Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Metabolic Syndrome and Insulin Resistance in Obese Prepubertal Children in Lebanon: A Primary Health Concern

Background/Aims: Ethnic-based associations between obesity and the metabolic syndrome (MS) have been suggested. The prevalence of MS in obese children was found to range between 13.9 and 48.8%, depending on the country of origin. This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between obesity and various components of MS in prepubertal children in Lebanon. Methods: Eighty-seven obese children (Tanner stage 1), 25 overweight and 28 normal-weight controls were recruited from private and public schools. Anthropometric, biochemical and blood pressure measurements were performed. Results: According to the modified Adult Treatment Panel III definition, the MS was identified in 26.4 and 4% of obese and overweight children, respectively, with a higher prevalence among girls than boys. The most common abnormalities among subjects with MS were elevated waist circumference (WC) (100.0%), high triglyceride (91.7%) and low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (66.7%) levels. Insulin resistance was identified in 70% of obese children and 75% of those having the MS. Body mass index, WC and homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance were significant determinants of the MS in this age group. Conclusion: MS was found in 26.4% of obese Lebanese children, thus underscoring the importance of early screening of obesity and its associated metabolic abnormalities and of developing successful multicomponent interventions addressing pediatric obesity and MS.
Emerging tyrosine kinase inhibitors for the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer

ABSTRACT Introduction: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a leading cause of cancer death worldwide. Over the last decade, the addition of antibodies that block the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) or angiogenesis to the classic chemotherapy backbone has improved overall survival in metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC). However, the role of the other major targeted therapy, the tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), is not yet fully clarified. Areas covered: This review discusses key published and ongoing studies with TKIs in mCRC, the mechanisms of resistance to standard treatments that are potentially targetable with these small molecules, along with the role of biomarkers in therapeutic decision-making process. Expert opinion: The current effectiveness of TKIs is limited by two principal reasons, firstly the use of combination chemotherapy necessitates lower dose-density to manage the toxicity profile and secondly, development of these drugs has mainly been performed in molecularly unselected populations. mCRC is a heterogeneous and dynamic disease, and clinical trials with TKIs must be designed on the basis of specific molecular alterations targeted by these drugs. Success with this approach relies on identifying mutations at the time of progression, raising the importance of minimally-invasive monitoring tools. Liquid biopsies are a promising option, although this technique remains to be validated. Overall, this approach contributes to the move towards personalized and precision therapeutic strategies.
Peer mentoring: a culturally sensitive approach to end-of-life planning for long-term dialysis patients.

BACKGROUND This study is designed to explore the impact of peer mentoring on end-of-life decision making. METHODS A controlled randomized intervention study with 203 patients from 21 dialysis centers across Michigan explored the impact of peer mentors, dialysis patients trained to help other patients, on end-of-life planning. RESULTS Communicating information on advance directives (ADs) through peer mentoring significantly influenced the completion of ADs overall compared with distributing standard printed material or no specific designed intervention. However, the influence was most prominent among African Americans, not only increasing actual completion of ADs (P < 0.001) and comfort discussing ADs (P < 0.01), but also improving subjective well-being (P < 0.05) and anxiety (P < 0.05) during the study period. These effects of peer mentoring did not appear among white patients, although printed material on ADs decreased reported suicidal ideation (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION These results suggest the importance of addressing specific cultural factors in the process of AD education. Common practice assumes that printed materials are effective in educating patients about health care and decision making. However, peer mentoring, a relationship-centered person-to-person approach, may be more effective in some cultural groups because it partakes of oral, rather than written, traditions. Acknowledging cultural differences and tailoring our approach could be powerful in enhancing trust and participation and decreasing potential disparities in health care outcomes.
Community and functional shifts in ammonia oxidizers across terrestrial and marine (soil/sediment) boundaries in two coastal Bay ecosystems

Terrestrial-marine boundaries are significant sites of biogeochemical activity with delineated gradients from land to sea. While niche differentiation of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) and bacteria (AOB) driven by pH and nitrogen is well known, the patterns and environmental drivers of AOA and AOB community structure and activity across soil-sediment boundaries have not yet been determined. In this study, nitrification potential rate, community composition and transcriptional activity of AOA and AOB in soil, soil/sediment interface and sediments of two coastal Bays were characterized using a combination of field investigations and microcosm incubations. At DNA level, amoA gene abundances of AOA were significantly greater than AOB in soil, while in sediments AOB were significantly more abundant than AOA, but at the soil/sediment interface there were equal numbers of AOA and AOB amoA genes. Microcosm incubations provided further evidence, through qPCR and DGGE-sequencing analysis of amoA transcripts, that AOA were active in soil, AOB in sediment and both AOA and AOB were active at the soil/sediment interface. The AOA and AOB community composition shifted across the coastal soil-interface-sediment gradient with salinity and pH identified as major environmental drivers.
Maladaptive Schemas as Mediators in the Relationship Between Child Sexual Abuse and Displaced Aggression

ABSTRACT Child sexual abuse is one of the most serious forms of abuse due to the psychological consequences that persist even into adulthood. Expressions of anger among child sexual abuse survivors remain common even years after the event. While child sexual abuse has been extensively studied, the expression of displaced aggression has been studied less. Some factors, such as the maladaptive early schemas, might account for this deficiency. The objective of this study was to analyze the relationships between child sexual abuse, displaced aggression, and these schemas according to gender and determine if these early schemas mediate the relationship between child sexual abuse and displaced aggression. A total of 168 Spanish subjects who were victims of child sexual abuse completed measures of childhood trauma, displaced aggression, and early maladaptive schemas. The results depict the relationship between child sexual abuse, displaced aggression, and early maladaptive schemas. Women scored higher than men in child sexual abuse, emotional abuse, disconnection or rejection and impaired autonomy. Mediational analysis found a significant mediation effect of disconnection or rejection on the relationship between child sexual abuse and displaced aggression; however, impaired autonomy did not mediate significantly.
On the Recovery of [3H]Noradrenaline from Different Metabolic Compartments of Rat Brain with Respect to the Role of Catechol‐O‐Methyltransferase

Abstract: Rats were treated with reserpine, desmethylimipramine, or carrier, either alone or in combination with tropolone. Either 10 min (t1) or 1 h (t2) after intraventricular injection of [3H]noradrenaline, they were decapitated. The total 3H activity and the recovery of [3H]noradrenaline were determined in tissue extracts from various brain regions. Maximum total 3H activity was measured at t1 in all tropolone‐treated rats; the mean sum of these results served as an estimate of the initial tissue concentration of [3H]noradrenaline. At t1, 40–50% of the sum of [3H]noradrenaline and its metabolites was recovered unchanged in normal rats; reserpine and DMI reduced the recovery to 18–27%. In all groups, the decline of [3H]noradrenaline was retarded after t1. Inhibition of catechol‐O‐methyltransferase by tropolone caused consistently elevated [3H]noradrenaline levels, but did not affect the metabolic rate after t1 when compared with similarly pretreated, but tropolone‐free rats. Thus, if catechol‐O‐methyltransferase was inhibited during the injection of [3H]noradrenaline, a higher percentage of the amine had been taken up into spaces with a slow noradrenaline turnover. The maximum increase was seen when the neuronal uptake, was inhibited by desmethylimipramine. This supported the hypothesis that an additional extraneuronal space exists, in addition to the known intraneuronal and extraneuronal compartments, which has a slow noradrenaline turnover. The tropolone effect on the noradrenaline recovery possibly shows that there might be a saturable “methylating system,” similar to that described for the periphery, in which catechol‐O‐methyltransferase is linked to the extraneuronal uptake2. By affecting the access of noradrenaline to non‐neuronal cells it might influence the rate of noradrenaline elimination from the intercellular space.
Generating Antithetic Random Variates in Simulation of a Replacement Process by Rejection Method

Analysis of a replacement process provides the needed insight into prediction of the replacement requirements of a system. Accurate prediction of such requirements can lead to cost savings as well as improved system performance. When the component lives are not exponentially distributed, simulation becomes a potentially suitable method of analysis. This paper deals with Gamma distributed component lives whose deviates are generated through the so-called Rejection Method. It will be shown that antithetic random deviates can be generated through the rejection method to estimate the renewal function in a single component replacement process. A theorem proved by George is modified and extended to the case at hand. Finally, an algorithm is developed, and along with the experimental results, will be presented. A replacement process is chosen as an example through which to verify the merits of the proposed algorithm.
Accuracy evaluation of ALOS DEM with airborne LiDAR data in Southern Taiwan

Recently, some global-scale DEM products, such as GTOPO30, ETOPO1, SRTM and ASTER GDEM have been published for geoscience applications. The latest product, ALOS DEM was announced to be available for a global coverage in 2016. This study examined the performance of ALOS-DEM in describing accurate morphometric and volumetric measurement of land features. A comparison was made on basis of DEM and DSM data of airborne full-waveform LiDAR data. Results showed that ALOS DEM is more approximately in reality an ALOS DSM which reveals the ground envelop surface rather than the ground bare surface. The differences between ALOS DEM and LiDAR DSM are mainly from 0 to 2.75 m with a standard deviation of 1.58 m. The differences between ALOS DEM and LiDAR DEM give a bias of as large as 20m, mostly located at the areas with abrupt change of relief and mainly in the north-facing slopes. This is probably due to ALOS sensor's geometry in corresponding to its looking-direction. The stream networks derived from both ALOS DEM and LiDAR DEM are in good agreement. It is suggested that further studies on methods for assessing geomorphometric changes in landform structures should be developed and compared.
Why and when should you pool? Analyzing Pooling in Recurrent Architectures

Pooling-based recurrent neural architectures consistently outperform their counterparts without pooling on sequence classification tasks. However, the reasons for their enhanced performance are largely unexamined. In this work, we examine three commonly used pooling techniques (mean-pooling, max-pooling, and attention, and propose *max-attention*, a novel variant that captures interactions among predictive tokens in a sentence. Using novel experiments, we demonstrate that pooling architectures substantially differ from their non-pooling equivalents in their learning ability and positional biases: (i) pooling facilitates better gradient flow than BiLSTMs in initial training epochs, and (ii) BiLSTMs are biased towards tokens at the beginning and end of the input, whereas pooling alleviates this bias. Consequently, we find that pooling yields large gains in low resource scenarios, and instances when salient words lie towards the middle of the input. Across several text classification tasks, we find max-attention to frequently outperform other pooling techniques.
Update on Multiple Ovulations in Dairy Cattle

Simple Summary Multiple ovulations (MOV) in cattle can lead to twin pregnancies, which negatively affects the health, production, and reproduction of cows. Despite many studies, the causal mechanisms behind MOV are still not well understood. There is a general agreement that MOV are more likely during periods of low progesterone (P4), which may increase the luteinizing hormone (LH) release at the time of selection, resulting in more than one follicle becoming dominant. The MOV rate also increases in older cows and when the selection of a dominant follicle occurs concurrently with a high milk yield. Additional risk factors for MOV are ovarian cysts, diet, season, and genetics. A better understanding of the mechanisms underlying MOV may help to mitigate twinning, perhaps through the appropriate reproductive management protocols or genetic selection. Abstract This review updates the causal mechanisms and risk factors for multiple ovulations (MOV) in cattle. Clearly, MOV can lead to twin pregnancies, which negatively affects the health, production, and reproduction of cows. Therefore, a better understanding of the factors causing MOV may help to reduce twinning. Multiple ovulations occur after two or more follicles deviate and achieve codominance. The MOV rate is influenced by a complex network of hormones. For example, MOV is more common during periods of low progesterone (P4), that is, in anovulatory cattle or when luteolysis coincides with the selection of the future ovulatory follicle. There is also strong evidence for the luteinizing hormone (LH) being the primary factor leading to codominance, as high P4 concentrations suppress the transient LH surges and can reduce the ovulation rate in cattle or even inhibit deviation. Rates of MOV are increased in older and higher-producing dairy cows. Increased milk production and dry matter intake (DMI) increases hormone clearance, including P4; however, the association between milk yield and MOV has not been consistent. Additional risk factors for MOV include ovarian cysts, diet, season, and genetics.
Loss of Smooth Muscle &agr;-Actin Leads to NF-&kgr;B–Dependent Increased Sensitivity to Angiotensin II in Smooth Muscle Cells and Aortic Enlargement

Rationale: Mutations in ACTA2, encoding the smooth muscle isoform of &agr;-actin, cause thoracic aortic aneurysms, acute aortic dissections, and occlusive vascular diseases. Objective: We sought to identify the mechanism by which loss of smooth muscle &agr;-actin causes aortic disease. Methods and Results: Acta2−/− mice have an increased number of elastic lamellae in the ascending aorta and progressive aortic root dilation as assessed by echocardiography that can be attenuated by treatment with losartan, an angiotensin II (AngII) type 1 receptor blocker. AngII levels are not increased in Acta2−/− aortas or kidneys. Aortic tissue and explanted smooth muscle cells from Acta2−/− aortas show increased production of reactive oxygen species and increased basal nuclear factor &kgr;B signaling, leading to an increase in the expression of the AngII receptor type I a and activation of signaling at 100-fold lower levels of AngII in the mutant compared with wild-type cells. Furthermore, disruption of smooth muscle &agr;-actin filaments in wild-type smooth muscle cells by various mechanisms activates nuclear factor &kgr;B signaling and increases expression of AngII receptor type I a. Conclusions: These findings reveal that disruption of smooth muscle &agr;-actin filaments in smooth muscle cells increases reactive oxygen species levels, activates nuclear factor &kgr;B signaling, and increases AngII receptor type I a expression, thus potentiating AngII signaling in vascular smooth muscle cells without an increase in the exogenous levels of AngII.
Mutual Coupling Reduction of MIMO Antenna for Satellite Services and Radio Altimeter Applications

Ground irregularities also known as defected ground structures (DGS) is a freshly presented innovatory way in designing of patch antennas to boost up the performance of antenna constraints. This study presents a novel proposal of ground irregularities or defected ground structure is proposed for suppression of mutual coupling effects among 2x1 multiple input multiple output patch array designed on Roggers Duroid 5880. The two adjacent M shape structures surrounding Dumbbell Shaped structure and sandwiched between Dumbbell shape patterns showed the significant level of surface wave suppression up to -42dB while maintaining the gain of 4.7dB and 5.6dBi of directivity. The patch array operates at 4 to 4.3GHz for Fixed and Radio satellite services (FSS) and (RSS) and radio altimeter application systems.
Ceramide Remodeling and Risk of Cardiovascular Events and Mortality

Background Recent studies suggest that circulating concentrations of specific ceramide species may be associated with coronary risk and mortality. We sought to determine the relations between the most abundant plasma ceramide species of differing acyl chain lengths and the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) and mortality in community‐based samples. Methods and Results We developed a liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry assay to quantify plasma C24:0, C22:0, and C16:0 ceramides and ratios of these very–long‐chain/long‐chain ceramides in 2642 FHS (Framingham Heart Study) participants and in 3134 SHIP (Study of Health in Pomerania) participants. Over a mean follow‐up of 6 years in FHS, there were 88 CHD and 90 heart failure (HF) events and 239 deaths. Over a median follow‐up time in SHIP of 5.75 years for CHD and HF and 8.24 years for mortality, there were 209 CHD and 146 HF events and 377 deaths. In meta‐analysis of the 2 cohorts and adjusting for standard CHD risk factors, C24:0/C16:0 ceramide ratios were inversely associated with incident CHD (hazard ratio per average SD increment, 0.79; 95% confidence interval, 0.71–0.89; P<0.0001) and inversely associated with incident HF (hazard ratio, 0.78; 95% confidence interval, 0.61–1.00; P=0.046). Moreover, the C24:0/C16:0 and C22:0/C16:0 ceramide ratios were inversely associated with all‐cause mortality (C24:0/C16:0: hazard ratio, 0.60; 95% confidence interval, 0.56–0.65; P<0.0001; C22:0/C16:0: hazard ratio, 0.65; 95% confidence interval, 0.60–0.70; P<0.0001). Conclusions The ratio of C24:0/C16:0 ceramides in blood may be a valuable new biomarker of CHD risk, HF risk, and all‐cause mortality in the community.
Surface versus intramuscular electrodes for electromyography of superficial and deep muscles.

The relative selectivity of surface electrodes placed over the gastrocnemius and soleus muscles in the standard manner was determined by comparing the electromyogram from these electrodes to the electromyogram from wire electrodes inserted into the soleus, gastrocnemius, and tibialis posterior muscles. Muscle activity was elicited in 11 normal subjects by performing six manual muscle tests. Three of the tests followed the standard technique and three were modifications designed to provide better differentiation of muscle action. All electromyographic data were quantified by computer integration and normalized to cancel out sampling inconsistency. None of the muscle tests totally restricted activity to the designated muscle, but the tests did determine which was the strongest participant. During the standard specific gastrocnemius and soleus muscle tests, the corresponding surface electrode provided a lower electromyogram than did the matching wire electrode; that is, the surface-to-wire-electrode ratio was less than one (gastrocnemius = 0.74, soleus = 0.58). This ratio was greater than one when the electromyogram was being recorded from one muscle while testing another muscle (gastrocnemius = 1.55, soleus = 1.92). The mathematical model relating surface-electrode values to the wire-electrode data from all three muscles identified 60 percent of the surface gastrocnemius electrode electromyogram as arising from that muscle, while only 36 percent of the soleus surface electrode data related to the activity of the soleus: Sg = . 19Ws + 60Wg + . 13Wt + . 08Wo and Ss = . 36Ws + . 31Wg + . 22Wt + . 11Wo.
Contemporary nutritional transition: determinants of diet and its impact on body composition

The world has experienced a marked shift in the global BMI distribution towards reduced undernutrition and increased obesity. The collision between human biology, shaped over the millennia and modern technology, globalization, government policies and food industry practices have worked to create far-reaching energy imbalance across the globe. A prime example is the clash between our drinking habits and our biology. The shift from water and breast milk as the only beverages available, to a vast array of caloric beverages was very rapid, shaped both by our tastes and aggressive marketing of the beverage industry. Our biology, shaped over millennia by daily consumption of water and seasonal availability of food, was not ready to compensate for the liquid energies. Other dietary changes were similarly significant, particularly the shift towards increased frequency of eating and larger portions. The roles of the food and beverage production, distribution and marketing sectors in not only shaping our diet but also accelerating these changes must be understood. Apart from the role of beverages, there is much less consensus about the role of various components of our diet in energy imbalance. Understanding the determinants of change in the key components of our diet through an array of research provides insights into some of the options we face in attempting to attain a great balance between energy intake and expenditures while creating an overall healthier dietary pattern. A few countries are systematically addressing the causes of poor dietary and physical activity patterns and high energy imbalance.
Compositional Representation of Morphologically-Rich Input for Neural Machine Translation

Neural machine translation (NMT) models are typically trained with fixed-size input and output vocabularies, which creates an important bottleneck on their accuracy and generalization capability. As a solution, various studies proposed segmenting words into sub-word units and performing translation at the sub-lexical level. However, statistical word segmentation methods have recently shown to be prone to morphological errors, which can lead to inaccurate translations. In this paper, we propose to overcome this problem by replacing the source-language embedding layer of NMT with a bi-directional recurrent neural network that generates compositional representations of the input at any desired level of granularity. We test our approach in a low-resource setting with five languages from different morphological typologies, and under different composition assumptions. By training NMT to compose word representations from character n-grams, our approach consistently outperforms (from 1.71 to 2.48 BLEU points) NMT learning embeddings of statistically generated sub-word units.