Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Relationship of Functional Fitness With Daily Steps in Community-Dwelling Older Adults

Background: Walking is the main type of physical activity among community-dwelling older adults and it is associated with various health benefi ts. However, there is limited evidence about the relationship between functional fi tness and walking performed under independent living conditions among older adults. Purpose: This study examined the relationship between functional fi tness and steps walked per day among older adults, both assessed objectively, with performance-based measures accounting for the effect of age, gender, and chronic conditions. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 60 participants aged 65 years or older (mean = 76.9 ± 7.3 years, range 65-92 years) wore pedometers for 3 consecutive days. Functional fi tness was measured using the Functional Fitness Test (lower and upper body strength, endurance, lower and upper body fl exibility, agility/balance). The outcome measure was the mean number of steps walked for 3 days with participants classifi ed into tertiles: low walkers ( < 3000 steps), medium walkers ( ≥ 3000 < 6500 steps), and high walkers ( ≥ 6500 steps). Results: After controlling for age, gender, and the number of chronic conditions, none of the functional fi tness parameters was signifi cantly associated with steps taken per day when comparing medium walkers with low walkers. In contrast, all functional fi tness parameters, except upper body fl exibility, were signifi cantly associated with steps taken per day when comparing high walkers with low walkers. Conclusion: In this sample of older adults, greater functional fi tness was associated only with relatively high levels of walking involving 6500 steps per day or more. It was not related to medium walking levels. The fi ndings point to the importance of interventions to maintain or enhance functional fi tness among older adults.
Exposure Childhood Poverty and Young Adults ' Allostatic Load : The Mediating Role of Childhood Cumulative Risk

Childhood poverty is linked to a host of physical and psychological disorders during childhood and later in life. In the study reported here, we showed that the proportion of childhood spent in poverty from birth to age 9 was linked to elevated allostatic load, a marker of chronic physiological stress, in 17-year-olds. Furthermore, this prospective longitudinal relationship was mediated by cumulative risk exposure at age 13. The greater the duration of early life spent in poverty, the greater the exposure to cumulative risk. This, in turn, leads to elevated allostatic load. Multiple psychological, biological, and neurological pathways likely account for the social patterning of psychological and physical disease.
Discontinued drugs in 2012 – 2013: hepatitis C virus infection

Introduction: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) chronically infects about 150 million people worldwide. Antiviral treatment can stop and even reverse the progression of the disease. Several antivirals have been developed. However, about 10,000 compounds are tested for each drug that eventually reaches the market. It would be useful to learn from these failures, for example, by reporting the candidate drugs that were discontinued and the reason for discontinuation. Areas covered: This article focuses on the anti-HCV drug candidates discontinued between 1 January 2012 and 1 January 2014. Expert opinion: In detail, 17 drugs were discontinued. Of these: 10 were NS5B inhibitors, 3 were NS5A inhibitors, 2 were immunostimulants, 1 was a therapeutic and prophylactic vaccine and 1 an NS3 inhibitor. Only 3 candidates were discontinued in the preclinical phase, and 14 were discontinued during clinical development (8 in Phase II and 6 in Phase I). Most discontinuations were attributed to corporate strategic decisions. The authors believe that learning from HCV drug development failures will help pharmaceutical companies and researchers to develop better strategies for the future. It is therefore important that this information is made available.
Large volume leukapheresis is efficient and safe even in small children up to 15 kg body weight.

BACKGROUND The collection of peripheral blood stem cells, although now a routine procedure, is still a challenge in low body weight children because of specific technical and clinical issues. For paediatric patients it is crucial to obtain an adequate number of CD34+ cells with the minimum number of procedures: this can be done using large volume leukapheresis (LVL). MATERIALS AND METHODS We analysed the efficacy and safety of 54 autologous LVL performed in 50 children (33 [66%] males and 17 [34%] females), median age 2 years (range, 1-5) and median body weight 12 kg (range, 6-15). The procedures were performed with a COBE Spectra previously primed with red blood cells; ACD-A solution and heparin were used as anticoagulants. RESULTS The target CD34+ cell dose (≥5×10/kg body weight) were collected with one LVL in 46 (92%) patients, while four (8%) patients needed another procedure. All our LVL were well tolerated. Side effects were observed in five (9.2%) patients and one procedure had to be discontinued because of catheter-related haemorrhage. The platelet count decreased significantly (p<0.001) after each procedure but without bleeding or need for transfusion support. DISCUSSION Our experience confirms that LVL is efficient and safe even in small children, if the procedure is adjusted considering the weight and age of child. The most important factors are good venous access, adequate preparation of the child's electrolyte status, and surroundings in which the small child as well as parents feel comfortable, and can tolerate the procedure better. Although a median platelet loss of 50% can be expected, LVL is safe and reduces the overall number of procedures required. It can be recommended for peripheral blood stem cell collection even in small body weight children with malignant diseases, particularly those who mobilise low numbers of CD34+ cells.
Cycling-Induced SET-Disturb Failure Time Degradation in a Resistive Switching Memory

A new degradation mode with respect to write-disturb failure time due to SET/RESET cycling in a tungsten oxide resistive random access memory is reported. In a crossbar array memory, we find that a write-disturb failure time in high resistance state reduces suddenly by several orders of magnitude after certain SET/RESET cycles. This abrupt degradation is believed due to the creation of a new soft breakdown path in a switching dielectric by cycling stress. Although a memory window still remains after the degradation, the occurrence probability of over-SET state increases significantly. This cycling-induced degradation mode imposes a serious constraint on the number of SET-disturb pulses and thus an endurance cycle number in a resistive switching memory.
Trends in Antimicrobial Resistance in 1,968 Invasive Streptococcus pneumoniae Strains Isolated in Spanish Hospitals (2001 to 2003): Decreasing Penicillin Resistance in Children's Isolates

ABSTRACT To address the public health problem of antibiotic resistance, the European Union (EU) founded the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System. A network of 40 hospitals that serve approximately 30% of the Spanish population (about 12 million) participated. Each laboratory reported data on antimicrobial susceptibility testing using standard laboratory procedures that were evaluated by an external quality control program. The antibiotic consumption data were obtained from the National Health System. We compared the antibiotic susceptibility of Spanish isolates of invasive Streptococcus pneumoniae (2001 to 2003) with antibiotic consumption. Invasive S. pneumoniae was isolated from 1,968 patients, 20% of whom were children at or below the age of 14 years. Of non-penicillin-susceptible strains (35.6%; 95% confidence interval, 34 to 37.2), 26.4% were considered intermediate and 9.2% were considered resistant. Between 2001 and 2003, penicillin resistance decreased from 39.5 to 33% overall and from 60.4 to 41.2% in children at or below the age of 14 years (P = 0.002). Resistance to erythromycin was at 26.6%, and coresistance with penicillin was at 19.1%. Of total isolates, the ciprofloxacin MIC was >2 μg/ml for 2.1%, with numbers increasing from 0.4% (2001) to 3.9% (2003). Total antibiotic use decreased from 21.66 to 19.71 defined daily doses/1,000 inhabitants/day between 1998 and 2002. While consumption of broad-spectrum penicillins, cephalosporins, and erythromycin declined, use of amoxicillin-clavulanate and quinolones increased by 17.5 and 27%, respectively. The frequency of antibiotic resistance in invasive S. pneumoniae in Spain was among the highest in the EU. However, a significant decrease in penicillin resistance was observed in children. This decrease coincided with the introduction of a heptavalent conjugate pneumoccocal vaccine (June 2001) and with a global reduction in antibiotic consumption levels.
Prevalence estimation and follow-up of aortic regurgitation subjects in a Norwegian Sámi population

Objectives. To estimate the prevalence of aortic regurgitation (AR) in the Sámi population and its association with ankylosing spondylitis and HLA-B27. Design. A random sample from two Norwegian Sámi communities was invited to participate in a health survey. Echocardiography was carried out for 84% of the 416 invited. Logistic regression analysis was used to estimate the odds ratios (OR). The AR persons entered a clinical follow-up programme. Results. Altogether 28 subjects had AR. Weighted overall prevalence of AI was 8.8%. OR of AR for ankylosing spondylitis, age and HLA-B27 were 7.4 (95% CI: 1, 1-49, 0), 1.08 (95% CI, 1, 03-2, 14) and 1.8 (95% CI: 0, 6-5, 4), respectively. Conclusions. The prevalence of AR was 8.8% in the Sámi populations in Northern Norway, which is comparable to that reported in other populations; however, data from other populations are sparse. AR was strongly associated with ankylosing spondylitis, but not with HLA-B27 antigen. The progress rate of AR seems to be low; no clinically significant hemodynamic changes were noted during the 14-to-17-year follow-up programme.
Successful endoscopic obturation of gastric varices with butyl cyanoacrylate

In 27 patients who had bled from esophagogastric varices, large‐sized and/or actively bleeding gastric varices were endoscopically obturated with the tissue adhesive butyl cyanoacrylate. Active bleeding was stopped in six patients. Rebleeding occurred in 10 patients; in four patients, rebleeding was due to ruptured gastric varices, occurred early and was successfully treated by reinjection of gastric varices; in one patient, rebleeding was attributed to ulceration on an injected gastric varix. Eight patients died: two of rebleeding (from esophageal varices or undetermined source), four of sepsis and/or liver failure and two at home of undetermined cause. No specific complication due to injection of gastric varices was observed. The results obtained in this series of patients with gastric varices obturated by injection of butyl cyanoacrylate are much more satisfactory than those obtained in previously published series of patients with gastric varices treated by injection of sclerosants.
On determining sensitization criterion in an iterative gate sizing process

Since only sensitizable paths contribute to the delay of a circuit, false paths must be excluded in optimizing the delay of the circuit. However, just identifying sensitizable paths in the first place is not sufficient since during the optimization process, false paths may become sensitizable, and sensitizable paths false. In addition, some paths may shuttle frequently as false paths and sensitizable ones. That is, a thrashing phenomenon may occur. To lessen the thrashing phenomenon of critical paths, a loose sensitization criterion is proposed in this paper to identify both exact sensitizable paths and shuttle paths. Moreover, the selection of sensitization criterion should be related to the specified delay constraint of a given circuit. Taking into account the tightness of sensitization criterion and delay constraint together, we define in this paper a thrashing coefficient which is used to guide the selection of sensitization criterion in the performance optimization process. Moreover, to save time for path sensitizability analysis in the optimization process, we find a special type of false paths, function-false paths, which can be put aside since they never become sensitizable during the process.
Barriers to Development and Progression of Women Entrepreneurs in Pakistan

In Pakistan, women entrepreneurs do not enjoy the same opportunities as men due to a number of deep-rooted discriminatory socio-cultural values and traditions. Furthermore, these restrictions can be observed within the support mechanisms that exist to assist such fledgling businesswomen. The economic potential of female entrepreneurs is not being realised as they suffer from a lack of access to capital, land, business premises, information technology, training and agency assistance. Inherent attitudes of a patriarchal society, that men are superior to women and that women are best suited to be homemakers, create formidable challenges. Women also receive little encouragement from some male family members, resulting in limited spatial mobility and a dearth of social capital. The research suggests that in order to foster development, multi-agency cooperation is required. The media, educational policy makers and government agencies could combine to provide women with improved access to business development services and facilitate local, regional and national networks. This would help integration of women entrepreneurs into the mainstream economy
Response to the letter to the editor by D. Yuan: “Risk of high altitude pulmonary edema and telomere length”

I would like to thank Drs Sikri and Bhattachar for the interest that they have shown in our work and we read their letter with interest. In our study, the diagnosis of high altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) patients was dependent on standard criteria, including patient interviews with respect to cough, dyspnea, cyanosis at rest and imaging examinations (e.g. X‐ray radiograph, computed tomography of the patient chest or magnetic resonance imaging). In this response letter, we also provide the time of appearance of HAPE symptoms, HAPE grades, and respiratory and heart rates, we hope that it is when comparing our data with previous work (Table 1). We also investigated the association between the six single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in ACYP2 and the risk of HAPE based on the HAPE grades. However, we did not detect any significant SNPs with the risk of HAPE. This may be
A General Relaying Transmission Protocol for MIMO Secrecy Communications

In this paper, we consider a secrecy relaying communication scenario where all nodes are equipped with multiple antennas. An eavesdropper has the access to the global channel state information (CSI), and all the other nodes only know the CSI not associated with the eavesdropper. A new secrecy transmission protocol is proposed, where the concept of interference alignment is combined with cooperative jamming to ensure that artificial noise from transmitters can be aligned at the destination, but not at the eavesdropper due to the randomness of wireless channels. Analytical results, such as ergodic secrecy rate and outage probability, are developed, from which more insightful understanding of the proposed protocol, such as multiplexing and diversity gains, can be obtained. A few special cases, where outage probability cannot be decreased to zero regardless of SNR, are also discussed. Simulation results are provided to demonstrate the performance of the proposed secrecy transmission protocol.
Low‐intensity running exercise enhances the capillary volume and pro‐angiogenic factors in the soleus muscle of type 2 diabetic rats

Introduction: We determined the effects of low‐intensity exercise on the three‐dimensional capillary structure and associated angiogenic factors in the soleus muscle of Goto‐Kakizaki (GK) diabetic rats. Methods: Four groups of male rats were studied: sedentary nondiabetic (Con), exercised nondiabetic control (Ex), sedentary GK, and exercised GK (GK+Ex). Rats in the Ex and GK+Ex groups were subjected to chronic low‐intensity running on a treadmill (15 m/min, 60 min/session, 5 sessions/week for 3 weeks). Results: Although mean capillary volume and diameter were lower in the GK compared with all other groups, low‐intensity exercise increased both of these measures in GK rats. Mitochondrial markers, i.e., SDH activity and PGC‐1α expression, and the levels of angiogenic factors were higher in the GK+Ex than all other groups. Exercise increased vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) protein levels and the VEGF‐to‐TSP‐1 ratio, an indicator of angiogenesis, in GK rats. Conclusions: Combined, the results indicate that low‐intensity exercise reduces some of the microcirculatory complications in type 2 diabetic muscles. Muscle Nerve 51: 391–399, 2015
20 years later: deliberate practice and the development of expertise in sport

Twenty-one years ago, Ericsson, Krampe and Tesch-Romer published their seminal work expounding the notion of deliberate practice in explaining the development of expertise. This concept has since become extremely influential in the fields of sport psychology and motor learning. This review evaluates current understanding of deliberate practice in sport skill acquisition with an emphasis on the role of deliberate practice in distinguishing expert athletes from non-experts. In particular, we re-examine the original tenets of Ericsson et al.'s framework to (a) evaluate the sport-related research supporting their claims and (b) identify remaining research questions in this area. The review highlights the overall importance of deliberate practice in the development of expert sport performers; however, our understanding is far from complete. Several directions for future research are highlighted, including the need for more rigorous research designs and statistical models that can evaluate changes in developmental and contextual factors across development. Finally, we advocate for a more thorough understanding of the implications of a ‘deliberate practice approach’ for coaching science.
Fathers’ Everyday Experiences of Having an Adult Child who Suffers From Long-Term Mental Illness

The purpose of this study is to describe the everyday life experiences of fathers of adult children who have various forms of long-term mental illness. Ten fathers were interviewed. Content analysis revealed one main theme: Maintaining a strong façade while balancing on a thin line, and two sub-themes: (1) A constant struggle and (2) A feeling of powerlessness. The fathers demonstrated great engagement and good will to participate in their child's life. A sense of powerlessness and frustration at not having or being allowed freedom of action emerged. Cooperation between children, parents, the care service providers, and the authorities could increase the parents’ abilities to provide adequate support to the child as well as helping them to understand and make the incomprehensible manageable.
Thallium-201 reverse redistribution at reinjection imaging correlated with coronary lesion, wall motion abnormality and tissue viability.

UNLABELLED Previous studies based on standard stress-redistribution 201TI scintigraphy provided conflicting results about the clinical significance 201Tl reverse redistribution. Recent observations indicate that the majority of these defects normalize following reinjection reflecting viable myocardium. METHODS In this study, the meaning of reverse redistribution occurring at reinjection imaging, its relation to standard 4-hr redistribution, coronary lesion, abnormal wall motion and tissue viability were assessed. A region with normal activity in the stress image was considered as having reverse redistribution if 201Tl activity at reinjection imaging was definitely abnormal with a decrease in relative tracer uptake >15% of the peak. From a series of 270 patients, 29 showed reverse redistribution. Of these 29 patients, 27 had evidence of previous myocardial infarction. Coronary lesions were detected in all but 1 patient. Average ejection fraction was 0.38 +/- 0.11. RESULTS On a segmental basis, 50/377 regions showed the pattern of reverse redistribution. A significant coronary lesion (> or = 50%) was found in 78% of these regions; occlusion rate was 50%, and collateral circulation was found in 35% of occluded vessels. Hypokinesis or akinesis was present in 72% of segments. Tissue viability, defined as an uptake >55% of the peak, was found in 44% of these segments. The 50 segments showing reverse redistribution were divided into two groups according to an abnormal uptake also at 4-hr redistribution (group 1, 25 segments) or appearing only following reinjection (group 2,25 segments). Despite segments of group 1 showing a higher degree of coronary stenosis (80 +/- 32 versus 59 +/- 43%, p < 0.01), a similar rate of coronary occlusion, ventricular dysfunction and maintained viability was found in the two groups. CONCLUSION Reverse redistribution in chronic coronary artery disease is frequently associated with significant coronary lesion, collateral-dependent dysfunctioning myocardium and preserved tissue viability. The occurrence of reverse redistribution following reinjection expands the indication for viability imaging to all patients with known coronary artery disease and regional wall motion abnormalities who undergo diagnostic and prognostic 201TI scintigraphy.
Aurosome formation in articular tissues after parenteral administration of gold

Intramuscular injection of sodium aurothiomalate (Myochrysine) produced lysosomes (aurosomes) of a characteristic morphology distinct and different from other lysosomes. The aurosome is characterised by particle and granulestudded electron-dense membranous formations which present as rod-like and curled structures. Intramuscularly injected sodium aurothiomalate in immature rabbits leads to the production of aurosomes in the articular cartilage chondrocytes and synovial intimal cells and subsynovial macrophages. In mature rabbits aurosomes develop only in the synovial intimal cells and subsynovial macrophages, but not in the chondrocytes.
Designing in, and for, the inclusive classroom

In France and in the global north in general, children living with impairments are increasingly attending mainstream schools, according to recent inclusion laws. My thesis explores how inclusion changes children's experience of school as well as how it influences designers' practices. In order to understand the issues at stake, in the case of children living with visual impairments, I conducted a longitudinal field-study, introducing and observing various probes and prototypes, developed using a co-design approach. I will present the current state of this interdisciplinary research, and in particular how these artifacts reconfigured the relationships between actors (children, caregivers, institutions' representatives). Our findings help understanding instructional technologies' adoption process, and provide design examples and guidelines for the inclusion of children living with visual impairments in the classroom.