Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Long-term follow-up of cardiovascular disease risk factors in children after an obesity intervention.

BACKGROUND Data concerning the long-term improvement of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors after an obesity intervention in children are limited. OBJECTIVE We studied changes in weight status and CVD risk factors in children in an intervention program and evaluated whether these changes were sustained 1 y after the end of the intervention. DESIGN We analyzed changes in the SD score (SDS) of body mass index [BMI; in kg/m2 (SDS-BMI)], blood pressure (BP), lipids, and homeostasis model assessment index of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) over the course of 2 y in 240 obese (BMI > 97th percentile) children aged 6-14 y (x age: 10.4 y; x BMI: 26.9). Of these 240 children, 203 participated in a 1-y intervention program of physical exercise, nutrition education, and behavior therapy. We compared these children with 37 obese children who underwent no intervention and with 12 normal-weight children of the same age and sex. RESULTS Obese children had significantly (P < 0.05) higher BP, HOMA-IR, and insulin, triacylglycerol, and LDL-cholesterol concentrations and lower HDL-cholesterol concentrations than did normal-weight children. Twenty-nine children dropped out of the intervention. Only in the 126 children who reduced their SDS-BMI did BP (8% and 12% decreases in systolic and diastolic BP, respectively), lipids (12% and 5% decreases in triacylglycerol and LDL cholesterol, respectively; 7% increase in HDL cholesterol), insulin (13% decrease), and HOMA-IR (17% decrease) improve significantly (P < 0.05). Reduction in SDS-BMI and all benefits regarding CVD risk factors were sustained 1 y after the end of the intervention in the children whose SDS-BMI decreased. CONCLUSIONS Long-term multidisciplinary intervention led to a reduction in SDS-BMI in most of the obese children 1 y after the end of the intervention. Reduction in SDS-BMI was accompanied by an improvement in CVD risk factors.
Parental Mediation in the Digital Era: Increasing Children’s Critical Thinking May Help Decrease Positive Attitudes toward Alcohol

We demonstrate in our research that discussion-based parental mediation may successfully decrease the negative effects that youth’s engagement with alcohol brands on social media may have on attitudes toward alcohol through its effects on critical thinking. A clear pattern was found with positive mediation leading to unhealthy outcomes and negative mediation predicting healthier behaviors. Youth whose parents critiqued media messages reported more critical thinking skills, which predicted less interaction with alcohol brands on social media and fewer expectancies toward alcohol. On the other hand, youth whose parents endorsed media portrayals of drinking reported fewer critical thinking skills and were thus more likely to interact with alcohol brands on social media. Including a media literacy component in alcohol education that target parental strategies and that are conducive to discussion may lead to beneficial health outcomes in the digital era.
In Utero and at Birth Diagnosis of Congenital Toxoplasmosis: Use of Likelihood Ratios for Clinical Management

Background: The results of the ante- and neonatal diagnostic tests for congenital toxoplasmosis influence the decision to treat the newborn immediately after birth. Here, we estimate the positive and negative likelihood ratios (LRs) and the probabilities of congenital infection according to PCR and IgM-IgA tests results. Methods: The study concerned 767 children born between 1996 and 2002 and followed-up for 1-year at Croix-Rousse hospital, Lyon, France. The LRs and the post-test probabilities were estimated conditionally on gestational age at maternal infection using a logistic regression approach. Results: For the PCR and the IgM-IgA tests, the positive LRs were high. In children with one positive test when only one test was done, the probability of infection reached 90% when the maternal infection occurred at 18-weeks gestation or later. This probability was close to 100% when the 2 tests were positive, whatever the gestational age. The negative LRs of the 2 tests moved closer to 0 at later gestational ages. However, when the tests were negative, the probability of infection remained greater or equal to 10%, except in early maternal infection. When the 2 tests were discordant, the probability of infection was about 50% in early maternal infection. Conclusion: Providing reliable probabilities of congenital infection, the PCR and IgM-IgA tests guide clinical management and counseling of parents.
The Implementation and Structuring of Divestitures: The Unit’s Perspective

Existing literature on value creation of divestitures focuses on their antecedents, typically relating them to the parent company’s financial performance. Whether and how divestitures can create value for the divested unit remains unclear. This paper presents an exploratory study based on multiple cases, to examine which factors of the implementation and structuring of a divestiture may increase the performance of a divested unit. The emergent granular framework consists of previously unreported aspects of the divesting process and provides new insights into divestitures and their outcomes. Results indicate that antecedents alone may be insufficient for understanding the outcomes of divestitures. Different combinations of understanding of the rationale for the divestiture and perceived capabilities in the divesting process affect perceptions of divestiture feasibility. Sense of opportunity emerges as the key element of the divesting process for the success of divested units. Factors that participate with sense of opportunity in determining the success of divested units are further considered in the theoretical framework.
FACTORS DETERMINING RESIDENTIAL RENTAL PRICES Ivy Drafor Amenyah

Due to the high demand for residential apartments, landlords take undue advantage of tenants and increase rent without adhering to rent regulations. A high proportion of the population in Ghana rents than own homes because many cannot afford to own. There is frequent movement of workers from one city to another, especially to urban areas, resulting in increases in demand and price of rented accommodation. This study explores the impact of location and apartment characteristics on rental prices, using a survey of the Accra Metropolitan Area. Data from three contrasting locations in Accra was analysed and the results show that location, number of bedrooms, availability of amenities and facilities, and sharing of facilities are significant in determining residential rental prices. The type of apartment people live in and the kinds of facilities they share with others have implications for health and the environment and require policy response with efforts to improve housing regulations in Ghana.
The Structure of Everyday Self-Care Decision Making in Chronic Illness

As health care reform strategists increasingly recognize the critically important potential of effective everyday self-care decision making for reducing the burden of illness and the strain on health service systems, wemust find ways to understand and support it. In this study, the authors investigate persons with expertise in self-care management of type 2 diabetes,HIV/AIDS, and multiple sclerosis to understand how everyday self-care decision making is learned and experienced. They used interview, think-aloud, and focus groups to construct an account of how persons affected by these chronic diseases make decisions in relation to the choices in their everyday lives and learn to manage the untoward effects of these conditions accordingto their unique contexts and values. The findings form a conceptual foundation for ongoing inquiry into this complex phenomenon and provide insights that might assist clinicians to understand more fully the responses and attitudes of those they serve.
Neuropsychological profile of bilateral paramedian infarctions: Three cases

Introduction: The thalamus is one of the strategic diencephalic structures of the human brain. The artery of Percheron, an asymmetrical common trunk arising from a P1 segment of the posterior cerebral artery, is a peculiar presentation of the three variants involved in the irrigation of the paramedian thalamic territory. Occlusion of this artery results in bilateral median thalamic infarction. The paramedian syndrome includes an acute loss or reduction of consciousness, often associated with oculomotor and neuropsychological disturbances. Patients and methods: We present three cases of bilateral paramedian thalamic infarction with onset of acute coma, followed by fluctuations in the level of consciousness, memory, and behavioural alterations. A neuroradiological study with MRI identified individual thalamic nuclei, and a complete neuropsychological study was performed one month after onset of ictus. Results: One of the patients showed severe memory and executive function impairments without improvement of vertical gaze palsy. The other two patients presented with mild executive dysfunction with complete resolution of neurological symptoms. Neuroimaging results showed a bilateral lesion of the dorsomedial nuclei in the three patients. Conclusions: Severe amnesia has been associated with an affection of the structures of the paramedian thalamic territory. Presently, the role of the dorsomedial nucleus remains controversial, with the suggestion that memory deficits observed in this type of lesion could be secondary to executive function deficits. In our case, the patient with the most severe dysexecutive deficit presented the most severe memory impairments.
Functional Characterization of Syncytin-A, a Newly Murine Endogenous Virus Envelope Protein

Trophoblast fusion in placenta is an important event for preservation of a healthy pregnancy. This process takes place throughout the pregnancy and is crucial for the formation of syncytiotrophoblast layer. Syncytin-1 and syncytin-2 are strong candidate regulators of fusion from retroviral origin. Syncytin-A and syncytin-B are other candidates from retroviral origin in Muridae. The active role of syncytin in driving fusion of trophoblast has been identified, but its fusion mechanism is still unclear. As an intact retroviral envelope protein, syncytin-A shares similar structure profiling with other viral envelope fusion proteins, especially in the regions of N- and C-terminal heptad repeats (NHR and CHR, respectively). In this paper, we showed that SynA 1 + 2 of syncytin-A (residues 445-536, including predicted NHR, CHR, and a natural linker) could form trimer and exhibited significant α-helix structure and high thermo-stability. Limited proteolysis result identified a stable protease-resistant core of SynA 1 + 2, which was in good agreement with computational modeling data. NHR and CHR could interact with each other in vitro, too. Different from the previous studies, the disulfide-bonded linker was apparently vital to the stability of fusion core structure. By biological assays, NHR was shown to be inhibitive to cell-cell fusion, with IC50 value about 5.4 μm, but CHR seemed to have no inhibitory activity even at 50 μm. From both biochemical and functional data, we first gave an explanation how syncytin-A mediated cell fusion. The insight into the mechanism of syncytin-A-mediated cell-cell fusion may provide a crucial clue to placental cytotrophoblast morphogenesis.
Synthetic aperture imaging for small scale systems

Multi-element synthetic aperture imaging methods suitable for applications with severe cost and size limitations are explored. Array apertures are synthesized using an active multi-element receive subaperture and a multi-element transmit subaperture defocused to emulate a single-element spatial response with high acoustic power. Echo signals are recorded independently by individual elements of the receive subaperture. Each method uses different spatial frequencies and acquisition strategies for imaging, and therefore different sets of active transmit/receive element combinations. Following acquisition, image points are reconstructed using the complete data set with full dynamic focus on both transmit and receive. Various factors affecting image quality have been evaluated and compared to conventional imagers through measurements with a 3.5 MHz, 128-element transducer array on different gel phantoms. Multielement synthetic aperture methods achieve higher electronic signal to noise ratio and better contrast resolution than conventional synthetic aperture techniques, approaching conventional phased array performance. <<ETX>>
Return of a giant: DNA from archival museum samples helps to identify a unique cutthroat trout lineage formerly thought to be extinct

Currently one small, native population of the culturally and ecologically important Lahontan cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii henshawi, LCT, Federally listed) remains in the Truckee River watershed of northwestern Nevada and northeastern California. The majority of populations in this watershed were extirpated in the 1940s due to invasive species, overharvest, anthropogenic water consumption and changing precipitation regimes. In 1977, a population of cutthroat trout discovered in the Pilot Peak Mountains in the Bonneville basin of Utah, was putatively identified as the extirpated LCT lacustrine lineage native to Pyramid Lake in the Truckee River basin based on morphological and meristic characters. Our phylogenetic and Bayesian genotype clustering analyses of museum specimens collected from the large lakes (1872–1913) and contemporary samples collected from populations throughout the extant range provide evidence in support of a genetically distinct Truckee River basin origin for this population. Analysis of museum samples alone identified three distinct genotype clusters and historical connectivity among water bodies within the Truckee River basin. Baseline data from museum collections indicate that the extant Pilot Peak strain represents a remnant of the extirpated lacustrine lineage. Given the limitations on high-quality data when working with a sparse number of preserved museum samples, we acknowledge that, in the end, this may be a more complicated story. However, the paucity of remnant populations in the Truckee River watershed, in combination with data on the distribution of morphological, meristic and genetic data for Lahontan cutthroat trout, suggests that recovery strategies, particularly in the large lacustrine habitats should consider this lineage as an important part of the genetic legacy of this species.
Prospects and Challenges of Medicinal Plants Conservation and Traditional Medicine in Tanzania

A qualitative study was carried to assess prospects and challenges of medicinal plants conservation and traditional medicine in Tanzania. The study shows that TRM and medicinal have great prospects in healthcare delivery worldwide. These prospects have more impact in developing countries where 70%-80% of population used TRM for Primary Healthcare (PHC). It is reported that 25% of prescribed drugs in conventional healthcare were derived from their ethnomedicinal use in TRM. Medicinal plants still provided hope for discovery of new drugs for the resistant diseases and those that were not treated by conventional prescribed drugs. Traditional medicine and medicinal plants were faced with challenges notably; threats due to increasing depletion of the natural resource as an impact of population increase, urbanization, modernization of agriculture and climatic change. There was erosion of indigenous medical knowledge as most of the traditional health practitioners were aging and dying, while the expected youths to inherit the practice shy away from practice. The youths in rural settings who were willing to practice some of them die because of AIDS. The other major challenges on traditional medicine and MPs were constraints and include lack of data on seriously threatened and endangered medicinal plant species. Others include inadequate and conflicting guidelines on management and utilization of natural resources, especially medicinal plants. Efforts for scaling up the practice of TRM and medicinal plant conservation have been suggested. These were creating awareness of the importance traditional medicine and medicinal plants in healthcare; training THPs on good practices for provision of healthcare; conserving medicinal plants through in-situ and ex-situ programs and sustainable harvesting of medicinal plants resources and training conventional health workers on the contribution of TRM and medicinal plants in PHC. Traditional health practitioners, TRM and medicinal plants should be essential components in PHC in order to meet the health millennium goals by 2025.
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Behavior Therapy in Patients with Anxiety Disorders: A Case Series

The present study is aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of a Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Behavior Therapy (MBCBT) for reducing cognitive and somatic anxiety and modifying dysfunctional cognitions in patients with anxiety disorders. A single case design with pre- and post-assessment was adopted. Four patients meeting the specified inclusion and exclusion criteria were recruited for the study. Three patients received a primary diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), while the fourth patient was diagnosed with Panic Disorder. Patients were assessed on the Cognitive and Somatic Anxiety Questionnaire (CSAQ), Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ), Hamilton's Anxiety Inventory (HAM-A), and Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale. The therapeutic program consisted of education regarding nature of anxiety, training in different versions of mindfulness meditation, cognitive restructuring, and strategies to handle worry, such as, worry postponement, worry exposure, and problem solving. A total of 23 sessions over four to six weeks were conducted for each patient. The findings of the study are discussed in light of the available research, and implications and limitations are highlighted along with suggestions for future research.
A probabilistic saliency model with memory-guided top-down cues for free-viewing

Attention models for free-viewing of images are commonly developed in a bottom-up (BU) manner. However, in this paper, we propose to include memory-oriented top-down spatial attention cues into the model. The proposed generative saliency model probabilistically combines a BU module and a top-down (TD) module and can be applied to both static and dynamic scenes. For static scenes, the experience of attention distribution to similar scenes in long-term memory is mimicked by linearly mapping a global feature of the scene to the long-term top-down (LTD) saliency. And for dynamic scenes, we add on the influence of short-term memory to form a HMM-like chain to guide the attention distribution. Our improved BU module utilizes low-level feature contrast, spatial distribution and location information to highlight saliency regions. It is tested on 1000 benchmark images and outperforms state-of-the-art BU methods. The complete model is examined on two video datasets, one with manually labeled saliency regions, and another with recorded eye-movement fixations. Experimental results show that our model achieves significant improvement in predicting human visual attention compared with existing saliency models.
Effects of Sevoflurane on the Intracellular Ca2+ Transient in Ferret Cardiac Muscle

BackgroundSevoflurane depresses myocardial contractility by decreasing transsarcolemmal Ca2+ influx. In skinned muscle fibers, sevoflurane affects actin–myosin cross-bridge cycling, which might contribute to the negative inotropic effect. It is uncertain to what extent decreases in Ca2+ sensitivity of the contractile proteins play a role in the negative inotropic effect of sevoflurane in intact cardiac muscle tissue. The aim of this study was to assess whether sevoflurane decreases myofibrillar Ca2+ sensitivity in intact living cardiac fibers and to quantify the relative importance of changes in myofibrillar Ca2+ sensitivity versus changes in myoplasmic Ca2+ availability by sevoflurane. MethodsThe effects of sevoflurane 0–4.05% vol/vol (0–1.5 minimum alveolar concentration [MAC]) on isometric and isotonic variables of contractility and on the intracellular calcium transient were assessed in isolated ferret right ventricular papillary muscles microinjected with the Ca2+-regulated photoprotein aequorin. The intracellular calcium transient was analyzed in the context of a multicompartment model of intracellular Ca2+ buffers in mammalian ventricular myocardium. ResultsSevoflurane decreased contractility, time to peak force, time to half isometric relaxation, and the [Ca2+]i transient in a reversible, concentration-dependent manner. Increasing [Ca2+]o in the presence of sevoflurane to produce peak force equal to control increased intracellular Ca2+ transient higher than control. ConclusionsSevoflurane decreases myoplasmic Ca2+ availability and myofibrillar Ca2+ sensitivity in equal proportions except at 4.05% vol/vol (1.5 MAC), where Ca2+ availability is decreased more. These changes are at the basis of the negative inotropic effect of sevoflurane in mammalian ventricular myocardium.
Transient Simulation of Microwave SiC MESFETs With Improved Trap Models

Measured and simulated transient characteristics of a SiC metal-semiconductor field-effect transistor are compared. Self-heating, gate tunneling, substrate, and surface traps are taken into account in the simulations. By explicitly filling surface traps at the vicinity of the gate during pinchoff, close correspondence between simulated and measured gate lags is achieved.
A Comparison of Collateral Sprouting of Sensory and Motor Axons after End-to-Side Neurorrhaphy with and without the Perineurial Window

Background: Many experimental studies have confirmed collateral sprouting of axons after end-to-side neurorrhaphy and its possible clinical application. There is still controversy about how the surgical method should be carried out. The aim of the present study was to quantitatively evaluate collateral sprouting of motor and sensory axons after end-to-side neurorrhaphy with and without the perineurial window. Methods: End-to-side neurorrhaphy of the distal stump of transected musculocutaneous nerve with intact ulnar nerve with or without a perineurial window was performed in a rat model. Collateral sprouts were quantitatively evaluated by counting of motor and sensory neurons following their retrograde labeling by Fluoro-Ruby and Fluoro-Emerald applied to the ulnar and musculocutaneous nerves, respectively. Results: Our results show that significantly more motor and sensory axons sent their collateral branches into the recipient nerve in the group with a perineurial window. Some axons were injured during preparation of the perineurial window; the injured axons reinnervated directly into the recipient nerve to contribute to results of functional reinnervation. Conclusion: The authors conclude that it is necessary to create a perineurial window when using end-to-side neurorrhaphy in clinical practice, especially in brachial plexus reconstruction.
Electronic dispersion relations of monolayer hexagonal boron nitride formed on the Ni(111) surface.

Angle-resolved ultraviolet-photoelectron spectroscopy and angle-resolved secondary-electron emission spectroscopy have been carried out for a film of single-crystalline hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) formed on the Ni(111) surface to investigate both the valence- and conduction-band structures. The thickness of the film studied in this experiment was 1 ML. The observed electronic dispersion relations were compared with some theoretical ones reported for bulk h-BN. Among these theoretical calculations, the one by Catellani et al. [Phys. Rev. B 36, 6105 (1987)] is in the best agreement with the present results. We have discussed the strength of the interfacial bond and the influence of this bond upon the electronic states of the monolayer h-BN film on the basis of the observed band structures for the BN film and a film of monolayer graphite formed on Ni(111).