Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Contribution INTIMA-MEDIATHICKNESS MEASUREMENTS IN THE FETUS AND MOTHER DURING PREGNANCY : A FEASIBILITY STUDY

A Unit, U Belgiu Abstract—Fetal intima-media thickness (IMT) has been suggested as a marker of pre-clinical atherosclerosis, and maternal IMT could be altered through dynamic circumstances related to pregnancy. We investigated the feasibility of measurement of IMT at four pre-defined fetal and four pre-defined maternal arterial locations to determine vascular changes that could be associated with impaired vascular function. IMTwas measured from the first to third trimester (12–34 wk), in 38 low-risk pregnancies. We imaged a 10-mm region of interest using a Mindray (Shenzhen, China) high-resolution ultrasoundmachine with automated IMTmeasurement software. Fetal abdominal aorta IMTwas measurable during the second trimester in 71% and during the third trimester in 100% of the case, and umbilical artery IMTwas measurable in 50% and 82% of cases during the second and third trimesters, respectively. Fetal IMTmeasurements were not possible during the first trimester. It was not often feasible to measure the IMT of the fetal common carotid artery, fetal renal artery and maternal iliac artery (maximal 20% of cases). Maternal common carotid artery, abdominal aorta and uterine artery IMTs were measurable throughout pregnancy. There was a significant relation between gestational age and IMT in the umbilical artery (p5 0.03) and a significant relation between body mass index and IMT in the maternal common carotid artery (p 5 0.01). IMT measurements are feasible in some maternal and fetal vessels of interest. Further studies are underway to obtain more insight into vascular development during normal and pathologic pregnancies. (E-mail: roland.devlieger@ uzleuven.be) 2014 World Federation for Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology.
The Prevalence of Guillian-Barre Syndrome and the Rate of Physiotherapy Referral at the

Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) which is a post-infective acute polyneuropathy has been known to rarely occur among Africans. It is considered the most disabling neurological condition after poliomyelitis. However, little has been reported on the extent of the problem of GBS in Zambia. Hence the main aim of the study was to determine the prevalence of GBS and rate of physiotherapy referral among the patients that were seen at the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) between the years 2011-2013. Data was collected retrospectively from clinical files of patients that were treated in the department of internal medicine during the review period using a checklist. The statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 20 was used for descriptive analysis. Out of 26, 776 new medical cases that were treated in the period under review only 31 cases had GBS giving a period prevalence of 0.116%. The mean age for cases was 33.6 years (SD: 12.9) with the majority 50% (n=16) age range being 18 to 28 years. The most common type of GBS 61% (n=19) was Acute Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy (AIDP) and the commonest predisposing factor 42% (n=13) was HIV/AIDS. There were more males than females at a ratio of 1.8:1. Most of the patients 68% (n=21) had not been referred to physiotherapy. GBS is becoming a common problem because of a rising prevalence since the advent of HIV/AIDS. Rate of physiotherapy referral among the cases is very low. It is highly recommended that another study on prevalence of GBS be done over a longer period to include other hospitals in Zambia. Physiotherapists in Zambia are also challenged to provide evidence on the impact of the interventions given in GBS management.
Assessment of the effects of gamma radiations on various morphological and agronomic traits of common wheat ( Triticum aestivum L.) var. WH-147

The aim of the present study was to assess the effects of different doses of gamma radiations on various morphological and agronomic traits of common wheat in order to identify the most effective radiation dose which can be applied for successful mutagenic research studies. For this purpose, dry and healthy seeds of ‘WH-147’ bread wheat cultivar were exposed to different doses of gamma radiations (5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 kR) at the Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC), Mumbai. All the traits studied showed a gradual decrease in their mean values with the increasing intensity of gamma radiations except in 15 kR at which spike number per plant and seed weight showed some increment over the control sets. It has been concluded from the study that higher radiation doses (25 kR and 30 kR) have reduced mean values and increased quantitative variability for most of the traits studied which could be successfully employed in mutation breeding for the improvement of this important cereal crop.
The Protective Effect of Quercetin and Hesperidin on Etoposide Induced Toxicity in Male Rats Testicular

This study aimed to evaluate the synergistic protective role of Quercetin (QE) and hesperidin (HES) alone or in combination against Etoposide-induced in male rats. as used (50) male mature , these were divided into five groups included each group 10 animals. Control group (C) : was administered orally Distilled water, The first treatment group (T1): was given orally Etoposide (20) mg / kg bw , Second treatment group (T2) : was given Etoposide (20) mg / kg , then given Quercetin 20 mg / kg,, Three treatment group (T3): was given Etoposide (20) mg / kg then Hesperidin at dose 25 mg / kg bw, Four treatment group (T4): was given Etoposide and Quercetin and Hesperidin at same doses previous . The animals were sacrificed after the treatment period. There was statistically significant (p<0.05) Etoposide caused significant a decrease (P<0.05) in genes expression ( LH subunit , LHr , CYP11A1) , reduction in plasma LH , FSH and testosterone levels and decrease (P<0.05) in sperm count and also a decrease (P<0.05) in sperm activity of the percentage of viable sperm and an increase in abnormal sperms , reduced (P<0.05) in Fertility rate, number and weight of birth compared with control group and other treated group . Furthermore, Led treatment QE and / or HES with Etoposide -treated group improved the harmful effects of Etoposide by return the parameters rates to normal values rather and was more significant in the synergy (T4) as compared with control group . In conclusion, Index study revealed Hesperidin and Quercetin both showed synergistic potential more than if they were separate by improving oxidative damage Etoposide – Induced on reproductive system parameters in male rats .
We adapt... but is it good or bad? Locating the political ecology and social-ecological systems debate in reindeer herding in the Swedish Sub-Arctic

Abstract Reindeer herding (RDH) is a livelihood strategy deeply connected to Sami cultural tradition. This article explores the implications of two theoretical and methodological approaches for grasping complex socioenvironmental relationships of RDH in Subarctic Sweden. Based on joint fieldwork, two teams – one that aligns itself with political ecology (PE) and the other with social-ecological systems (SES) – compared PE and SES approaches of understanding RDH. Our purpose was twofold: 1) to describe the situation of Sami RDH through the lenses of PE and SES, exploring how the two approaches interpret the same empirical data; 2) to present an analytical comparison of the ontological and epistemological assumptions of this work, also inferring different courses of action to instigate change for the sustainability of RDH. Key informants from four sameby in the Kiruna region expressed strong support for the continuation of RDH as a cultural and economic practice. Concerns about the current situation raised by Sami representatives centered on the cumulative negative impacts on RDH from mining, forestry and tourism. PE and SES researchers offered dissimilar interpretations of the key aspects of the RDH socio-economic situation, namely: the nature and scale of RDH systems; the ubiquitous role of conflict; and conceptualizations of responses to changing socioenvironmental conditions. Due to these disparities, PE and SES analyses have radically divergent sociopolitical implications for what ought to be done to redress the current RDH situation. Keywords: Reindeer herding, political ecology, social-ecological systems, resilience, interdisciplinary, ontological assumptions, conflicts/consensus, adaptation
Energy relaxation of exciton-polariton condensates in quasi-one-dimensional microcavities

C.A. and G.T. acknowledge financial support from Spanish FPU and FPI scholarships, respectively. P.S. acknowledges Greek GSRT program “ARISTEIA” (1978) for financial support. The work was partially supported by the Spanish MEC MAT2011-22997, CAM (S-2009/ESP-1503), and FP7 ITN’s “Clermont4” (235114), “Spin-optronics” (237252), and INDEX (289968) projects
Mutant Selection Windows of Azalomycin F 5a in Combination with Vitamin K 3 against Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus

Azalomycin F5a, a 36-membered macrocyclic lactone isolated from several streptomyces strains, presented remarkable anti-methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) activities. To improve its anti-MRSA potential and to evaluate the probability of MRSA resistant to it before development, the anti-MRSA activities of azalomycin F5a in combination with vitamin K3 were first evaluated using checkerboard assay. Then the minimal concentration inhibiting colony formation by 99% (MIC99) and mutant prevention concentration (MPC) of azalomycin F5a alone and in combination with vitamin K3 against MRSA were determined using agar plates with linear antimicrobial concentration decrease. The fractional inhibitory concentration indexes (FICIs) of 0.25 - 0.50 showed the synergistic activity of azalomycin F5a in combination with vitamin K3. The mutant selection windows (MSWs, MIC99-MPC) of azalomycin F5a alone against MRSA tested were 2.07 - 6.40 μg/mL, and the MPCs of azalomycin F5a in combination with vitamin K3 against MRSA tested were 1.60 - 3.20 μg/mL. These indicated that the MPCs of azalomycin F5a in combination could drop down to below its MIC99 alone. According to the hypothesis of MSW, the narrower MSWs of azalomycin F5a alone, even closed MSWs in combination with vitamin K3, together with their synergistic anti-MRSA activities, indicated that azalomycin F5a had a good potential to develop as a new antimicrobial agent.
Phage Therapy in Prostatitis: Recent Prospects

Prostatitis has various etiology including bacterial infection and dysregulated immunity; some of its forms remain a serious therapeutic challenge. Inflammation occurs in all forms of this disorder and is proposed to predispose to the development of prostate cancer (PC). There are reports that phage therapy is effective in chronic bacterial prostatitis. Recent findings suggest that phages not only eliminate bacteria, but also mediate immunomodulating (for example, anti-inflammatory) functions. The immunomodulating effects of phages could be beneficial in treating all forms of prostatitis and play some role in the prevention of the development of PC. As the etiological factors contributing to the majority of prostatitis cases remains largely unknown, and management options are often likewise limited, phage therapy merits further research as an attractive therapeutic option given its immunomodulating effects irrespective of the underlying causative factor(s).
Rhomboid beach pattern: A laboratory investigation

[1] The formation of beach rhomboid pattern by swash is investigated experimentally. This centimeter-scale structure is classically interpreted as the mark of stationary gravity waves generated by obstacles in supercritical flows. However, thanks to the use of water-based fluids of various viscosity, our experiments show that a rhomboid pattern can develop in subcritical flows. Its angle is primarily a function of the Froude number, as suggested by Woodford (1935), but our data do not support his classical model, nor do they support any of the existing theories. The slowness of the rhombus motion indicates that it is not simply the mark of a hydraulic phenomenon but rather results from the coupling between the water flow and sediment transport.
State-Aware Anti-Drift Object Tracking

Correlation filter (CF)-based trackers have aroused increasing attention in the visual tracking field due to the superior performance on several datasets while maintaining high running speed. For each frame, an ideal filter is trained in order to discriminate the target from its surrounding background. Considering that the target always undergoes external and internal interference during the tracking procedure, the trained tracker should not only have the ability to judge the current state when failure occurs, but also to resist the model drift caused by challenging distractions. To this end, we present a state-aware anti-drift tracker (SAT) in this paper, which jointly models the discrimination and reliability information in filter learning. Specifically, global context patches are incorporated into the filter training stage to better distinguish the target from backgrounds. Meanwhile, a color-based reliable mask is learned to encourage the filter to focus on more reliable regions suitable for tracking. We show that the proposed optimization problem could be efficiently solved using alternative direction method of multipliers and fully carried out in the Fourier domain. Furthermore, a kurtosis-based updating scheme is advocated to reveal the tracking condition as well as guarantee a high-confidence template updating. Extensive experiments are conducted on OTB-100 and UAV-20L datasets to compare the SAT tracker with other relevant state-of-the-art methods. In this paper, both quantitative and qualitative evaluations further demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness.
Institutional Assessment and the Integrative Core Curriculum: Involving Students in the Development of an ePortfolio System

The majority of research on the implementation of ePortfolios focuses on curriculum, faculty development, or student buy-in. When ePortfolio systems have been described in technical terms, the focus has been on the functionality, affordances, and limitations of ePortfolio systems (e.g., TaskStream, LiveText), free web tools (e.g., Google Docs), and course management systems (e.g., Sakai). Seldom do researchers discuss the socio-political context that leads to the development of the ePortfolio design or architecture; more importantly, seldom are students involved in the decisionmaking process about assessment and learning. Rather, students are treated as data for the improvement of ePortfolios rather than significant stakeholders during development. Our pilot project with students as co-authors and research assistants illustrates one approach for colleges and universities interested in the implementation of an institutional ePortfolio. Our findings show that the design of ePortfolios should not be treated as neutral and unproblematic. According to our student authors, the affordances of ePortfolio design mediate their thinking and level of engagement in regards to affect and identity. Our pilot project also shows that students can and should play a larger role in institutional assessment.
Who Uses Smart City Services and What to Make of It: Toward Interdisciplinary Smart Cities Research

As research on smart cities garners increased attention and its status consolidates as one of the fanciest areas of research today, this paper makes a case for a cautious rethink of the very rationale and relevance of the debate. To this end, this paper looks at the smart cities debate from the perspectives of, on the one hand, citizens’ awareness of applications and solutions that are considered ‘smart’ and, on the other hand, their ability to use these applications and solutions. Drawing from a detailed analysis of the outcomes of a pilot international study, this paper showcases that even the most educated users of smart city services, i.e., those arguably most aware of and equipped with skills to use these services effectively, express very serious concerns regarding the utility, safety, accessibility and efficiency of those services. This suggests that more pragmatism needs to be included in smart cities research if its findings are to remain useful and relevant for all stakeholders involved. The discussion in this paper contributes to the smart cities debate in three ways. First, it adds empirical support to the thesis of ‘normative bias’ of smart cities research. Second, it suggests ways of bypassing it, thereby opening a debate on the preconditions of sustainable interdisciplinary smart cities research. Third, it points to new avenues of research.
Influence of Crossflow Membrane Filter Geometry and Shear Rate on Colloidal Fouling in Reverse Osmosis and Nanofiltration Separations

A laboratory-scale crossflow membrane filtration apparatus was designed to investigate the relative influence of filter geometry and shear rate on colloidal fouling of reverse osmosis (RO) and nanofiltration (NF) membranes. An expression that allows clarification of the mechanisms of flux decline due to colloidal fouling in RO and NF separations was derived by combining the solution-diffusion model, film-theory, and a modified cake filtration model. With this new fouling model, the interplay between the salt concentration polarization layer and a growing colloid deposit layer may be quantified. The hydraulic pressure drop across a colloid deposit layer was shown to be negligible compared to cake-enhanced osmotic pressure. The difference in flux decline observed in filters with different channel heights resulted from different cake layer thickness, and thus, different cake-enhanced osmotic pressure. A moderate reduction in the initial concentration polarization and cake-enhanced osmotic pressure was obtain.
Evaluation of Fatigue Life Reduction Factors at Bolt Hole in Double Lap Bolted Joints Using Volumetric Method

In this research, the influence of bolt preload on the fatigue strength of 2024-T3 aluminium alloy double lap bolted joints has been studied experimentally and numerically. To do so, three sets of the specimens were prepared and each of them subjected to tightening torque of 1,2.5 and 5 N-m and then fatigue tests were conducted under various cyclic axial load levels. In the numerical method, the influence of bolt preload on the fatigue life of double lap bolted joints were studied using the values of fatigue notch factor obtained by volumetric approach. In order to obtain stress distribution around the notch (hole) which is required for volumetric approach, nonlinear finite element simulations were carried out. To estimate the fatigue life, the S-N curve of plain (un-notched) specimen and the fatigue notch factors obtained from volumetric method were used. The estimated fatigue life was compared with those obtained from the experiments. The investigation reveals that there is a good agreement between the life predicted by the volumetric approach and the experimental results for various specimens with different amounts of bolt preload. The volumetric approach and experimental results showed that the fatigue strength of specimens were improved by increasing the bolt preload as the result of compressive stresses which appeared around the bolt hole.
Gradual Return to Play: Potential Role of Neurotoxicity Biomarkers in Assessment of Concussions Severity

This mini-review analyzes advantages and limitations of current methods of assessment of cerebral concussions considering functional, structural and metabolic factors in decision making for return to play. Novel neurotoxicity biomarkers, AMPA and NMDA receptor peptide/antibodies are proposed for evaluation of subtle brain injury following concussions. Neurotoxicity biomarkers can now be detected in the blood and are associated with severity of concussion and transient or persistent changes in the brain including diffuse axonal injury and microvascular dysfunction (edema formation). We surveyed 84 students (20.5 ± 2.5 years) participating in contact-sports and enrolled at Kennesaw State University. Based on neurotoxicity biomarkers values and diminished ImPACT scores, 18 athletes with concussions were selected for longitudinal assessment (1.5 year). Within the study, values of four neurotoxicity biomarkers decreased to normal in 11 (61%) concussed athletes while seven subjects maintained at least one acute and chronic biomarkers elevated reflecting structural changes in the brain defined by 3T DTI. It was demonstrated that neurotoxicity biomarkers in conjunction with neurocognitive testing might improve diagnostic certainty of suspected concussions. Additionally the use of biomarkers may provide valuable information on severity of concussions and help select subjects (about 2%) for advanced neuroimaging. Athletes with abnormal levels of neurotoxicity biomarkers and structural changes on DTI should be withheld from contact sports and be considered for therapeutic intervention and treatment to protect the brain from further neurological complications.
Implementation of FIR Filter for Low Power and Area Minimization Using Shift –Add Method without Multipliers

In VLSI design, performance parameters such as speed and hardware cost are important facts during the implementation of complex algorithms. In this paper, Low Cost Carry SeLect Adder Finite Impulse Response (LCCSLA-FIR) is introduced to perform the FIR filter operations. With the help of shifter-I, shifter-II, and Shifter-III circuits, the FIR filter operation is performed without using any multipliers. In this new architecture, there is no need of storing the co-efficient in the ROM and number of multipliers. Due to the absence of multipliers, the quantity of hardware is reduced and the performance of the architecture is increase. With the help of Verilog code, the FIR filter architecture is verified in Modelsim software. After Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) analysis, Look Up Table (LUT), slices, flip flops, frequency and ASIC implementation area, power, delay, Area Power Product (APP), Area Delay Product (ADP) is improved in LC-CSLA-RFIR method compare to conventional methods.
Character Strengths, Strengths Use, Future Self-Continuity and Subjective Well-Being Among Chinese University Students

The study was designed to explore the relationships among character strengths, strengths use, future self-continuity and subjective well-being. A total of 225 undergraduates completed paper-and-pencil questionnaires assessing character strengths, strengths use, future self-continuity, and subjective well-being. Results suggested several character strengths were correlated with subjective well-being and the strongest correlations were found for hope, curiosity, zest, perseverance and love. All character strengths were significantly correlated with strengths use. Strengths use and future self-continuity were robustly correlated with subjective well-being. The mediation analysis showed that strengths use mediates the relationship between character strengths and subjective well-being, and specifically, the indirect effects of strengths use varies from different character strengths. The moderated mediator suggested that future self-continuity moderated the mediation of strengths use because future self-continuity moderates the effect of strengths use on subjective well-being. Furthermore, the indirect effect of strengths use was stronger with high level of future self-continuity than those with low level of future self-continuity. The present findings make a contribution to understand the underlying mechanisms involving in character strengths are associated with higher level of well-being. Additionally, the findings expand knowledge about future self-continuity and its relation to strengths use and subjective well-being among undergraduates, having significant implications in the educational context.