveness between the 12-months period before and after EAE therapy was estimated to yield a 12% improvement in health gain of 0.09 QALYs (p<0.01), a 34% reduction in the requirement for nurse visits (from a mean 50.7 to 33.3 visits per patient) and a 26% reduction in the number of dressings. This resulted in an 11% reduction in the NHS cost of VLU management over 12 months after the start of treatment when compared with the previous 12 months (from £1,981 to £1,754 per patient). Hence, use of EAE therapy was found to be a dominant treatment (i.e. improved outcome for less cost). CONCLUSION Within the study's limitations, use of the EAE device potentially affords the NHS a cost-effective treatment for managing VLUs when compared with patients remaining on their previous care plan.
Video dimension reduction and coding using Multiple Tensor Rank-R Decomposition

In this paper, we propose a dimension reduction algorithm for video coding based on tensor decomposition. Our Multiple Tensor Rank-R Decomposition (MTRD) algorithm uses rank-R tensors to repeatedly approximate the high dimensional video data, so that the dimension of the data can be greatly reduced. Through quantifying and coding these tensor decomposition coefficients, we can achieve a better video quality with the same compression ratio as H.264/AVC. In particular, we find that our method can implement a high-quality coding at a very low bit-rate for a class of videos with regular texture.
A Ketogenic Diet May Offer Neuroprotection in Glaucoma and Mitochondrial Diseases of the Optic Nerve

Glaucoma is a chronic optic nerve disease in which the primary damage occurs to the retinal ganglion cell axons. Therapies that prevent the death of retinal ganglion cells should be theoretically beneficial. Despite promising preclinical studies, however, almost all clinical studies with pharmacological approaches for neuroprotection in neurologic and eye diseases, including glaucoma, have so far failed to show efficacy. As the evidence supporting the neuroprotective efficacy of a ketogenic diet (KD) in a number of neurodegenerative diseases continues to grow, it is conceivable that this metabolic approach might be useful in chronic glaucoma. Putative cellular mechanisms underlying the neuroprotective activity of the KD have been identified in neurological studies, including effects on energy metabolism, the GABA system, glutamate-mediated toxicity, antioxidant mechanisms, programmed cell death, anti-inflammatory mechanisms, and the production of kynurenic acid. Of note, the same mechanisms are thought to be involved in glaucoma. Given these mechanistic similarities, testing the KD for its efficacy in neurodegenerative diseases of the eye is proposed.
ReTrust: Attack-Resistant and Lightweight Trust Management for Medical Sensor Networks

Wireless medical sensor networks (MSNs) enable ubiquitous health monitoring of users during their everyday lives, at health sites, without restricting their freedom. Establishing trust among distributed network entities has been recognized as a powerful tool to improve the security and performance of distributed networks such as mobile ad hoc networks and sensor networks. However, most existing trust systems are not well suited for MSNs due to the unique operational and security requirements of MSNs. Moreover, similar to most security schemes, trust management methods themselves can be vulnerable to attacks. Unfortunately, this issue is often ignored in existing trust systems. In this paper, we identify the security and performance challenges facing a sensor network for wireless medical monitoring and suggest it should follow a two-tier architecture. Based on such an architecture, we develop an attack-resistant and lightweight trust management scheme named ReTrust. This paper also reports the experimental results of the Collection Tree Protocol using our proposed system in a network of TelosB motes, which show that ReTrust not only can efficiently detect malicious/faulty behaviors, but can also significantly improve the network performance in practice.
Asset Price Dynamics When Traders Care About Reputation

What are the equilibrium features of a dynamic financial market where traders care about their reputation for ability? We modify a standard sequential trading model to study a financial market with career concerns. We show that this market cannot be informationally efficient: there is no equilibrium in which prices converge to the true value, even after an infinite sequence of trades. This finding, which stands in sharp contrast with the results for standard financial markets, is due to the fact that our traders face an endogenous incentive to behave in a conformist manner. We show that there exist equilibria where career-concerned agents trade in a conformist manner when prices have risen or fallen sharply. We also show that each asset carries an endogenous reputational benefit or cost, which may lead to systematic mispricing if asset supply is not infinitely elastic.
Effect of Yoga Based Relaxation Technique on Clinical and Psychological Health among Jail Warder:Three Arm Control Study

Jail warders are the most important assets for any correctional agency. Research on correctional officers has found that stress has a great influence on their general health. To evaluate the effect of yoga based relaxation technique on general health among Jail Warder. One hundred and fifteen Jail Warder were recruited for the study from six Jails at different cities in Kerala. We used a three arm randomized control between subject's design. Participants were counterbalanced randomly into two different experimental conditions (Mind Sound Resonance Technique & Deep Relaxation Technique) and control condition. Participants were given questionnaire packets including demographic details, General and Health Questionnaire. Further clinical parameters such as Blood Pressure, Pulse rate and Respiration rate were measured. Outcomes were examined at two points in time: baseline and at the end of the one month. Paired sample t-tests showed a significant enhancement in general health questionnaire after MSRT (p=0.01) and DRT (p=0.01), while the control group did not show any significant change. Further result showed a significant normalization in systolic (p=0.01) and diastolic (p=0.01) pressure after MSRT. While DRT group shown only normalization at systolic pressure (p=0.01), the control group did not show any significant change. Further result showed a significant normalization in pulse rate (p=0.05) and reduction in respiratory rate (p=0.01). No changes/differences were observed after DRT and control groups on pulse rate and respiratory rate. Result has shown significant enhancement of the general health following yoga based mind sound relaxation technique.
Technology and adherence in web-based interventions for weight control: a systematic review

While technology based health interventions can be effective, high attrition rates are commonly observed in research and practice and are a major issue in eHealth. Research on adherence has recently gained some scientific attention, but little has been done as to how technology itself engages users. It seems plausible that technology plays a role in persuading people to use an eHealth intervention and keep on using it. The present study seeks to apply the PSD-model with regard to this major issue in eHealth. A comprehensive literature search was conducted using the databases Web of Knowledge, EBSCOHOST, Picarta, Scopus and ScienceDirect. The following characteristics were coded: Health care domain, Study level, Sample size, Intended usage, Usage web-based intervention, Adherence, Predictors of adherence, Intervention, Interaction, Persuasive technology in the intervention. The search yielded 4939 unique titles, of which 460 articles were deemed relevant. After title, abstract and full text screening by two researchers, 109 articles were included. Concluding, we can say that it seems that when designing web-based interventions, most attention is given to support the primary task. Dialogue support and social support appear neglected. Taking into account that more extensive use of persuasive technology seems to be positively related to adherence, more attention should be paid to all forms of support through technology.
Hebbian mechanisms and temporal contiguity for unsupervised task-set learning

Depending on environmental demands, humans performing in a given task are able to exploit multiple concurrent strategies, for which the mental representations are called task-sets. We examine a candidate model for a specific human experiment, where several stimulus-response mappings, or task-sets, need to be learned and monitored. The model is composed of two interacting networks of mixed-selective neural populations. The decision network learns stimulus-response associations, but cannot learn more than one task-set. Its activity drives synaptic plasticity in a second network that learns event statistics on a longer timescale. When patterns in stimulus-response associations are detected, an inference bias to the decision network guides successive behavior. We show that a simple unsupervised Hebbian mechanism in the second network is sufficient to learn an implementation of task-sets. Their retrieval in the decision network improves performance. The model predicts abrupt changes in behavior depending on the precise statistics of previous responses, corresponding to positive (task-set retrieval) or negative effects on performance. The predictions are borne out by the data, and enable to identify subjects who have learned the task structure. The inference signal correlates with BOLD activity in the fronto-parietal network. Within this network, dorsomedial and dorsolateral prefrontal nodes are preferentially recruited when task-sets are recurrent: activity in these regions may provide a bias to decision circuits when a task-set is retrieved. These results show that Hebbian mechanisms and temporal contiguity may parsimoniously explain the learning of rule-guided behavior.
The moderating effect of demographic characteristics on the relationship between strategic capabilities and firm performance in women-owned entrepreneurial ventures in Nairobi, Kenya

This study is motivated by the need to understand the determinants of performance in women-owned enterprises. We examine the relationship between strategic capabilities and firm performance with demographic characteristics as moderators in women-owned enterprises in Nairobi, Kenya. Results show that strategic capabilities have a significant effect on the overall performance. Further, IT capabilities and technological capabilities have a positive and significant relationship with performance. Only age has a negative and significant moderating effect. We recommend enhancement of technological capabilities among women entrepreneurs so that they can better direct their capabilities toward firm performance. Copyright © 2016 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
ANALYSIS AND COMPARISON OF DISTANCE EDUCATION ENVIRONMENTS

1 Luciana A Martinez Zaina, University of São Paulo, Digital System Department of Polytechnic School , Brazil,lzaina@larc.usp. br 2 Graça Bressan, University of São Paulo, Digital System Department of Polytechnic School , Brazil, gbressan@larc.usp. br 3 Regina Melo Silveira, University of São Paulo, LARC Computer Networks and Architecture Laboratory , Brazil, regina@larc.usp. br 4 Itana Stiubiener, University of São Paulo, LARC Computer Networks and Architecture Laboratory , Brazil, itana@larc.usp. br 5 Wilson Vicente Ruggiero, Univ ersity of São Paulo, Digital System Department of Polytechnic School , Brazil, wilson@larc.usp. br Abstract  Distance education allows people from far regions of the country to access technology available in the best educational institutions in big cities. LARC, Computer Networks and Architecture Laboratory, is a research institution belonging to the Computer Engineering and Digital System Department of Polytechnic School at University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. We have developed, on the last three years, on-line courses using media like audio, video and animation and we have developed a Web education system, called Col (On-Line Courses). We are planning Col evolution and for this reason we made a study of commercial and non– commercial distance education environments. This paper presents a comparison among the studied system where it is possible to know the best there is in each system.
The association between Internet addiction and personality disorders in a general population-based sample

Background and aims Data on Internet addiction (IA) and its association with personality disorder are rare. Previous studies are largely restricted to clinical samples and insufficient measurement of IA. Methods Cross-sectional analysis data are based on a German sub-sample (n = 168; 86 males; 71 meeting criteria for IA) with increased levels of excessive Internet use derived from a general population sample (n = 15,023). IA was assessed with a comprehensive standardized interview using the structure of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview and the criteria of Internet Gaming Disorder as suggested in DSM-5. Impulsivity, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and self-esteem were assessed with the widely used questionnaires. Results Participants with IA showed higher frequencies of personality disorders (29.6%) compared to those without IA (9.3%; p < .001). In males with IA, Cluster C personality disorders were more prevalent than among non-addicted males. Compared to participants who had IA only, lower rates of remission of IA were found among participants with IA and additional cluster B personality disorder. Personality disorders were significantly associated with IA in multivariate analysis. Discussion and conclusion: Comorbidity of IA and personality disorders must be considered in prevention and treatment.