Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Behavioral and physiological indices related to BMI in a cohort of primary schoolchildren in Greece

The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences between normal weight and overweight primary schoolchildren in terms of certain cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors and furthermore to identify behavioral correlates significantly affecting their body mass index (BMI). The sample consisted of 198 children with a mean age of 11.5 ± 0.4 years (106 females and 92 males). Data was obtained on children anthropometry, plasma lipids, plasma glucose, dietary intake, cardiorespiratory fitness, and physical activity. Significant gender differences were observed for most of these parameters, with boys being more active and fit but also spending more time on sedentary activities and exhibiting higher intake of energy and fat compared to girls. Using the International Obesity Task Force's (IOTF) BMI cut‐off points, the prevalence of overweight and obesity was estimated to be 35.6% and 6.7% among boys and 25.7% and 6.7% among girls, respectively. Overweight and obese children had higher levels of plasma triglycerides (TG) and total cholesterol to HDL‐cholesterol (TC/HDL‐C) ratio and lower levels of HDL‐C and physical fitness compared to their normal‐weight peers. Among the behavioral variables tested, only participation in organized sports, cardiorespiratory fitness, and TV watching were significantly correlated with BMI, while energy and fat intake were found to have no significant effect. The current study suggests that even in childhood, overweight and obesity are indicative of an unfavorable lipidemic profile. Among the behavioral parameters known to affect BMI, those found to exert a significant effect were organized physical activities, cardiorespiratory fitness, and TV watching, but not energy or fat intake. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 16:639–647, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Circuits and technology for Digital's StrongARM and ALPHA microprocessors [CMOS technology]

Since the introduction of the first ALPHA microprocessor in 1992, Digital has maintained leadership in absolute CPU performance. During the past year, Digital's StrongARM processor has also achieved a leadership position as the fastest CPU capable of operating from a single AA battery cell. Some of the key techniques used to achieve this performance are described in this invited paper.
Object-Level Context Modeling For Scene Classification with Context-CNN

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) have been used extensively for computer vision tasks and produce rich feature representation for objects or parts of an image. But reasoning about scenes requires integration between the low-level feature representations and the high-level semantic information. We propose a deep network architecture which models the semantic context of scenes by capturing object-level information. We use Long Short Term Memory(LSTM) units in conjunction with object proposals to incorporate object-object relationship and object-scene relationship in an end-to-end trainable manner. We evaluate our model on the LSUN dataset and achieve results comparable to the state-of-art. We further show visualization of the learned features and analyze the model with experiments to verify our model's ability to model context.
CRLH Unit-Cell Loaded Multiband Printed Dipole Antenna

In this letter, a conventional single-band printed dipole antenna is loaded with via-less composite right/left-handed (CRLH) unit cells to achieve multiband operation. Symmetrical loading of the unit cells provides a dual-band operation, while the asymmetrical loading of unit cells provides a triple-band operation. The new operational frequencies are lower compared to the resonance frequency of a reference dipole antenna and are controlled by the unit-cell parameters. The radiation patterns at all the operating frequencies of the proposed antennas are omnidirectional. Both the dual- and triple-band prototypes of CRLH loaded dipoles are fabricated to validate the results obtained in simulation. The results of measurements and electromagnetic (EM) simulations are in good agreement.
A 0.7–2 GHz auxiliary receiver with enhanced compression for SAW-less FDD

A wideband auxiliary receiver embeds a band-reject N-path filter in the low-noise amplifier to improve the compression point. The receiver has high input impedance and it can be placed at the transmitter output without loading effects. Implemented in a 28nm CMOS technology it occupies 0.12mm2 active area and it can withstand up to +4 dBm QPSK modulated 20 MHz signal with less than 1-dB noise degradation at 50 MHz offset, achieving an equivalent −171 dBc/Hz noise-to-carrier ratio at 1 GHz. Operation was experimentally verified between 0.7 and 2 GHz. The signal path draws 9 mA from a 1.8 V supply and the clock generation circuits draw 16 mA from a 1.2V supply at 1 GHz.
DT-Neg: Tutorial Dialogues Annotated for Negation Scope and Focus in Context

Negation is often found more frequent in dialogue than commonly written texts, such as literary texts. Furthermore, the scope and focus of negation depends on context in dialogues than other forms of texts. Existing negation datasets have focused on non-dialogue texts such as literary texts where the scope and focus of negation is normally present within the same sentence where the negation is located and therefore are not the most appropriate to inform the development of negation handling algorithms for dialogue-based systems. In this paper, we present DT -Neg corpus (DeepTutor Negation corpus) which contains texts extracted from tutorial dialogues where students interacted with an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) to solve conceptual physics problems. The DT -Neg corpus contains annotated negations in student responses with scope and focus marked based on the context of the dialogue. Our dataset contains 1,088 instances and is available for research purposes at http://language.memphis. edu/dt-neg.
Curcumin as a DNA Topoisomerase II Poison

Curcumin, the major active component of the spice turmeric, is recognised as a safe compound with great potential for cancer chemoprevention and cancer therapy. It induces apoptosis, but its initiation mechanism remains poorly understood. Curcumin has been assessed on the human cancer cell lines, TK-10, MCF-7 and UACC-62, and their IC50 values were 12.16, 3.63, 4.28 μM respectively. The possibility of this compound being a topoisomerase II poison has also been studied and it was found that 50 μM of curcumin is active in a similar fashion to the antineoplastic agent etoposide. These results point to DNA damage induced by topoisomerase II poisoning as a possible mechanism by which curcumin initiates apoptosis, and increase the evidence suggesting its possible use in cancer therapy.
On the role of mitochondria in transmitter release from motor nerve terminals.

1. The changes in transmitter release produced by mitochondrial inhibitors has been studied at the frog neuromuscular junction using conventional electrophysiological techniques for stimulation and intracellular recording. 2. Inhibitors of the electron transport chain and inhibitors of oxidative phosphorylation produce an increase in the frequency of appearance of the miniature end‐plate potentials. This increase in frequency is observed also in calcium‐free media. Mitochondrial inhibitors also augment the amount of transmitter liberated by a nerve impulse. 3. Ruthenium red, which is an inhibitor of calcium uptake by mitochondria, increases the spontaneous transmitter release but decreases the quantal content. The latter effect of Ruthenium red is antagonized by calcium. 4. The mitochondrial content of the motor nerve terminals is, on the average, 6.59%. 5. The experimental results are explained on the hypothesis that spontaneous release of transmitter reflects the resting level of intracellular free calcium and the evoked release reflects the sum of the resting calcium and the calcium brought in by the action potential. The mitochondria play a role in transmitter release by participating in the regulation of the intracellular free Ca.
Short Communication Plasma concentration of organochlorine compounds is associated with age and not obesity

It has been suggested that obese individuals, because of an increased dilution space (body fat) for lipophilic organochlorines compounds, may have greater levels of toxic pollutants than lean sedentary individuals. It is important to further examine this possibility because of the potential contribution of organochlorine pesticides in the development of Parkinson’s disease and other neurological diseases. The aim of this study was to further investigate the relationship between the magnitude of obesity and the plasma concentration of organochlorines for a wide range of BMI (with participants at steady state body weight). Fifty-three individuals were selected on the basis of their body mass index (BMI): lean controls (n = 16; mean BMI 22.8 ± 2.2 kg/m 2 ; mean age 38.8 ± 9.4 years), obese individuals (n = 19; mean BMI 33.4 ± 3.0 kg/m 2 ; mean age 38.6 ± 7.6 years) and morbidly obese individuals (n = 18; mean BMI 49.3 ± 6.5 kg/m 2 ; mean age 44.3 ± 9.2 years). Blood samples were analyzed for organochlorine compounds. The relationship between the total plasma organochlorine concentration and BMI was tested using a multiple regression analysis. Age was included in the model. There was no relationship between the total plasma organochlorine concentration and BMI. Organochlorine concentrations, however, were correlated with age (BMI-adjusted R 2 = 0.46; p < 0.001). At steady state body weight, toxic pollutant concentrations are not associated to obesity but strongly correlate with age.
Corneal Protection With High-Molecular-Weight Hyaluronan Against In Vitro and In Vivo Sodium Lauryl Sulfate-Induced Toxic Effects

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate high-molecular-weight hyaluronan (HA-HMW) corneal protection against sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS)-induced toxic effects with in vitro and in vivo experimental approaches. Methods: In vitro experiments consisted of a human corneal epithelial cell line incubated with HA-HMW, rinsed, and incubated with SLS. Cell viability, oxidative stress, chromatin condensation, caspase-3, -8, -9, and P2X7 cell death receptor activation, interleukin-6, and interleukin-8 production were investigated. In vivo experiments consisted of 36 New Zealand white rabbits treated for 3 days, 3 times per day, with HA-HMW or phosphate-buffered salt solution. At day 4, eyes were treated with SLS. Clinical observation and in vivo confocal microscopy using the Rostock Cornea Module of the Heidelberg Retina Tomograph-II were performed to evaluate and to compare SLS-induced toxicity between eyes treated with HA-HMW and eyes treated with phosphate-buffered salt solution. Results: In vitro data indicate that exposure of human corneal epithelial cells to HA-HMW significantly decreased SLS-induced oxidative stress, apoptosis, and inflammation cytokine production. In vivo data indicate that SLS cornea injuries, characterized by damaged corneal epithelium, damaged anterior stroma, and inflammatory infiltrations, were attenuated with HA-HMW treatment. Conclusions: A good correlation was seen between in vitro and in vivo findings showing that HA-HMW decreases SLS-induced toxic effects and protects cornea.
A new test set for validating predictions of protein–ligand interaction

We present a large test set of protein–ligand complexes for the purpose of validating algorithms that rely on the prediction of protein–ligand interactions. The set consists of 305 complexes with protonation states assigned by manual inspection. The following checks have been carried out to identify unsuitable entries in this set: (1) assessing the involvement of crystallographically related protein units in ligand binding; (2) identification of bad clashes between protein side chains and ligand; and (3) assessment of structural errors, and/or inconsistency of ligand placement with crystal structure electron density. In addition, the set has been pruned to assure diversity in terms of protein–ligand structures, and subsets are supplied for different protein‐structure resolution ranges. A classification of the set by protein type is available. As an illustration, validation results are shown for GOLD and SuperStar. GOLD is a program that performs flexible protein–ligand docking, and SuperStar is used for the prediction of favorable interaction sites in proteins. The new CCDC/Astex test set is freely available to the scientific community (http://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk). Proteins 2002;49:457–471. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
An energy converter method for battery cell balancing

Batteries packs made of series-parallel connected cells have developed a lot lately. These new solutions brought along with them some safety issues due to the possibility of overcharging or under-discharging of every individual cell that forms the pack. Balancing is one of the most important issues regarding battery management, as without it the individual cell voltages will draft apart over time and the pack's total capacity will also decrease more quickly. This paper presents some theory behind the balancing methods developed so far and presents a new system used for cell balancing.
A reactive Optimized Link State Routing protocol for Mobile ad hoc networks

Major constraints to be kept in mind while designing a routing protocol for ad hoc networks are battery power consumption, congestion control, time delay and the transmission range of the nodes. In this paper, we aim to develop an energy efficient and angular routing protocol, named Efficient Reactive and Angular - Optimized Link State Routing (ERA-OLSR). ERA-OLSR is an enhanced protocol designed over the well known Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR) [1]. ERA-OLSR is a reactive protocol which omits the use of routing table from OLSR and decides the next hop on the basis of angular concept. The proposed protocol has been compared with well established reactive protocols namely Ad-hoc On Demand Distance Vector Routing (AODV) [2] and Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) [3, 4]. The results achieved after implementing the proposed protocol establishes the fact that ERA-OLSR shows a better performance than both AODV and DSR in terms of End-to-end delay and Average Energy Consumption during the simulation.
The XXL search engine: ranked retrieval of XML data using indexes and ontologies

1. Motivation XML is becoming the standard for integrating and exchanging data over the Internet and within intranets, covering the complete spectrum from largely unstructured, ad hoe documents to highly structured, schematic data. For searching information in open environments such as the Web or intranets of large corporations, ranked retrieval is more appropriate: a query result is a rank list of XML elements in descending order of relevance. We have developed a core language, coined XXL for "flexible X ML search language" [1], for ranked retrieval of XML data using regular element path expressions and search conditions over element contents. For similarity search we have introduced a new operator "~", which can be used for both element content comparisons and approximate matching of element names. On the XML Shakespeare play collection, for example, we can search for scenes where a woman talks about leadership in the presence of Macbeth by the XXL query:
Mitochondrial DNA Damage, Repair, Degradation and Experimental Approaches to Studying These Phenomena

In mammalian cells, genetic information is stored in two locations: in the nucleus and in mitochondria. Nuclear DNA (nDNA) is organized into chromosomes of which two sets are present per cell: one paternal, and one maternal. In contrast, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) inheritance is (with few exceptions) exclusively maternal, and is highly redundant, typically a few hundred to a few thousand copies per cell. In many (but not all, (Noll et al., 1990)) cell types the bulk of ATP is produced by oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) in mitochondria. Since mtDNA encodes components of four out of five mitochondrial respiratory complexes, it is not surprising that alterations in mtDNA result in (mitochondrial) disease (Holt et al., 1988; Lestienne & Ponsot, 1988; Wallace et al., 1988). Apart from mitochondrial disease, mutations in mtDNA are linked to a spectrum of diseases including cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and neurodegenerative disorders, as well as the normal process of aging (Wallace, 2005). Importantly, it has been established that not only mtDNA mutations, but also reduction in the mtDNA copy number can be pathogenic (Clay Montier et al., 2009; Rotig & Poulton, 2009). Understanding cellular mechanisms for the maintenance of mtDNA integrity and copy number is, therefore, of utmost importance since it can provide targets for clinical interventions aimed at prevention and treatment of human disease.
The ultrastructure of the ductus deferens in man.

Specimens of the ductus deferens from normal adult men of proven fertility were examined with the light and electron microscope. The wall of the ductus deferens is made up of a mucosa, three codcentric layers of smooth muscle and an adventitia. The epithelium, together with the underlying connective tissue of the lamina propria, is thrown up into longitudinal folds. The pseudostratified epithelium covering the folds is composed of small basal cells which form a discontinuous layer along the basement membrane and tall thin columnar cells which extend from the base of the epithelium to the lumen. In addition to basal cells, at least three different types of columnar cells can be distinguished in the electron microscope: principal cells, pencil cells and mitochondrion-rich cells. Lymphocytes are found scattered amongst the epithelial cells. The morphological complexity of the epithelium of the ductus deferens suggests that the epithelial cells of this region of the genital ducts, like those of more proximal regions, perform functions of importance to the spermatozoa.
Magnetisation transfer ratio in the normal appearing white matter predicts progression of disability over 1 year in early primary progressive multiple sclerosis

Background: Progression rates in primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS) vary widely and brain magnetisation transfer imaging (MTI) has potential as an early prognostic indicator. We investigated the predictive value of MTI and the longitudinal changes developing over 1 year in early PPMS. Aims: To determine (1) whether baseline brain MTI parameters in early PPMS predict clinical changes over 1 year, independent of brain volume and (2) whether a change in magnetisation transfer (MT) parameters occurs over 1 year, independent of atrophy. Methods: 30 patients with PPMS within 5 years of symptom onset and 15 controls underwent MT and volumetric imaging studies, at baseline and at 1 year. Patients underwent clinical assessment using the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) and Multiple Sclerosis Functional Composite (MSFC), including the timed walk subtest (TWT). Normalised MT histograms were generated for whole brain, normal appearing brain tissue (NABT) and normal appearing white and grey matter (NAWM and NAGM) segments. Multiple regression analyses were performed to investigate whether baseline MTR parameters predicted clinical change over 1 year, adjusting for baseline brain volume. MTR changes over 1 year were assessed using paired t tests. Results: In patients, lower baseline NAWM MTR predicted greater deterioration in EDSS and MSFC, particularly in walking ability measured by the TWT, independent of NAWM baseline volume (p = 0.001). NAGM MTR mean (p<0.001), and to a lesser extent NAWM mean (p = 0.011) and lesion MTR (p = 0.03), decreased over 1 year. Conclusions: NAWM MTR may provide information on short term clinical prognosis in early PPMS. MTI is sensitive to brain tissue changes over 1 year in early PPMS, which were primarily seen in the NAGM.
Radicals of presentation: visibility, relation, and co-presence in persistent conversation

When members of an online, distributed learning community revealed that understanding local patterns of communication purpose and form was key to learning how to operate in this environment, we turned to writers on genre and persistent conversation for help in understanding the basis of this community. We derive from genre literature the idea that radicals, that is root characteristics, of presentation exist in computer-mediated environments and define important aspects of conversation via such media. We propose three radicals of presentation that revolve around speaker-audience relations and identify areas of concern for communicators engaging in persistent, online conversations: visibility, addressing primarily speakers’ concerns with the means, methods and opportunites for self-presentation; relation, addressing the speaker’s concerns with the range and identity of the audience, and audience members’ concerns about relations with each other; and co-presence, addressing concerns relating to the temporal, virtual, and/or physical co-presence of speaking and listening participants.
Myeloperoxidase has Directly-opposed Effects on Nitration Reaction--Study on Myeloperoxidase-deficient Patient and Myeloperoxidase-knockout Mice

Myeloperoxidase (MPO) catalyzes a nitration reaction to form nitrotyrosine in the presence of high nitrite, the metabolite of NO. Human leukocyte was shown to cause phenolic nitration using released MPO as a catalyst in the presence of nitrite. It opposes our previous finding that inhibition of MPO was essential for phenol nitration in human leukocyte study. To clarify the role of MPO, we utilized MPO-deficient human leukocytes and MPO-knockout mice. Even in the absence of exogenously added nitrite, high nitration product was observed in MPO-deficient leukocytes. In liver subjected to ischemia/reperfusion injury, a significantly higher amount of nitrotyrosine was produced in MPO-knockout mice than in normal mice. These results clearly demonstrate that MPO inhibits the accumulation of nitration products in vivo . Further experiments showed that MPO could degrade nitrotyrosine in the presence of glutathione. Thus, MPO-induced degradation of nitration products may cause the underestimation of the nitration product generated in vivo . We conclude that MPO may act predominantly to scavenge nitrotyrosine under physiological nitrite condition, and protect against injurious effect of nitrotyrosine.