Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Asterism: Decentralized File Sharing Application for Mobile Devices

Most applications and services rely on central authorities. This introduces a single point of failure to the system. The central authority must be trusted to have data stored by the application available at any given time. More importantly, the privacy of the user depends on the service provider capability to keep the data safe. A decentralized system could be a solution to remove the dependency from a central authority. Moreover, due to the rapid growth of mobile device usage, the availability of decentralization must not be limited only to desktop computers. In this work we aim at studying the possibility to use mobile devices as a decentralized file sharing platform without any central authorities. This was done by implementing Asterism, a peer-to-peer file-sharing mobile application based on the Inter-Planetary File System. We validate the results by deploying and measuring the application network usage and power consumption in multiple different devices. Results show that mobile devices can be used to implement a worldwide distributed file sharing network. However, the file sharing application generated large amounts of network traffic even when no files were shared. This was caused by the chattiness of the protocol of the underlying peer-to-peer network. Consequently, constant network traffic prevented the mobile devices from entering to deep sleep mode. Due to this the battery life of the devices was greatly degraded.
Production of interleukin 1 receptor antagonist and interleukin 1 during haemodialysis with cellulose membranes

An in vivo cross-over study has investigated plasma and cellular levels of IL-1 (IL-1α IL-1β and IL-1Ra) when using Cuprophan (C) and cellulose triacetate (CTA) membranes to assess the roles of complement activation and dialysate endotoxin content in the induction of cytokines during the dialysis procedure. The mean C5a level during Cuprophan dialysis was 29.9 ± 0.63 ng/ml (Mean ± SEM), while for the cellulose triacetate dialysis was 3.09 ± 0.7 ng/ml. The endotoxin content of the dialysate was 0.31 ± 0.34 EU/ml and 0.68 ± 1.39 EU/ml. These two factors failed to produce measurable changes in plasma or cellular IL-1α and IL-1β levels during treatment. The plasma IL-1Ra levels pre-dialysis were similar to those for normal controls (CTA 769 ± 156 ng/ml, C739 ± 93, normal controls 635 ± 33) with a considerable day to day variation. A membrane independent fall in plasma IL-1Ra at 15 minutes was noted (CTA 420 ± 92 ng/ml, C 503 ± 139) with a return to pre-dialysis levels by the end of treament. Cellular IL-1Ra levels pre-dialysis were similar to the normal group - (CTA 1904 ± 291 ng/ml, C 1564 ± 292 and normal control 1971 ± 368). However, on average, the values when using cellulose triacetate were 655 ± 623 pg/ml higher than for Cuprophan (p=0.03). These findings indicate that the measurement of plasma cytokine levels is of limited use in the study of cytokine induction by the haemodialysis procedure and that IL-1Ra may be a better indicator of the host response to cytokine stimuli during treatment. However, a considerable inter-patient and intra-treatment variation is present and further studies are required to elucidate the factors involved.
Does Correcting Astigmatism with Toric Lenses Improve Driving Performance?

Purpose Driving is a vision-based activity of daily living that impacts safety. Because visual disruption can compromise driving safety, contact lens wearers with astigmatism may pose a driving safety risk if they experience residual blur from spherical lenses that do not correct their astigmatism or if they experience blur from toric lenses that rotate excessively. Given that toric lens stabilization systems are continually improving, this preliminary study tested the hypothesis that astigmats wearing toric contact lenses, compared with spherical lenses, would exhibit better overall driving performance and driving-specific visual abilities. Methods A within-subject, single-blind, crossover, randomized design was used to evaluate driving performance in 11 young adults with astigmatism (−0.75 to −1.75 diopters cylinder). Each participant drove a highly immersive, virtual reality driving simulator (210 degrees field of view) with (1) no correction, (2) spherical contact lens correction (ACUVUE MOIST), and (3) toric contact lens correction (ACUVUE MOIST for Astigmatism). Tactical driving skills such as steering, speed management, and braking, as well as operational driving abilities such as visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, and foot and arm reaction time, were quantified. Results There was a main effect for type of correction on driving performance (p = 0.05). Correction with toric lenses resulted in significantly safer tactical driving performance than no correction (p < 0.05), whereas correction with spherical lenses did not differ in driving safety from no correction (p = 0.118). Operational tests differentiated corrected from uncorrected performance for both spherical (p = 0.008) and toric (p = 0.011) lenses, but they were not sensitive enough to differentiate toric from spherical lens conditions. Conclusions Given previous research showing that deficits in these tactical skills are predictive of future real-world collisions, these preliminary data suggest that correcting low to moderate astigmatism with toric lenses may be important to driving safety. Their merits relative to spherical lens correction require further investigation.
Body Part Diagram Recognition in Medical Records: Application of the Histograms of Oriented Gradients and the Mahalanobis-Distance-Based Classifier

Generally, medical records such as surgery consent forms include body part diagrams on which doctors illustrate the positions, sizes, and conditions of disease. Which kinds of body part diagrams are included is useful information for managing medical records and discovering knowledge from them. This study aims to develop an automatic recognition system of body part diagrams. The conventional study applied a method consisting of the modified weighted direction index histogram and the modified quadratic discriminant function that had a 98.52% recognition rate. We proposed a method consisting of the histograms of oriented gradients and the Mahalanobis-distance-based classifier, with the expectation of better performance and more general and easier processing and parameter setting. In the experiments of which task was to recognize one body part diagram in a medical record, our method outperformed the conventional method. It achieved 100.00% recognition rates for almost all the experimental conditions.
Powerful TLM Technique for Analyzing Antennas

In this paper, a time-domain technique for analyzing antennas efficiently with the help of Transmission Line Matrix (TLM) Method is presented. This procedure requires the simulation of free space, and, the near-to- far-field transformation. Numerical, as well as experimental results are introduced and discussed, underlining the applicability of this technique for broad-band antenna design.
Gut microbiota composition is associated with environmental landscape in honey bees

Abstract There is growing recognition that the gut microbial community regulates a wide variety of important functions in its animal hosts, including host health. However, the complex interactions between gut microbes and environment are still unclear. Honey bees are ecologically and economically important pollinators that host a core gut microbial community that is thought to be constant across populations. Here, we examined whether the composition of the gut microbial community of honey bees is affected by the environmental landscape the bees are exposed to. We placed honey bee colonies reared under identical conditions in two main landscape types for 6 weeks: either oilseed rape farmland or agricultural farmland distant to fields of flowering oilseed rape. The gut bacterial communities of adult bees from the colonies were then characterized and compared based on amplicon sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene. While previous studies have delineated a characteristic core set of bacteria inhabiting the honey bee gut, our results suggest that the broad environment that bees are exposed to has some influence on the relative abundance of some members of that microbial community. This includes known dominant taxa thought to have functions in nutrition and health. Our results provide evidence for an influence of landscape exposure on honey bee microbial community and highlight the potential effect of exposure to different environmental parameters, such as forage type and neonicotinoid pesticides, on key honey bee gut bacteria. This work emphasizes the complexity of the relationship between the host, its gut bacteria, and the environment and identifies target microbial taxa for functional analyses.
Overcoming Functional Redundancy To Elicit Pachyonychia Congenita-Like Nail Lesions in Transgenic Mice

ABSTRACT Mutations affecting the coding sequence of intermediate filament (IF) proteins account for >30 disorders, including numerous skin bullous diseases, myopathies, neuropathies, and even progeria. The manipulation of IF genes in mice has been widely successful for modeling key features of such clinically distinct disorders. A notable exception is pachyonychia congenita (PC), a disorder in which the nail and other epithelial appendages are profoundly aberrant. Most cases of PC are due to mutations in one of the following keratin-encoding genes: K6, K16, and K17. Yet null alleles obliterating the function of both K6 genes (K6α and K6β) or the K17 gene, as well as the targeted expression of a dominant-negative K6α mutant, elicit only a subset of PC-specific epithelial lesions (excluding that of the nail in mice). We show that newborn mice null for K6α, K6β, and K17 exhibit severe lysis restricted to the nail bed epithelium, where all three genes are robustly expressed, providing strong evidence that this region of the nail unit is initially targeted in PC. Our findings point to significant redundancy among the multiple keratins expressed in hair and nail, which can be related to the common ancestry, clustered organization, and sequence relatedness of specific keratin genes.
Relationship between obesity and microalbumin in the urine

This study aimed to investigate the effect of Overweight (OW)/Obesity (OB) on Microalbuminuria (MAU). According to the level of Urine Albumin-to-Creatinine Ratio (UACR), 1170 cases are divided into the Normal Albumin Urine (NAU) group (men: 398 cases, women: 409 cases) and MAU group (men: 175 cases, women: 188 cases). The clinical data and biochemical indexes of the study participants were obtained. Statistical analysis was performed using the SPSS16.0 software. The result of the multiple linear regression analysis depicted that age, Diastolic Blood Pressure (DBP), Fasting Blood Glucose (FBG), Waist-to-Hip Ratio (WTHR), Waist Circumference (WC), and Waist-to-Height Ratio (WHR) were significantly associated with UACR. After the modification of age, sex, FBG, and DBP, the contribution of different variables to MAU showed that WTHR>WC>WHR. By using the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve (ROC) analysis in the male population, the incidence rates of the areas under the curve of WTHR, WHR, and WC used to predict MAU were 0.68 (95% CI: 0.67-0.70), 0.64 (95% CI: 0.62-0.65), and 0.57 (95% CI: 0.55-0.59), respectively, and the predictive points were 0.52, 0.90, and 91.8 cm. In the female population, the incidence rates of the areas under the curve of WTHR, WHR, and WC used to predict MAU were 0.71 (95% CI: 0.70-0.72), 0.69 (95% CI: 0.68-0.70), and 0.64 (95% CI: 0.62-0.65), respectively, and the predictive points were 0.52, 0.8, and 82.5 cm. The AOB population was at high risk for MAU. WTHR was the best predictor, followed by WC and WHR. The cut-off points in men and women are 0.52, 89.6 cm, and 0.88 and 0.52, 84.5 cm, and 0.84 cm, respectively.
Physical Activity Patterns of American Indian and Alaskan Native People Living in Alaska and the Southwestern United States

Purpose. Assessment of self-reported physical activity (PA) and effects on health measures. Design. Cross-sectional analysis of baseline data from a cohort study. Setting. Education and Research Towards Health study participants from Alaska and the Southwestern United States enrolled from 2004 to 2007. Subjects. Total of 10,372 American Indian and Alaskan Native people (AI/AN) of at least 18 years. Measures. Participants completed computer-assisted, self-administered questionnaires, and anthropometric and health measurements were taken of each participant. Analysis. Analysis of variance, χ2 tests, and multiple linear regressions were used. Results. Almost 23% of participants reported less than 30 minutes per week of moderate or vigorous activities. Half (49%) reported no vigorous activities. Characteristics associated with more time spent performing vigorous activity were male gender, age less than 40 years, higher income and education levels, and living in a rural area. Almost 70 % of Alaskan participants and 36% of Southwest participants engaged in wild food—harvesting activities. Participants with higher levels of activity had significantly better clinical characteristics (high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, body mass index, and waist circumference). Conclusion. AI/AN people engage in many different physical activities, including traditional harvesting activities. Women had lower levels of PA than men, and participation in vigorous PA was associated with better clinical characteristics. These data can be used to guide health promotion efforts in AI/AN populations.
Attenuation of isoproterenol-mediated vasodilatation in blacks.

BACKGROUND The mechanism of enhanced vascular reactivity in young blacks, which may play a part in the development of hypertension, has not been defined. To determine the contribution of blunted vasodilatation mediated by beta 2-adrenergic receptors to this phenomenon, we compared forearm blood-flow responses to isoproterenol in young black and white normotensive men. METHODS We used venous-occlusion plethysmography to measure the responses of blood flow in the forearm to the intraarterial administration of isoproterenol (10 to 400 ng per minute) in 9 normotensive black men (mean [+/- SD] age, 31.3 +/- 8.0 years) and 13 normotensive white men (mean age, 32.9 +/- 5.6 years). Sympathetic activity in the forearm was measured simultaneously by isotope-dilution techniques. RESULTS Base-line blood flow in the forearm was similar in blacks and whites, but the degree of vasodilatation in response to isoproterenol was markedly lower in blacks. Isoproterenol at an infusion rate of 400 ng per minute produced a 9-fold increase in blood flow in whites but only a 3.5-fold increase in blacks (P < 0.001). The base-line rate of norepinephrine spillover in the forearm was higher in blacks (2.0 +/- 1.3 ng per minute [11.8 +/- 7.7 nmol per minute]) than in whites (0.6 +/- 0.5 ng per minute [3.5 +/- 3.0 nmol per minute], P = 0.002), but there was no difference between the groups after isoproterenol stimulation. CONCLUSIONS Forearm blood-flow responses to isoproterenol were markedly attenuated in normotensive blacks, indicating a blunting of vasodilatation mediated by beta 2-adrenergic receptors. Sympathetic activity in the forearm was greater in blacks than in whites, but isoproterenol-stimulated presynaptic beta 2-adrenergic responses (which facilitated norepinephrine release) did not differ significantly between blacks and whites. Our findings suggest that the mechanisms responsible for blunted vasodilatation in response to the administration of isoproterenol may contribute to enhanced vascular reactivity in blacks and may play a part in the pathogenesis of hypertension in blacks.
D-Shaped Fiber Magnetic-Field Sensor Based on Fine-Tuning Magnetic Fluid Grating Period

This paper reports a numerical investigation of magnetic-field sensing combining a D-shaped fiber and a magnetic fluid grating. In the simulation design, a magnetic fluid was used as a magnetic sensitive material because of its strong magnetic-optic effect and good refractive index controllability. When the material was inserted into a film of a certain thickness, a magnetic fluid grating was formed. This paper also reports that the magnetic fluid grating was deposited on the flat side of the D-shaped fiber. A wavelength shift of the spectrum with an increasing magnetic field was simulated. The result showed a resonance slope existed in the near infrared and middle infrared spectral regions, and that the resonance feature could be tuned owing to the changing magnetic fluid grating period, with the resonance wavelength being blue-shifted by about 950 nm when the applied magnetic field was increased from 75 to 275 Oe. Finally, the cross effectiveness between the magnetic field and temperature was analyzed numerically. Such a structure would have potential applications in magnetic-field sensors.
Effects of polyarticular and pauciarticular onset juvenile rheumatoid arthritis on facial and mandibular growth.

OBJECTIVE To characterize the functional and morphologic effects of polyarticular and pauciarticular onset juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA) on the temporomandibular joint (TMJ). METHODS Medical and dental histories, intraoral, lateral cephalometric, and panoramic radiographs, facial photographs, and dental study models were obtained for each of 30 patients with JRA (17 pauciarticular and 13 polyarticular onset). Measures of TMJ dysfunction were gathered during the clinical examination, and an index of condylar morphology was inferred from the panoramic radiographs. The lateral cephalograms were traced, and data from 34 linear and angular measures used to compare the facial morphology of the 2 JRA onset types, both to normative standards and to each other (Student's t test). The Kruskal-Wallis test was used to evaluate the significance of between-group differences for the various ordinal indices. RESULTS As indicated by the higher TMJ dysfunction and condylar index scores, polyarticular onset JRA affects the form and function of the TMJ more frequently and severely than does pauciarticular onset. Moreover, compared to normative cephalometric standards, the patients with polyarticular onset had small, short faces with underdeveloped mandibles. CONCLUSION Both polyarticular and pauciarticular onset JRA have a negative effect on the form, function, and esthetics of the face and mandible; however, the effects are more pronounced with polyarticular JRA than pauciarticular onset.
Considering teacher cognitions in teacher professional development: studies involving Ecuadorian primary school teachers

Four empirical studies contribute to the comprehensive understanding of teachers’ behavior and other related characteristics (i.e. their environment, beliefs, competencies, mission, and identity). The aim is also to promote a teacher professional development approach that takes into account what teachers do, think, and feel. In this sense, experiential learning, social learning, and reflection are useful to influence not only the cognitive but also the affective domain, which has been traditionally neglected. The dissertation focuses on the quality of teachers’ questions and the question-answer classroom interaction. In the final chapter, a teacher professional development intervention was implemented and positive results were obtained at both teachers’ and pupils’ levels. The dissertation also contributes to the literature on instructional design by describing the process of designing, implementing, and evaluating an integral intervention in the context of developing countries.
Pediatricians' Experience with and Response to Parental Vaccine Safety Concerns and Vaccine Refusals: A Survey of Connecticut Pediatricians

Objectives. Physicians are seeing increasing numbers of parents who question the safety of vaccines or refuse to vaccinate their children. This study examined how frequently pediatricians in one New England state encounter parental vaccine safety concerns and vaccine refusals, how often physicians dismiss families from their practices for vaccine refusal, and how parental vaccine refusal impacts pediatricians personally. Methods. The study consisted of a quantitative survey of primary care pediatricians in one New England state; 133 pediatricians completed the questionnaire. Variables examined included number of parental vaccine concerns and refusals seen by each physician, physicians' response to parental vaccine concerns and refusals, the personal impact of parental vaccine safety refusals on pediatricians, and respondent estimates of socioeconomic characteristics of families seen in their practices. Results. The majority of responding pediatricians reported an increase in parental vaccine safety concerns and refusals. More than 30% of responding pediatricians have dismissed families because of their refusal to immunize. Suburban physicians caring for wealthier, better educated families experience more vaccine concerns and/or refusals and are more likely to dismiss families for vaccine refusal. Vaccine refusals have a negative personal impact on one-third of physician respondents. Conclusions. Pediatricians in Connecticut are reporting increased levels of parental vaccine safety concerns and refusals. Physicians who report more parental vaccine safety concerns and refusals and who care for wealthier, better educated families are more likely to dismiss families who refuse vaccines and to be negatively affected by parental vaccine refusals, which may adversely impact childhood vaccination rates.
Selective deficits in appetitive conditioning as a consequence of ethanol withdrawal

The acquisition of a conditioned response to a cue associated with a fearful event has been shown to be impaired in animals that had been repeatedly withdrawn from ethanol, but not in animals with the same chronic ethanol treatment but only a single withdrawal episode [D. N. Stephens et al. (2001) Eur. J. Neurosci. , 14, 2023–2031]. Lesion studies have shown that the amygdala plays a vital role in this type of conditioning process. Here we investigate aspects of conditioning for appetitive reinforcers in operant tasks, also shown to rely on amygdala processing, in rats following repeated withdrawal from ethanol. Rats were chronically treated with either an ethanol‐containing liquid diet for 24 days continuously (single withdrawal) or interspersed with 2 × 3‐day withdrawal periods (repeated withdrawal), or with a control diet (control). Two weeks after the final withdrawal, operant training began. In tasks that are impaired by lesions of the basolateral amygdala, conditioned reinforcement and reinforcer devaluation, there was no effect of chronic ethanol treatment or withdrawal on acquisition or performance. However, in a task that is dependent upon functioning of the central nucleus of the amygdala, Pavlovian‐to‐instrumental transfer, the single and repeated withdrawal groups were significantly impaired. Therefore, chronic ethanol treatment and withdrawal resulted in deficits in behavioural tasks that are sensitive to central but not to basolateral amygdala lesions, and may reflect different sensitivities of these areas to ethanol.