Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Endogenous hormones, muscle strength, and risk of fall-related fractures in older women.

BACKGROUND Among older people, fracture-causing fall often leads to health deterioration. The role of endogenous hormone status and muscle strength on fall-related fracture risk is unclear. This study investigates if, after adjustment for bone density, endogenous hormones and muscle strength would predict fall-related limb fracture incidence in older community-dwelling women followed-up over 10 years. METHODS As a part of a prospective population-based study, 187 75-year-old women were investigated. Serum estradiol, testosterone, sex hormone binding globulin, and dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate concentrations were analyzed, and isometric muscle strength and bone mineral density were assessed. Fall-related limb fractures were gathered from patient records. RESULTS Serum estradiol concentration was a significant predictor of fall-related limb fractures. Women with serum estradiol concentrations less than 0.022 nmol/L had a 3-fold risk (relative risk 3.05; 95% confidence interval, 1.26-7.36), and women with estradiol concentrations between 0.022 and 0.066 nmol/L doubled the risk (relative risk 2.24; 95% confidence interval, 0.97-5.19) of fall-related limb fracture compared to the women with estradiol concentrations ()above 0.066 nmol/L. Adjustment for muscle strength and bone mineral density did not materially change the risk estimates. High muscle strength was associated with a low incidence of fall-related limb fractures. CONCLUSIONS This study showed that in 75-year-old women higher serum estradiol concentration and greater muscle strength were independently associated with a low incidence of fall-related limb fractures even after adjustment for bone density. Our results suggest that hormonal status and muscle strength have their own separate mechanisms protecting from fall-related fractures. This finding is of importance in developing preventive strategies, but calls for further study.
Global Motion Estimation from Point Matches

Multiview structure recovery from a collection of images requires the recovery of the positions and orientations of the cameras relative to a global coordinate system. Our approach recovers camera motion as a sequence of two global optimizations. First, pair wise Essential Matrices are used to recover the global rotations by applying robust optimization using either spectral or semi definite programming relaxations. Then, we directly employ feature correspondences across images to recover the global translation vectors using a linear algorithm based on a novel decomposition of the Essential Matrix. Our method is efficient and, as demonstrated in our experiments, achieves highly accurate results on collections of real images for which ground truth measurements are available.
Longer term effects of very low energy diet on obstructive sleep apnoea in cohort derived from randomised controlled trial: prospective observational follow-up study

Objective To determine whether initial improvements in obstructive sleep apnoea after a very low energy diet were maintained after one year in patients with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnoea. Design Single centre, prospective observational follow-up study. Setting Outpatient obesity clinic in a university hospital in Stockholm, Sweden. Participants 63 men aged 30-65 with body mass index (BMI) 30-40 and moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnoea defined as an apnoea-hypopnoea index ≥15 (events/hour), all treated with continuous positive airway pressure. Intervention A one year weight loss programme, consisting of an initial very low energy diet for nine weeks (seven weeks of 2.3 MJ/day and two weeks of gradual introduction of normal food) followed by a weight loss maintenance programme. Main outcome measure Apnoea-hypopnoea index, the main index for severity of obstructive sleep apnoea. Data from all patients were analysed (baseline carried forward for missing data). Results Of 63 eligible patients, 58 completed the very low energy diet period and started the weight maintenance programme and 44 completed the full programme; 49 had complete measurements at one year. At baseline the mean apnoea-hypopnoea index was 36 events/hour. After the very low energy diet period, apnoea-hypopnoea index was improved by −21 events/hour (95% confidence interval −17 to −25) and weight by −18 kg (−16 to −19; both P<0.001). After one year the apnoea-hypopnoea index had improved by −17 events/hour (−13 to −21) and body weight by −12 kg (−10 to −14) compared with baseline (both P<0.001). Patients with severe obstructive sleep apnoea at baseline had greater improvements in apnoea-hypopnoea index (−25 events/hour) compared with patients with moderate disease (−7 events/hour, P<0.001). At one year, 30/63 (48%, 95% confidence interval 35% to 60%) no longer required continuous positive airway pressure and 6/63 (10%, 2% to 17%) had total remission of obstructive sleep apnoea (apnoea-hypopnoea index <5 events/hour). There was a dose-response association between weight loss and apnoea-hypopnoea index at follow-up (β=0.50 events/kg, 0.11 to 0.88; P=0.013). Conclusion Initial improvements in obstructive sleep apnoea after treatment with a very low energy diet can be maintained after one year in obese men with moderate to severe disease. Those who lose the most weight or have severe sleep apnoea at baseline benefit most. Trial registration Current Controlled Trials 70090382.
The Religion–Health Connection Among African Americans: What Is the Role of Social Capital?

Researchers have expressed growing interest in factors that may explain the relationship between religious involvement and health-related outcomes. Faith-based organizations are a significant institution in African American communities, both serving religious/spiritual needs and providing an important source of social capital. These communities often suffer a disproportionate burden of health conditions as well. The present study examined the role of social capital (social support, interconnectedness, and community participation) in the relationship between religious involvement (beliefs and behaviours) and physical and emotional functioning and depressive symptoms, among a national probability sample of African Americans (N=803). Participants completed telephone interviews. We used structural equation modelling to test hypotheses based on the theoretical model. Results indicate that interconnectedness played a modest mediational role in the relationship between religious behaviours/participation and depressive symptoms. Interconnectedness was predictive of fewer depressive symptoms and marginally with better emotional functioning. Findings highlight the importance of trust in and commitment to one’s community for health and have implications for community-based health promotion initiatives. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Family Structure and Childhood Obesity, Early Childhood Longitudinal Study — Kindergarten Cohort

Introduction Little is known about the effect of family structure on childhood obesity among US children. This study examines the effect of number of parents and number of siblings on children's body mass index and risk of obesity. Methods We conducted a secondary data analysis of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study — Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K), which consists of a nationally representative cohort of children who entered kindergarten during 1998-1999. Our analyses included 2 cross-sectional outcomes and 1 longitudinal outcome: body mass index (BMI) calculated from measured height and weight, obesity defined as BMI in the 95th percentile or higher for age and sex, and change in BMI from kindergarten through fifth grade. Results Other things being equal, children living with single mothers were more likely to be obese by fifth grade than were children living with 2 parents (26% vs 22%, P = .05). Children with siblings had lower BMI and were less likely to be obese than children without siblings. We also found that living with a single mother or no siblings was associated with larger increases in BMI from kindergarten through fifth grade. Conclusion Children from single-mother families and, especially, children with no siblings are at higher risk for obesity than children living with 2 parents and children with siblings. These findings highlight the influential role that families play in childhood obesity. Additionally, they suggest that health care providers should consider the structure of children's families in discussions with families regarding childhood obesity.
The Overexpression of Heparin-Binding Epidermal Growth Factor Is Responsible for Th17-Induced Airway Remodeling in an Experimental Asthma Model

Th17 cells that produce IL-17 have been found to participate in the development of allergy-triggered asthma. However, whether they play a causative role in the pathogenesis of airway remodeling in chronic asthma remains unclear. In this study, we investigated the role of Th17 cells in airway remodeling and the possible involvement of epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptor signals downstream of Th17. We established a C57BL/6 mouse model of prolonged allergen challenge that exhibits many characteristics of airway remodeling. Prolonged allergen challenge induced a progressive increase in the number of airway-infiltrating Th17 cells, and Th17 counts positively correlated with the severity of airway remodeling. Increases in mucus production, airway smooth muscle (ASM) mass, peribronchial collagen deposition, and airway heparin-binding EGF (HB-EGF) expression have been observed in sensitized mice following prolonged allergen exposure or adoptive Th17 transfer; remarkably, these effects can be abrogated by treatment with anti–IL-17 mAb. Both the EFGR inhibitor AG1478 and an anti–HB-EGF mAb ameliorated all of these effects, except for peribronchial collagen deposition in the presence of high levels of IL-17. In vitro, Th17 cells enhanced the airway epithelial expression of HB-EGF in a coculture of the two cells. The conditioned medium obtained from this coculture system effectively promoted ASM proliferation; this response was dramatically abolished by anti–HB-EGF mAb but not Abs against other EGF receptor ligands or IL-17. These observations demonstrated that overexpression of airway HB-EGF induced by IL-17 secreted from redundant expanding Th17 cells might contribute to excessive mucus expression and ASM proliferation in chronic asthma.
Emotions and sponsorship - A key to global effectiveness? A comparative study of Australia and France

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of emotional valence and intensity on sport sponsorship attitudinal outcomes, across two culturally different samples from Australia and France.Design/methodology/approach – Based on a multidisciplinary literature review of the emotional phenomenon, research hypotheses are proposed and empirically tested against two samples exposed to two comparable major sport events in Australia and France.Findings – Data reveal that Australian and French spectators' emotional responses differ in terms of valence, but not in terms of intensity. This initial difference, in turn, impacts the effect of emotional responses on sponsorship attitudinal outcomes. The more positive are sport‐related emotions, the stronger their impact on the sponsorship persuasion process. The proposed mediating effect of attitude towards the event is partially supported.Research limitations/implications – The results are limited by the small sample size and the inherent bias of t.
Empleo de estresores psicológicos de laboratorio en el estudio de la respuesta psicofisiológica al estrés

Laboratory tasks are much employed in studying the psychophysiological responses to stress. High reactivity to this type of task has been associated with the onset and development of cardiovascular illnesses. The purpose of this study was to review the main laboratory stressors which have been used in studying the psychophysiological response to stress. Public speaking tasks, arithmetic tasks, the Stroop test, and reaction time tasks among others have been analysed. The effect of these tasks on several psychophysiological variables as well as the comparison of some of the tasks have also been discussed. The response to psychological laboratory tasks are hypertonic, due to the fact that they elicit a moderate increase in the cardiovascular response and an augment in the peripheric resistance. On the contrary, responses to acute physical exercise are hypokinetic with a marked increase in the cardiovascular response and a diminution in the peripheric resistance.
Bullying in an Aboriginal Context

Abstract Aboriginal children appear to be more likely to be involved in bullying than non-Aboriginal children. This paper describes part of the “Solid Kids Solid Schools” research process and discusses some of the results from this three year study involving over 260 Aboriginal children, youth, elders, teachers and Aboriginal Indigenous Education Officers (AIEO's), and an Aboriginal led and developed Steering Committee. It is the first study that contextualises Aboriginal bullying, using a socio-ecological model where the individual, family, community and society are all interrelated and influence the characteristics and outcomes of bullying. This paper demonstrates that for Aboriginal children and youth in one region of Western Australia, bullying occurs frequently and is perpetuated by family and community violence, parental responses to bullying and institutional racism. Addressing bullying requires actions to reduce violence, foster positive cultural identity and reduce socio-economic disadvantage.
Computing a Relevant Set of Nonbinary Maximum Acyclic Agreement Forests

There exist several methods dealing with the reconstruction of rooted phylogenetic networks explaining different evolutionary histories given by rooted binary phylogenetic trees. In practice, however, due to insufficient information of the underlying data, phylogenetic trees are in general not completely resolved and, thus, those methods can often not be applied to biological data. In this work, we make a first important step to approach this goal by presenting the first algorithm --- called allMulMAAFs --- that enables the computation of all relevant nonbinary maximum acyclic agreement forests for two rooted (nonbinary) phylogenetic trees on the same set of taxa. Notice that our algorithm is part of the freely available software Hybroscale computing minimum hybridization networks for a set of rooted (nonbinary) phylogenetic trees on an overlapping set of taxa.
Multicast with network coding in application-layer overlay networks

All of the advantages of application-layer overlay networks arise from two fundamental properties: 1) the network nodes in an overlay network, as opposed to lower-layer network elements such as routers and switches, are end systems and have capabilities far beyond basic operations of storing and forwarding; 2) the overlay topology, residing above a densely connected Internet protocol-layer wide-area network, can be constructed and manipulated to suit one's purposes. We seek to improve end-to-end throughput significantly in application-layer multicast by taking full advantage of these unique characteristics. This objective is achieved with two novel insights. First, we depart from the conventional view that overlay nodes can only replicate and forward data. Rather, as end systems, these overlay nodes also have the full capability of encoding and decoding data at the message level using efficient linear codes. Second, we depart from traditional wisdom that the multicast topology from source to receivers needs to be a tree, and propose a novel and distributed algorithm to construct a two-redundant multicast graph (a directed acyclic graph) as the multicast topology, on which network coding is applied. We design our algorithm such that the costs of link stress and stretch are explicitly considered as constraints and minimized. We extensively evaluate our algorithm by provable analytical and experimental results, which show that the introduction of two-redundant multicast graph and network coding may indeed bring significant benefits, essentially doubling the end-to-end throughput in most cases.
The equivalence problem for real-time DPDAs

The equivalence problem for deterministic real-time pushdown automata is shown to be decidable. This result is obtained by showing that Valiant's parallel stacking technique using a replacement function introduced in this paper succeeds for deterministic real-time pushdown automata. Equivalence is also decidable for two deterministic pushdown automata, one of which is real-time.
SH3 domain of spectrin participates in the activation of Rac in specialized calpain-induced integrin signaling complexes

In this study, we used cultured cells spreading on β3 integrin substrates to examine the possibility that spectrin is involved in signal transduction. Spectrin clustered with specialized calpain-induced β3 integrin signaling complexes that mediate the initial attachment of cells and initiate Rac activation and lamellipodia extension. It was absent from focal complexes and focal adhesions, the integrin complexes that mediate adhesion in lamellipodia and fully spread cells. Spectrin contains a Src homology (SH3) domain of unknown function. Cells overexpressing this domain adhered and calpain-induced integrin signaling complexes formed. However, Rac activation, lamellipodia extension and cell spreading were inhibited. Spreading was restored by overexpression of constitutively active Rac. These studies point to a previously unrecognized role for spectrin and its SH3 domain in initiating Rac activation in the specialized integrin clusters that initiate cell adhesion and spreading. Thus, spectrin may have a pivotal role in initiating integrin-induced physiological and pathological events such as development, proliferation, cell survival, wound healing, metastasis and atherosclerosis.
A Markov chain dynamic model for trip generation and distribution based on CDR

This study focuses on exploiting Call Detail Records (CDR) data in order to detect the demand distribution among different zones within the day, together with information about the type of activity that characterises each zone. Traffic zones are first identified and shaped through a k-means clustering analysis. Then, the traffic between different clusters is analysed with the aim to identify the type of zone by evaluating the traffic calls density for each time period. To evaluate the propagation of the demand among the different zones, Markov Chains theory is used in order to evaluate the transition matrix among different time steps. The developed model enables one to predict CDR variations in time and space and, hence, being a proxy for the trip distribution. Results point out how these matrices are similar for consecutive time intervals; therefore, it is possible to aggregate them in an hourly transition matrix, losing a small amount of information over the structure of the demand. This also shows that trip distribution varies relatively slowly in time and is spatially consistent along the days.
The Effect of Menopause on the Metabolic Syndrome Among Korean Women

OBJECTIVE—This study examined the effect of menopausal status on the risk of the metabolic syndrome in Korean women. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—Data were obtained from the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey of 2001. A total of 2,671 women who did not receive hormone replacement therapy (1,893 premenopausal women and 778 postmenopausal women) were included in the analysis. The metabolic syndrome was defined according to the National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III. RESULTS—Postmenopausal women had significantly higher mean waist circumference, systolic blood pressure, pulse pressure, total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and triglyceride levels than premenopausal women after adjusting for age (P = 0.018, P = 0.001, P < 0.0001, P < 0.0001, P < 0.0001, and P = 0.006, respectively). Among postmenopausal women, the age-adjusted odds ratio was 1.61 (95% CI 1.15–2.25) for abdominal obesity, 1.11 (0.76–1.61) for elevated blood pressure, 1.24 (0.90–1.72) for low HDL cholesterol, 1.28 (0.89–1.83) for high triglycerides, and 1.07 (0.69–1.65) for high fasting glucose compared with premenopausal women. The multivariate-adjusted odds ratio for the metabolic syndrome was 1.60 (95% CI 1.04–2.46) among postmenopausal women compared with premenopausal women. CONCLUSIONS—Postmenopausal status is associated with an increased risk of the metabolic syndrome independent of normal aging in Korean women.
Ecient F Air Queuing Using Decit round Robin

Fair queuing is a technique that allows each ow passing through a network device to have a fair share of network resources. Previous schemes for fair queuing that achieved nearly perfect fairness were expensive to implement: speci cally, the work required to process a packet in these schemes was O(log(n)), where n is the number of active ows. This is expensive at high speeds. On the other hand, cheaper approximations of fair queuing that have been reported in the literature exhibit unfair behavior. In this paper, we describe a new approximation of fair queuing, that we call De cit Round Robin. Our scheme achieves nearly perfect fairness in terms of throughput, requires only O(1) work to process a packet, and is simple enough to implement in hardware. De cit Round Robin is also applicable to other scheduling problems where servicing cannot be broken up into smaller units, and to distributed queues.
Hybrid Approach for Classification using Support Vector Machine and Decision Tree

— A hybrid system or hybrid intelligent system uses the approach of integrating different learning or decision-making models. Each learning model works in a different manner and exploits different set of features. Integrating different learning models gives better performance than the individual learning or decision-making models by reducing their individual limitations and exploiting their different mechanisms. In this paper, a hybrid approach of classification is proposed which attempts to utilize the advantages of both decision trees and SVM leading to better classification accuracy.
Strathprints Institutional Repository

The thesis of this study is to propose an extended methodology for laboratory based Information Retrieval evaluation under incomplete relevance assessments. This new methodology aims to identify potential uncertainty during system comparison that may result from incompleteness. The adoption of this methodology is advantageous, because the detection of epistemic uncertainty – the amount of knowledge (or ignorance) we have about the estimate of a system’s performance – during the evaluation process can guide and direct researchers when evaluating new systems over existing and future test collections. Across a series of experiments we demonstrate how this methodology can lead towards a ﬁner grained analysis of systems. In particular, we show through experimentation how the current practice in Information Retrieval evaluation of using a measurement depth larger than the pooling depth increases uncertainty during system comparison.