Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Inventory of surveillance systems assessing dietary, physical activity and sedentary behaviours in Europe: a DEDIPAC study

Background There is a need for harmonized public health surveillance systems to monitor regional variations and temporal trends of health behaviours and health outcomes and to align policies, action plans and recommendations in terms of healthy diet and physical (in)activity within Europe. We provide an inventory of currently existing surveillance systems assessing diet, physical activity, and sedentary behaviours in Europe as a tool to assist in the identification of gaps and needs and to contribute to the roadmap for an integrated pan-European surveillance system. Methods An inventory questionnaire was completed by representatives of eleven European countries. Eligible surveillance systems were required to meet specific inclusion criteria. First, pre-screening of available surveillance systems in each country was conducted. Second, an in-depth appraisal of the retained surveillance systems complying with the pre-defined requirements was performed. Results Fifty surveillance systems met the inclusion criteria: six multinational European surveys and forty-four national surveys. Dietary intake and physical activity are the domains predominantly assessed and adults are the most frequently studied age group. Conclusions Many on-going activities were identified at the national level focussing on adults, but fewer surveillance systems involving vulnerable groups such as infants and pre-school children. Assessment of sedentary and dietary behaviours should be more frequently considered. There is a need for harmonization of surveillance methodologies, indicators and target populations for between-country and over time comparisons. This inventory will serve to feed future discussions within the DEDIPAC-JPI major framework on how to optimize design and identify priorities within surveillance.
With Some Help From My Network: Supplementing eHealth Literacy With Social Ties

Background eHealth literacy is defined as the ability to seek, find, understand, and appraise health information from electronic sources and apply knowledge gained to addressing or solving a health problem. Previous research has shown high reliance on both online and face-to-face interpersonal sources when sharing and receiving health information. Objective In this paper, we examine these interpersonal sources and their interplay with respondents’ eHealth literacy and perceived health outcomes. Specifically, we look at how the relationship between eHealth literacy and health outcomes is moderated by (1) finding help while performing online activities, (2) finding others with similar health concerns online, and (3) the importance of finding others with similar health concerns for people from ethnic minorities, specifically Palestinian citizens of Israel versus Israeli Jews. Methods We used a nationally representative random-digit dial telephone household survey of an Israeli adult population (age ≥21 years, N=819). The collected data were analyzed using two regression models. The first examined how the correlation between eHealth literacy and perceived outcomes was moderated by the availability of help. The second examined how the correlation between eHealth literacy and perceived outcomes was moderated by finding others with similar health concerns and by ethnicity. Results Respondents with low eHealth literacy who were able to recruit help when performing online activities demonstrated higher perceived health outcomes compared to similar respondents who did not find help. Respondents with low eHealth literacy, who were able to find others with similar health concerns (online), demonstrated higher perceived health outcomes when compared to similar respondents who did not find others with similar health concerns. Finally, finding similar others online was more helpful in enhancing health outcomes for ethnic minorities; Palestinian citizens of Israel gained more health benefits by finding similar others compared to Israeli Jews. Conclusions Although the availability of help and the notion of ethnicity have been discussed extensively within the context of social capital and health, our findings offer initial evidence for the relevancy of these concepts when studying individuals’ eHealth literacy. Specifically, our findings enable a better understanding of the role of social ties and ethnicity in moderating the interplay between eHealth literacy and perceived health outcomes. Given the increased importance of eHealth information, our findings enhance understanding of how social ties can potentially compensate for low eHealth literacy.
On Stability Region of Two-User Interference Network With Permission to Utilize Past Receptions

Stability region is an important and practical measure of the transmission capacity of wireless networks with stochastic flows. On the other hand, an effective interference mitigation approach, realized in the physical layer model with the flexibility to utilize past receptions, began to emerge. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of the investigation on the stability region of the interference network in this physical layer model. Thus, in this paper, we concentrate on the stability region of the two-user interference network for the aforementioned physical layer model. To this end, we first design a physical layer linear coding scheme to fully utilize past receptions. Next, on the basis of the proposed coding scheme, a queue-based transmission strategy is presented. Then, by leveraging the virtual network mechanism, we derive the stability region of the system for the proposed transmission strategy. Meanwhile, a Lyapunov-function-based stabilizing policy is presented. Finally, we compare the stability region with the information-theoretical outer bound by a numerical method. The simulation results reveal that their relative difference is no larger than 3%, and is below 0.1% under the specific setting of the probability that packets successfully arrive at each receiver, implying that the transmission strategy could essentially achieve the outer bound from the practical perspective. In particular, the stability region of the system is almost identical to its information-theoretic throughput region under the specific setting.
Highly Parallel Lattice QCD Wilson Dirac Operator with FPGAs

In this paper, we discuss a highly parallel implementation of the lattice QCD Wilson Dirac operator on FPGAs. The operator is described as a data-flow graph using OpenSPL and acts on a four-dimensional lattice collecting all next neighbour terms. The so implemented kernel fits on an Altera Stratix V FPGA using fixed-point arithmetic. This allows us to compute all arithmetic operations simultaneously. In addition, the OpenSPL language shows also an implicit optimized locality expressed by the offset operator which is studied on the presented implementation. The lattice is held in DDR3 memory on the FPGA accelerator card and streamed into the FPGA over six memory channels where we use the MAX4 card and the software framework from Maxeler. The operator is memory bound and has an equivalent arithmetic intensity of 0.92 FLOPs/Byte. With a clock frequency of 133 MHz, we get an equivalent theoretical peak performance of 176 GFLOP/s. Therefore, we also address the memory interface and memory access pattern.
Cost-effectiveness of screening for atrial fibrillation in primary care with a handheld, single-lead electrocardiogram device in the Netherlands

Aims Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common arrhythmia and prevalence increases with age. Patients with AF have a high risk of stroke, and screening for AF is recommended in all people aged 65 years or older to identify patients eligible for stroke prevention. A handheld, single-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) device can be used for systematic screening in the population at risk. The objective of this study is to estimate the cost-effectiveness of screening for AF in primary care with the MyDiagnostick® during seasonal influenza vaccination in the Netherlands. Methods and results Lifetime costs and effects of a single screening session for AF detection were assessed from a societal perspective with a decision analytic model consisting of a straightforward decision tree and a joining Markov model. The decision model simulated all patients aged 65 years and over attending the seasonal influenza vaccination in the Netherlands. Event probabilities were derived from clinical trials. Sensitivity analyses were performed to assess the impact of important model assumptions as well as determining the relative effect of individual parameters. Screening for AF with the MyDiagnostick® in all patients older than 65 years that attend seasonal influenza vaccination in the Netherlands would decrease the overall costs by €764 and increase the quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) by 0.27 years per patient. Early detection of AF would prevent strokes and leads to beneficial health effects with subsequent cost savings. This screening method would have an estimated probability of 99.8% for being cost-effective at a conservative willingness-to-pay of €20 000/QALY. Conclusion Screening for AF in primary care with a handheld, single-lead ECG during seasonal influenza vaccination is very likely to be cost saving for identifying new cases of AF in the Dutch population aged 65 years and over. Active screening for AF with a single-lead, handheld ECG device during seasonal influenza vaccination could be implemented in primary care.
Integrated continuous biomanufacturing platform with ATF perfusion and one column chromatography operation for optimum resin utilization and productivity

ABSTRACT A new integrated continuous biomanufacturing platform for continuous production of antibodies at fixed cell volumes and cell concentrations for extended periods with immediate capture is presented. Upstream antibody production has reached technological maturity, however, the bottleneck for continuous biomanufacturing remains the efficient and cost-effective capture of therapeutic antibodies in an initial chromatography step. In this study, the first successful attempt at using one-column continuous chromatography (OCC) for the continuous capture of therapeutic antibodies produced through alternating tangential flow perfusion is presented. By performing upstream media optimizations, the upstream perfusion rate was reduced to one vessel volume per day (vv/d), increasing antibody titer and reducing the volume of perfusate. In addition, process improvements were performed to increase productivity by 80% over previously reported values. In addition, a real-time method for evaluating column performance to make column switching decisions was developed. This improved productivity coupled with the use of a single-column improved process monitoring and control in OCC compared to multi-column systems. This approach is the first report on using a single column for the implementation of an integrated continuous biomanufacturing platform and offers a cost-effective and flexible platform process for the manufacture of therapeutic proteins.
Rice TCM1 Encoding a Component of the TAC Complex is Required for Chloroplast Development under Cold Stress

Transcriptionally active chromosome (TAC) is a component of protein–DNA complexes with RNA polymerase activity, expressed in the plastid. Map‐based cloning revealed that TCM1 encodes a novel chloroplast‐targeted TAC protein in rice, in which a mutation leads to an albino phenotype and malformed chloroplasts before the three‐leaf stage at low temperatures. TAC protein TCM1 is essential for proper chloroplast development and maintaining plastid‐encoded polymerase activity under cold stress conditions.
LMP: light-weighted memory protection with hardware assistance

Despite a long history and numerous proposed defenses, memory corruption attacks are still viable. A secure and low-overhead defense against return-oriented programming (ROP) continues to elude the security community. Currently proposed solutions still must choose between either not fully protecting critical data and relying instead on information hiding, or using incomplete, coarse-grain checking that can be circumvented by a suitably skilled attacker. In this paper, we present a light-weighted memory protection approach (LMP) that uses Intel's MPX hardware extensions to provide complete, fast ROP protection without having to rely in information hiding. We demonstrate a prototype that defeats ROP attacks while incurring an average runtime overhead of 3.9%.
Molecular Cloning, Expression Profiling, and Marker Validation of the Chicken Myoz3 Gene

Myozenin3 (Myoz3) has been reported to bind multiple Z-disc proteins and hence play a key role in signal transduction and muscle fiber type differentiation. The purpose of current study is to better understand the basic characteristics of Myoz3. Firstly, we cloned the ORF (open reading frame) of the Myoz3 gene. AA (amino acid) sequence analysis revealed that the Myoz3 gene encodes a 26 kDa protein which have 97% identities with that of turkey. Expression profiling showed that Myoz3 mRNA is mainly expressed in leg muscle and breast muscle. Furthermore, we investigated Myoz3 gene polymorphisms in two broiler breeds, the Yellow Bantam (YB) and the Avian. Five SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) were identified in the YB breed and 3 were identified in the Avian breed. Genotypes and haplotype were constructed and their associations with carcass traits were analyzed. In the YB breed, c.516 C>T had a strong effect on both shank bone length and the L⁎ value of breast muscle, and the H1H3 diplotype had the highest FC compared to other diplotypes. The markers identified in this study may serve as useful targets for the marker-assisted selection (MAS) of growth and meat quality traits in chickens.
Everolimus with cyclosporine withdrawal or low-exposure cyclosporine in kidney transplantation from Month 3: a multicentre, randomized trial

Background. Randomized trials have shown that early adoption of everolimus-based immunosuppressive regimens without a calcineurin inhibitor (CNI) improves long-term kidney graft function, but the optimal strategy for CNI minimization remains uncertain. Methods. In a prospective, randomized, multicentre, 12-month trial, 499 de novo kidney transplant patients were randomized at Month 3 to (i) remain on standard CNI (cyclosporine) therapy with mycophenolic acid, (ii) convert to everolimus with mycophenolic acid or (iii) start everolimus with reduced CNI and no mycophenolic acid (clinical trials registry: ClinicalTrials.gov-NCT00514514). Results. The primary endpoint, change in estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) (Nankivell) from randomization to Month 12, was significantly greater in the CNI-free arm versus standard CNI therapy: mean difference 5.6 mL/min/1.73 m 2 [95% confidence interval (CI) 2.8-8.3 mL/min/1.73 m 2 , P < 0.001]. The improvement in eGFR in the CNI-free arm was also higher than in the low-CNI group (mean difference 5.5 mL/min/1.73 m 2 , 95% CI 2.8-8.2 mL/min/1.73 m 2 , P < 0.001), while results were similar in the low-CNI and standard CNI arms. The post-randomization incidence of biopsy-proven acute rejection was 11.7%, 8.1% and 7.9% in the CNI-free, low-CNI and standard CNI groups, respectively (CNI-free versus standard CNI, P = 0.27; low-CNI versus standard CNI, P = 1.00). Adverse events led to study drug discontinuation in 28.7%, 15.5% and 15.2% of CNI-free, low-CNI and standard CNI patients, respectively. Conclusions. Everolimus initiation with CNI withdrawal at Month 3 after kidney transplantation achieves a significant improvement in renal function at 12 months, with a similar rate of acute rejection.
The Search is on for Coherent Performance Measurement in Healthcare Organizations. Has Quebec Reached a Crossroads?

Objective: This research looks back at a 10-year period (2004–2014) to understand the development and outlook for healthcare organization performance measurement in the Quebec healthcare system, in an attempt to objectivize relationships within the configuration of its principal institutional actors. Methods: This is a qualitative study combining the use of official publications and fieldwork based on 13 semi-directed interviews, conducted in 2014, with informers in key performance measurement positions within the Quebec healthcare system. Results: Performance measurement has generated tensions, both internally between different branches of the Department of Health and externally against a strong coalition of external institutional actors, which were defending a shared homogeneous vision of performance. Four major types of political power plays, owing to the power struggles around performance models and indicators, converged around the same implicit issue of the need to attain greater legitimacy in order to impose an authoritative frame of reference.
Interaction behaviour between top blown jet and molten steel during BOF steelmaking process

During oxygen steelmaking process, a systematical description of the interaction behaviour between top blown jet and molten steel is extremely important. In the present study, a cold model experiment and the corresponding numerical simulation were carried out to illustrate the highly complex interaction process inside an 80-t converter. First, the interaction process was presented in a numerical way. On this basis, the quantitative effect of pertinent operational parameters on the interaction process was investigated. To clearly describe the cavity appearance, the cavity shape index ( ) was put forward, which is a dimensionless factor to demonstrate the cavity shape related to cavity depth and cavity width. In addition, a functional relationship correlating cavity shape index and blowing number was proposed. It can be concluded that higher blowing number (NB) results in deeper cavity depth and smaller cavity width. Moreover, the effect of cavity shape on the stirring characteristics and the mixing effect in the converter were investigated. The results show that lower and higher cavity shape index may lead to longer mixing time in smelting process. For 80-t converter, the penetration depth and impact width should be controlled approximately equal ( fluctuates around 1) to obtain better mixing effect.
DSC Study on the Age -precipitation Behaviorof Al-4.5 Cu Alloy and Mullite-fiber Reinforced Al-4.5 Cu Composite

The age _ precipitation behavior of Al-4.5 Cu alloy and mullite _ fiber reinforced Al-4.5 Cu composite has been studied by the differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). It is shown that the DSC thermogram of the quenched composite differs from that of the quenched monolithic base alloy. Onset of GP zone formation and dis_solution can clearly be observed on the DSC curves of the Al-4.5 Cu alloy, but can hardly be confirmed on the DSC curves of the mullite _ fiber reinforced Al-4.5 Cu composite. It implies that mullite fibers delay or suppress the formation of the GP zone. The precipitation of θ″ and θ′ phases is greatly accelerated due to the introduction of mullite fibers. It results in a descent of peak temperature, a decrease in activation energy, and an acceleration of ageing precipitation. However, it should be emphasized that age _ precipitation sequence could be misjudged, if scanning parameters are not properly chosen with much caution.
Implications of Reduced-Precision Computations in HPC: Performance, Energy and Error

Error-tolerating applications are increasingly common in the emerging field of real-time HPC. Proposals have been made at the hardware level to take advantage of inherent perceptual limitations, redundant data, or reduced precision input [20], as well as to reduce system costs or improve power efficiency [19]. At the same time, works on floating-point to fixed-point conversion tools [9] allow us to trade-off the algorithm exactness for a more efficient implementation. In this work, we aim at leveraging existing, HPC-oriented hardware architectures, while including in the precision tuning an adaptive selection of floating-and fixed-point arithmetic. Our proposed solution takes advantage of the application domain knowledge of the programmers by involving them in the first step of the interaction chain. We rely on annotations written by the programmer on the input file to know which variables of a computational kernel should be converted to fixed-point. The second stage replaces the floating-point variables in the kernel with fixed-point equivalents. It also adds to the original source code the utility functions to perform data type conversions from floating-point to fixed-point, and vice versa. The output of the second stage is a new version of the kernel source code which exploits fixed-point computation instead of floating-point computation. As opposed to typical custom-width hardware designs, we only rely on the standard 16-bit, 32-bit and 64-bit types. We also explore the impact of the fixed-point representation on auto-vectorization. We discuss the effect of our solution in terms of time-to-solutions, error and energy-to-solution.
MIToS.jl: mutual information tools for protein sequence analysis in the Julia language

Motivation MIToS is an environment for mutual information analysis and a framework for protein multiple sequence alignments (MSAs) and protein structures (PDB) management in Julia language. It integrates sequence and structural information through SIFTS, making Pfam MSAs analysis straightforward. MIToS streamlines the implementation of any measure calculated from residue contingency tables and its optimization and testing in terms of protein contact prediction. As an example, we implemented and tested a BLOSUM62-based pseudo-count strategy in mutual information analysis. Availability and Implementation The software is totally implemented in Julia and supported for Linux, OS X and Windows. It's freely available on GitHub under MIT license: http://mitos.leloir.org.ar . Contacts diegozea@gmail.com or cmb@leloir.org.ar. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Inhaled Antibiotic Therapy in Chronic Respiratory Diseases

The management of patients with chronic respiratory diseases affected by difficult to treat infections has become a challenge in clinical practice. Conditions such as cystic fibrosis (CF) and non-CF bronchiectasis require extensive treatment strategies to deal with multidrug resistant pathogens that include Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, Burkholderia species and non-tuberculous Mycobacteria (NTM). These challenges prompted scientists to deliver antimicrobial agents through the pulmonary system by using inhaled, aerosolized or nebulized antibiotics. Subsequent research advances focused on the development of antibiotic agents able to achieve high tissue concentrations capable of reducing the bacterial load of difficult-to-treat organisms in hosts with chronic respiratory conditions. In this review, we focus on the evidence regarding the use of antibiotic therapies administered through the respiratory system via inhalation, nebulization or aerosolization, specifically in patients with chronic respiratory diseases that include CF, non-CF bronchiectasis and NTM. However, further research is required to address the potential benefits, mechanisms of action and applications of inhaled antibiotics for the management of difficult-to-treat infections in patients with chronic respiratory diseases.
Dependence clusters in source code

A dependence cluster is a set of program statements, all of which are mutually inter-dependent. This article reports a large scale empirical study of dependence clusters in C program source code. The study reveals that large dependence clusters are surprisingly commonplace. Most of the 45 programs studied have clusters of dependence that consume more than 10% of the whole program. Some even have clusters consuming 80% or more. The widespread existence of clusters has implications for source code analyses such as program comprehension, software maintenance, software testing, reverse engineering, reuse, and parallelization.