Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
[Insulin resistance quantification by fasting insulin plasma values and HOMA index in a non-diabetic population].

BACKGROUND Our goal was to determine the prevalence of insulin resistance (IR) by means of fasting insulin plasma values and the HOMA index,and to analyse the relation of these parameters with other components of the metabolic syndrome. SUBJECTS AND METHOD We studied 292 non-diabetic individuals, aged between 20 and 65 years, randomly selected from subjects attending an outpatient care center (Valencia-Spain-metropolitan area). 97 subjects who lacked clinical and biological criteria of IR were selected. In addition to calculating the HOMA index, anthropometric parameters, plasma lipids values, fasting glucose and insulin plasma levels were measured by standard methods in all subjects. RESULTS In the subgroup of 97 subjects without clinical and biological criteria of IR, we established a diagnosis of IR when the fasting plasma insulin value was >= 16.7 mU/l or the HOMA index was >= 3.8. Cut-off points of the percentil 90th of this subgroup were taken into account. In the whole group,the prevalence of IR (HOMA >= 3.8) was 31.8%, with a higher frequency in men compared to women. CONCLUSIONS In addition to fasting plasma insulin values and HOMA index, the best clinical and biochemical indicators of IR were fasting plasma glucose levels, BMI and triglycerides (TG) plasma values. Thus, the odds ratio for insulin resistance was 5.9 for a glycemia >= 110 mg/dl, 2.6% for BMI >= 25 kg/m(2) and 2.2 for triglycerides >= 150 mg/dl.
Examining frontotemporal connectivity and rTMS in healthy controls: implications for auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia.

OBJECTIVE Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) has been shown to have clinically beneficial effects in altering the perception of auditory hallucinations (AH) in patients with schizophrenia. However, the mode of action is not clear. Recent neuroimaging findings indicate that rTMS has the potential to induce not only local effects but also changes in remote, functionally connected brain regions. Frontotemporal dysconnectivity has been proposed as a mechanism leading to psychotic symptoms in schizophrenia. The current study examines functional connectivity between temporal and frontal brain regions after rTMS and the implications for AH in schizophrenia. METHOD A connectivity analysis was conducted on the fMRI data of 11 healthy controls receiving rTMS, compared with 11 matched subjects receiving sham TMS, to the temporoparietal junction, before engaging in a task associated with robust frontotemporal activation. RESULTS Compared to the control group, the rTMS group showed an altered frontotemporal connectivity with stronger connectivity between the right temporoparietal cortex and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the angular gyrus. CONCLUSION This finding provides preliminary evidence for the hypothesis that normalizing the functional connectivity between the temporoparietal and frontal brain regions may underlie the therapeutic effect of rTMS on AH in schizophrenia.
Functional polymorphism in exon 5 and variant haplotype of the interleukin-1 receptor-associated kinase 1 gene are associated with susceptibility to and severity of sepsis in the Chinese population.

BACKGROUND The interleukin-1 (IL-1) receptor-associated kinase 1 (IRAK1) is believed to play an important role in the pathogenesis of sepsis. Recent studies have suggested that the IRAK1 functional genetic variant could affect the severity of sepsis in Caucasians. In this report, we have investigated whether polymorphisms at the IRAK1 gene are associated with the susceptibility to and severity of sepsis among the Chinese population. METHODS Haplotype-tagging single nucleotide polymorphisms (htSNPs) were selected from the HapMap database. They were genotyped in 255 patients with sepsis and 260 control subjects by PCR/restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis. The association between the selected htSNPs and the susceptibility to and severity of sepsis were estimated by Logistic regression with adjustments for age, sex, smoking, drinking, chronic disease status, Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) II score and primary diseases. RESULTS rs1059702 was selected to represent the six linked htSNPs for IRAK1. Genotype frequencies of the htSNPs were in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium for females, as were allele frequencies for both sex groups. Associations were observed in females between the htSNPs C/C genotype and increased susceptibility to sepsis (odds ratio (OR), 5.46; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.12 - 26.67; P = 0.018), and such associations were also observed between the IRAK1 variant haplotype (CC/C-allele) and increased susceptibility to sepsis (OR, 1.68; 95% CI, 1.05 - 2.70; P = 0.031) when compared with the T/T + T/C genotype and the wild-type haplotype (TC + TT/T-allele). In the multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) subgroup, the variant haplotype was also associated with increased severity of sepsis (OR, 2.37; 95% CI, 1.13 - 4.94; P = 0.02) when compared with the wild haplotype. This association was not significant in male patients. CONCLUSIONS The functional polymorphism in exon 5 and the variant haplotype of IRAK1 gene mediate susceptibility to and severity of sepsis. IRAK1 might be a genetic risk factor for the occurrence and development of sepsis in the Chinese population.
Performance by Middle School Children with and without Asthma on the Pacer

Asthma is a chronic lung disease characterized by airway hyper-reactivity inflammation, and obstruction. Asthma is also a leading cause of school absenteeism, and thus of concern to physical educators and health professionals. The purpose of this study was to assess aerobic performance by children with and without asthma. All participants were tested on the Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Endurance Run (PACER). Of particular interest was children's aerobic performance over an extended time, i.e., 15 months. Participants (Grades 4–8, N = 809) were tested on the PACER three times during the school year with two follow-up tests during the succeeding school year. Among the 809 participants were 103 children with mild-moderate asthma. Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) was applied to analyze the data. Notwithstanding their lower scores at baseline (intercept), children with asthma increased their PACER scores at a rate more than double that of their peers without asthma. Although more than one PACER trial may be needed to accurately determine children's aerobic performance, repeated trials may be especially necessary for children with asthma. It was further concluded that the PACER is an effective tool with which to assess aerobic performance by middle school children with well-managed asthma.
Series-Connected Forward–Flyback Converter for High Step-Up Power Conversion

Recently, small-scale and highly-distributed photovoltaic power sources have been researched for the high generation efficiency even under severe partial shading conditions. However, power conditioning systems for the sources needs high step-up voltage gain due to the low output of the generating sources. This paper presents a newly-suggested high step-up topology employing a Series-connected Forward-FlyBack (SFFB) converter, which has a series-connected output for high boosting voltage-transfer gain. SFFB is a hybrid type of forward and flyback converter, sharing the transformer for increasing the utilization factor. By stacking the outputs of them, extremely high voltage gain can be obtained with small volume and high efficiency even with a galvanic isolation. The separated secondary windings in low turn-ratio reduce the voltage stress of the secondary rectifiers, contributing to achievement of high efficiency. The single-ended scheme is also beneficial to the cost competitiveness. In this paper, the operation principle and design guidelines of the proposed scheme are presented, along with the performance analysis and numerical simulation. Also, a 100 W SFFB DC/DC converter hardware prototype has been implemented for experimental verification of the proposed converter topology.
Smart malware detection on Android

Nowadays, because of its increased popularity, Android is target to a growing number of attacks and malicious applications, with the purpose of stealing private information and consuming credit by subscribing to premium services. Most of the current commercial antivirus solutions use static signatures for malware detection, which may fail to detect different variants of the same malware and zero-day attacks. In this paper, we present a behavior-based, dynamic analysis security solution, called Android Malware Detection System, for detecting both well-known and zero-day malware. The proposed solution uses a machine learning classifier in order to differentiate between the behaviors of legitimate and malicious applications. In addition, it uses the application statistics for determining its reputation. The final decision is based on a combination of the classifier's result and the application reputation. The solution includes a unique and extensive set of data collectors, which gather application-specific data that describe the behavior of the monitored application. We evaluated our solution on a set of legitimate and malicious applications and obtained a high accuracy of 0.985. Our system is able to detect zero-day malware samples that are not detected by current commercial solutions. Our solution outperforms other similar solutions running on mobile devices. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Reversing cocaine-induced synaptic potentiation provides enduring protection from relapse

Cocaine addiction remains without an effective pharmacotherapy and is characterized by an inability of addicts to inhibit relapse to drug use. Vulnerability to relapse arises from an enduring impairment in cognitive control of motivated behavior, manifested in part by dysregulated synaptic potentiation and extracellular glutamate homeostasis in the projection from the prefrontal cortex to the nucleus accumbens. Here we show in rats trained to self-administer cocaine that the enduring cocaine-induced changes in synaptic potentiation and glutamate homeostasis are mechanistically linked through group II metabotropic glutamate receptor signaling. The enduring cocaine-induced changes in measures of cortico-accumbens synaptic and glial transmission were restored to predrug parameters for at least 2 wk after discontinuing chronic treatment with the cystine prodrug, N-acetylcysteine. N-acetylcysteine produced these changes by inducing an enduring restoration of nonsynaptic glutamatergic tone onto metabotropic glutamate receptors. The long-lasting pharmacological restoration of cocaine-induced glutamatergic adaptations by chronic N-acetylcysteine also caused enduring inhibition of cocaine-seeking in an animal model of relapse. These data mechanistically link nonsynaptic glutamate to cocaine-induced adaptations in excitatory transmission and demonstrate a mechanism to chronically restore prefrontal to accumbens transmission and thereby inhibit relapse in an animal model.
Control Mechanisms and Market Knowledge Acquisition: An Empirical Study in China

This research develops a framework for investigating the individual and joint effect of contract and trust on market knowledge acquisition from marketing channel. The data from manufacturer-distributor relationships in China are used to test our hypotheses. The results suggest that, contract is inversed U-shaped impact on knowledge acquisition, while trust can increase knowledge acquisition. And the joint execution of contract and trust will enhance market knowledge acquisition. These findings provide valuable theoretical thinking for manufacturer's execution of selected control mechanisms to promote its knowledge acquisition from its downstream distributors.
Comparison of Two Edible Mushroom Extract as Aquaculture Feed Additive to Enhance Immune Response of Asian Seabass

Limitation of antibiotic practice in aquaculture has created attention to uses of organic immuno-stimulant for growth and survival of juveniles with the development of immune system. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of two edible mushroom extracts, Pleurotus sajor-caju and Schizophyllum commune as feed additive in the diets of Asian seabass (Lates calcarifer) juvenile on serum antibody production. Three experimental diets were formulated with 1% inclusion of P. sajor caju (D1), S. commune (D2) and commercial diet without inclusion of mushroom additive was used as a control (D0). Asian seabass juveniles with average weight of 3±1 g were fed for 30 days. Each juveniles were challenged with 0.1ml bacteria suspension consisted of 108 cfu/ml of Vibrio harveyi. Mortality was observed for 10 days after fishes being challenged. Blood was collected before and on third day of challenged, and serum was used to determine antibody titre. Survival rate of D0, D1 and D2 was 60%, 55% and 80%, respectively. Serum agglutinating antibody titer of D2 significantly showed the highest antibody production followed by D1 and D0. Considering the good performance of S. commune in the present study, this mushroom can be considered as potential feed additive in the diets for enhancing immune response in Asian seabass juveniles challenged with V.harveyi.
Muscle Fiber Characteristics of Competitive Power Lifters

To examine the skeletal muscle characteristics of power lifters, 5 competitive power lifters (PL; X ± SE; age 5 31.0 ± 1.5 years, squat 5 287.7 ± 15.7 kg, bench press 5 170.5 ± 17.7 kg, and deadlift 5 284.2 ± 7.5 kg) and 5 untrained control subjects (CON; age = 27.3 ± 3.3 years) served as subjects. Iso-kinetic squat force and power was greater (p < 0.05) for the PL at all bar velocities (0.20, 0.82, and 1.43 m · s1), as was vertical jump height and estimated power. Muscle biopsies from the vastus lateralis m. revealed significant differences for percent fiber type (PL, IIA 5 45.5 ± 1.6%, IIB 5 1.3 ± 0.8%; CON, IIA 5 33.4 ± 3.1%, IIB 5 12.0 ± 2.4%); percent fiber type area (PL, IIA 5 51.8 ± 1.6%, IIB 5 1.3 ± 0.8%; CON, IIA 5 43.5 ± 3.4%, IIB 5 12.4 ± 2.6%); and percent myosin heavy chain isoform (PL, IIa 5 59.5 ± 6.1%; CON, 46.5 ± 2.5%). Muscle fiber characteristics were significantly correlated (r = 6 0.61) with numerous strength and power measures for the PL. These data illustrate the muscle fiber characteristics necessary for the maximal force production requirements of power lifting.
Demo: Fine-tuned Lighting Control Leveraging Smartphone-based Occupancy Detection

Recently occupancy-based lighting control has shown a great promise towards achieving better energy efficiency. Generally, traditional systems use additional sensors to detect user presence with higher precision to better the control algorithms. In this work, we show how a smartphone-based indoor localization can be utilized for this purpose without deploying additional sensors. Apart from automatic controlling of the lights, our system provides a sophisticated manual control, where each light unit can be controlled by just pointing the phone towards it. Based on our experiments, we show that up to 67% more energy saving is possible using our systems compared to traditional methods.
From Tradition to Evidence: Decolonization of the Evidence-based Practice System

Abstract Culture counts in the prevention and treatment of behavioral ailments. The Native American Health Center (NAHC) has successfully developed a model that incorporates cultural adaptations into EBPs, yet also believes community-defined and practice-based evidence are relevant in the validation of traditional practices. American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) traditional practices are more than complementary forms of healing. They are stand-alone methods, developed and used by tribal people long before the concept of EBPs existed. There is a need for funders to respect these practices as autonomous mental health strategies. The reasons for promoting change are explained through an understanding of key dimensions of AI/AN behavioral health issues. These key dimensions were identified in the 2001 Surgeon General's Report and an extensive literature review of Indigenous research methodologies. Recommendations are made based upon their ability to promote AI/AN empowerment, to support movement toward self-determination using the Indigenous Research Agenda model. This model honors fluid movement of Indigenous people through states of survival, recovery, development and self-determination through four categories for action: decolonization, mobilization, transformation, and healing. The end results are options for holistic approaches to influence policy changes in the EBP system.
Turnover of Information Technology Workers: Examining Empirically the Influence of Attitudes, Job Characteristics, and External Markets

This paper presents and tests a conceptual model linking perceptions of the internal work environment and external markets to information technology (IT) worker turnover. The model focuses on organizational commitment (OC) as the primary predictor of turnover intention. We suggest that OC mediates perceptions of the workplace and external environment on turnover intention. Specifically, we hypothesize that OC mediates the influence of (1) job satisfaction, (2) perceived job characteristics, (3) perceived competitiveness of pay, and (4) perceived job alternatives on turnover intention. Also, perceived job alternatives are modeled as having a direct effect on turnover intention. Analysis provides moderate empirical support for the research model. OC and perceived job alternatives demonstrated distinct effects on turnover intention. In addition, OC mediated the influence of job satisfaction, perceived job characteristics, and perceived competitiveness of pay on turnover intention. Findings suggest that through cultivating positive beliefs about the job and attitudes toward the employer, managers may counter the influence of external markets on IT workers' turnover intention.
Architectures adaptatives basse consommation pour les communications sans-fil

Ces travaux de these s'inscrivent dans la thematique des objets connectes, desormais connue sous le nom de Internet of Things (IoT). Elle trouve son origine dans la democratisation d'Internet depuis le debut des annees 2000 et la migration vers des appareils hautement mobiles, rendue possible grâce a la miniaturisation des systemes embarques. Dans ce contexte, l'efficacite energetique est primordiale puisque les projections actuelles parlent de dizaines de milliards de composants connectes a l'horizon 2020. Or pour une question de facilite de deploiement et d'usage, une grande partie des echanges de donnees dans ces reseaux s'effectue via une liaison sans-fil dont l'implementation represente une part importante de la consommation. Effectivement, la question de l'efficacite energetique est en general consideree comme un probleme de perfectionnement des architectures materielles, souvent associe a une evolution favorable de la technologie. Toutefois, ce paradigme atteint rapidement ses limites puisqu'il implique necessairement un dimensionnement fortement contraint pour etre compatible avec les pires conditions d'utilisation, meme si elles ne sont pas effectives la plupart du temps. C'est typiquement le cas avec les communications sans-fil puisque le canal radio est un milieu caracterise par une forte variabilite en raison des phenomenes de propagation et de la presence d'interferences. Notre etude a donc porte sur la conception d'une chaine de transmission dont le budget de liaison peut etre dynamiquement modifie en fonction de l'attenuation reelle du signal, afin de reduire la consommation du systeme. La these a notamment contribue a la mise au point d'un recepteur auto-adaptatif specifique a la norme IEEE 802.15. 4, en proposant a la fois une architecture de modem numerique reconfigurable et a la fois une methode de controle automatique du point de fonctionnement. Plus precisement, le travail s'est appuye sur deux approches, l'echantillonnage compressif et l'echantillonnage partiel, pour reduire la taille des donnees a traiter, diminuant ainsi l'activite interne des operateurs arithmetiques. En contrepartie, le processus de demodulation necessite un SNR superieur, degradant la sensibilite du recepteur et donc le budget de liaison. Cette solution, portee sur une technologie STMicroelectronics CMOS 65 nm LP, offre une faible empreinte materielle vis-a-vis d'une architecture classique avec seulement 23,4 kcellules. Grâce au modele physique du circuit qui a ete developpe, la consommation pour la demodulation d'un paquet est estimee a 278 uW lorsque le modem est integralement utilise. Elle peut toutefois etre abaissee progressivement jusqu'a 119 uW, correspondant a une baisse de la sensibilite de 10 dB. Ainsi, le modem implemente et sa boucle de controle permettent d'economiser en moyenne 30 % d'energie dans un cas d'utilisation typique.
Enantioselective Epoxidation and Carbon–Carbon Bond Cleavage Catalyzed by Coprinus cinereus Peroxidase and Myeloperoxidase*

We demonstrate that myeloperoxidase (MPO) andCoprinus cinereus peroxidase (CiP) catalyze the enantioselective epoxidation of styrene and a number of substituted derivatives with a reasonable enantiomeric excess (up to 80%) and in a moderate yield. Three major differences with respect to the chloroperoxidase from Caldariomyces fumago (CPO) are observed in the reactivity of MPO and CiP toward styrene derivatives. First, in contrast to CPO, MPO and CiP produced the (S)-isomers of the epoxides in enantiomeric excess. Second, for MPO and CiP the H2O2 had to be added very slowly (10 eq in 16 h) to prevent accumulation of catalytically inactive enzyme intermediates. Under these conditions, CPO hardly showed any epoxidizing activity; only with a high influx of H2O2 (300 eq in 1.6 h) was epoxidation observed. Third, both MPO and CiP formed significant amounts of (substituted) benzaldehydes as side products as a consequence of C-α–C-β bond cleavage of the styrene derivatives, whereas for CPO and cytochrome c peroxidase this activity is not observed. C-α–C-β cleavage was the most prominent reaction catalyzed by CiP, whereas with MPO the relative amount of epoxide formed was higher. This is the first report of peroxidases catalyzing both epoxidation reactions and carbon-carbon bond cleavage. The results are discussed in terms of mechanisms involving ferryl oxygen transfer and electron transfer, respectively.