Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mental ability age 11 years and health status age 77 years.

OBJECTIVES to measure the effects of childhood mental ability on health in old age. DESIGN longitudinal cohort study. SETTING community-based. PARTICIPANTS survivors of the 1932 Scottish Mental Survey cohort randomly selected from the Community Health Index in North East Scotland. MEASUREMENTS (i) presence of disease by diagnostic category; (ii) cardiovascular, respiratory, anthropomorphic, sensory and locomotor physiological variables; (iii) Barthel index of functional independence; (iv) socio-demographic and socio-economic variables as health status predictors; and (v) score on the Moray House Test in 1932. RESULTS There was no significant difference in Moray House Test score in 1932 between those with (mean 39.7, S.D. 13.8) and without (mean 40.1, S.D. 12.1) current disease (F = 0.04, P = 0.84). Physiological health status was predicted by demi-span (F = 6.87, P< 0.001), sex (F = 3.69, P = 0.001), deprivation category (F = 1.45, P = 0.05) and the interaction between sex and deprivation category (F = 2.01, P = 0.002). Moray House Test score in 1932 correlated significantly and positively with Barthel score (r = 0.24, P < 0.001). No additional general linear models added any other significant socio-economic variable once Moray House Test Score in 1932 was entered. Moray House Test score in 1932 remained significant (beta = 0.16, P = 0.024) after Mini Mental State Examination score was entered and found to be significant (beta = 0.21, P = 0.003). CONCLUSION socio-economic and socio-environmental factors are important determinants of some aspects of inequalities in health in old age in this cohort. Pre-morbid mental ability was an important independent predictor of late-life functional independence.
Synthesizing Audio for Hindi WordNet

In this paper, we describe our work on the creation of a voice model using a speech synthesis system for the Hindi Language. We use pre-existing “voices”, use publicly available speech corpora to create a “voice” using the Festival Speech Synthesis System (Black, 1997). Our contribution is two-fold: (1) We scrutinize multiple speech synthesis systems and provide an extensive report on the currently available state-of-the-art systems. We also develop voices using the existing implementations of the aforementioned systems, and (2) We use these voices to generate sample audios for randomly chosen words; manually evaluate the audio generated, and produce audio for all WordNet words using the winner voice model. We also produce audios for the Hindi WordNet Glosses and Example sentences. We describe our efforts to use pre-existing implementations for WaveNet - a model to generate raw audio using neural nets (Oord et al., 2016) and generate speech for Hindi. Our lexicographers perform a manual evaluation of the audio generated using multiple voices. A qualitative and quantitative analysis reveals that the voice model generated by us performs the best with an accuracy of 0.44.
Context Inspired Pedestrian Detection in Far-Field Videos

A novel pedestrian detection method that integrates context information with slide window search is proposed. The method applies notions such as corner, motion, and appearance to localize pedestrians in far-field videos without performing brute-force-search. The corners direct attention to a set of conspicuous locations as the starting points for searching. And motion detection restricts the searching area within the foreground mask. Based on the above two, slide window search is applied to confirm the exact locations of pedestrians. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed method is efficient in detecting pedestrians in far-field videos.
Distinct Signaling Pathways from the Circadian Clock Participate in Regulation of Rhythmic Conidiospore Development in Neurospora crassa

ABSTRACT Several different environmental signals can induce asexual spore development (conidiation) and expression of developmentally regulated genes in Neurospora crassa. However, under constant conditions, where no environmental cues for conidiation are present, the endogenous circadian clock in N. crassa promotes daily rhythms in expression of known developmental genes and of conidiation. We anticipated that the same pathway of gene regulation would be followed during clock-controlled conidiation and environmental induction of conidiation and that the circadian clock would need only to control the initial developmental switch. Previous experiments showed that high-level developmental induction of the clock-controlled genes eas (ccg-2) and ccg-1 requires the developmental regulatory proteins FL and ACON-2, respectively, and normal developmental induction of fl mRNA expression requires ACON-2. We demonstrate that the circadian clock regulates rhythmic fl gene expression and that fl rhythmicity requires ACON-2. However, we find that clock regulation of eas (ccg-2) is normal in an fl mutant strain and ccg-1 expression is rhythmic in an acon-2 mutant strain. Together, these data point to the endogenous clock and the environment following separate pathways to regulate conidiation-specific gene expression.
Geriatric Depression Scale Items and Mortality in Italian Elderly Persons Living at Home

between GDS score and 60-month mortality were observed, indicating a dose-dependent association between depressive symptoms and mortality. Even if data are not available on classes of drugs prescribed, adherence to treatment, and follow-up adherence, the present study confirms that depression increases mortality risk regardless of multiple covariates and shows that its management may reverse the negative burden of depression on survival.
Parallel architectures to improve a GA based real-time system for trading the stock market

La investigacion y el desarrollo de sistemas de trading son cada vez mas frecuentes ya que pueden alcanzar un alto potencial en la prediccion de los movimientos bursatiles. El uso de estos sistemas permite manejar una enorme cantidad de datos relacionados con factores que afectan directamente al rendimiento de las inversiones (variables macroeconomicas, informacion de las companias, indicadores industriales, variables de mercado, etc.), ademas evita las reacciones psicologicas asociadas a la inversion en los mercados nancieros. Los movimientos de los mercados bursatiles son continuos a lo largo de cada dia, lo que reclama que los sistemas de trading deban ser apoyados por motores de analisis muy potentes, ya que la cantidad de datos necesarios para hacer frente a unas buenas predicciones crece, mientras que el tiempo de respuesta se acorta. Numerosos estudios documentan el uso de algoritmos geneticos (AG) como eje principal de los sistemas de trading. Los resultados experimentales proporcionados en este documento muestran diferentes formas de combinar el uso de AG y sistemas de paralelizacion. La paralelizacion mediantes las tecnicas propuestas proporcionan una cuantiosa aceleracion en la potencia y la capacidad de busqueda de los AG para este tipo de aplicaciones nancieras. Por otra parte, el analisis previo a la paralelizacion nos permite implementar mejoras para las anteriores aproximaciones de AG. Respecto a los resultados de inversion, se pueden demostrar un 870% de ganancias para el S&P 500 en un plazo de 10 anos (1996-2006), cuando la ganancia media del indice S&P 500 en el mismo periodo fue de 273%. [ABSTRACT] Research and development of trading systems are becoming more frequent as they can reach a high potential in the prediction of market movements. The use of these systems allows to manage a huge amount of data related to the factors affecting investments performance (macroeconomic variables, company information, industrial indicators, market variables, etc.) while avoids the psychological reactions of traders when they invest in financial markets. The movements in the stock markets are continuous throughout each day, which requires that trading systems should be supported by very powerful engines, since the amount of data to deal with grows while the respond time required to support trades gets shorter. Numerous studies document the use of genetic algorithms (GA) as the engine driving mechanical trading systems. The experimental results provided in this paper show different ways of combining the use of AG and parallelization systems. Parallelization using the proposed techniques provide a substantial acceleration in the power and capacity of the GA search for this type of nancial applications. Moreover, a previous analysis of the paralellization allows us to implement improvements to the previous approaches AG. With regard to investment results, we demonstrate a 870% of earnings for the S&P 500 over a period of 10 years (1996-2006), when the average gain in the S&P 500 over the same period was 273%.
Food Intake Patterns and Body Mass Index in Older Adults: A Review of the Epidemiological Evidence

The relationship between food intake patterns and obesity remains unclear. The objective of the present review was to evaluate the current body of literature on food intake patterns of older adults and their associations with weight status, including obesity and waist circumference. Eleven observational studies were identified and reviewed. Diets characterized by more favorable dietary scores or indices were generally inversely related to body mass index. Results from data-driven approaches were inconsistent. Findings from this literature review suggest that there is no clear relationship between food intake patterns and body mass index or waist circumference in older adults. Limitations, including heterogeneity of food intake patterns and study populations, hinder the ability to make clear comparisons. Continued efforts to elucidate the relationship between food intake patterns and weight status indicators in older adults, including longitudinal analyses and use of novel statistical approaches for food intake pattern identification, are warranted.
Genetic drift and within-host metapopulation dynamics of HIV-1 infection

Most HIV replication occurs in solid lymphoid tissue, which has prominent architecture at the histological level, which separates groups of productively infected CD4+ cells. Nevertheless, current population models of HIV assume panmixis within lymphoid tissue. We present a simple “metapopulation” model of HIV replication, where the population of infected cells is comprised of a large number of small populations, each of which is established by a few founder viruses and undergoes turnover. To test this model, we analyzed viral genetic variation of infected cell subpopulations within the spleen and demonstrated the action of founder effects as well as significant variation in the extent of genetic differentiation between subpopulations among patients. The combination of founder effects and subpopulation turnover can result in an effective population size much lower than the actual population size and may contribute to the importance of genetic drift in HIV evolution despite a large number of infected cells.
Can Early Patient-reported Outcomes Be Used to Identify Patients at Risk for Poor 1-Year Health Outcomes After Lumbar Laminectomy With Arthrodesis?

Study Design. Prospective cohort. Objective. Determine A) between-patient variability in patient-reported outcomes (PROs) at four postoperative time points; B) within-patient correlation of 1-year PROs with PROs at three earlier time points; and C) ability of early PROs to predict 1-year PROs after lumbar laminectomy with arthrodesis. Summary of Background Data. It is unclear whether early PROs can help identify patients at risk for poor health outcomes. Methods. Between 2015 and 2016, we assessed pre- and postoperative back pain, leg pain, disability, physical health, and mental health in 146 patients. We examined PRO variability between patients and correlations within patients during the first postoperative year. For early (⩽3-mo) and 1-year PROs, we examined concordance between experiencing a minimal important difference (MID) early and at 1 year and odds of experiencing a 1-year MID given early absence of a MID. Results. Postoperatively, we found increasing between-patient variability of PROs. For individual patients, we found moderate to strong between-assessment correlations (intraclass correlations) between repeated PROs (back pain, 0.47; leg pain, 0.51; disability, 0.47; physical health, 0.63; mental health, 0.53). Early MIDs were experienced for back pain (57%), leg pain (52%), physical health (38%), disability (34%), and mental health (16%). Concordance was moderate for leg pain (0.48), mental health (0.46), disability (0.38), back pain (0.36), and physical health (0.25). In patients without an early MID, odds of experiencing a MID at 1 year were low for physical health (odds ratio [OR] = 0.33), back pain (OR = 0.30), leg pain (OR = 0.14), and disability (OR = 0.11) but not mental health (OR = 0.50). Conclusion. Although postoperative recovery is variable, early PROs can identify patients at risk for poor 1-year outcomes and may help tailor care during the first year after lumbar laminectomy with arthrodesis. Level of Evidence: 2
Investigation of odometry method of pipe line shape by peristaltic crawling robot combined with inner sensor

In recent years, road collapse accidents due to leakage of aging sewage pipes have become a major social problem. To prevent accidents, the inside of the sewage pipe must be inspected. However, it is difficult to inspect long-distance pipes with diameters of 100 mm or less and curved pipes. Therefore, in this research, we develop an inspection system that uses earthworm movement which can drive steadily over long distances even in narrow spaces. This research involves traveling experiments on straight horizontal pipes, straight vertical pipes, and 90° pipes, and the usefulness of the proposed approach is confirmed. In this report, we present the device to estimate the shape of sewer pipelines and confirm its usefulness by experiment.
Low-Cost Error Tolerance Scheme for 3-D CMOS Imagers

This paper presents an error tolerance scheme for 3-D CMOS imagers that are constructed by stacking a pixel array of imager sensors, an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) array, and an image signal processor (ISP) array using microbumps (μbumps) and through silicon vias (TSVs). To deliver high-quality images in the presence of single or multiple μbump, ADC, or TSV failures, we propose to interleave the connections from pixels to ADCs and recover the corrupted data in the ISPs. Key design parameters, such as the interleaving stride and the grouping ratio are determined by analyzing the employed error correction algorithm. Architectural simulation results demonstrate that the error tolerance scheme enhances the effective yield of an exemplar 3-D imager from 44% to 97%.
Investigating exchange and multicomponent relaxation in fully‐balanced steady‐state free precession imaging

To investigate the effect of chemical exchange and multicomponent relaxation on the rapid T2 mapping method, DESPOT2 (driven equilibrium single pulse observation of T2) and the steady‐state free precession (SSFP) sequence upon which it is based. Although capable of rapid T2 determination, an assumption implicit of the method is single‐component relaxation. In many biological tissues (such as white and gray matter), it is well established that the T2 decay curve is more accurately described by the summation of more than one relaxation species.
Prevalence of hepatitis C virus antibody in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a disease of unknown aetiology characterised by impaired immune regulation and production of polyclonal autoantibodies. It is reported in the medical literature that in patients with chronic hepatitis resulting from hepatitis C virus (HCV) more autoantibodies such as antinuclear antibodies, anti-ds DNA, antiphospholipid antibody, antithyroglobulin antibody, rheumatoid factor, cryoglobulinaemia, and anti-GOR (an HCV induced, host derived epitope) are seen than in patients with other causes of hepatitis virus.1-3 There have also been reports on HCV associated with several immunological …
Effect of Body Position, Exercise, and Sedation on Estimation of Pulmonary Artery Pressure in Dogs with Degenerative Atrioventricular Valve Disease

Background Severity of pulmonary hypertension (PH) in dogs is related to clinical signs and prognosis. Hypothesis/Objectives We hypothesized that Doppler echocardiographic (DE) indices of pulmonary artery pressure (PAP) and pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) are influenced by independent factors that create clinically important variability of DE‐based estimates of PH in dogs. Animals Thirty‐eight client owned dogs with naturally acquired degenerative atrioventricular valve disease and tricuspid regurgitation (TR). Methods Dogs were prospectively enrolled, and target variables were acquired during 4 echocardiographic study periods (lateral recumbency, standing, lateral recumbency after a 6‐minute walk test [6MWT], and lateral recumbency after sedation with butorphanol 0.25 mg/kg IM). Statistical methods included repeated measures ANOVA, mixed model analysis, and Chi‐squared test of association. Results There was a significant increase in peak TR flow velocity (TRFV; P < 0.01) after sedation in 78% of dogs, with TRFV increasing by >0.4 m/s in 42% of dogs, independent of stroke volume. A significant effect of study period on DE‐estimated PVR was not found (P = 0.15). There were negligible effects of sonographer, body position, and 6MWT on echocardiographic variables of PH. Clinically relevant cyclic variation of TRFV was found. There was an association between estimation of right atrial pressure based on subjective assessment and estimation based on cranial vena cava collapsibility (P = 0.03). Conclusions and Clinical Importance The increase in TRFV observed with sedation could change assessment of PH severity and impact prognostication and interpretation of treatment response. Further studies with invasive validation are needed.
The effect of guar gum on the viscosity of the gastrointestinal contents and on glucose uptake from the perfused jejunum in the rat

1. Male Wistar rats were meal-fed for at least 10d a control semi-synthetic diet containing no guar gum, or one of three similar test diets containing 3, 10 or 20 g dry guar gum/kg. 2. Rats were killed 6 h after feeding, and contents of stomach, small and large intestine were collected separately. The apparent viscosities of stomach and smalt intestine contents from animals fed on diets containing 10 and 20 g guar gum/kg were increased relative to control animals, but large intestine contents were unchanged 3. In the second part of this study, male Wistar rats were anaesthetized and two consecutive lengths of jejunum were perfused, initially with Ringer only (control) or Ringer plus 5 or 6g guar gum/1 (test). Following this pre-perfusion, both segments were perfused with Ringer containing glucose (10 mM), [3H]glucose and [14C]inulin, and the rate of glucose absorption was determined 4. The rate of glucose absorption was decreased relative to control values in segments pre-perfused with both 5 and 6g guar gum/I solution, but this reduction was significant only in the instance of the 6g/l solution (P< 0.001) 5. These results provide evidence to support previous assumptions that ingestion of guar gum will increase the apparent viscosity of the contents of the stomach and small intestine. We propose that a possible mechanism by which guar reduces post-prandial glycaemia is a reduction of glucose absorption from the smali intestine, resulting from an increase in viscosity of the contents
Auditory evoked potentials from the cortex: audiology applications

Purpose of reviewThe audiological applications of cortical auditory evoked potentials are reviewed. Cortical auditory evoked potentials have some advantages compared with more commonly used techniques such as the auditory brainstem response, because they are more closely tied to perception and can be evoked by complex sounds such as speech. These response characteristics suggest that these potentials could be used clinically in the estimation of threshold and also to assess speech discrimination and perception. Recent findingsClinical uses of auditory evoked potentials include threshold estimation and their use as an electrophysiological index of auditory system development, auditory discrimination and speech perception, and the benefits from cochlear implantation, auditory training, or amplification. SummaryCortical auditory evoked potentials obtained in passively alert adults have a remarkably high correspondence with perceptual threshold. Acoustic features of complex sounds may be reflected in the waveform and latency of these potentials and so might be used to determine the integrity of neural encoding for such features and thus contribute to speech perception assessment. MMN and P3 have been used to discern discrimination abilities among groups of normal-hearing and hearing-impaired individuals; however, their sensitivity and specificity for testing an individual's abilities has not yet been established. Cortical auditory potentials are affected by listening experience and attention and so could be used to gauge the effects of aural habilitation. The presence of cortical potentials in children with auditory neuropathy appears to indicate residual hearing abilities. Parametric and developmental research is needed to further establish these applications in audiology.
Sirolimus Versus Cyclosporine Therapy Increases Circulating Regulatory T Cells, But Does Not Protect Renal Transplant Patients Given Alemtuzumab Induction From Chronic Allograft Injury

Background. In kidney transplant recipients with alemtuzumab induction maintained on mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) immunosuppression, sirolimus (SRL) promotes significant expansion of circulating CD4+CD25high regulatory T cells (Treg). This might translate into more effective protection against chronic graft injury compared to cyclosporin A (CsA), which, in the same clinical setting, does not affect Treg. Methods. To assess this hypothesis, in the extension of a single-center, prospective, randomized, open, blind endpoint study aimed to assess the effect of low-dose SRL or CsA on circulating Treg, we compared the outcomes of renal transplant recipients on SRL (n=11) or CsA (n=10) by per-protocol biopsies and serial measurements of glomerular filtration rate (GFR), renal plasma flow (RPF), and 24-hour proteinuria over 30 months posttransplant. Results. Despite 4-fold higher CD4+CD25high Treg counts (22.1±12.2% vs. 5.7±4.2% of CD3+CD4+ T cells), SRL-treated patients, compared to CsA-treated patients, had a significantly higher tubular C4d staining score (1.1±0.6 vs. 0.2±0.3, P<0.01), with nonsignificant trends to higher chronic allograft damage index score (5.6±2.4 vs. 3.7±3.3), faster GFR (−2.92±0.33 vs. −0.28±0.44 ml/min/1.73m2 per year), and RPF (−10.80±5.45 vs. −1.86±3.09 ml/min/1.73 m2 per year) decline, and more clinical proteinuria (n=6 vs. 4). There was no significant correlation between Treg counts and any considered outcome variable in the study group as a whole and within each cohort. Conclusions. These data suggest that, despite enhanced Treg expression, low-dose SRL combined to alemtuzumab induction and MMF-based steroid-free maintenance therapy, does not appreciably protect renal transplant recipients from chronic allograft injury and dysfunction.