Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Validation of the Use of Historical Events to Estimate the Age of Subjects Aged 65 Years and Over in Cotonou (Benin)

Background: Our aim was to validate the use of historical events as tools for estimating the age of people ≧65 years in Cotonou (Benin). Methods: The survey was conducted in Cotonou, the economic capital of Benin. We included people aged ≧65 years, with at least a primary education level and an administrative document certifying their date of birth. The historical events were the solar eclipse of 1946 covering the national territory and the date of independence (1st August 1960) of Dahomey (Benin). Agreement between estimated and actual age was assessed by the intraclass correlation coefficient and the Bland and Altman graphical representation. Results: We included 112 subjects. The intraclass correlation coefficient between actual and estimated age by the use of historical landmarks was 0.87 (95% CI = 0.81–0.91), i.e. an excellent concordance. The graph of Bland and Altman did not demonstrate any systematic error of estimation. Conclusion: The development of similar tools in other parts of Africa and developing countries may improve the quality of information collected in epidemiological studies and thereby enhance the accuracy of the results of studies conducted on age-related disorders such as dementia.
The role of remote sensing in global forest assessment: A remote sensing background paper for Kotka IV expert consultation; 01.07-05.07.2002, Kotka, Finland

The approach of FRA 2000 by FAO was the reliance on the participation of individual countries for both supply and analysis of information. It is hoped that this approach will lead for further capacity building in countries (FRA 2000 -main report). While countries firmly support this approach, it has sometimes been criticised on the basis that country information may be inaccurate, incomplete, out-of-date, or internationally inconsistent (Stokstad, 2001; Czaplewski, 2002). According to the FRA 2000 main report, many countries still lack reliable primary information at the national level. Some examples of country level changes in FRA 1990 and FRA 2000, as well as reliability assessment of TBFRA 2000, support this concern. One goal of the future assessments will be to further strengthen country capabilities and participation. In this way, FAO intends to improve the information quality as well as to assist developing countries in their inventories. FAO should also work towards reducing the interval between successive assessments, or towards the establishment of continuous regional assessments.
The Effects of Antenatal Anticoagulants (Low-Molecular-Weight Heparin and Aspirin) on Neonatal Pulmonary Vasculature in Rabbits

Low-molecular-weight heparin and aspirin are the most prescribed medical agents as anticoagulants in pregnancy. Our objective was to investigate the effects of antenatal use of low-molecular-weight heparin and aspirin on pulmonary vascular development in neonatal rabbits. Seven pregnant rabbits (42 newborn rabbits) were divided into 5 groups as follows: control group (group 1, n = 14), heparin treated (group 2, n = 8), heparin and aspirin treated (group 3, n = 7), only aspirin treated (group 4, n = 6), and high-dose heparin treated (group 5, n = 12). Pulmonary histologic evaluations were carried out for all groups. Angiogenesis was also tested by CD34 immunostained microvessel count (mvc). Pathologic examination of pulmonary vasculature revealed that pulmonary vascular thickening occurred at the level of alveoli in heparin-, heparin- and aspirin-, and high-dose-heparin-treated groups (groups 2, 3, and 5). The percentage of wall thickness was different in groups 2 (26%), 3 (28.2%), and 5 (30.8%) compared with group 1 (21.4%). Statistical differences were observed between group 1 vs 2, 3, and 5. Microvessel count was also different between groups 2 (mvc = 90.5), 3 (mvc = 90.2), and 5 (mvc = 96.3) vs group 1 (mvc = 86.7). The microvessel count was statistically different between groups that received low-dose heparin vs high-dose heparin. Antenatal administration of low-molecular-weight heparin showed an effect on pulmonary vascular development. This effect may be explained by the influence of heparin on angiogenesis through placental growth factors. Further experiments are needed to understand the pathophysiology of these findings, and clinical studies are needed to correlate of these results.
Evolutionary dynamics of the T-cell receptor VB gene family as inferred from the human and mouse genomic sequences.

The diversity of T-cell receptors is generated primarily by the variable-region gene families, each of which is composed of a large number of member genes. The entire genomic sequence of the variable region (VB) of the T- cell receptor beta chain from humans and mice has become available. To understand the evolutionary dynamics of the VB gene family, we conducted a phylogenetic analysis of all VB genes from humans and mice, as well as a detailed analysis of internal DNA duplications in the human genomic VB region. The phylogenetic tree obtained shows that human and mouse VB genes intermingle extensively rather than forming two separate clusters and that many gene duplications occurred both before and after the divergence between primates and rodents. Analyzing the genomic maps of transposable elements (e.g., LINEs and SINEs) and relic VB genes in the VB gene region, we present evidence that a 20-kb VB region duplicated tandemly four times in the human lineage during the last 32 Myr, and 6 out of the 15 VB genes in this region have become nonfunctional during this period. Our results show that the VB gene family is subject to evolution by a birth-and-death process rather than to concerted evolution.
Interacting Populations: Competition, Predation, and Parasitoids

Even in simple one-species unstructured models we have seen the potential for stability, cycles or chaos. In this chapter we consider another potential source of complex dynamics: interactions between different species. We will examine a series of models for different kinds of interactions, along the way learning the techniques for dealing with multi-species models. As in the last chapter, we will continue (for now) to use unstructured models that ignore within-species differences between individuals. We start with models in continuous time, and then consider discrete-time models.
On the design of hybrid prioritized multiple access protocols for bank data center LANs

Summary form only given. The communication systems of commercial banks support four classes of traffic: Alarm, BSC, SNA and IP traffic, with each class of traffic having different priority requirements. In this paper, a new approach to the design of multiple access protocols which are capable of handling the above priority classes is introduced. Furthermore, a hybrid multiple access protocol that has been designed according to the proposed approach is presented and evaluated by means of extensive simulation results.
Evaluation of a silver-releasing hydroalginate dressing in chronic wounds with signs of local infection.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the clinical impact of using a silver-releasing hydroalginate dressing to minimise the risk of local infection in colonised chronic wounds. METHOD This was a randomised (stratification according to wound type) open-label multicentre comparative two-arm parallel-group study. Thirteen centres recruited 99 patients with either a venous leg ulcer or a pressure ulcer. None of the wounds required systemic antibiotics or were associated with lymphangitis and/or fever, but at least two of the following criteria had to be present: continuous pain; erythema; oedema; heat; and moderate to high levels of serous exudate. Patients were allocated to receive either a silver-releasing hydroalginate dressing (Silvercel, the test group) or a pure calcium alginate dressing (Algosteril, the control group). Wounds were assessed daily over 14 days to complete a modified ASEPSIS index to evaluate risk of infection, and then weekly for two additional weeks. A global wound severity score and area tracings were recorded weekly. RESULTS Fifty-one and 48 patients were randomised in the test and control groups respectively: 28 pressure ulcers and 71 venous leg ulcers. The total mASEPSIS score over 14 days did not differ significantly between groups: 95.4 +/- 62.2 and 104.2 +/- 72.8 in control and test groups respectively (p = 0.791). Of the patients who completed the total four-week study duration, four out of 38 (10.5%) in the control group and none of the 40 in the test group were treated with systemic antibiotics at the final visit (p = 0.053). According to the investigators, fewer wounds developed a clinical infection over the four-week follow-up in the test group (33% versus 46%; p = 0.223). Overall, the four-week closure rate was statistically greater in the test group (0.32 +/- 0.57cm2/day versus 0.16 +/- 0.40cm2/day; p = 0.024). Compared with baseline, the absolute decrease in wound severity score at week four was higher in the test group (-5.6 +/- 3.2 versus -4.1 +/- 4.3; p = 0.063); this was also true of the percentage reduction (-32 +/- 17% versus -23 +/- 25%; p = 0.034). Poor dressing acceptability and/or tolerability was noted in five out of 48 patients (10.4%) in the control group and in five out of 51 (9.8%) in the test group. CONCLUSION This study suggests that the use of silver-releasing dressings in the management of wounds at high risk of infection may have a clinically favourable influence on wound prognosis; the dressings also appeared to be well tolerated. However, the evaluation of these advantages in controlled clinical trials is complex and requires potent studies and the development of more specific endpoints than those currently used.
A 2.5 Gb/s adaptive cable equalizer

High-rate data communication over cable suffers from intersymbol interference (ISI) introduced by the cable. This ISI can be greatly reduced if the receiver includes a cable equalizer. Usually, the equalizer is adaptive to track changes in the cable length. The prior high-speed cable equalizers are either implemented in GaAs and are fixed, or operate to a maximum of a few hundreds of Mb/s. This adaptive equalizer is fabricated in a 14 GHz bipolar process, and including all auxiliary circuits draws 48 mA from a 5 V supply. The measured jitter of the equalizer with a 2/sup 23/-1 pseudo-random NRZ sequence at 1.5 Gb/s is less than 54 ps pp (10.6 ps r.m.s.) for up to 100 m of Belden 8281 cable (140 m of Belden 1694 A ). This is less than 0.1 unit interval (UI) peak-to-peak. At 2.5 Gb/s, the jitter increases to below 80 ps pp (0.2 UI) for up to 110 m of 8281 (155 m of 1694 A ). The equalizer is recommended for the 1.485 Gb/s serial digital video interface in HDTV applications, where it outperforms a previous solution by a factor of two.
Information Technology and Australia's Productivity Surge

This paper finds that the rapid update of information and communication technologies contributed to Australia’s strong productivity performance in the 1990s and the contribution to labour productivity growth was at least as strong as it was in the US. Australia generated a productivity improvement of 1.1 per cent from information and communication technology use and other factors.
Drop policy to enhance TCP performance in OBS networks

In optical burst-switched (OBS) networks, the loss of burst containing a number of IP packets occurs mostly due to contention rather than congestion so that a TO (Time Out) event will trigger unnecessary TCP congestion control resulting in significant throughput degradation (X. Yu, et al., 2004). Therefore, in this letter, we propose a drop policy (DP) with burst retransmission where a new concept of retransmission-count for bursts is introduced to mitigate unnecessary TCP congestion control. The analytical and simulation results show that the TCP throughput is improved by our proposed DP with burst retransmission.
Ischemic injury detected by diffusion imaging 11 minutes after stroke

A 78‐year‐old woman suffered a stroke inside a magnetic resonance scanner while being imaged because of a brief transient ischemic attack 2 hours earlier. Diffusion‐weighted images obtained 11 minutes after stroke showed tissue injury not found on initial images. The data show early, abrupt diffusion changes in hypoperfused tissue, adding to our understanding of the progression of microstructural abnormalities in the hyperacute phase of stroke. Ann Neurol 2005;58:462–465
Using wintergreen oil for mounting mosquito larvae: a safer alternative to xylene

Permanent mounting of fourth instar mosquito larvae is essential for identifying Aedes spp. This procedure requires extensive exposure to xylene, a clearing agent in the mounting process. We investigated wintergreen oil as a substitute for xylene. Five hundred larvae were mounted on slides to evaluate shrinkage or expansion of specimens after clearing using xylene or wintergreen oil. We examined the ventral brush and siphonal hair tufts for species identification and for preservation of morphological characteristics after clearing specimens in xylene or wintergreen oil. Shrinkage of the length of whole larvae and width of the head, thorax and abdomen after mounting was significantly greater after clearing with xylene than with wintergreen oil. The length of the comb scale nearest the ventral brush was similar for both clearing agents. The clarity of the specimens after mounting was improved by clearing with wintergreen oil, but the integrity of the ventral brush and siphonal hair tufts were similar for both clearing agents.
Collagen type IV and Perlecan exhibit dynamic localization in the Allantoic Core Domain, a putative stem cell niche in the murine allantois

A body of evidence suggests that the murine allantois contains a stem cell niche, the Allantoic Core Domain (ACD), that may contribute to a variety of allantoic and embryonic cell types. Given that extracellular matrix (ECM) regulates cell fate and function in niches, the allantois was systematically examined for Collagen type IV (ColIV) and Perlecan, both of which are associated with stem cell proliferation and differentiation. Not only was localization of ColIV and Perlecan more widespread during gastrulation than previously reported, but protein localization profiles were particularly robust and dynamic within the allantois and associated visceral endoderm as the ACD formed and matured. We propose that these data provide further evidence that the ACD is a stem cell niche whose activity is synchronized with associated visceral endoderm, possibly via ECM proteins. Developmental Dynamics 238:3193–3204, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Classification of cognitive load using voice features: A preliminary investigation

Cognitive load classification has seen a boost in popularity lately among the speech analysis community. A number of handmade feature based methods and purely machine learning based methods were presented in the last few years, all trained on a small number of established datasets. This paper presents results of several machine learning methods used on an original dataset of voice samples from a preliminary pilot study into effects of cognitive load. Basic arithmetic problems were presented to the participants with instructions to answer them verbally. Acoustic voice features were extracted from the recorded utterances and modelled using methods like Support Vector Machines and Neural Networks. The accuracies of classification are presented over several conditions for a binary classification task (low cognitive load vs. high cognitive load). The viability of the basic arithmetic task as a dataset for cognitive load classification is discussed. Lessons learned during the analysis are also discussed and present a basis for a stronger experiment design using basic arithmetic tasks in the future.
Insulin Promotes the Expression of the Gluconeogenic Rate-Limiting Enzymes Phosphoenolpyruvate Carboxykinase ( Pepck ) and Glucose 6-Phosphatase ( G 6 pase ) through PI 3 k / Akt / mTOR Signaling Pathway in Goose Hepatocytes

To identify what makes insulin have an activating or inhibiting role in gluconeogenesis in goose hepatocytes and whether insulin regulates PEPCK and G6Pase through the PI3k/Akt/mTOR pathway or not, goose primary hepatocytes were isolated and cultured in vitro. After 12h cultured in serum-free medium, hepatocytes were incubated for 24 h in the medium with no addition (control) or with the addition of50, 100, and 150 nM of insulin, 1000 nM NVPBEZ235, or co-addition of 150nM insulin and 1000nM NVP-BEZ235. Glucose concentration and PEPCK and G6Pase expression were determined. The results showed that PEPCK and G6Pase mRNA levels and activities were up regulated in the 50, 100, and 150nM insulin treatments, while glucose concentration was not significantly altered (p>0.05). Compared with the activation role of 150nM insulin alone, the co-treatment with1000nM NVP-BEZ235 and 150nM insulin significantly down regulated PEPCK mRNA level and G6Pase protein activity (p<0.05). However, there is a different result on mRNA level of G6Pase. In conclusion, G6Pase and PEPCK are up regulated by insulin through PI3k/Akt/mTOR pathway in goose hepatocytes. However, G6Pase mRNA and protein levels may be regulated by insulin through different signaling pathways.
Diesel particulates--recent progress on an old issue.

Over the past 115 years the invention of a compression ignition engine by Rudolph Diesel in the 1890s has contributed significantly to the productivity of many nations, owing to the widespread use of larger diesel powered equipment in most industrial activities. The down-side in terms of occupational health has been the exposure of a large number of workers to the complex mixture of toxic, gaseous, adsorbed organics and particulate components found in the raw exhaust emissions. Although the adverse health effects of the gaseous fraction of diesel emissions have been known for sometime, only in the last two decades has research indicated that the particulate component of the diesel exhaust has the potential to induce various health effects. In addition, it is associated with nonhealth aspects such as malodour, visual and nuisance pollution. Diesel exhaust emissions were investigated >20 years by the BOHS Hygiene Standards Committee (BOHS, 1981). The Committee’s terms of reference were;
Enhanced bootstrapped CMOS driver for large RC-load and ultra-low voltage VLSI

: This letter describes a novel bootstrapped CMOS driver for driving a large RC load in ultra-low voltage VLSI. The proposed driver eliminates the leakage from boosted nodes during bootstrapping operations, resulting in lower power consumption and higher switching speed. Since the proposed driver requires no additional transistors for eliminating the leakage, further improvements on switching speed and power consumption as well as layout area are achieved. Comparison results in a 0.13 µ m CMOS technology indicated that the proposed bootstrapped CMOS driver achieved 82% ∼ 18% improvements in terms of power consumption as compared to conventional bootstrapped CMOS drivers. They also indicated that the proposed driver achieved 42% ∼ 11% improvements in terms of switching speed. Improvement on power-delay product (PDP) is as much as 160% ∼ 30% as compared to conventional bootstrapped drivers.
Exergaming as a Viable Therapeutic Tool to Improve Static and Dynamic Balance among Older Adults and People with Idiopathic Parkinson’s Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

The use of virtual reality games (known as “exergaming”) as a neurorehabilitation tool is gaining interest. Therefore, we aim to collate evidence for the effects of exergaming on the balance and postural control of older adults and people with idiopathic Parkinson’s disease (IPD). Six electronic databases were searched, from inception to April 2015, to identify relevant studies. Standardized mean differences (SMDs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were used to calculate effect sizes between experimental and control groups. I2 statistics were used to determine levels of heterogeneity. 325 older adults and 56 people with IPD who were assessed across 11 studies. The results showed that exergaming improved static balance (SMD 1.069, 95% CI 0.563–1.576), postural control (SMD 0.826, 95% CI 0.481–1.170), and dynamic balance (SMD −0.808, 95% CI −1.192 to −0.424) in healthy older adults. Two IPD studies showed an improvement in static balance (SMD 0.124, 95% CI −0.581 to 0.828) and postural control (SMD 2.576, 95% CI 1.534–3.599). Our findings suggest that exergaming might be an appropriate therapeutic tool for improving balance and postural control in older adults, but more large-scale trials are needed to determine if the same is true for people with IPD.
Entrepreneur's Wealth, Firm Performance and Cost of Capital: A Bayesian Approach to the Capital Structure of Entrepreneurial Ventures

We model theoretically the optimal capital structure of entrepreneurial firm relying on an endogenous estimation of the return requested by entrepreneurs that compensates for the risk they incur in case of bankruptcy. We estimate the probability according to the Bayesian approach. We also consider the fact that the entrepreneurs can invest additional wealth in their venture by providing personal guarantees. The implications for start-ups and established entrepreneurial firms are then examined. The model derivations and implications are robust with respect to the evidences of previous empirical research on small firms capital structure.
Ten different brewing methods of green tea: comparative antioxidant study -

This study reports the potential application of yams as an efficient substrate for isolating mushrooms from the fruiting body. It seems that the utilization of yams as the medium for edible mushroom cultivation, i.e. a substitute for PDA, may increase the economic value of yams. Yams (Dioscorea sp.) belong to the starch-rich and energy-rich tubers, together with cassava, sweet potato, and potato. There is little utilization of yams in Thailand because yams grow wild and uncultivated and thus sufficient quantities of yams are available for home consumption and in local markets. In this study, an experiment was performed to assess the suitability of yam-based culture media as a potentially high value material for edible mushroom isolation and mycelial growth as a substitute for potato dextrose agar (PDA). Yam-based culture media were prepared from three species (D. alata L., D. esculenta and D. pentaphylla) in varying concentrations (0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30% (w/v)). PDA was used as the standard medium. Three edible mushrooms, i.e. Pleurotus sajor-caju (Fr.) Sing. , Lentinula edodes, and Volvariella volvacea were investigated. Mycelial growth of the mushrooms was measured the average mycelium colony diameter on the different media. The results of mycelial growth of the mushrooms show that yam-based culture media can be used as alternative culture media for cultivation.