Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ethical and Practical Guidelines for Reporting Genetic Research Results to Study Participants: Updated Guidelines from a National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Working Group

In January 2009, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute convened a 28-member multidisciplinary Working Group to update the recommendations of a 2004 National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Working Group focused on Guidelines to the Return of Genetic Research Results. Changes in the genetic and societal landscape over the intervening 5 years raise multiple questions and challenges. The group noted the complex issues arising from the fact that technological and bioinformatic progress has made it possible to obtain considerable information on individuals that would not have been possible a decade ago. Although unable to reach consensus on a number of issues, the working group produced 5 recommendations. The working group offers 2 recommendations addressing the criteria necessary to determine when genetic results should and may be returned to study participants, respectively. In addition, it suggests that a time limit be established to limit the duration of obligation of investigators to return genetic research results. The group recommends the creation of a central body, or bodies, to provide guidance on when genetic research results are associated with sufficient risk and have established clinical utility to justify their return to study participants. The final recommendation urges investigators to engage the broader community when dealing with identifiable communities to advise them on the return of aggregate and individual research results. Creation of an entity charged to provide guidance to institutional review boards, investigators, research institutions, and research sponsors would provide rigorous review of available data, promote standardization of study policies regarding return of genetic research results, and enable investigators and study participants to clarify and share expectations for the handling of this increasingly valuable information with appropriate respect for the rights and needs of participants.
Real-time automation system using Arduino

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the interconnection of physical objects, devices, vehicles and other items embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity that enables these objects to gather and exchange data. For example, in educational organizations, we require additional labor to do jobs such as turn on & off the lights, fans in the laboratories. In some cases, the students may forget to switch off the electrical components like fans, AC and lights in their classrooms. As we take the institution as our scenario, there comes the need of more labors to complete the tasks. And there occurs the wastage of power supply and additional labor cost. To overcome these problems, we are automating the whole system through IoT system. This system can save the energy by efficient power management system of a room which employs certain mechanisms managed by a Microcontroller. This system serves us to control the environment, power and the security management. To provide a better security, the user is provided with live stream from several IP cameras. This paper helps the user to control the system from anywhere at any time from a single terminal through the internet which can be done at a reasonable cost.
Type II Diabetes and Cognitive Function: A population-based study of Native Americans

OBJECTIVE To explore the relationship between type II diabetes and cognitive function in older Native Americans and to assess the effects of other selected risk factors for cognitive dysfunction on this relationship. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Cognitive function was assessed in 80 diabetic and 81 nondiabetic Native Americans who were 45–76 years of age in a cross-sectional population-based sub-study of the Strong Heart Study. Thirteen cognitive function tests were administered during a personal interview. Information about six other risk factors for cognitive dysfunction, including depressive symptoms, physical function, alcoholism, current alcohol use, hypertension, and myocardial infarction, was ascertained from interviews andfrom abstraction of medical records. RESULTS Diabetes was associated with impairment on only two tests of cognitive function: verbal fluency (P = 0.004) and similarities (P = 0.010). Depressive symptoms were related to verbal fluency (P = 0.004), but did not explain thediabetes-related difference in performance. The effects of hypertension, depressive symptoms, and current alcohol use explained the diabetes-related performance difference on similarities. Cognitive function was not related to metabolic control (HbA1c level). CONCLUSIONS We found little evidence that type II diabetes in this population of Native Americans is associated with decrement in cognitive function. Some of the cognitive impairment previously attributed to diabetes may be related, at least in part, to the influence of other risk factors. This should be considered in the design of future studies in other populations.
Relative Contribution of Physical Activity, Sedentary Behaviors, and Dietary Habits to the Prevalence of Obesity among Kuwaiti Adolescents

Background The increasing rate of obesity among Kuwaiti adolescents is associated with immediate and long term-risks to their health and well-being. Objective To update data on the prevalence of overweight and obesity among Kuwaiti adolescents and to examine the relative contribution of selected lifestyle factors to overweight and obesity in this population. Methods The present study is part of the Arab Teens Lifestyle Study (ATLS). A total of 906 adolescents (463 boys and 443 girls) aged between 14 and 19 years were selected from Kuwaiti schools by a multistage stratified randomization process. A validated questionnaire was used to collect data on physical activity, sedentary lifestyle, and eating habits. The International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) cutoff values for adolescents under 18 years of age were used to define overweight and obesity. Total energy expenditure was calculated using metabolic equivalent-minutes per week. A general linear model was used to establish the proportion of the variance (expressed in partial eta squared) in excess weight attributable to differences in eating habits and physical activity. Results The prevalence of overweight and obesity was 50.5% in boys and 46.5% in girls. Among boys, moderate and vigorous activities were found to be significantly negatively associated with overweight and obesity (p < .05), whereas in girls, only those with not less than moderate activities were negatively associated with overweight and obesity (p < .05). Sedentary behaviors, time spent watching television, and time spent working on the computer were not significantly associated with obesity in either sex. Consumption of breakfast, vegetables, and fast foods (boys and girls) and potatoes, cakes and doughnuts, and sweets (girls only) was significantly associated with overweight and obesity (p < .05). In general, the partial eta square explained by physical activity was less than 3.6% in boys compared with less than 1.0% in girls, and eating habits explained less than 1.8% in boys compared with 2.5% in girls. Conclusions Physical activity explains a greater proportion of variation in body mass index than do eating habits, particularly in boys. Eating habits explain a greater proportion of variation in body mass index than does physical activity in girls. Prospective studies are needed to clarify the relative effects of sedentary behaviors on overweight in adolescents.
A quantitative review of the profile and time course of symptom change in schizophrenia treated with clozapine

Contemporary analyses demonstrate an early response to antipsychotic treatment in non-refractory schizophrenia. The profile of response to clozapine is unknown. We used meta-analytic and statistical procedures to examine the response profile to clozapine. We identified 19 unique, randomized, double-blind controlled clinical trials with suitable time course data, representing 1745 subjects. Individual subject data were available for 419 subjects, obtained from two industry-sponsored trials. Symptom severity scores from the BPRS or the PANSS were entered into regression analyses to estimate linear and quadratic coefficients of the rate of change of symptom severity over 4 weeks. Both linear and quadratic regression coefficients for clozapine, and for comparator antipsychotics differed significantly from zero (p ≤ 0.001), indicating early response profiles. Compared with other antipsychotic arms, for clozapine the treatment response was greater (d = −0.578, p = 0.021), and the linear coefficient was steeper (d = −0.502, p = 0.042); the quadratic coefficients indicating attenuation did not differ. Analyses of 6-week data and individual subject data from non-refractory and refractory trials were consistent with the primary findings. Somewhat surprisingly, clozapine shows an early response profile, similar in pattern but somewhat larger in magnitude than other antipsychotic drugs.
A LTCC-based Ku-band 3D bandpass filter using stepped-impedance hairpin resonators

A new compact bandpass filter using stepped impedance (SI) hairpin resonators with multilayer configuration based on LTCC technology for Ku-band application is proposed. Two pairs of transmission zeros are achieved by introducing the cross coupling and asymmetric I/O structure, which can improve the rejection in the stop band. The compact filter is designed as a three-dimension structure which is embedded in the ceramic substrate based on the LTCC multilayer manufacturing technology. EM simulator HFSS is applied to design and optimize the proposed structure. The result shows a center frequency of 15.75 GHz with a bandwidth of 400 MHz. The insert loss is smaller than 2.1 dB, and the return loss is better than 18 dB within the passband. The overall dimension of the proposed filter is 4mm × 7.5mm × 1.056mm, about λg/2 × λg, which is suitable for the application in Ku-band integrated RF front end module.
Steady-spectrum contexts and perceptual compensation for reverberation in speech identification.

Perceptual compensation for reverberation was measured by embedding test words in contexts that were either spoken phrases or processed versions of this speech. The processing gave steady-spectrum contexts with no changes in the shape of the short-term spectral envelope over time, but with fluctuations in the temporal envelope. Test words were from a continuum between "sir" and "stir. " When the amount of reverberation in test words was increased, to a level above the amount in the context, they sounded more like "sir. " However, when the amount of reverberation in the context was also increased, to the level present in the test word, there was perceptual compensation in some conditions so that test words sounded more like "stir" again. Experiments here found compensation with speech contexts and with some steady-spectrum contexts, indicating that fluctuations in the context's temporal envelope can be sufficient for compensation. Other results suggest that the effectiveness of speech contexts is partly due to the narrow-band "frequency-channels" of the auditory periphery, where temporal-envelope fluctuations can be more pronounced than they are in the sound's broadband temporal envelope. Further results indicate that for compensation to influence speech, the context needs to be in a broad range of frequency channels.
Incorporating cultural beliefs in promoting exclusive breastfeeding.

INTRODUCTION Since 2003, the World Health Organization has recommended exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of life. In the Northwest region of Cameroon approximately 90% of women initiate breastfeeding, yet only 34% of these women exclusively breastfeed for the recommended six months. AIM To determine influences on women's exclusive breastfeeding practices. METHODS Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six women and six men followed by focus group discussions with three groups of women and three groups of men in the Kumbo West Health District, Northwest region, Cameroon. All participants were selected using theoretical sampling to assure triangulation. RESULTS Three themes emerged that influence exclusive breastfeeding practices: woman's readiness to exclusively breastfeed; cultural influences towards exclusive breastfeeding; and perceived constraints to exclusive breastfeeding. CONCLUSION These emergent themes were used to create a theoretical framework that is useful for developing a breastfeeding health education intervention in non-Western settings.
Myostatin Inhibits Myoblast Differentiation by Down-regulating MyoD Expression*

Myostatin, a negative regulator of myogenesis, is shown to function by controlling the proliferation of myoblasts. In this study we show that myostatin is an inhibitor of myoblast differentiation and that this inhibition is mediated through Smad 3.In vitro, increasing concentrations of recombinant mature myostatin reversibly blocked the myogenic differentiation of myoblasts, cultured in low serum media. Western and Northern blot analysis indicated that addition of myostatin to the low serum culture media repressed the levels of MyoD, Myf5, myogenin, and p21 leading to the inhibition of myogenic differentiation. The transient transfection of C2C12 myoblasts with MyoD expressing constructs did not rescue myostatin-inhibited myogenic differentiation. Myostatin signaling specifically induced Smad 3 phosphorylation and increased Smad 3·MyoD association, suggesting that Smad 3 may mediate the myostatin signal by interfering with MyoD activity and expression. Consistent with this, the expression of dominant-negativeSmad3 rescued the activity of a MyoD promoter-reporter in C2C12 myoblasts treated with myostatin. Taken together, these results suggest that myostatin inhibits MyoD activity and expression via Smad 3 resulting in the failure of the myoblasts to differentiate into myotubes. Thus we propose that myostatin plays a critical role in myogenic differentiation and that the muscular hyperplasia and hypertrophy seen in animals that lack functional myostatin is because of deregulated proliferation and differentiation of myoblasts.
Fuzzy-based fault-tolerant control of Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAV) — A preliminary study

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) has gained popularity in the past decades. This has been widely used throughout the world in the fields of military, surveillance, agriculture, and construction. One of the main problems in Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAV), typically smaller version of UAV, is its ability to detect and tolerate faults inside the system. In this paper, a Fault-Tolerant Control (FTC) will be developed using fuzzy logic and uses battery percentage and degree of ability to hover as the crisp inputs. The fuzzy logic will use five and three membership functions for the Battery Percentage and Degree of Ability to Hover respectively. The output of the controller will be the degree of ability to continue a certain mission. Further studies can include other constraints such as mapping efficiency where neural networks and deep learning can be associated. Thus, making a hybrid system.
CEST MRI of 3‐O‐methyl‐D‐glucose on different breast cancer models

To test the ability of chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) MRI of 3‐O‐methyl‐D‐glucose (3OMG) to detect tumors in several breast cancer models of murine and human origin, for different routes of administration of the agent and to compare the method with glucoCEST and with 18FDG‐PET on the same animals.
Impact of clinical, hormonal, radiological, and immunohistochemical studies on the diagnosis of postmenopausal hyperandrogenism.

OBJECTIVE Evaluation of postmenopausal women with suspicion of androgen-secreting tumor. DESIGN AND PATIENTS We retrospectively studied 22 postmenopausal women referred to our center for suspicion of androgen-secreting tumor. All patients had clinical, biological, and morphological evaluation. In absence of adrenal tumors, ovarian surgery was most often proposed and immunohistochemistry (IHC) studies were performed. RESULTS Ovarian tumors were detected by ultrasound and/or magnetic resonance imaging in eight patients. Two adrenal androgen-secreting tumors were diagnosed by an adrenal computed tomography (CT) scan. The clinical presentation of the women with or without tumors was similar. Nevertheless, women with tumor exhibited significantly higher testosterone levels and lower basal FSH and LH levels than the other women (2.6±2.7 vs 0.9±0.9 ng/ml, P<0.05; 26.5±22.9 vs 66.5±26.0 IU/l, P<0.01; and 12.0±8.6 vs 24.1±8.9 IU/l, P<0.05 respectively). Based on a likelihood ratio test, patients with a tumor had 8.4 and 10.8 times higher risk of having a testosterone level ≥1.4 ng/ml or an FSH level ≤35 IU/l. Finally, IHC analysis with an anti-P450c17α antibody allowed the identification of an elevated number of ovarian androgen-producing cells in five patients in whom no tumor was found. CONCLUSIONS Androgen-secreting tumors are clinically difficult to discriminate from other causes of postmenopausal hyperandrogenism. Testosterone and FSH were the two discriminative markers in a multivariate analysis. Ovarian and adrenal tumors were detected by imaging studies. However, ovarian non-tumoral causes of hyperandrogenism may be difficult to detect with conventional histology.
Winner of the 2007 Society for Thermal Medicine Young Investigator Award Fever-range whole body hyperthermia prevents the onset of type 1 diabetes in non-obese diabetic mice

Purpose: Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is an autoimmune disease in which the insulin producing β cells of the pancreatic islets are destroyed by cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs). It has been demonstrated that the injection of complete Freund's adjuvant (CFA) can prevent disease onset in non-obese diabetic (NOD) mice. This effect has been attributed to CFA-enhanced natural killer (NK) cell mediated control of autoimmune CTLs. Fever-range whole body hyperthermia (FR-WBH) has also been shown to stimulate NK cell cytotoxicity. This led to the hypothesis that FR-WBH can prevent disease onset in NOD mice by a thermally regulated mechanism. Methods: FR-WBH or mock treatment was administered weekly until the NOD mice reached 32 weeks of age. Blood glucose levels were monitored weekly, with measurements ≥33.5 mM indicating onset of diabetes, at which time the mice were euthanized for histological and cellular analyses. Results: Weekly FR-WBH prevented the onset of T1D in NOD mice and this effect correlated with increased NK cell cytotoxicity and control of blood glucose concentration. Histological analysis revealed significantly fewer lymphocytes infiltrating the pancreatic islets of FR-WBH treated mice than those of untreated mice, suggesting a relationship between thermally induced protection of β cells and their ability to regulate blood glucose concentrations. Conclusions: These studies show, for the first time, that mild systemic hyperthermia can prevent the generation of T1D in a clinically relevant mouse model. Further study of the thermally sensitive aspects of immunoregulation could lead to the development of heat-based therapies for the prevention or treatment of autoimmune diseases.
MRI-based Brain Healthcare Quotients: A bridge between neural and behavioral analyses for keeping the brain healthy

Neurological and psychiatric disorders are a burden on social and economic resources. Therefore, maintaining brain health and preventing these disorders are important. While the physiological functions of the brain are well studied, few studies have focused on keeping the brain healthy from a neuroscientific viewpoint. We propose a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based quotient for monitoring brain health, the Brain Healthcare Quotient (BHQ), which is based on the volume of gray matter (GM) and the fractional anisotropy (FA) of white matter (WM). We recruited 144 healthy adults to acquire structural neuroimaging data, including T1-weighted images and diffusion tensor images, and data associated with both physical (BMI, blood pressure, and daily time use) and social (subjective socioeconomic status, subjective well-being, post-materialism and Epicureanism) factors. We confirmed that the BHQ was sensitive to an age-related decline in GM volume and WM integrity. Further analysis revealed that the BHQ was critically affected by both physical and social factors. We believe that our BHQ is a simple yet highly sensitive, valid measure for brain health research that will bridge the needs of the scientific community and society and help us lead better lives in which we stay healthy, active, and sharp.
Relation of leisure-time physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness to the risk of acute myocardial infarction.

BACKGROUND Previous studies have suggested that higher levels of regular physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness are associated with a reduced risk of coronary heart disease. We investigated the independent associations of physical activity during leisure time and maximal oxygen uptake (a measure of cardiorespiratory fitness) with the risk of acute myocardial infarction. METHODS During the period 1984 to 1989, we performed base-line examinations in 1453 men 42 to 60 years old who did not report having cardiovascular disease or cancer. Physical activity was assessed quantitatively with a detailed questionnaire, and maximal oxygen uptake was measured directly by exercise testing. During an average follow-up of 4.9 years, 42 of the 1166 men with normal electrocardiograms at base line had a first acute myocardial infarction. RESULTS After adjustment for age and the year of examination, the relative hazard (risk) of myocardial infarction in the third of subjects with the highest level of physical activity (> 2.2 hours per week) was 0.31 (95 percent confidence interval, 0.12 to 0.85; P = 0.02), as compared with the third with the lowest level (P = 0.04 for linear trend over all three groups). The relative hazard in the third with the highest maximal oxygen uptake (> 2.7 liters per minute) was 0.26 (95 percent confidence interval, 0.10 to 0.68; P = 0.006) (P = 0.006 for linear trend), after adjustment for age, the year and season when the examination was performed, weight, height, and the type of respiratory-gas analyzer used. After up to 17 confounding variables were controlled for, the relative hazards for the third of subjects with the highest level of physical activity (0.34; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.12 to 0.94; P = 0.04) and maximal oxygen uptake (0.35; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.13 to 0.92; P = 0.03), as compared with the values in the lowest third, were significantly (P < 0.05) less than 1.0. CONCLUSIONS Higher levels of both leisure-time physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness had a strong, graded, inverse association with the risk of acute myocardial infarction, supporting the idea that lower levels of physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness are independent risk factors for coronary heart disease.