Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Association of decreased serum sTREM-1 level with the severity of coronary artery disease

Abstract Soluble triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 1 (sTREM-1) is closely involved in autoimmune diseases and inflammatory reactions. We aimed to investigate whether serum sTREM-1 is related to coronary artery disease (CAD) and to evaluate the biological effects of sTREM-1 in cell experiments. This cross-sectional study included 263 consecutive patients with angiographically documented CAD, who were admitted for diagnosis and interventional treatment of CAD (CAD group), with 162 participants without CAD serving as controls (control group). Serum levels of sTREM-1 and high sensitivity C reactive protein (hsCRP) were determined in all participants. In cell experiments, the influence of sTREM-1 on tumor necrosis factor-&agr; (TNF-&agr;)- or oxidized low-density lipoprotein (oxLDL)-induced inflammatory reactions was evaluated in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). Serum level of sTREM-1 was significantly lower in CAD patients than in controls (P < 0.001). sTREM-1 values were related to the number of diseased coronary arteries (Spearman r = −0.413, P < 0.001) and the severity represented by Gensini score (Pearson r = −0.336, P < 0.001). Multivariable logistic regression analysis revealed that decreased sTREM-1 were independent determinants of CAD (OR = 0.428, P < 0.001). In cell experiments, recombinant sTREM-1 protein concentration-dependently inhibited the expression of IL-1&bgr;, IL-6, TNF-&agr;, VCAM-1, and ICAM-1 induced by TNF-&agr; or oxLDL in HUVECs. This study demonstrates that decreased serum sTREM-1 level is significantly associated with the presence and severity of CAD. sTREM-1 restrains inflammatory reaction in endothelial cells, suggesting that it might be a potential vascular protective factor.
E-learning in Higher Educational Institutions in Kuwait: Experiences and Challenges

E-learning as an organizational activity started in the developed countries, and as such, the adoption models and experiences in the developed countries are taken as a benchmark in the literature. This paper investigated the barriers that affect or prevent the adoption of e-learning in higher educational institutions in Kuwait as an example of a developing country, and compared them with those found in developed countries. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect the empirical data from academics and managers in higher educational institutions in Kuwait. The research findings showed that the main barriers in Kuwait were lack of management awareness and support, technological barriers, and language barriers. From those, two barriers were specific to Kuwait (lack of management awareness and language barriers) when compared with developed countries. Recommendations for decision makers and suggestions for further research are also considered in this study.
Predicting Epileptic Seizures in Advance

Epilepsy is the second most common neurological disorder, affecting 0.6–0.8% of the world's population. In this neurological disorder, abnormal activity of the brain causes seizures, the nature of which tend to be sudden. Antiepileptic Drugs (AEDs) are used as long-term therapeutic solutions that control the condition. Of those treated with AEDs, 35% become resistant to medication. The unpredictable nature of seizures poses risks for the individual with epilepsy. It is clearly desirable to find more effective ways of preventing seizures for such patients. The automatic detection of oncoming seizures, before their actual onset, can facilitate timely intervention and hence minimize these risks. In addition, advance prediction of seizures can enrich our understanding of the epileptic brain. In this study, drawing on the body of work behind automatic seizure detection and prediction from digitised Invasive Electroencephalography (EEG) data, a prediction algorithm, ASPPR (Advance Seizure Prediction via Pre-ictal Relabeling), is described. ASPPR facilitates the learning of predictive models targeted at recognizing patterns in EEG activity that are in a specific time window in advance of a seizure. It then exploits advanced machine learning coupled with the design and selection of appropriate features from EEG signals. Results, from evaluating ASPPR independently on 21 different patients, suggest that seizures for many patients can be predicted up to 20 minutes in advance of their onset. Compared to benchmark performance represented by a mean S1-Score (harmonic mean of Sensitivity and Specificity) of 90.6% for predicting seizure onset between 0 and 5 minutes in advance, ASPPR achieves mean S1-Scores of: 96.30% for prediction between 1 and 6 minutes in advance, 96.13% for prediction between 8 and 13 minutes in advance, 94.5% for prediction between 14 and 19 minutes in advance, and 94.2% for prediction between 20 and 25 minutes in advance.
Rectal artemether versus intravenous quinine for the treatment of cerebral malaria in children in Uganda: randomised clinical trial

Abstract Objective To compare the efficacy and safety of rectal artemether with intravenous quinine in the treatment of cerebral malaria in children. Design Randomised, single blind, clinical trial. Setting Acute care unit at Mulago Hospital, Uganda's national referral and teaching hospital in Kampala. Participants 103 children aged 6 months to 5 years with cerebral malaria. Intervention Patients were randomised to either intravenous quinine or rectal artemether for seven days. Main outcome measures Time to clearance of parasites and fever; time to regaining consciousness, starting oral intake, and sitting unaided; and adverse effects. Results The difference in parasitological and clinical outcomes between rectal artemether and intravenous quinine did not reach significance (parasite clearance time 54.2 (SD 33.6) hours v 55.0 (SD 24.3) hours, P = 0.90; fever clearance time 33.2 (SD 21.9) hours v 24.1(SD 18.9 hours, P = 0.08; time to regaining consciousness 30.1 (SD 24.1) hours v 22.67 (SD 18.5) hours, P = 0.10; time to starting oral intake 37.9 (SD 27.0) hours v 30.3 (SD 21.1) hours, P = 0.14). Mortality was higher in the quinine group than in the artemether group (10/52 v 6/51; relative risk 1.29, 95% confidence interval 0.84 to 2.01). No serious immediate adverse effects occurred. Conclusion Rectal artemether is effective and well tolerated and could be used as treatment for cerebral malaria.
Phosphorylation of Prion Protein at Serine 43 Induces Prion Protein Conformational Change

The cause of the conformational change of normal cellular prion protein (PrP) into its disease-associated form is unknown. Posttranslational modifications, such as glycosylation, acetylation, S-nitrosylation, and phosphorylation, are known to induce protein conformational changes. Here, we investigated whether phosphorylation could induce the conformational change of PrP because PrP contains several kinase motifs and has been found recently in the cytosol, in which kinases generally reside. Neuronal cyclin-dependent kinase 5 (Cdk5) phosphorylated recombinant PrP23–231 at serine 43 (S43) in an in vitro kinase assay. Cdk5-phosphorylated PrP became proteinase K resistant, formed Congo Red-positive fibrils, and formed aggregates that were immunostained with anti-PrP and anti-phospho-PrPS43 (anti-pPrPS43). pPrPS43 was detected in PrP/Cdk5/p25 cotransfected N2a cells. Roscovitine inhibition of Cdk5 activity or transfection of N2a cells with mutant PrP S43A eliminated the anti-pPrPS43-immunopositive protein. Alkaline phosphatase-sensitive and proteinase K-resistant pPrPS43 immunoreactivity was observed in scrapie-infected but not control-injected mice brains. These results raise the possibility that phosphorylation could represent a physiological mechanism of PrP conversion in vivo.
SANA: Simulated Annealing Network Alignment Applied to Biological Networks

The alignment of biological networks has the potential to teach us as much about biology and disease as has sequence alignment. Sequence alignment can be optimally solved in polynomial time. In contrast, network alignment is $NP$-hard, meaning optimal solutions are impossible to find, and the quality of found alignments depend strongly upon the algorithm used to create them. Every network alignment algorithm consists of two orthogonal components: first, an objective function or measure $M$ that is used to evaluate the quality of any proposed alignment, and second, a search algorithm used to explore the exponentially large set of possible alignments in an effort to find "good" ones according to $M$. Objective functions fall into many categories, including biological measures such as sequence similarity, as well as topological measures like graphlet similarity and edge coverage (possibly weighted). Algorithms to search the space of all possible alignments can be deterministic or stochastic, and many possibilities have been offered over the past decade. In this paper we introduce a new stochastic search algorithm called SANA: Simulated Annealing Network Aligner. We test it on several popular objective functions and demonstrate that it almost universally optimizes each one significantly better than existing search algorithms. Finally, we compare several topological objective functions using SANA. Software available at this http URL
Falls in the community-dwelling older adult: A review for primary-care providers

Falls in the elderly are an important independent marker of frailty. Up to half of elderly people over 65 experience a fall every year. They are associated with high morbidity and mortality and are responsible for greater than 20 billion dollars a year in healthcare costs in the United States. This article presents a review and guide for the primary care provider of the predisposing and situational risk factors for falls; comprehensive assessment for screening and tailored intervention; and discussion of single and multicomponent measures for fall prevention and management in the older person living in the community. Interventions for the cognitively impaired and demented elderly will also be addressed.
Novel polymeric micelles for insect pest control: encapsulation of essential oil monoterpenes inside a triblock copolymer shell for head lice control

Background Essential oil components (EOCs) are molecules with interesting application in pest control, these have been evaluated against different insect pest from more than 100 years, but their practical use is rather limited. Thus, the enhancement of their bioavailability and manageability due to their dispersion in water can open new perspective for the preparation of formulations for the control of insect pest. In this work, we studied the encapsulation of different monoterpenes in a poloxamer shell in order to prepare aqueous formulations that can be used for the development of platforms used in pest control. Methods Micellar systems containing a 5 wt% of poloxamer 407 and 1.25 wt% of the different monoterpenes were prepared. Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) experiments were carried out to characterize the dispersion of the EOCs in water. The pediculicidal activity of these micellar systems was tested on head lice using an ex vivo immersion test. Results The poloxamers allowed the dispersion of EOCs in water due to their encapsulation inside the hydrophobic core of the copolymer micelles. From this study, we concluded that it is possible to make stable micellar systems containing water (>90 wt%), 1.25 wt% of different monoterpenes and a highly safe polymer (5wt% Poloxamer 407). These formulations were effective against head lice with mortality ranging from 30 to 60%, being the most effective emulsions those containing linalool, 1,8-cineole, α-terpineol, thymol, eugenol, geraniol and nonyl alcohol which lead to mortalities above 50%. Discussion Since these systems showed good pediculicidal activity and high physicochemical stability, they could be a new route for the green fabrication of biocompatible and biosustainable insecticide formulations.
The relationships of self-efficacy, physical activity, and paid work to health-related quality of life among patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)

Purpose Although chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) primarily affects the lungs, it is regarded as a systemic disorder associated with comorbidity and physical deterioration, which often results in reduced levels of health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Self-efficacy is an important concept in self-management, which is vital for improving HRQoL in patients with COPD. The purpose of this study was to examine how general self-efficacy, leisure time physical activity, and sociodemographic variables such as employment status are related to the physical and mental health components of HRQoL in patients with COPD. Patients and methods In this cross-sectional study, 97 COPD patients (54.6% male, mean age 64.6 years, standard deviation [SD] 9.5) beginning a pulmonary rehabilitation program completed three self-report questionnaires: the short form (SF)-12v2 Health Survey as a measure of HRQoL; the General Self-Efficacy Scale; and a standardized instrument measuring regular leisure time physical activity. Results The physical health component median score was 31.3 (interquartile range [IQR] 16.3) and the mental health component median score was 45.9 (IQR 21.5). Two sets of linear regression analyses were performed, one predicting physical health and the other predicting mental health. The first analysis showed that better physical health was directly related to being in paid work (P-value <0.001), but was not significantly related to age, sex, marital status, education, work status, physical activity, or self-efficacy. In the second analysis, better mental health was directly related to living with a partner, being physically active, and having higher self-efficacy (P-value <0.001). Conclusion The findings suggest that general self-efficacy has differential relationships to the two dimensions of HRQoL. Our results indicate that general self-efficacy, physical activity, and paid work might be important factors for improving HRQoL of persons with COPD, and should be taken into consideration in pulmonary rehabilitation.
A Methodology to Evaluate the Impact of Cost Recovery in Canadian Agriculture and Agri-Food Chains

This publication is a technical report describing the methodology Strategic Policy Branch used in its cumulative impact study (which was published in 1998). The purpose is to further document the methodology and adapt it to estimate coefficients which can be used to assist in the analysis of proposed fees. Its main audience is policy analysts within government. The report presents a description of the economic analysis of user fees, describes a mathematical model used to quantitatively assess the impact of a change in user fees, and presents sets of coefficients or multipliers which can be used to estimate the incidence of proposed fees.
Daylight dynamics to guide early stage design: a user-driven goal-based approach to “good” lighting

More and more refined methods are currently being developed that aim to inform designers about daylighting management in a comprehensive way, many of which try to investigate annual daylighting potential through climate-based modeling. In this paper, we propose to address the issue of dealing with very different quantities all relevant to ‘good’ daylighting performance (illumination potential, glare risks, aesthetics, physiological effects of light) by resorting to a goal-based approach, so that such quantities or metrics can all be evaluated on a relative basis within a single simulation framework and a unique, intuitive and visual format. Specifically, the paper proposes to build upon the goal-based approach adopted by the Lightsolve simulation framework to bring together physical, physiological and perceptual aspects of light around the temporal variability of their effects. A prototype interface is presented that proposes an interactive, highly visual simulation environment in which to integrate these goal-based concepts. The paper also describes the premices of an expert system aiming to guide the user towards improved design solutions. The objective is to support early stage design regarding both conventional aspects of daylight performance such as workplane illuminance, glare and associated solar gains, and unconventional ones such as perceptual or non-visual effects of daylight, all considered in combination within a unified framework of analysis.
Musisque Deoque: Text Retrieval on Critical Editionse

This paper aims at illustrating the main features of the Musisque Deoque Project , which provides a fully freely searchable archive of Latin poetry equipped with critical apparatus. The ﬁrst part explains how variants are mapped on the reference edition and the second part illustrates the web interface to retrieve sequences of words taking into account possible variants.
High- performance facial expression recognition using Gabor filter and Probabilistic Neural Network

This paper presents a new person-independent facial expression recognition method based on Gabor filter bank, Linear Discriminate Analysis (LDA) and probabilistic neural network (PNN). At first preprocessing is performed, and then the Gabor filter bank and LDA algorithm are applied on the images. Since there are fewer image samples compared to their dimensions, a combination of principle component analysis (PCA) and LDA is used to increase LDA's efficiency. Finally the images are categorized into 6 different forms of basic emotions including happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, fear and disgust using a probabilistic neural network that is faster than other neural networks. The Cohn-Kanade database is used to train and evaluate the algorithm. The results of the test on this database reveal that the proposed algorithm has a high average performance of about 89% in person independent facial expression recognition.
FUNCTIONAL UNIT USAGE BASED THREAD SELECTION IN A SIMULTANEOUS MULTITHREADED PROCESSOR

This paper proposes and evaluates a new mechanism for thread selection in simultaneous multithreaded processors that is based on functional unit(FU) usage information. The performance of any processor depends on the set of dependences that it can manage. In a multithreaded architecture there is an opportunity to manage structural dependences more effectively than in conventional superscalar processors. Minimizing the competition for FUs will greatly improve the performance of multithreaded processors. This can be achieved by means of proper thread selection techniques. In this paper, a framework that aids thread selection based on FU usage information, is discussed. The results show that this thread selection mechanism can improve performance significantly.
Women in the Mirror: Seeing Ourselves Anew a Narrative Inquiry and Autoethnographic Exploration of the Hbcu Relational and Institutional Impact on the Social Justice Dispositions of White Female Education Graduates

The purpose of this research was to learn how matriculation at one HBCU impacted White female education graduates as they developed their social justice dispositions to teach all students. This study is a narrative inquiry and autoethnographic examination of the historical racial identity impact one Southeastern HBCU had on its White female education graduates’ social justice disposition for teaching. To ascertain the impact, White female education graduates tell their stories about their racial development before, during and after attending the HBCU. As a participant and the researcher, I parallel my story of racial identity development and write my autoethnography about the impact of attending the same HBCU as an African American female education graduate. I examine how I raised my level of consciousness and cultural awareness of my Blackness to prepare to teach White students. Coupled with that is an examination of White female education graduates’ level of consciousness of their Whiteness and their preparation to teach African American students and other students of color. I conclude that the stories contain valuable insights for HBCU teacher education preparation programs regarding their impact on White female education graduates’ social justice dispositions.
Distributed Block Diagonalization with Selective Zero Forcing for Multicell MU-MIMO Systems

This letter proposes a distributed beamforming scheme based on block diagonalization (BD) for multicell multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) downlink systems. Although conventional BD can be directly extended to these systems in a distributed manner, it suffers from sum-rate degradation due to strict zero-forcing (ZF) constraints. To overcome this problem, we introduce a sum-rate maximization problem for BD, to find the optimal selection of ZF constraints. Then we propose a search algorithm to solve the problem in a distributed and heuristic manner. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme effectively finds a near-optimal solution and significantly improves simple extended BD such that it can provide higher sum rate than the conventional schemes.
BIST Power Reduction Using Scan-Chain Disable in the Cell Processor

Built-in self test is a major part of the manufacturing test procedure for the cell processor. However, pseudo random patterns cause a high switching activity which is not effectively reduced by standard low power design techniques. If special care is not taken, the scan-speed may have to be reduced significantly, thus extending test time and costs. In this paper, we describe a test power reduction method for logic BIST which uses test scheduling, planning and scan-gating. In LBIST, effective patterns that detect additional faults are very scarce after a few dozens of scan cycles and often less than one pattern in a hundred detects new faults. In most cases, such an effective pattern requires only a reduced set of the available scan chains to detect the fault and all don't-care scan chains can be disabled, therefore significantly reducing test power
Applying Structural Similarity to a `knowledge Mediation' Problem 1

This paper deenes a class of problem domains called`knowl-edge mediation' problems where knowledge and information are exchanged between agents operating in two diierent conceptual worlds. Case-based reasoning systems for knowledge mediation will contain cases which are instances of translation between two points of view. These systems require facilities for the automatic adaptation of cases since the user will be unable to fully comprehend the parts of the case which refer to the foreign domain. We described a prototype knowledge mediation system which mediates between the points of view of business managers and engineers and show how`structural similarity' has provided a powerful mechanism for adapting retrieved cases.