Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Protective effects of L-arabinose in high-carbohydrate, high-fat diet-induced metabolic syndrome in rats

Background L-Arabinose is a non-caloric sugar, which could affect glucose and lipid metabolism and suppress obesity. However, few reports have described the effect of L-arabinose in metabolic syndrome, a combination of medical disorders that increase the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Objective This study was conducted to explore the effects of L-arabinose in rats with metabolic syndrome induced by a high-carbohydrate, high-fat (HCHF) diet. Methods After the rat model for metabolic syndrome was successfully established, L-arabinose was administrated by oral gavage for 6 weeks. The biochemical index and histological analysis were measured, and the expression levels of genes related to fatty acid metabolism were analyzed using real-time PCR. Results Following treatment with L-arabinose, metabolic syndrome rats had an obvious reduction in body weight, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, fasting blood glucose, triglycerides, total cholesterol, serum insulin, TNF-α, and leptin. Further study showed that treatment with L-arabinose significantly increased the expression of mRNA for hepatic CPT-1α and PDK4, but the expression of mRNA for hepatic ACCα was reduced. Conclusions This work suggests that L-arabinose could lower body weight, Lee's index, and visceral index and improve dyslipidemia, insulin resistance, inflammation, and viscera function, which indicate that it might be a promising candidate for therapies combating metabolic syndrome.
One-way delay measurement in wired and wireless mobile full-mesh networks

OWD is becoming increasingly important nowadays, as SLA agreements use it as a parameter to ensure QoS levels. However, its measurement is still a much debated topic due to the difficulty in the clock synchronization process. The paper approaches a new methodology to measure OWD, using NTP protocol with virtual clocks and bigger packets. This approach works over a measurement tool developed by the authors, called Netmetric, and is flexible enough to be applied in full-mesh networks, without lack in clock consistency during concurrent NTP synchronizations. The proposed method was validated using NTCUns simulator, tested over Vivo/Telefonica's 3G Network, and compared to OWAMP.
The subjective experiences of women with intellectual disabilities and offending behaviour: exploring their experiences of ‘home’

Objectives Services supporting individuals with intellectual disabilities are changing in the UK with a drive towards community care and reducing inpatient provision. More needs to be known about the experiences and opinions of individuals living in inpatient settings. Women with intellectual disabilities and offending behavior are a particularly complex, under-represented group affected by these organizational changes. This research aims to consult women with intellectual disabilities, living in a secure hospital, to explore their housing experiences and hopes for future home and care environments. Method Seven participant’s experiences, and the meaning they assign to these experiences, were explored through semi-structured interviews. Their narratives were analyzed utilizing Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis. Results Four superordinate themes emerged from the analysis (i) hospital as helpful (ii) hospital as undesirable (iii) a sense of belonging (iv) ‘I want to be as independent as I can. ’ The subtheme ‘importance of people’ emerged throughout with illustrations of why people are important relating to each superordinate theme. Conclusions The women interviewed experienced living in hospital as both helpful and undesirable. They wanted to live as independently as possible in the community. However, they identified several helpful aspects of hospital including receiving specialist support for their complex needs. They desired independence, freedom to choose, personal space, familiarity, and support from individuals who understand their needs. Whilst it is recognized that hospitals cannot be homes for people, they do have a function in providing helpful specialist support to some individuals with intellectual disabilities who have committed serious crimes and/or cannot safely be supported in the community.
The meaning and measurement of destination image.

The unprecedented growth in the tourism industry during the last fifty years has created major challenges in tourism marketing. As more and more areas of the world are developed for tourism, the destination choices available to consumers continue to expand. Furthermore, today's consumers, facilitated by increased leisure time, rising levels of disposable income and more efficient transportation networks, have the means to choose from among this much larger variety of destinations. As a result, tourism marketers are now faced with influencing consumer decision making in an increasingly complex and competitive global marketplace.
UMM : A dynamically adaptive , unstructured multicast overlay

The simplicity of multicast as a communication primitive belies its broad utility as a building block for distributed applications. Nevertheless, creating and maintaining multicast structures can be challenging, particularly when networks are transient and/or dynamic. We introduce a new unstructured multi-source multicast (UMM) overlay approach that we argue is less complex than, but as efficient as, current state-of-the-art solutions based either on structured overlays or on running full routing protocols at the overlay level. UMM builds a base overlay independently from the routing mechanisms employed to route messages. On top of this base overlay, it selects distribution trees for each multicast source by first flooding the base overlay and then using the implicit information contained in duplicated messages to select and filter out redundant tunnels. Simple heuristics are used to maintain and evolve both the base overlay and the multicast distribution trees in response to changes in the set of overlay participants or in underlying network conditions. We experiment on a 65-node PlanetLab deployment and on ModelNet emulated distributed platforms to quantify the overheads associated with UMM operation and to explore its performance and adaptability to changes in the underlying network conditions.
Optimal distance metric function with trigram features for case based word sense disambiguation using artificial neural network

In general, different levels of knowledge are used for disambiguation. In this paper, only three knowledge features or sources (trigram) are used to achieve the word sense disambiguation. Case based approach is applied for the disambiguation process. Cases are nothing but the refined form of words collected from Semcor, used for deriving the sense of the ambiguous input word. All possible Part of Speech (PoS) listed in Brown Corpus are collected and grouped into seventeen groups, and each group is assigned with a constant value. Trigram features of input (ambiguous words) as well as cases are represented as vector of size 1×3. Vector values for the ambiguous word and other two neighboring words are taken out from those assigned weights based on their PoS. In this paper ten different distance metric functions are empirically analyzed for improving the accuracy performance of word disambiguation with minimal knowledge sources. Neural Network is used for extracting correct sense of the ambiguous word from the selected minimal distance cases. In this paper, a long sentence is taken to project the performance of disambiguation process. From the result, it is clear that, post-trigramed Hamming function (F9) produced appreciable disambiguation accuracy 78.57% (recognized eleven ambiguous words out of fourteen).
Improvement of energy consumption for “over-the-air” reprogramming in Wireless Sensor Networks

New hardware platform architecture for “over-the-air” reprogramming in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) is presented in this article. The suggested approach is based on the usage of microcontroller RAM memory for running the program while the program memory is being changed. Implementation of suggested solution does not require any additional components and is applicable to a wide range of microcontrollers in new designs or provide possibility to add “over-the-air” reprogramming feature to existing applications without necessity of making hardware changes. The presented approach allows a lowering of the power consumption of the nodes and time for node reprogramming comparing with other reported solutions. Summary of our experiences in practical implementation using Texas Instruments (TI) EZ430-RF2500 and CC2430DK development boards and discussion about some key features of suggested “over-the-air” reprogramming method are included.
Age, technology usage, and cognitive characteristics in relation to perceived disorientation and reported website ease of use

Comparative studies including older and younger adults are becoming more common in HCI, generally used to compare how these two different age groups will approach a task. However, it is unclear whether user "age" is the underlying factor that differentiates between these two groups. To address this problem, an examination into the relationship between users' age, previous technology experience, and cognitive characteristics is conducted. Measures of perceived disorientation and reported ease of use are used to understand links that exist between these user characteristics and their effect on browsing experience. This is achieved through a lab-based information retrieval task, where participants visited a selection of websites in order to find answers to a series of questions and then self reported their feelings of perceived disorientation and website ease of use through a Likert-scored questionnaire. The presented research found that age accounts for as little as 1% of user browsing experience when performing information retrieval tasks. Further, it showed that cognitive ability and previous technology experience significantly affected perceived disorientation in these searches. These results argue for the inclusion of metrics regarding cognitive ability and previous technology experience when analyzing user satisfaction and performance in Internet based-studies.
In Vitro Megakaryocyte Differentiation and Proplatelet Formation in Ph-Negative Classical Myeloproliferative Neoplasms: Distinct Patterns in the Different Clinical Phenotypes

Background Ph-negative myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) are clonal disorders that include primary myelofibrosis (PMF), polycythemia vera (PV) and essential thrombocythemia (ET). Although the pathogenesis of MPNs is still incompletely understood, an involvement of the megakaryocyte lineage is a distinctive feature. Methodology/Principal Findings We analyzed the in vitro megakaryocyte differentiation and proplatelet formation in 30 PMF, 8 ET, 8 PV patients, and 17 healthy controls (CTRL). Megakaryocytes were differentiated from peripheral blood CD34+ or CD45+ cells in the presence of thrombopoietin. Megakaryocyte output was higher in MPN patients than in CTRL with no correlation with the JAK2 V617F mutation. PMF-derived megakaryocytes displayed nuclei with a bulbous appearance, were smaller than ET- or PV-derived megakaryocytes and formed proplatelets that presented several structural alterations. In contrast, ET- and PV-derived megakaryocytes produced more proplatelets with a striking increase in bifurcations and tips compared to both control and PMF. Proplatelets formation was correlated with platelet counts in patient peripheral blood. Patients with pre-fibrotic PMF had a pattern of megakaryocyte proliferation and proplatelet formation that was similar to that of fibrotic PMF and different from that of ET. Conclusions/Significance In conclusion, MPNs are associated with high megakaryocyte proliferative potential. Profound differences in megakaryocyte morphology and proplatelet formation distinguish PMF, both fibrotic and prefibrotic, from ET and PV.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as a Supplemental Treatment For Adolescents with Learning Disabilities

This study explores cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) as a supplemental treatment with a sample of adolescents with learning disabilities (LD). Research overwhelming reflects the theory that children and adolescents with LD are more likely to manifest anxious and depressive symptomology. CBT is an evidence based intervention for anxiety and depression. However, there is a gap in the knowledge of treating LD with CBT. The study hypothesizes the theory that maladaptive metacognitive interpretation of the LD diminishes the effects of the evidence based academic intervention. The study sought to explore whether or not adolescents with LD would experience enhanced academic and emotional skills when treated with CBT, supplemental to an evidenced based reading intervention (READ 180). The researcher created a manualized nine week treatment named LD CBT, conceptualized to provide classic CBT techniques individualized for the LD population within the school setting. Twelve students met criteria for the study and were randomly selected into two groups; experimental (n = 6) and wait list control (n = 5). The sample size limits generalization; however, results do suggest that participants treated with LD CBT and READ 180 experienced enhanced words per minute, reading comprehension and self-concept rates compared with control wait list group treated with READ 180 only. Results did not support the idea that participants treated with LD CBT experienced enhanced reading accuracy, resiliency or vulnerability. Maintenance measures suggest that the experimental group maintained gains in self-concept 12 weeks post LD CBT treatment. One participant made gains in all researched areas. Despite the limitations, the results are intriguing and worthy of future study.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Quantitative and Qualitative Information Risk Approaches

Due to rapidly development of information systems, risk and security issues have increased and became a phenomenon that concerns every organization, without considering the size of it. To achieve desired results, managers have to implement methods of evaluating and mitigating risk as part of a process well elaborated. Security risk management helps managers to better control the business practices and improve the business process. An effective risk management process is based on a successful IT security program. This doesn’t mean that the main goal of an organization’s risk management process is to protect its IT assets, but to protect the organization and its ability to perform their missions. During this process, managers have to take into consideration risks that can affect the organization and apply the most suitable measures to minimize their impact. The most important task is choosing the best suited method for analyzing the existing risk properly. Several methods have been developed, being classified in quantitative and qualitative approaches of evaluating risk. The purpose of this paper is to present the advantages and disadvantages of each approach taking current needs and opportunities into consideration.
Study of Body Composition and Metabolic Parameters in HIV-1 Male Patients

Background. HIV patients on highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) containing protease inhibitors (PIs) had been often associated with lipodystrophy. However, there are only few studies on association of nucleoside and nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTI and NNRTI) with lipodystrophy. Study Design. One hundred and one HIV male patients were categorised into ART naïve (n = 22), zidovudine (n = 22), stavudine (n = 18), tenofovir (n = 15), and PIs (n = 24) based HAART. Their clinicoepidemiological data had been entered in preformed pro forma. The body composition, using TANITA machine and metabolic parameters like lipid profile, blood sugars was analysed. Results. Clinically, lipoatrophy of face was most prevalent in HIV patients on stavudine (15 patients, 83.3%) and PIs (20 patients, 83.3%) based HAART. The mean BMI among study population was in normal range. Excess visceral fat was most prevalent among patients on PIs, 4 patients (16.7%). The waist-hip ratio was significantly higher in PIs (P = 0.01) based HAART. There was no significant difference among different study populations in terms of BMI (P = 0.917), body water (P = 0.318), body fat (P = 0.172), bone mass (P = 0.200), and muscle mass (P = 0.070). Hypertriglyceridiemia was found in stavudine, tenofovir, and protease inhibitors regimens. Low levels of high density lipoprotein (HDL) was found zidovudine, stavudine, and PIs regimens. Fasting and postprandial hyperglycaemia was found PIs and impaired glucose tolerance in stavudine regimen. Conclusion. Patients on PIs were associated with truncal obesity and lipoatrophy of face, along with dyslipidemia and hyperglycaemia. Stavudine based regimen is associated with hypertriglyceridiemia and low HDL along with lipoatrophy of face.
Genotypic and Pathotypic Characterization of Newcastle Disease Viruses from India

Newcastle disease virus (NDV) is an avian paramyxovirus that causes significant economic losses to the poultry industry in most parts of the world. The susceptibility of a wide variety of avian species coupled with synanthropic bird reservoirs has contributed to the vast genomic diversity of this virus as well as diagnostic failures. Since the first panzootic in 1926, Newcastle disease (ND) became enzootic in India with recurrent outbreaks in multiple avian species. The genetic characteristics of circulating strains in India, however, are largely unknown. To understand the nature of NDV genotypes in India, we characterized two representative strains isolated 13 years apart from a chicken and a pigeon by complete genome sequence analysis and pathotyping. The viruses were characterized as velogenic by pathogenicity indices devised to distinguish these strains. The genome length was 15,186 nucleotides (nt) and consisted of six non-overlapping genes, with conserved and complementary 3′ leader and 5′ trailer regions, conserved gene starts, gene stops, and intergenic sequences similar to those in avian paramyxovirus 1 (APMV-1) strains. Matrix gene sequence analysis grouped the pigeon isolate with APMV-1 strains. Phylogeny based on the fusion (F), and hemagglutinin (HN) genes and complete genome sequence grouped these viruses into genotype IV. Genotype IV strains are considered to have “died out” after the first panzootic (1926–1960) of ND. But, our results suggest that there is persistence of genotype IV strains in India.
Progression of structural neuropathology in preclinical Huntington’s disease: a tensor based morphometry study

Background and objectives: Regional cerebral atrophy occurs in carriers of the Huntington’s disease (HD) gene mutation before clinical diagnosis is possible. The current inability to reliably measure progression of pathology in this preclinical phase impedes development of therapies to delay clinical onset. We hypothesised that longitudinal statistical imaging would detect progression of structural pathology in preclinical carriers of the HD gene mutation, in the absence of measurable clinical change. Methods: Thirty subjects (17 preclinical mutation positive, 13 mutation negative) underwent serial clinical and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) assessments over an interval of 2 years. Statistically significant changes in regional grey and white matter volume on MRI were analysed using tensor based morphometry (TBM). This technique derives a voxel-wise estimation of regional tissue volume change from the deformation field required to warp a subject’s early to late T1 images. Results: Over 2 years, there was progressive regional grey matter atrophy in mutation-positive relative to negative subjects, without significant clinical progression of disease. Significant grey matter volume loss was limited to bilateral putamen and globus pallidus externa (GPe), left caudate nucleus, and left ventral midbrain in the region of the substantia nigra. Conclusions: While these results are consistent with previous cross sectional pathologic and morphometric studies, significant progression of atrophy in HD before the onset of significant clinical decline is now demonstrable with longitudinal statistical imaging. Such measures could be used to assess the efficacy of potential disease modifying drugs in slowing the progression of pathology before confirmed clinical onset of HD.
Quantifying habitat impacts of natural gas infrastructure to facilitate biodiversity offsetting

Habitat degradation through anthropogenic development is a key driver of biodiversity loss. One way to compensate losses is “biodiversity offsetting” (wherein biodiversity impacted is “replaced” through restoration elsewhere). A challenge in implementing offsets, which has received scant attention in the literature, is the accurate determination of residual biodiversity losses. We explore this challenge for offsetting gas extraction in the Ustyurt Plateau, Uzbekistan. Our goal was to determine the landscape extent of habitat impacts, particularly how the footprint of “linear” infrastructure (i.e. roads, pipelines), often disregarded in compensation calculations, compares with “hub” infrastructure (i.e. extraction facilities). We measured vegetation cover and plant species richness using the line-intercept method, along transects running from infrastructure/control sites outward for 500 m, accounting for wind direction to identify dust deposition impacts. Findings from 24 transects were extrapolated to the broader plateau by mapping total landscape infrastructure network using GPS data and satellite imagery. Vegetation cover and species richness were significantly lower at development sites than controls. These differences disappeared within 25 m of the edge of the area physically occupied by infrastructure. The current habitat footprint of gas infrastructure is 220 ± 19 km2 across the Ustyurt (total ∼ 100,000 km2), 37 ± 6% of which is linear infrastructure. Vegetation impacts diminish rapidly with increasing distance from infrastructure, and localized dust deposition does not conspicuously extend the disturbance footprint. Habitat losses from gas extraction infrastructure cover 0.2% of the study area, but this reflects directly eliminated vegetation only. Impacts upon fauna pose a more difficult determination, as these require accounting for behavioral and demographic responses to disturbance by elusive mammals, including threatened species. This study demonstrates that impacts of linear infrastructure in regions such as the Ustyurt should be accounted for not just with respect to development sites but also associated transportation and delivery routes.
Creativity in Family Medicine

Therefore, it is necessary to achieve more meaningful representations of the fundamental concepts of Family Medicine, and facilitate the transfer of these to clinical practice. One of these main concepts is that of “creativity” [6]. But, this concept can be difficult to understand and explain, even for experienced physicians in the specialty [7,8]. Evidence-Based Medicine, clinical trials and quantitative studies are necessary, indispensable for medical science, but why not the stories, the tales and the cases? So, we will present this concept of “creativity” by a fable [9]. Fables and metaphors can simplify expert knowledge, not by ignoring or reducing the inherent complexity, but by providing a point of entry for its comprehension. They are a means of generating ideas, promoting creativity, and constructing concepts and theories [10,11].