Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Change in and predictors of leisure activities among patients with rheumatoid arthritis: a prospective study

Objective: To describe factors associated with leisure activities, changes in leisure activities over time, and predictors of such changes among persons with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods: A prospective study was conducted of 80 consecutive persons with RA, recruited while participating in a 3‐week, rehabilitation day‐care programme. The number of leisure activities was assessed through a structured interview. Sociodemographic variables, measures of disease activity [pain, patient's global assessment, C‐reactive protein (CRP)], disability [Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ), Signals of Functional Impairment (SOFI), grip strength], quality of life at baseline, as well as disease activity [mean erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR)] and treatment (proportion of follow‐up time on anti‐rheumatic drugs during follow‐up) were evaluated as possible predictors of change in leisure activities. Results: Active leisure activities increased, while ‘not obviously active or passive’ leisure activities were unchanged during the follow‐up period. The change in active leisure activities did not correlate with the predictors evaluated. Conclusion: The increase in active leisure activities was not predicted to a substantial degree by disease activity, disability, or medication. The results suggest that factors other than those evaluated influence changes in leisure activities.
Automatic error detection in the clinical measurement of gastric impedance spectra

Gastric impedance spectroscopy has been proposed as a method of monitoring mucosal injury due to hypoperfusion and ischemia in the critically ill. During validation tests for this procedure, it was found that 60% of the measurements had errors by factors inherent to the clinical setting, indicating that some kind of automatic error detection should be incorporated to potentially avoid the loss of measurements. This paper presents an algorithm developed to detect errors due to bad connection, bad location or bad contact of the electrode probe. A labeled database with 20,908 sets of 92 spectral measurements each, obtained from critically ill patients was used as training/testing data. To reduce the dimensionality, the database was resized by dividing the spectral range into four bands, and then by computing mean and standard deviation in magnitude, phase, resistance and reactance for each band and measurement. Initial exploration into the data space was performed by k-means clustering, establishing the number of classes. Sequential Forward Selection was performed to determine best features from the reduced data set. Finally, Support Vector Machine classifiers were designed in a one-vs-rest hierarchical scheme to classify the quality of the spectra. Each classifier gave a hit rate greater than 95% and an area under the relative operating characteristic curve of 0.99. In a validation run with cardiac surgery and intensive care unit patient spectra, the error rates were 2.3% and 8.4% respectively.
A novel genetic algorithm with applications to the design of higher-order sigma-delta D/A converters

The main fundamental problem in the existing genetic-algorithm-based techniques for the optimization of IIR digital filters stems from the fact that after the application of the constituent operations of crossover and mutation to the parent IIR digital filters, the resulting offspring IIR digital filters may cease to be BIBO stable. This paper presents a novel technique for the genetic optimization of IIR digital filters where the offspring IIR digital filters are guaranteed to be (inherently) BIBO stable. The resulting technique is particularly suitable for the optimization of the noise transfer function for /spl Sigma/-/spl Delta/ D/A converters. This is due to the fact that the classical IIR digital filter transfer function approximation techniques lead to the formation of delay-free loops in the D/A converter configuration proper. The usefulness of the proposed technique is demonstrated through its application to the design of a set of two 6-th order lowpass /spl Sigma/-/spl Delta/ D/A converters employing 64-times oversampling ratios for a final realization incorporating 8-bit multiplier coefficients.
Effect of 900 MHz Radio Frequency Radiation on Beta Amyloid Protein, Protein Carbonyl, and Malondialdehyde in the Brain

Recently, many studies have been carried out in relation to 900 MHz radiofrequency radiation (RF) emitted from a mobile phone on the brain. However, there is little data concerning possible mechanisms between long-term exposure of RF radiation and biomolecules in brain. Therefore, we aimed to investigate long-term effects of 900 MHz radiofrequency radiation on beta amyloid protein, protein carbonyl, and malondialdehyde in the rat brain. The study was carried out on 17 Wistar Albino adult male rats. The rat heads in a carousel were exposed to 900 MHz radiofrequency radiation emitted from a generator, simulating mobile phones. For the study group (n: 10), rats were exposed to the radiation 2 h per day (7 days a week) for 10 months. For the sham group (n: 7), rats were placed into the carousel and the same procedure was applied except that the generator was turned off. In this study, rats were euthanized after 10 months of exposure and their brains were removed. Beta amyloid protein, protein carbonyl, and malondialdehyde levels were found to be higher in the brain of rats exposed to 900 MHz radiofrequency radiation. However, only the increase of protein carbonyl in the brain of rats exposed to 900 MHz radiofrequency radiation was found to be statistically significant (p < 0.001). In conclusion, 900 MHz radiation emitted from mobile/cellular phones can be an agent to alter some biomolecules such as protein. However, further studies are necessary.
Controller Parameters Optimization for Islanded Hydro-Electric with HVDC Sending

The HVDC sending end may operate in islanded mode as a result of deliberate design, faults or maintenance of electric transmission lines. In that case the unbalanced power during and after faults may cause rotating over-speed for lack of reliance on a main AC system. A coordinated control based on the AC/DC control mechanism for the islanded hydro-electric HVDC sending system is developed in this paper with HVDC power modulation to form an additional control strategy. The parameters of the coordinated controller are optimized by a developed PSO (Particle Swarm Optimization) intelligent algorithm. The effectiveness under mono-polar blocking condition of the additional control strategy is simulated by an islanded hydro-electric with HVDC sending model in PSCAD/EMTDC.
Dialysis Provision and Implications of Health Economics on Peritoneal Dialysis Utilization: A Review from a Malaysian Perspective

End-stage renal disease (ESRD) is managed by either lifesaving hemodialysis (HD) and peritoneal dialysis (PD) or a kidney transplant. In Malaysia, the prevalence of dialysis-treated ESRD patients has shown an exponential growth from 504 per million population (pmp) in 2005 to 1155 pmp in 2014. There were 1046 pmp patients on HD and 109 pmp patients on PD in 2014. Kidney transplants are limited due to lack of donors. Malaysia adopts public-private financing model for dialysis. Majority of HD patients were treated in the private sector but almost all PD patients were treated in government facilities. Inequality in access to dialysis is visible within geographical regions where majority of HD centres are scattered around developed areas. The expenditure on dialysis has been escalating in recent years but economic evaluations of dialysis modalities are scarce. Evidence shows that health policies and reimbursement strategies influence dialysis provision. Increased uptake of PD can produce significant economic benefits and improve patients' access to dialysis. As a result, some countries implemented a PD-First or Favored Policy to expand PD use. Thus, a current comparative costs analysis of dialysis is strongly recommended to assist decision-makers to establish a more equitable and economically sustainable dialysis provision in the future.
A Miniature Capacitive Ultrasonic Imager Array

This paper describes the development of a miniature capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) array suitable for minimally invasive medical imaging and diagnosis. In contrast to conventional laboratory-scale CMUT platforms, which are generally integrated on a silicon substrate thicker than 550 mum, this imager array is integrated on a probe shaped silicon substrate with a typical shank dimension of 60 mum(width) times 40 mum(thickness) times 4-10 mm(length) for 1-D arrays, and 0.4-2.3 mm(width) times 100 mum(thickness) times 6-12 mm(length) for 2-D arrays. Such miniature CMUT arrays are suitable for implantation into tissue through a fine incision or by being placed inside an organ for close-range imaging. In a close-range diagnosis made possible by using such miniature CMUT arrays, ultrasound of a higher frequency can be used and the conflict associated with the penetration depth and image resolution can be resolved. This imager array was fabricated using a two-layer polysilicon surface micromachining process followed by a double-sided deep silicon etching for substrate shaping. The total mask count was eight. The central frequency of ultrasound transmitted by a circular 46 mum-diameter transducer was 3.8 MHz, while its fractional bandwidth was 116% in water. A simple transducer-fluid model was used to predict the acoustic characteristics of this device in water. Preliminary B-mode imaging using a 21-element 1-D array was demonstrated.
Parallel Attention: A Unified Framework for Visual Object Discovery Through Dialogs and Queries

Recognising objects according to a pre-defined fixed set of class labels has been well studied in the Computer Vision. There are a great many practical applications where the subjects that may be of interest are not known beforehand, or so easily delineated, however. In many of these cases natural language dialog is a natural way to specify the subject of interest, and the task achieving this capability (a.k.a, Referring Expression Comprehension) has recently attracted attention. To this end we propose a unified framework, the ParalleL AttentioN (PLAN) network, to discover the object in an image that is being referred to in variable length natural expression descriptions, from short phrases query to long multi-round dialogs. The PLAN network has two attention mechanisms that relate parts of the expressions to both the global visual content and also directly to object candidates. Furthermore, the attention mechanisms are recurrent, making the referring process visualizable and explainable. The attended information from these dual sources are combined to reason about the referred object. These two attention mechanisms can be trained in parallel and we find the combined system outperforms the state-of-art on several benchmarked datasets with different length language input, such as RefCOCO, RefCOCO+ and GuessWhat?
Assessment of efficacy of activated charcoal for treatment of acute T-2 toxin poisoning.

"Superactive" charcoal was assessed for efficacy in decreasing the lethality of both oral and parenteral exposure to T-2 toxin, a fungal metabolite which can cause death or illness upon ingestion. In vitro binding studies, analyzed using the Langmuir adsorption isotherm, showed that activated charcoal had a maximal binding capacity of 0.48 mg toxin/mg charcoal and a dissociation constant of 0.078 mg charcoal/l. In vivo, orally administered, activated charcoal was assessed for treatment of acute oral or parenteral exposure to T-2 toxin in mice. Following oral toxin administration (5 mg/kg), untreated mice showed only 6% survival after 72 hr. Charcoal treatment (7 g/kg,po) either immediately or 1 hr after toxin exposure resulted in significant improvement in survival with values of 100% and 75%, respectively. Following parenteral toxin exposure (2.8 mg/kg, sc), untreated and charcoal-treated (7 g/kg, po) mice showed 50% and 90% survival, respectively, after 72 hr. LD50 value for T-2 toxin, determined at 96 hr after intoxication, increased significantly from 2 mg/kg for untreated controls to 4.5 mg/kg for activated charcoal treatment.
Scoring Systems of Cleft-Related Facial Deformities: A Review of Literature

Objective There is a need for an internationally agreed objective method of assessing cleft-related deformities in order to compare the results of individual surgeons and different surgical techniques or to determine the optimal timing for primary lip closure. To assess the current methods, an overview of the recent developments in postoperative scoring systems of cleft-related deformities was made. Methods A Medline search from June 2003 through July 2011 was conducted, and references in the selected articles were checked. This search yielded 428 articles, and after application of the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 40 articles were included in this review. Results Twenty-five studies used two-dimensional (2D) photographs for the assessment of cleft-related deformities. Fourteen of these studies used a subjective method for the assessment and 11 performed anthropometric measurements. Good reliability has been found for subjective assessments and measurements from 2D photographs. Fifteen studies assessed three-dimensional (3D) imaging. Conclusions Although there is a wide variety in study design, 3D imaging seems most reliable in assessing cleft-related facial deformities. However, scoring on 2D photographs is easier to perform and more applicable in daily practice because all cleft patients are photographed through the course of their treatment.
Temporal replication of the Pullman strain of Aleutian disease virus in royal pastel mink

Information was sought on the temporal replication of Aleutian disease virus in 27 royal pastel mink. Groups of three were examined 8 to 126 days after they were inoculated subcutaneously with 10(3) 50% lethal doses of the Pullman strain. Much individual variation was noted in the onset of infection, occurrence of viremia, and extent of virus replication in the tissues. Thus, virus was detected in lymph nodes regional to the site of inoculation in only some mink during the first 14 days after inoculation. During this period, virus was often present as well in the mesenteric lymph node and spleen. First detected on day 10, viremia was present in all mink examined on day 28 but occurred irregularly thereafter, even when virus was widespread in the tissues. Except in five mink succumbing to the disease, the tissue distribution of virus after day 28 tended to be more limited, and the titers were generally lower than they had been earlier. Even though present in the lymph nodes and spleen, virus was often absent from the kidney, liver, and intestine after day 28. Specific antibody was detected on day 28 and was present in all mink thereafter, ostensibly without any adverse effect on virus replication. In most mink, the infection was considered subclinical, for it was usually not accompanied by a rise in serum gamma globulin or by morphologic evidence of the disease. The virologic findings in this study have a bearing on the relationship of subclinical infections to both horizontal and vertical transmission of the virus.
Automating activities in MDE tools

Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) is a victim of its own success: being able to quickly generate software tools, many modeling tools exist today, but their usability is far from efficient. Complex processes and repetitive tasks are often required to perform a modeling activity, such as creating a domain-specific language or creating a domain-specific model. The goal of this paper is to increase the productivity of modelers in their every day activities by automating the tasks they perform in current MDE tools. We propose an MDE-based solution where the user defines a workflow that can be parametrized at run-time and executed. Our solution works for frameworks that support two level metamodeling as well as deep metamodeling. We implemented our solution in the MDE tool AtoMPM. We also performed a preliminary empirical evaluation of our approach and showed that we reduce both mechanical and cognitive efforts of the user.
Pharmacological modulation of the endocannabinoid signalling alters binge‐type eating behaviour in female rats

Binge eating disorder (BED) is characterized by excessive food intake during short periods of time. Recent evidence suggests that alterations in the endocannabinoid signalling could be involved in the pathophysiology of BED. In this study, we investigated whether pharmacological manipulation of endocannabinoid transmission may be effective in modulating the aberrant eating behaviour present in a validated rat model of BED.
Systolic blood pressure response to exercise in type 1 diabetes families compared with healthy control individuals

Objective Oxidative stress is increased in type 1 diabetes families. Since oxidative damage is a mediator of vascular injury and familial predisposition to hypertension increases the risk of hypertension and diabetic nephropathy, we studied blood pressure responses to exercise and cardiovascular risk factors in type 1 diabetes families. Methods Thirty-five type 1 patients, 74 first-degree relatives, and 95 healthy individuals without established coronary heart disease underwent a cycle ergometer test. Examination included medical history, lifestyle questionnaire, body weight, blood pressure, and laboratory tests [fasting plasma glucose and insulin, haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), plasma lipids, C-reactive protein, fibrinogen, folate, plasma thiols, and albumin excretion rate]. Results Diabetic patients had higher plasma glucose, HbA1c, folate, and albuminuria, while lower plasma thiols than controls; relatives differed from controls in higher plasma total cholesterol and albuminuria, lower plasma thiols. No patient presented exercised-induced angina. Diabetic patients achieved a higher maximal exercise systolic blood pressure (similar workload); systolic pressure remained high during recovery. Relatives showed higher values of systolic pressure at peak exercise (same workload). The following were associated with an abnormal blood pressure response to exercise: diastolic blood pressure and HbA1c in the control sample; disease duration and fibrinogen in the diabetic group; plasma low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, body mass index (BMI), housework, and plasma thiols among relatives. Conclusion An abnormal blood pressure response to exercise testing has been identified for the first time in asymptomatic normotensive non-diabetic relatives of type 1 diabetics, which was associated with indices of metabolic syndrome and oxidative damage. Moreover, in healthy normotensive non-diabetic control individuals (without a family history of type 1 diabetes), the systolic blood pressure response to exercise was significantly correlated with HbA1c levels.
Post‐Transplant Renal Tubulitis: The Recruitment, Differentiation and Persistence of Intra‐Epithelial T Cells

Tubulitis is used by the Banff protocol as a major criterion to grade acute renal allograft rejection. This review integrates results from in vitro and in vivo studies to develop a chronological model to explain the development and functions of tubular inflammation during the rejection process. Proteoglycan‐immobilized chemokines are the primary motivators for the vectorial recruitment of specific immune cell populations from the blood, through the endothelium and interstitial tissues to the renal tubules. After penetration of the basement membrane, T cells encounter TGF‐β that can induce expression of the αEβ7 integrin on proliferating cells. This allows adhesion to E‐cadherin on the baso‐lateral surfaces of tubular epithelial cells and provides an explanation for the epithelial‐specific cytotoxicity observed during acute rejection. Tubular epithelium is also a rich source of IL‐15 that can stimulate IL‐15 receptor‐expressing intratubular CD8+ T cells. This anti‐apoptotic microenvironment may explain the long‐term persistence of cycling T cells within intact tubules after episodes of acute rejection. These memory‐like T cells may have local immunoregulatory properties, including the production of additional TGF‐β, but could also modify normal tubular homeostasis resulting in epithelial to mesenchymal transdifferentiation, tubulointerstitial fibrosis and, ultimately, graft failure.
Cytokine‐mediated inflammatory hyperalgesia limited by interleukin‐10

1 The effect of interleukin‐10 (IL‐10) upon the hyperalgesic activities in rats of bradykinin, tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα), interleukin‐1β (IL‐1β), interleukin‐6 (IL‐6), interleukin‐8 (IL‐8), prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) and carrageenin were investigated in a model of mechanical hyperalgesia. 2 Hyperalgesic responses to bradykinin (1 μg) were inhibited in a dose‐dependent manner by prior treatment with IL‐10 (1–100 ng). 3 Hyperalgesic responses to TNFα (2.5 pg), IL‐1β (0.5 pg) and IL‐6 (1.0 ng) but not to IL‐8 (0.1 ng) and PGE2 (50 ng and 100 ng) were inhibited by prior treatment with IL‐10 (10 ng). 4 Hyperalgesic responses to carrageenin (100 μg) were inhibited by IL‐10 (10 ng) when this cytokine was injected before but not after the carrageenin. 5 A monoclonal antibody to mouse IL‐10 potentiated the hyperalgesic responses to carrageenin (10 μg) and TNFα (0.025 pg) but not that to IL‐8 (0.01 ng). 6 In in vitro experiments in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (MNCs), IL‐10 (0.25‐4.0 ng ml−1) inhibited in a dose‐dependent manner PGE2 production by MNCs stimulated with IL‐1β (1–64 ng ml−1) or endotoxin (lipopolysaccharide, LPS, 1 iu=143 pg ml−1) but evoked only small increases in IL‐Ira production. 7 These data suggest that IL‐10 limits the inflammatory hyperalgesia evoked by carrageenin and bradykinin by two mechanisms: inhibition of cytokine production and inhibition of IL‐1β evoked PGE2 production. Our data suggest that the latter effect is not mediated via IL‐10 induced IL‐Ira and may result from suppression by IL‐10 of prostaglandin H synthase‐2 (COX‐2).
Suppression of antigen- and mitogen-induced proliferation of bovine lymphocytes by excretory-secretory products of Oesophagostomum radiatum

Excretory-secretory products (ESP) isolated from in vitro-grown stage-3 to -4 larvae of Oesophagostomum radiatum were found to inhibit both the in vitro antigen-specific proliferation of keyhole limpet hemocyanin- and ovalbumin-primed lymphocytes and the proliferation induced by the T-cell mitogen concanavalin A. As little as 50 ng of ESP protein per culture resulted in 50% reductions of subsequent proliferative responses. Antigen-induced responses were 100 to 1,000 times more sensitive to inhibition than were mitogen-induced responses. The inhibitory activity was found to affect the induction of proliferation as evidenced by the observation that complete inhibition was seen when ESP were added to cultures within the first 24 h. ESP were found to have no inhibitory activity when added 72 h after the initiation of the cultures. The inhibition was not a result of a direct action upon macrophages because pulsing of adherent cells with ESP had no more effect on a subsequent proliferative response than did a pulsing of the culture vessel itself. The inhibitory activity eluted from high-pressure liquid chromatography columns in the same fractions as protein standards with molecular weights of 25,000 to 35,000. Of special interest is the fact that this inhibitor of the expansion of immunoreactive clones of lymphocytes is found associated with the stages of parasites most intimately associated with host tissues, namely larval stages 3 and 4.