Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Epigenome-wide association study in whole blood on type 2 diabetes among sub-Saharan African individuals: findings from the RODAM study.

BACKGROUND Type 2 diabetes (T2D) results from a complex interplay between genetics and the environment. Several epigenome-wide association studies (EWAS) have found DNA methylation loci associated with T2D in European populations. However, data from African populations are lacking. We undertook the first EWAS for T2D among sub-Saharan Africans, aiming at identifying ubiquitous and novel DNA methylation loci associated with T2D. METHODS The Illumina 450k DNA-methylation array was used on whole blood samples of 713 Ghanaian participants (256 with T2D, 457 controls) from the cross-sectional Research on Obesity and Diabetes among African Migrants (RODAM) study. Differentially methylated positions (DMPs) for T2D and HbA1c were identified through linear regression analysis adjusted for age, sex, estimated cell counts, hybridization batch, array position and body mass index (BMI). We also did a candidate analysis of previously reported EWAS loci for T2D in non-African populations, identified through a systematic literature search. RESULTS Four DMPs [cg19693031 (TXNIP), cg04816311 (C7orf50), cg00574958 (CPT1A), cg07988171 (TPM4)] were associated with T2D after correction for inflation by possible systematic biases. The most strongly associated DMP-cg19693031, TXNIP (P = 2.6E-19) -showed hypomethylation in T2D cases compared with controls. Two out of the four DMPs [cg19693031 (TXNIP), cg04816311 (C7orf50)] remained associated with T2D after adjustment for BMI, and one locus [cg07988171 (TPM4)] that has not been reported previously. CONCLUSIONS In this first EWAS for T2D in sub-Saharan Africans, we have identified four DMPs at epigenome-wide level, one of which is novel. These findings provide insight into the epigenetic loci that underlie the burden of T2D in sub-Saharan Africans.
Foreign body reactions, marginal bone loss and allergies in relation to titanium implants.

AIM To describe general observations of immunological reactions to foreign materials and to realize that CP titanium gives rise to a foreign body reaction with subsequent bone embedment when placed as oral implants. To analyse the possibility of titanium allergy. MATERIALS AND METHODS The present paper is of a narrative review type. Hand and Medline searches were performed to evaluate marginal bone loss of oral implants and the potential of titanium allergy. RESULTS Immunological reactions to foreign substances include Type I hypersensitivity reactions such as allergy, Type II hypersensitivity reactions characterised by IgM or IgG antibodies that may react with blood group antigens at transfusion, and Type III hypersensitivity caused by antigen-antibody immune complexes exemplified by acute serum sickness. There is also Type IV hypersensitivity, or delayed hypersensitivity, which is typically found in drug and foreign body reactions. It proved very difficult to find a universally acceptable definition of reasons for marginal bone loss around oral implants, which lead to most varying figures of so-called peri-implantitis being 1% to 2% in some 10-year follow-up papers to between 28% and 56% of all placed implants in other papers. It was recognised that bone resorption to oral as well as orthopaedic implants may be due to immunological reactions. Today, osseointegration is seen as an immune-modulated inflammatory process where the immune system is locally either up- or downregulated. Titanium implant allergy is a rare condition, if it exists. The authors found only two papers presenting strong evidence of allergy to CP titanium, but with the lack of universally accepted and tested patch tests, the precise diagnosis is difficult. CONCLUSIONS CP titanium acts as a foreign body when placed in live tissues. There may be immunological reasons behind marginal bone loss. Titanium allergy may exist in rare cases, but there is a lack of properly designed and analysed patch tests at present.
Pulmonary , gastrointestinal and urogenital pharmacology Prostaglandin D 2 evokes potent uterine contraction via the F prostanoid receptor in postpartum rats

Prostaglandin (PG) D2, a prostanoid known to have hypotensive effect, can evoke increased in vitro prepartum myometrial contraction resulting from up-regulation of the F prostanoid (FP) receptor. The present study further determined postpartum rat uterine responses to PGD2 to evaluate the possibility of the prostanoid becoming a therapeutic for postpartum uterine atony, a major cause of postpartum hemorrhage that can lead to maternal morbidity. In vitro and in vivo postpartum uterine responses to PGD2 were determined and compared to those of prepartum rats. Here we show that in postpartum myometrial strips PGD2 did evoke a contraction sensitive to FP receptor antagonism. Interestingly, this response was not only to a greater extent than that of prepartum rats, but also comparable with the contraction obtained with PGF2α, a therapeutic for postpartum uterine atony but contradicted in conditions including hypertension. Indeed, PGD2 was also found to cause increases of basal uterine contraction under in vivo conditions. Western blots revealed that the expression of FP receptors in postpartum myometrium was higher than that of prepartum rats. Moreover, we noted that the amount of PGD2 produced in postpartum uteri, although lower than that of prepartum rats, was increased compared to nonpregnant conditions. These results thus demonstrate that due to a further up-regulation or high expression of myometrial FP receptors, PGD2 can evoke potent uterine contraction postpartum, and hence the prostanoid, which is naturally synthesized in uterine tissues, could be a potential therapeutic for postpartum uterine atony, especially in settings, such as hypertension.
Immunohistochemical Method and Histopathology Judging for the Systemic Synuclein Sampling Study (S4)

Immunohistochemical (IHC) α-synuclein (Asyn) pathology in peripheral biopsies may be a biomarker of Parkinson disease (PD). The multi-center Systemic Synuclein Sampling Study (S4) is evaluating IHC Asyn pathology within skin, colon and submandibular gland biopsies from 60 PD and 20 control subjects. Asyn pathology is being evaluated by a blinded panel of specially trained neuropathologists. Preliminary work assessed 2 candidate immunoperoxidase methods using a set of PD and control autopsy-derived sections from formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded blocks of the 3 tissues. Both methods had 100% specificity; one, utilizing the 5C12 monoclonal antibody, was more sensitive in skin (67% vs 33%), and was chosen for further use in S4. Four trainee neuropathologists were trained to perform S4 histopathology readings; in subsequent testing, their scoring was compared to that of the trainer neuropathologist on both glass slides and digital images. Specificity and sensitivity were both close to 100% with all readers in all tissue types on both glass slides and digital images except for skin, where sensitivity averaged 75% with digital images and 83.5% with glass slides. Semiquantitative (0-3) density score agreement between trainees and trainer averaged 67% for glass slides and 62% for digital images.
MuNN: Mutation Analysis of Neural Networks

Deep neural networks have made amazing progress in many areas over the past few years. After training deep neural networks, a common way is to build a set of test samples to evaluate the networks. However, test adequacy of deep neural networks is overlooked in both research and practice. This paper proposes MuNN, a mutation analysis method for (deep) neural networks, inspired by the success of mutation analysis in conventional software testing. Five mutation operators are designed on the characteristics of neural networks. The well known dataset MNIST has been used in our experiment. We study two research questions: (1) How does mutation affect neural networks; (2) How does neural depth affect mutation analysis. The experimental results show that mutation analysis of neural networks has strong domain characteristics. This indicates that domain mutation operators are needed to enhance mutation analysis. The experimental results also show that the mutation effects are gradually weakened with the deepening of neurons. We need to design new mutation mechanism for deep neural networks. We believe that mutation analysis can not only be used to measure test adequacy, but also be used to understand neural network operation.
Overweight or obesity and related lifestyle and psychosocial factors among adolescents in Brunei Darussalam

Abstract This study aimed to assess overweight and obesity and associated factors in school-going adolescents in Brunei Darussalam. The sample included 2599 school-going adolescents that responded to the Global School-based Student Health Survey (mean age 14.7 years, SD = 1.4). Body weight status was assessed based on self-reported height and weight and the international child body mass index standards. The relationship between lifestyle factors, including physical activity and dietary behaviour, and overweight or obesity were assessed using logistic regression analyses. Results indicate a prevalence of overweight or obesity of 35.1% and obesity of 17.3%. In multivariable regression analysis, bullying victimisation was positively and frequent fast food consumption, having experienced hunger and meeting physical activity recommendations were negatively associated with overweight or obesity. High prevalence rates of overweight or obesity were found and several risk factors identified, which can assist in guiding interventions.
Motion Conflict Detection in the Smart Tachograph

The Smart Tachograph (ST), the new revision of the Digital Tachograph (DT), has to verify periodically the consistency of data from different sensors in order to mitigate the risks of frauds. In this respect, a test procedure is specified for the detection of motion conflicts originating from inconsistencies between Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and odometry data. This paper provides an experimental evaluation of the motion conflict detection procedure specified by the ST regulation. Several hours of data were collected using two vehicles equipped with a multi-constellation GNSS receiver and an On-Board Diagnostics (OBD) data reader. The data collected were then used to implement the tests prescribed by the ST regulation and evaluate their effectiveness. The analysis shows that the new regulation significantly strengthens the DT against possible attacks, such as GNSS meaconing. In particular, an attacker is forced to falsify data simultaneously and coherently from both the vehicle sensor and the GNSS receiver. Moreover, it is shown that the metrics selected for the tests are resilient to data gaps and relative delays between GNSS and odometer data.
Detecting the Rotation Direction in Contactless Angular Velocity Sensors Implemented With Rotors Loaded With Multiple Chains of Resonators

In this paper, a strategy to detect the rotation direction in angular displacement and velocity sensors based on rotors loaded with circular chains of split ring resonators (SRRs) is presented. The rotor (made of a dielectric material) is loaded with two concentric SRR chains for measuring the angular velocity (angular velocity chains) and with one additional (also concentric) non-periodic resonator chain for detecting the direction of motion (rotation direction chain). The stator is a CPW transmission line placed below the rotor chains, in close proximity to them, with the line axis oriented in the radial direction of the rotor. A novel relevant contribution of this paper concerns the detailed study of the rotation direction sensor, from which we have concluded that the design must be completely different than the one of the angular velocity sensor (single SRR on the rotor). By this means, the transmission coefficient of the CPW is modulated by rotor motion (through electromagnetic coupling), as the SRRs of the different chains cross the CPW axis. By injecting a double-tuned signal to the line (with carrier frequencies tuned to the SRR resonance frequencies of both chains), two superposed amplitude modulated (AM) signals at the output port of the CPW arise. From the envelope of both AM signals, discriminated by means of a designed diplexer, the angular velocity and the rotation direction can be determined.
Prevalence and Risk Factors for Antenatal Depression in Ethiopia: Systematic Review

Introduction Antenatal depression is a syndrome, in which women experience depressed mood, excessive anxiety, insomnia, and change in weight during the period of pregnancy. Maternal depression negatively influences child outcomes and maternal health. Antenatal depression was measured by different rating scales, namely, BDI, EPDS, and PHQ. The objective of this systematic review was to synthesize logical evidence about the prevalence and potential risk factors of antenatal depression in Ethiopia. Methods Our team explored multiple databases including PSYCHINFO, MEDLINE, Embase, Google Scholar, and Google Search to detect studies published with data on the prevalence of antenatal depression. We found 246 research papers on antenatal depression, of which 210 did not correspond to the title and 27 were duplicates. Subsequently, nine articles were used for synthesis prevalence, of which four studies were selected in the analysis of the effect of unplanned pregnancy on antenatal depression. Figures were extracted from published reports and grey literature, and any lost information was requested from investigators. Estimates were pooled using random-effects meta-analyses. Results The pooled prevalence of antenatal depression for five studies selected, which had used BDI, was 25.33 (20.74, 29.92). The other four studies that had included other screening tools (3 EPDS and 1 PHQ) had the prevalence decreased to 23.56 (19.04, 28.07), and the pooled effect of unplanned pregnancy on antenatal depression was 1.93 (1.81, 2.06). Factors such as age, marital status, income, occupation, history of the previous mental disorder, antenatal follow-up, unplanned pregnancy, complication during to pregnancy, age of mother during pregnancy, conflict, and social support were associated with antenatal depression. Conclusions Antenatal depression is a common maternal problem; further attention should be given to the effect of unplanned pregnancy, social support, pregnancy-related complications, family conflicts, and violence on pregnant women. All these are possible risk factors for antenatal depression.
Insulation characteristics of fluoronitriles / CO2 gas mixture under DC electric field

Environmentally friendly DC gas insulated transmission line (GIL) is currently one of the hot topics in advanced electric power equipment. Recently, fluoronitriles have been widely studied and considered to replace SF6 in GILs. In this paper, the breakdown voltage, insulator flashover voltage, and the partial discharge inception voltage of fluoronitriles / CO2 gas mixtures are reported in a DC electric field. The mole ratio of the mixed gases are 4 : 96 % and 8 : 92 %, and the gas pressure is in the range 304.7 to 717.83 kPa. Based on the results, the breakdown field strength of fluoronitriles / CO2 gas mixture shows a growth tendency with increasing gas pressure in a uniform electric field. At 717.83 kPa, the positive breakdown field strength is higher than the negative and reached a maximum. In a non-uniform electric field, the negative breakdown voltage of fluoronitriles / CO2 gas mixture increases with increasing gas pressure. In the contrast, the positive breakdown voltage decreases with the rise of gas pressure, which exhibits a significant polarity effect. The flashover voltage of fluoronitriles / CO2 gas mixture increases with increasing gas pressure. At the same gas pressure, the negative flashover voltage is slightly higher than the positive. The negative flashover voltage of fluoronitriles / CO2 gas mixture at 717.83 kPa is equal to 96.06 % of SF6 gas at 0.5 MPa abs. The negative partial discharge inception voltage (PDIV) of the fluoronitriles / CO2 gas mixture is greater than the positive, and both 4 : 96 % and 8 : 92 % gas mixtures showed higher PDIV than the SF6. Considering the insulation characteristics, the fluoronitriles / CO2 mixture has the potential to replace SF6 in DC gas insulated transmission lines.
Short-term report of an ongoing prospective cohort study evaluating the outcome of full-arch implant-supported fixed hybrid polyetheretherketone-acrylic resin prostheses and the All-on-Four concept.

BACKGROUND More research is needed on the study of new materials for fixed prosthetic implant-supported rehabilitations. PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to report the short-term outcome of full-arch implant-supported fixed hybrid polyetheretherketone (PEEK)-acrylic resin prostheses and the all-on-four concept. MATERIALS AND METHODS This prospective cohort clinical study included 37 patients (29 women, eight men) with an average age of 60 years (range: 38-78 years) with 49 full-arch hybrid PEEK-acrylic resin prosthesis supported by implants through the all-on-four concept. Primary outcome measures were prosthetic survival. RESULTS Two patients with two maxillary prostheses were lost to follow-up. One patient with a double full-arch rehabilitation fractured the mandibular PEEK framework, rendering a 98% prosthetic survival rate. No implants were lost. The average (SD) marginal bone remodeling after 1 year of follow-up was 0.37 mm (0.58 mm). Technical complications concerning the veneer adhesion occurred in six patients and were resolved in all patients (with exception of the patient with prosthetic failure) through the creation of mechanical retentions and changing the bonding primer. Mechanical complications occurred in three patients and five prostheses consisting in prosthetic screw loosening (n = 2 patients) and fracture of the acrylic resin teeth (the patient with a prosthetic failure). CONCLUSIONS Within the limitations of this study, the results suggest that hybrid polymer (PEEK)-acrylic resin prostheses supported by implants for full-arch rehabilitation may represent a valid treatment option, still requiring longer-term validation.
Analysis of Friendly Jamming for Secure Location Verification of Vehicles for Intelligent Highways

In this paper, we present friendly jamming for secure location verification of vehicles in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). In friendly jamming confidential information is obscured from eavesdroppers through the use of opportunistic jamming on the part of the parties engaged in communication. Secure location verification enables the infrastructure in an ITS to verify the position claims of a vehicle in an adversarial setting. We present a method for effectively using friendly jamming and distance bounding together to verify the location and velocity of vehicles, and detect any deviation of claims by a “prover” vehicle that is trying to prove its position and velocity to the infrastructure. The technique can be used to verify velocity and position claim of a vehicle, while keeping the feasible velocity and position lie by an attacker in a negligible range. Our analysis shows that in realistic traffic, friendly jamming is an improvement over comparable work, reducing position falsification by 86.66% to 92% for a typical attacker. The proposed technique also outperforms existing localization techniques for multiple colluding attackers, providing security against up to three colluding attackers, where colluders coordinate their movement and report information to help a single attacker achieve its goal.
Deep Retinex Decomposition for Low-Light Enhancement

Retinex model is an effective tool for low-light image enhancement. It assumes that observed images can be decomposed into the reflectance and illumination. Most existing Retinex-based methods have carefully designed hand-crafted constraints and parameters for this highly ill-posed decomposition, which may be limited by model capacity when applied in various scenes. In this paper, we collect a LOw-Light dataset (LOL) containing low/normal-light image pairs and propose a deep Retinex-Net learned on this dataset, including a Decom-Net for decomposition and an Enhance-Net for illumination adjustment. In the training process for Decom-Net, there is no ground truth of decomposed reflectance and illumination. The network is learned with only key constraints including the consistent reflectance shared by paired low/normal-light images, and the smoothness of illumination. Based on the decomposition, subsequent lightness enhancement is conducted on illumination by an enhancement network called Enhance-Net, and for joint denoising there is a denoising operation on reflectance. The Retinex-Net is end-to-end trainable, so that the learned decomposition is by nature good for lightness adjustment. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our method not only achieves visually pleasing quality for low-light enhancement but also provides a good representation of image decomposition.
Short‐medium‐long‐term efficacy of interdisciplinary intervention against overweight and obesity: Randomized controlled clinical trial

AIM The aim of the study is to evaluate the efficacy of a nurse-led interdisciplinary programme based on healthy eating, physical exercise, and cognitive behavioural therapy applied to anthropometric and cardiovascular measures, which are related to obesity in short, medium, and long term. METHODS We conducted a randomised controlled clinical trial with 74 obese and overweight participants (experimental group, n = 37; control group, n = 37). An interdisciplinary programme of 12 months was applied and coordinated by a nurse. Anthropometric and cardiovascular measures were taken at the pretest stage, every 6 months during the programme, and 1 year after it finished. RESULTS A beneficial effect was found regarding all anthropometric parameters. Tests for weight (F3;207 = 93.27; P < .001) and body mass index (F3;207 = 89.95; P < .001) indicate efficacy of intervention: The experimental group had a weight loss of 7.2 kg (-8.3%) compared to a 0.9 kg (+1.0%) gained in the control group. Systolic (F3;207 = 37.06; P < .001) and diastolic (F3;216 = 57.31; P < .001) blood pressure improved greatly in the experimental group. Forced vital capacity was also increased (F2;138 = 15.51; P < .001). CONCLUSION The interdisciplinary programme coordinated by nurses improved the health of participants, maintaining long-term effects.
Cache Telepathy: Leveraging Shared Resource Attacks to Learn DNN Architectures

Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) are fast becoming ubiquitous for their ability to attain good accuracy in various machine learning tasks. A DNN's architecture (i.e., its hyper-parameters) broadly determines the DNN's accuracy and performance, and is often confidential. Attacking a DNN in the cloud to obtain its architecture can potentially provide major commercial value. Further, attaining a DNN's architecture facilitates other, existing DNN attacks. This paper presents Cache Telepathy: a fast and accurate mechanism to steal a DNN's architecture using the cache side channel. Our attack is based on the insight that DNN inference relies heavily on tiled GEMM (Generalized Matrix Multiply), and that DNN architecture parameters determine the number of GEMM calls and the dimensions of the matrices used in the GEMM functions. Such information can be leaked through the cache side channel. This paper uses Prime+Probe and Flush+Reload to attack VGG and ResNet DNNs running OpenBLAS and Intel MKL libraries. Our attack is effective in helping obtain the architectures by very substantially reducing the search space of target DNN architectures. For example, for VGG using OpenBLAS, it reduces the search space from more than $10^{35}$ architectures to just 16.