Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Characteristics of Serum Thyroid Hormones in Different Metabolic Phenotypes of Obesity

Aim: Metabolically healthy obese (MHO) individuals have attracted broad attention. We aimed to investigate the characteristics of serum thyroid hormones in different metabolic phenotypes of obesity. Methods: The study included 1,023 community-based euthyroid subjects (age range: 27–81 years), of whom 586 were women. Fat% was detected by a bioelectrical impedance analyzer. Two definitions of obesity were applied as follows: (1) fat% ≥ 25% for men and ≥ 30% for women; (2) body mass index (BMI) ≥ 25 kg/m2. According to the diagnostic criteria for metabolic syndrome by the Chinese Diabetes Society, metabolically unhealthy was defined as two or more components of metabolic syndrome, excluding waist circumference. Serum-free triiodothyronine (FT3), free thyroxine (FT4), and thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) levels were measured by electrochemiluminescence immunoassay. Results: The proportions of obesity defined by fat% and BMI were 41.3 and 27.1%, respectively. The proportion of metabolically unhealthy was 41.6%. After adjusting for age and gender, regardless of the definitions based on fat% or BMI, FT3 was positively related to both the MHO and the metabolically unhealthy obese (MUO) phenotypes [MHO: odds ratio (OR)s = 1.676 based on fat% and 2.055 based on BMI; MUO: ORs = 1.818 based on fat% and 1.526 based on BMI; all P < 0.05]; FT4 was negatively related to the MUO phenotype (ORs = 0.870 based on fat% and 0.849 based on BMI, all P < 0.05); FT3/FT4 was also positively related to both the MHO and the MUO phenotypes (MHO: ORs = 1.678 based on fat% and 2.825 based on BMI; MUO: ORs = 2.866 based on fat% and 2.883 based on BMI; all P < 0.05); and TSH was positively related to the metabolically unhealthy non-obese phenotype (ORs = 1.329 based on fat% and 1.321 based on BMI, all P < 0.01). Conclusions: In euthyroid population, both the MHO and the MUO phenotypes were characterized by increased FT3 and FT3/FT4 levels.
Awareness of hypertension amongst Urban and Rural areas of District Lucknow, India

Background: The existing data suggests increase in prevalence of pre-hypertension and hypertension in developing countries. The percentage of awareness of hypertension and its treatment is unacceptably low in the Indian adult population. Objectives: Prevalence, awareness and adequate treatment of hypertension amongst adults in rural and urban areas of District Lucknow was studied. Methods: The community based cross sectional study involved a survey of 337 male and 416 female respondents, aged 18 years and above using stratified random sampling and Probability Proportionate to Size technique. A structured pretested schedule was used to collect data regarding demographic characteristics, awareness and treatment of hypertension. Chi- square test, Gaussian test, Students t test and ANOVA were used to analyze data. Results: The prevalence of hypertension was found to be higher in urban areas (30.8%) than rural areas (20.9%). One hundred and three (52.82%) of 195 hypertensives knew of their hypertensive status and 26 (13.33%) hypertensives were taking adequate treatment/advice. The mean systolic as well as diastolic blood pressure patterns were found to be higher in urban respondents, female gender and with increase in age. Conclusions: Early detection of hypertension can be facilitated by periodic screening of the people regularly. Counseling of the hypertensives on life style modification and its role in controlling hypertension should be emphasized.
Single-level lumbar pyogenic discitis treated with combined minimally invasive posterior and mini-open anterior approach: Functional outcome analysis

Study Design: This was a retrospective study. Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the clinico-radiological outcome in single-level lumbar pyogenic discitis treated with single-stage combined percutaneous posterior stabilization with mini-open anterior debridement and fusion under single anesthesia. Materials and Methods: We retrospectively reviewed 27 patients with single-level lumbar pyogenic discitis who presented to our institute from January 2010 to August 2015. All the patients underwent preoperative evaluation with blood parameters including complete blood count, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, C-reactive protein, blood and urine cultures, and imaging studies. They underwent single-stage combined posterior percutaneous stabilization with mini-open anterior debridement and fusion with tricortical iliac crest graft under the same anesthesia. They were followed up at regular intervals with clinical and radiological assessment with minimum follow-up of 24 months. Preoperative and postoperative final follow-up assessments of neurological status, pain, and disability were conducted using the Frankel Grade scoring, visual analog scale (VAS) score, and Oswestry Disability Index (ODI), respectively. Results: This study included 10 women and 17 men (n = 27) with average age of 57 years (range: 45–73 years). The mean operative time was 194min (range: 150–230min). The mean intraoperative blood loss was 212mL (range: 100–350mL). The mean VAS score (0.56) at final follow-up was significantly lower than the mean preoperative VAS score (7.30) with P < 0.001. The ODI scores at final follow-up (mean, 13.48) were significantly lower than preoperative ODI scores (mean, 83.70) with P < 0.001. Conclusion: Single-stage combined posterior percutaneous stabilization with mini-open anterior debridement and fusion under one anesthesia is an effective alternative to conventional open technique as it allows thorough debridement and rigid fixation, and results in minimal blood loss and lesser postoperative complications.
Transforaminal endoscopic surgery in lumbar spine: Technical aspects, current status, and evolving scope

Study Design: This study is comprehensive literature review. Aims and Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of transforaminal endoscopic technique for managing symptomatic lumbar disc herniations and foraminal/extraforaminal/lateral recess stenosis and to assess the comparative status vis-à-vis existing treatment methods. Materials and Methods: A comprehensive systematic literature search of PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane library databases was performed for articles, including case series, randomized controlled trials (RCTs), controlled clinical trials (CCTs), reviews, and metanalysis with the following search terms: transforaminal endoscopic disc surgery, full endoscopic transforaminal surgery, selective endoscopic discectomy, percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy, transforaminal endoscopic surgery for lumbar stenosis, and endoscopic surgery for foraminal stenosis in various combinations. Results: Results were analyzed in terms of efficacy, safety, complications, recurrence rate, and learning curve in comparison with standard preexisting open procedures. Overall, the reviewed literature pointed toward the following observations: the endoscopic techniques had shorter operating times, less blood loss, less operative site pain, faster postoperative rehabilitation, shorter hospital stay, faster return to work than the microsurgical techniques, although some of the observations were limited in their scope. Endoscopic foraminal stenosis decompression could help avoid facetectomy and fusion procedures. Conclusion: Full endoscopic transforaminal surgeries for lumbar disc herniations and foraminal stenosis are safe and effective alternative to open surgery. Similar clinical outcomes as compared with conventional open surgeries can be reached with lesser incidence of complications and better opportunities for revision surgeries, if and when needed.
Efficacy of a short-term yoga-based lifestyle intervention in improving cognition in overweight/obese subjects

Background and Aim: The present report was designed to evaluate the efficacy of a short-term yoga-based lifestyle intervention in modifying cognitive functions and brain activity during cognitive tasks in overweight/obese patients. Methods: A total of (n = 12) Overweight/Obese patients and (n = 9) healthy controls who attended a short-term yoga-based lifestyle intervention program were recruited for the study. Anthropometric parameters include height, weight, body mass index (BMI), and systolic and diastolic blood pressure; different cognitive domains include Controlled Oral Word Association Test,Symbol Digit Modalities Test, Verbal n-back Test, and Forward/backward digit span; self-report measures include the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory and Centre for epidemiologic studies for depression scale and electroencephalography (EEG) activity during different cognitive tasks were carried out twice, i.e. day 1 (baseline) and day 14 (end of intervention). Results: Significant (P < 0.05) improvement was observed for weight, BMI, mindfulness scores, n-back test, and total attention span following lifestyle intervention for overweight/obese patients. Furthermore, EEG activity showed significant (P < 0.05) increase in alpha, beta, and theta absolute power at the end of intervention. Parameters for control group remained comparable at day 14 versus day 1. Conclusion: Findings suggest that a short-term yoga-based lifestyle intervention may significantly improve cognitive functions and brain activity in overweight/obese patients.
Comparison of quality of life of adult asthma and non-asthma patients in a tertiary health facility in North-western Nigeria

Background: The prevalence of asthma among Nigerian adolescents and adults is high, and low- and middle-income countries account for most asthma-related complications. Health related quality of life (HQoL) is an indicator of intervention outcomes and a predictor of morbidity and mortality. The study assessed and compared the components of HQoL of asthma and non-asthma outpatients in a tertiary hospital. Method: The study was a comparative cross-sectional study conducted among adult asthma and non-asthma patients attending outpatient clinics in a tertiary hospital in north-western Nigeria. A total of 150 asthma patients and equal number of non-asthma patients matched by age and sex were enrolled. Data was collected from both groups using a questionnaire adapted from the WHOQOL-BREF developed by the World Health Organization, and analyzed based on the scoring instructions for the tool.The statistical significance of differences between asthma and non-asthma patients were assessed using Chi-square test in thecase of socio-demographic characteristics and self-rated domains of HQoL, and t-test in thecaseof physical health,psychological health, social relationships and environmentdomains of HQoL, all at P<0.05. Results: Fewer asthma patients than non-asthma patients had good self-rated HQoL (68.7% vs. 94.6% P<0.0001) and satisfaction with their own health (59.3% vs. 84.0% P<0.0001). Also, asthma patients had worse mean scores for physical health (12.6 vs 14.7; P<0.0001) and psychological health (13.8 vs 15.3, P<0.0001). However, social relationships (14.4 vs 14.6; P=0.727) and environmental domain (13.0 vs 13.4; P=0.942) were not different between the two groups. Conclusion: The study reports possible lower HQoL among asthma patients attending clinics in the tertiary hospital studied. It is recommended that routine care of asthma outpatients should be holistic, including psychosocial support.
Trends in measles vaccination in Nigeria and implications for childhood blindness

Background: Measles is an important cause of childhood death and cornealblindness in Africa, and measles immunisation is important in reducing childhood mortality and morbidity. Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa still have challenges with achieving high immunisation coverage. In Nigeria there are intra-national disparities in vaccination coverage. Objectives: The objectives of this study are to explore trends in immunisation coverage in Nigeria and assess the relationship between measles immunisation coverage and causes of childhood blindness in Nigeria. Methods: Data from the Nigerian National Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) 1990-2013 were utilized. In addition, data on published population based childhood blindness surveys in three geographical zoneswere obtained. Secondary analyses of data were done using STATA V.12. 1 (Statcorp, Texas). The prevalence of measles immunisation coverage indicators was stratified by regional and individual level variables Results: Nigeria's currentmeasles immunization coverage is 42%. The greatest coverage recorded was in 46% in 1990, but declined soon after due to political reasons. The reduced coverage was strongly associated with poverty, lack of mother's education, geographical location and corneal blindness (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Measles immunisation coverage in Nigeria is low and inequitable. There is need to develop strategies to increase mothers' education and socioeconomic status in order to develop sustainable models for childhood measles vaccination in Nigeria.
Exploring Critical Success Factors in Agile Analytics Projects

Via updating Chow and Cao’s list of success factors for agile projects, attributes of potential critical success factors (CSF’s) for agile analytics projects were identified from the literature. Ten new attributes were added to Chow and Cao’s original list. Seven new attributes from the general agile project literature address: risk appetite, team diversity and availability, engagement, project planning, shared goals, and methods uncertainty. Three attributes specific to analytics projects were added: data quality, model validation, and building customers’ trust in model solution. The potential validity of the various CSF’s and attributes was explored via data from case studies of two analytics projects that varied in deployment success. The more successful project was found to be stronger in almost all the factors than the failed project. The findings can help researchers and analytics practitioners understand the environmental conditions and project actions that can help get business value from their analytics initiatives.
The Effect of Knowledge Sharing on Open Source Contribution: A Multi-platform Perspective

Open source software (OSS) community plays a key role in contemporary software development. However, there is a need to better understand the factors which influence individuals’ voluntary contribution on open source platforms. In this paper, we investigate how different types of knowledge sharing affect an individuals’ contribution towards open source projects. We further refine knowledge sharing taxonomy by classifying explicit knowledge sharing into two subtypes – strong explicit knowledge sharing and weak explicit knowledge sharing, depending on the extent of interpersonal interaction required for knowledge transfer. In this paper, we take a multi-platform perspective – we collect data from GitHub – the biggest online platform to host open source software development, and Gitter – an open source instant messaging and chat room application designed for developers. We map the user identities across these two platforms. We analyze monthly panel data for the year 2017 consisting of 3,695 individuals. The results demonstrate that both strong and weak explicit knowledge sharing have positive relationship with open source contribution. Moreover, the tacit knowledge sharing positively moderates these relationships. Our paper extends the theoretical understanding of different knowledge sharing types and their inter-relationship, and their respective impact on contribution. Our findings have important implications for the OSS community, and especially help OSS platform designers get a better understanding of the symbiosis between different OSS platforms.
Bucking the Trend: An Agentive Perspective of Managerial Influence on Blog'S Attractiveness

Blog management is central to the digitalization of work. However, existing theories tend to focus on environmental influence rather than managerial control of a blogs attractiveness at a microlevel. This study provides an agentive account of the adaptive behaviours exerted by the bloggers through the ways they use contents of their blogs to locate and harness their structural network positions of a blogosphere. We collated individual characteristics of 165 bloggers who blogged about economics, and then analysed the ways they maintained the contents of their blogs. We used network analysis and monomial logistic regression to test our model predictions. Our findings show that in contrast to less attractive blogs, bloggers who are mindful of their peers contents as a means of maintaining network positions attract a significantly higher level of traffic to their blogs. This agentive perspective offers practical insights into how nodal preferences can be reversed in blog management. We conclude the paper by discussing contributions to theory and future research.
Mediated Communication and Customer Service Experiences: Psychological and Demographic Predictors of User Evaluations in the United States

People around the world who seek to interact with large organisations increasingly find they must do so via mediated and automated communication. Organisations often deploy both mediated and automated platforms, such as instant messaging and interactive voice response systems (IVRs), for efficiency and cost-savings. Customer and client responses to these systems range from delight to frustration. To better understand the factors affecting people's satisfaction with these systems, we conducted a representative U.S. national survey ( N = 1321). We found that people overwhelmingly like and trust in-person customer service compared to mediated and automated modalities. As to demographic attitude predictors, age was important (older respondents liked mediated systems less), but income and education were not strong attitude predictors. For personality variables, innovativeness was positively associated with mediated system satisfaction. However, communication apprehensiveness, which we expected to be related to satisfaction, was not. We conclude by discussing implications for the burgeoning field of human-machine communication, as well as social policy, equity, and the pullulating digital services divide.
Novel chloroquine loaded curcumin based anionic linear globular dendrimer G2: a metabolomics study on Plasmodium falciparum in vitro using 1H NMR spectroscopy

Abstract Due to side-effects and inefficiency of the drugs used in malaria treatment, finding alternative medicine with less side-effects has attracted much attention. In this regard, in the present study, nanocomposite synthesized and its effects on the metabolites of P. falciparum were investigated. Subsequent to synthesis of nanocomposites, characterization was carried out using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS), scanning electron microscopy, dynamic light scattering and Fourier-transform infrared tests. Solubility and drug release were measured and its toxicity on Vero cell was assessed using the MTT assay. The antiparasitic effect of the nanocomposite on the metabolites of P. falciparum was investigated by 1H NMR spectroscopy. Among synthesized nanocomposites, the average size of 239 nm showed suitable solubility in water as well as slow drug release. The MTT assay showed no toxicity for Vero cell lines. Concentrations of 2.5 μg mL−1 of nanocomposite eliminated 82.6% of the total parasites. The most effected metabolic cycles were glyoxylate and dicarboxylate metabolism. In this study, 1H NMR spectroscopy was used with untargeted metabolomics to study the effect of the nanocomposite on P. falciparum. Playing an essential role in understanding drug-target interactions and characterization of mechanism of action or resistance exhibited by novel antiprotozoal drugs, can be achieved by targeting metabolic using LC-MS.
Canadian Radiology in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: A Golden Opportunity

Artificial intelligence (AI) will revolutionize radiology in Canada and abroad. Artificial intelligence is capable of accomplishing specific imaging-related tasks. Examples include the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) pediatric bone age and intracranial hemorrhage challenges in which AI successfully established bone age using hand radiographs and classified types of intracranial hemorrhage on head computed tomography examinations. Artificial intelligence can be used to triage imaging examinations by populating worklists so those with more urgent findings are reported sooner and has been applied to image reconstruction to minimize radiation while maintaining diagnostic quality. These studies and others demonstrate the potential of AI, which will likely lead to improved radiologist performance by improving report quality, report turnaround time, and radiologist productivity. With an educated and diverse population, and universal health care, Canada is well positioned to be a leader of medical imaging– related AI research and implementation. The realization of the full potential of AI in radiology will however depend on advancements on several fronts:
Organismal benefits of transcription speed control at gene boundaries

RNA polymerase II (RNAPII) transcription is crucial for gene expression. RNAPII density peaks at gene boundaries, associating these key regions for gene expression control with limited RNAPII movement. The connections between RNAPII transcription speed and gene regulation in multicellular organisms are poorly understood. Here, we directly modulate RNAPII transcription speed by point mutations in the second largest subunit of RNAPII in Arabidopsis thaliana. A RNAPII mutation predicted to decelerate transcription is inviable, while accelerating RNAPII transcription confers phenotypes resembling auto‐immunity. Nascent transcription profiling revealed that RNAPII complexes with accelerated transcription clear stalling sites at both gene ends, resulting in read‐through transcription. The accelerated transcription mutant NRPB2‐Y732F exhibits increased association with 5′ splice site (5′SS) intermediates and enhanced splicing efficiency. Our findings highlight potential advantages of RNAPII stalling through local reduction in transcription speed to optimize gene expression for the development of multicellular organisms.
An effector of a necrotrophic fungal pathogen targets the calcium‐sensing receptor in chloroplasts to inhibit host resistance

Abstract SsITL, a secretory protein of the necrotrophic phytopathogen Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, was previously reported to suppress host immunity at the early stages of infection. However, the molecular mechanism that SsITL uses to inhibit plant defence against S. sclerotiorum has not yet been elucidated. Here, we report that SsITL interacted with a chloroplast‐localized calcium‐sensing receptor, CAS, in chloroplasts. We found that CAS is a positive regulator of the salicylic acid signalling pathway in plant immunity to S. sclerotiorum and CAS‐mediated resistance against S. sclerotiorum depends on Ca2+ signalling. Furthermore, we showed that SsITL could interfere with the plant salicylic acid (SA) signalling pathway and SsITL‐expressing transgenic plants were more susceptible to S. sclerotiorum. However, truncated SsITLs (SsITL‐NT1 or SsITL‐CT1) that lost the ability to interact with CAS do not affect plant resistance to S. sclerotiorum. Taken together, our findings reveal that SsITL inhibits SA accumulation during the early stage of infection by interacting with CAS and then facilitating the infection by S. sclerotiorum.