Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Biopsy-proven kidney diseases in the elderly: clinical characteristics, renal histopathological spectrum and prognostic factors

Objective To explore the clinical characteristics, renal histopathological spectrum and prognostic factors of biopsy-proven kidney diseases in the elderly. Methods A retrospective observational study was conducted in elderly patients who had received renal biopsies. Demographic, clinical and pathological data at the time of the biopsy were collected from the medical records. Follow-up records and prognostic factors were studied. Results The elderly (≥60 years) accounted for 74 of 434 (17.1%) native renal biopsies that were performed in a 9-year period. In the cohort of included elderly patients (n = 72), the prevalence of nephrotic syndrome and acute kidney injury was 62.5% (45 of 72) and 40.3% (29 of 72), respectively. For elderly patients with primary glomerular diseases (n = 44), membranous nephropathy was the most frequent pathological type (24 of 44; 54.5%). For elderly patients with secondary glomerular diseases (n = 25), anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-associated vasculitis was the most frequent aetiology (nine of 25; 36.0%). Requirement for renal replacement therapy (RRT) was an independent risk factor for poor prognosis. Conclusions Kidney diseases in the elderly have distinctive characteristics. Requirement for RRT was associated with poor prognosis in the elderly with biopsy-proven kidney diseases.
Sequential assistance of molecular chaperones and transient formation of covalent complexes during protein degradation from the ER

BACE457 is a recently identified pancreatic isoform of human β-secretase. We report that this membrane glycoprotein and its soluble variant are characterized by inefficient folding in the ER, leading to proteasome-mediated ER-associated degradation (ERAD). Dissection of the degradation process revealed that upon release from calnexin, extensively oxidized BACE457 transiently entered in disulfide-bonded complexes associated with the lumenal chaperones BiP and protein disulfide isomerase (PDI) before unfolding and dislocation into the cytosol for degradation. BACE457 and its lumenal variant accumulated in disulfide-bonded complexes, in the ER lumen, also when protein degradation was inhibited. The complexes were disassembled and the misfolded polypeptides were cleared from the ER upon reactivation of the degradation machinery. Our data offer new insights into the mechanism of ERAD by showing a sequential involvement of the calnexin and BiP/PDI chaperone systems. We report the unexpected transient formation of covalent complexes in the ER lumen during the ERAD process, and we show that PDI participates as an oxidoreductase and a redox-driven chaperone in the preparation of proteins for degradation from the mammalian ER.
A Field Validity Study of the Integrated Zone Comparison Technique

This field study tested the validity of the Integrated Zone Comparison Technique (IZCT) designed for specific issue tests, utilizing 309 confirmed field cases by examiners of the Egyptian Government. During 1998 and 1999 the IZCT correctly identified 100% of the innocent examinees and 99.5% of the guilty examinees, excluding Inconclusives, or 94.8% of innocent examinees and 90.5% of the deceptive examinees, including Inconclusives. A detailed explanation of the technique is included in this report.
An Examination of the Validity of SUS-TAS in Cross-Cultures

The purpose of this study is to validate the Sustainable Tourism Attitude Scale (SUS-TAS), which measures residents' attitudes toward sustainable tourism development. Using two data sets from Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, a confirmatory factor analysis was employed to assess psychometric properties of SUS-TAS. Although the original SUS-TAS items were reduced in number from 44 to 33, the revised scale demonstrated good psychometric properties. The data supported validity of the original seven SUS-TAS dimensions in two samples. Furthermore, the final version of SUS-TAS demonstrated adequate construct validity and good internal consistency. The findings of the study suggest that SUS-TAS can be used to assess resident attitudes toward sustainable tourism development in cross-cultural settings.
On the intersection of XPath expressions

XPath is a common language for selecting nodes in an XML document. XPath uses so called path expressions which describe a navigation path through semistructured data. In the last years some of the characteristics of XPath have been discussed. Examples include the containment of two XPath expressions p and p' (p /spl sube/ p'). To the best of our knowledge the intersection of two XPath expressions (p /spl cap/ p') has not been treated yet. The intersection of p and p' is the set that contains all XML nodes that are selected both by p and p'. In the context of indexes in XML databases the emptiness of the intersection of p and p' is a major issue when updating the index. In order to keep the index consistent to the indexed data, it has to be detected if an index that is defined upon p is affected by a modifying database operation with the path expression p'. In this paper, we introduce the intersection problem for XPath and give a motivation for its relevance. We present an efficient intersection algorithm for XPath expressions without the NOT operator that is based on finite automata. For expressions that contain the NOT operator the intersection problem becomes NP-complete leading to exponential computations in general. With an average case simulation we show that the NP-completeness is no significant limitation for most real-world database operations.
An Unobtrusive Measurement Method for Assessing Physiological Response in Physical Human–Robot Interaction

The objective of this work was to develop and validate a novel unobtrusive method for measuring person's physiological response with a low-cost integrated sensory system for use in a physical control task. Two different sensory handles were designed (cylindrical and hemispherical shape) and used in a physical human–robot control task. Twenty-three participants underwent a measurement session with both handles, performing four different tasks for each handle. Two basic task conditions were permuted: physical load (high/low) and task dynamics (high/low). Electrocardiogram, photoplethysmogram, electrodermal activity, and peripheral skin temperature signals were recorded by sensory handles and a reference high-accuracy biosignal amplifier to determine the raw signal correlation between the measurement systems. Additionally, several standardized physiological parameters were calculated and discussed for both systems. Results of raw signal correlation showed a high correlation between the reference measurement system and the sensory handles. Pearson's correlation coefficients were above 0.8 for most of the physiological signals in all task conditions. Some effect of physical load and high task dynamics was registered. In terms of signal quality, the hemispherical design outperformed the cylindrical design. Correlation results show that the proposed system correlates well with the reference system for all tasks. In terms of optimal design for signal quality and comfort, hemispherical handle shape is more appropriate. Unobtrusive nature and short setup time of such a method deems it appropriate for home use, monitoring, and research.
An Exploratory Inquiry into the Psychological Biases in Financial Investment Behavior

The purpose of this article is to identify the beliefs and attitudes of the individual investors with regard to financial investment decision making, with particular reference to the investor biases, by conducting an in-depth study of investor beliefs and preferences. In total, 30 exploratory semi-structured interviews were conducted to identify and describe the underlying thoughts and feelings that affect the individual investment decision-making behavior. Decision-making rationales are analyzed by means of open coding of verbal data. The findings of the in-depth interviews indicated that individual investors have numerous beliefs and preferences that bias their financial investment decisions. These biases reveal the design of the investor's mind rather than flaws of the investor's mind. This study suggests that an understanding of an individual investor's psychology would help in better comprehending the way the individual investment decisions are made. The value of this research lies in its methodology and analysis. Perceptions and beliefs of the financial consumer with regard to their financial investment biases have not been explored earlier, so this article contributes to new knowledge in terms of financial product buying behavior.
Pentatricopeptide repeat domain protein 1 lowers the levels of mitochondrial leucine tRNAs in cells

Although the basic components and mechanisms of mitochondrial transcription in mammals have been described, the components involved in mRNA processing, translation and stability remain largely unknown. In plants, pentatricopeptide domain RNA-binding proteins regulate the stability, expression and translation of mitochondrial transcripts; therefore, we investigated the role of an uncharacterized mammalian pentatricopeptide domain protein, (PTCD1), in mitochondrial RNA metabolism. We show that PTCD1 is a mitochondrial matrix protein which associates with leucine tRNAs and precursor RNAs that contain leucine tRNAs. Knockdown of PTCD1 in 143B osteosarcoma cells did not change mitochondrial mRNA levels; however, it increased the abundance precursor RNAs and of leucine tRNAs and PTCD1 overexpression led to a reduction of these RNAs. Lowering PTCD1 in cells increased levels of several mitochondria-encoded proteins and Complex IV activity, suggesting that PTCD1 acts as a negative regulator of leucine tRNA levels and hence mitochondrial translation.
Transforming statistical linked data for use in OLAP systems

The amount of available Linked Data on the Web is increasing, and data providers start to publish statistical datasets that comprise numerical data. Such statistical datasets differ significantly from the currently predominant network-style data published on the Web. We explore the possibility of integrating statistical data from multiple Linked Data sources. We provide a mapping from statistical Linked Data into the Multidimensional Model used in data warehouses. We use an extract-transform-load (ETL) pipeline to convert statistical Linked Data into a format suitable for loading into an open-source OLAP system, and thus demonstrate how standard OLAP infrastructure can be used for elaborate querying and visualisation of integrated statistical Linked Data. We discuss lessons learned from three experiments and identify areas which require future work to ultimately arrive at a well-interlinked set of statistical data from multiple sources which is processable with standard OLAP systems.
Texture analysis in quantitative osteoporosis assessment: Characterizing microarchitecture

The microarchitecture of the trabecular bone is an highly informative feature for osteoporosis assessment. High resolution peripheral quantitative computed tomography permits its in-vivo observation at a resolution of 82 µm. In this paper we propose an approach that assesses bone microarchitecture based on texture features extracted from the trabecular bone. The method is based on three-dimensional texture features as local descriptors of the structure in the trabecular bone. A clustering in the feature space indicates characteristic classes of microarchitecture that are repeatedly detected across subjects. The distribution of those classes allows for a differentiation between osteoporotic and healthy subjects. We report initial results for the repeatability of the method and its performance for the differentiation of healthy and osteoporotic subjects.
Optimizing robotic exoskeletons actuation based on human neuromechanics experiments: interaction of push-off timing and work

Samuel Galle†*, Philippe Malcolm†* **, Steven H. Collins***, Jozefien Speeckaert*, Dirk De Clercq* †Equal contribution * Department of Movement and Sports Sciences, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium (samuel.galle@ugent.be http://users.ugent.be/~ddclerc/WALL-X/) ** School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA *** Department of Mechanical Engineering Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Trajectories of late-life change in God-mediated control.

OBJECTIVE To track within-individual change during late life in the sense of personal control and God-mediated control (the belief that one can work collaboratively with God to achieve one's goals and exercise control over life events) and to evaluate the hypothesis that this element of religion is related to declining personal control. METHOD A longitudinal survey representative of older White and Black adults in the United States tracked changes in personal and God-mediated control in four waves over the course of 7 years. RESULTS Growth curve analysis found that the pattern of change differed by race. White adults had less sense of God-mediated control at younger ages, which increased among those who were highly religious but decreased among those who were less religious. Black adults had higher God-mediated control, which increased over time among those with low personal control. DISCUSSION These results indicate that God-mediated control generally increases during older adulthood, but that its relationships with personal control and religious commitment are complex and differ between Black and White adults.
Physico- chemical properties of natural pigments (anthocyanin) extracted from Roselle calyces (Hibiscus subdariffa)

Physico-chemical properties of Roselle calyces (Hibiscus subdariffa) indicated that moisture content, protein, fat, fiber and ash were 12.81 %, 7.51%, 0.46 %, 11.17 % and 11.24 %, respectively. Mineral contents of K, P, Na Ca, Mg, Fe, Zn, Cu and Mn were detected at different levels. The results showed that the Roselle calyces powder more the red color. Besides, contained ascorbic acid (140.13 mg/100g), total anthocyanins (622.91 mg/100g) and total phenolics (37.42 mg/g dry weight). The DPPH scavenging capacity obtained from raw dried Roselle was 36.53 µ/ml. The extraction of natural pigments (anthocyanins) from Roselle calyces by different solvents (ethanol acidified with 1.5N/L HCl (85:15, v/v), ethanol acidified with 1% citric acid, citric acid. solution of 2% concentration and distilled water) were applied and pigments were analyzed for color, pH, total acidity, total soluble solids (T.S.S), total anthocyanins, total phenolic and antioxidants activity. The obtained results indicated that the highest yield of pigment recovered is considered the main goal in the extraction process. In addition to economic considerations, safety should be considered. Accordingly, water acidified with citric acid 2 % indicating anthocyanins yield of 1063 mg/100 g might be the best choice and the more preferable solvent compared with ethanol acidified with HCl which showed the highest yield i.e. 1386 mg/100 g dry weight. The results from this study showed that the greater the Roselle extracted by 2 % citric acid solution the more the red color intensity observed (a* 5.25). Results of these studies can be used to determine application of Roselle anthocyanins in a variety of food products as food colourants such as confectionery products, gelatin desserts, snacks, cake, pudding, ice cream and beverages. (Azza A. Abou-Arab, Ferial M. Abu-Salem and Esmat A. Abou-Arab. Physico- chemical properties of natural pigments (anthocyanin) extracted from Roselle calyces (Hibiscus subdariffa). Journal of American Science 2011;7(7):445-456). (ISSN: 1545-1003). http://www.americanscience. org.
Heavy drinking and patterns of sociability at the end of adolescence: a French survey

UNLABELLED Many alcohol-related problems at adolescence occur during or as a result of peer-oriented activities, so it is necessary to understand how drinking habits are embedded in sociability and lifestyle. OBJECTIVE to study patterns of peer-oriented activities among heavy drinkers, and to investigate factors associated with these patterns. STUDY GROUP A national random sample of 13,623 French adolescents aged 17-18 years, and a subgroup of 762 heavy drinkers (reporting either 20 drinking occasions or more during the prior 30 days, or 20 episodes of drunkenness or more during the previous 12 months). METHODS Respondents answered to a self-administered closed-ended questionnaire. Questions on peer-oriented activities were used for conducting a cluster analysis among heavy drinkers. Logistic regressions were used for studying factors associated with the resulting clusters. RESULTS Among heavy drinkers the dominant pattern was characterized by the combination of heavy drinking and peer-oriented activities. But in two other profiles heavy drinking was associated with either strong involvement in formal sporting practice or low participation in peer-oriented activities. The expected relationship between heavy drinking, mood disorders, other drug use, violence and victimization depended on which pattern was considered. CONCLUSIONS The strong links observed between drinking habits and sociability underline the need to counteract the social acceptability of drinking and focus on the social contexts in which it occurs, but preventive action programs should also take into account the diversity of sociability patterns among heavy drinkers.
Musculoskeletal modeling and physiological validation

Digital human models are applied in human motion analysis and simulation. They can be applied in rehabilitation, sports science, biomedicine, and so on. The difficulty of validation of models and analysis algorithms constricts their practical usage. In this paper, we show our work on human motion analysis using a whole-body musculoskeletal model and validate the analysis results in terms of physiology. First, we build the detailed musculoskeletal model that represents the kinematics and dynamics characteristics of human body. Optical motion capture, force plates and electromyography(EMG) are used for human motion capture. We estimate the muscle tensions required to generate the captured motion sequence based on an inverse kinematics and dynamics computation and a mathematical optimization. The estimated muscle tensions for locomotion cycles are compared with the tensions computed from the simultaneously measured EMG data and a physiological muscle model. The model and the analysis algorithm are also applied to a neurophysiological phenomenon, the nontrivial preferred direction that is a result of the cosine tuning. Our model and analysis algorithm achieves results that correspond with the experimental physiological data well. The possible applications of our model and algorithm involve rehabilitation, sports science, biomedicine, and robotics, e.g. a controller of an exoskeletal robot for human support.
A Fibrinogen Precipitating Factor (FPF) of Group A Streptococci

Summary 1) An active factor was found in streptococci which precipitates various mammalian plasmas, and human and bovine fibrinogens. Fibrinogen precipitating factor (FPF) was found in crude acid extracts of several strains of group A. and one strain of group G streptococci; extracts of staphylococci, pneumococci, and viridans streptococci have proven non-reactive. 2) Streptococcal M protein and FPF appear inseparable, although presence of hyaluronic acid in a suspension of streptococcal cells prior to acid extraction may inhibit the fibrinogen precipitating reactivity of the extract, without significantly affecting the typing reaction. FPF and staphylocoagulase share certain properties, but they are not analogous.
Compressed Wavelet Packet-Based Spectrum Sensing With Adaptive Thresholding for Cognitive Radio

Cognitive radio is a system to utilize spectrum holes efficiently as a solution of spectrum scarcity. The availability of channels for secondary users is determined in the spectrum sensing phase by energy detection. Energy levels of sampled primary user's (PU's) signal can be measured by wavelet transform with more accuracy compared with Fourier-based methods. Wavelet packet-based spectrum sensing measures the energy level at each subcarrier and sets the decision threshold. However, at the first step of energy detection for wideband spectrum sensing, high-rate analog-to-digital converter (ADC) sampling requires a large dynamic range and high-speed signal processors. In this paper, compressed sampling for PU's signal acquisition is proposed to reduce the rate of sampling and solve the implementation complexity of ADC. The simulation results verify that this mechanism is promising to estimate the power spectrum density (PSD) of PU's signals. The graphs prove low side-lobes of the detected PSD and acceptable probability of detection and false alarm due to the target values and certain compression ratio.
Modeling and Rendering of DPP-Based Light Fields

Autostereoscopic displays are a subject of recent research efforts in computer graphics. Such displays have to be fed graphics information in order to produce spatial images. This information is typically 4D radiance data called a light field. Traditionally light-field models were based on the two-plane parameterization. In this paper, however, we present a light-field representation that is based on the direction-and-point parameterization. This parameterization has certain uniformity properties that produce better rendering results. We describe the files and data structures needed to store the representation, and we introduce a rendering algorithm that takes advantage of the uniformity properties of the direction-and-point parameterization. Our algorithm runs in real time and renders light-field models that look like their geometric counterparts
GLycogen levels of preimplantation mouse embryos developing in vitro.

embryos: (1) during development from day 1 postcoitum to day 2 postcoitwn, (2) from day 2 postcoitum to day 3 postcoitum, and (3) from day 5 pOstcoitum to day 6 postcoitum (i.e., in blastocysts). Day 5 blastocysts contained 2.23 ng glycogen per embryo, increasing to 9.91 ng on day 6. However, deletion of glucose from the culture medium produced levels of 0.52 and 1.45 ng per blastocyst on days 5 and 6, respectively. Possible relationships between these findings and the role of glucose in the metabolism of the embryos are discussed.
Lactate shuttles at a glance: from physiological paradigms to anti-cancer treatments

Hypoxia and oncogene expression both stimulate glycolytic metabolism in tumors, thereby leading to lactate production. However, lactate is more than merely a by-product of glycolysis: it can be used as a metabolic fuel by oxidative cancer cells. This phenomenon resembles processes that have been described for skeletal muscle and brain that involve what are known as cell-cell and intracellular lactate shuttles. Two control points regulate lactate shuttles: the lactate dehydrogenase (LDH)-dependent conversion of lactate into pyruvate (and back), and the transport of lactate into and out of cells through specific monocarboxylate transporters (MCTs). In tumors, MCT4 is largely involved in hypoxia-driven lactate release, whereas the uptake of lactate into both tumor cells and tumor endothelial cells occurs via MCT1. Translating knowledge of lactate shuttles to the cancer field offers new perspectives to therapeutically target the hypoxic tumor microenvironment and to tackle tumor angiogenesis.