Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Association between physical activity 3-12 months after delivery and postpartum well-being

Background: Postpartum time is a transient time for the mother and her family, in which mothers need psycho-physical and social adaptation. This study aimed to define the association between postpartum physical activity 3-12 months after delivery and postpartum well-being. Materials and Methods: This is a historical cohort study in which based on the primary information obtained from the physical activity questionnaire, 91 mothers were divided into two groups of postpartum light activity and moderate/heavy activity. Then, postpartum well-being in both the groups was measured by using the physical activity questionnaire. The subjects were selected from seven health care centers through purposive convenient sampling, and the obtained data were analyzed by descriptive and analytical statistical tests. Results: The results showed that 74.7% (n = 68) of the subjects had light physical activity and 25.3% (n = 23) had moderate and heavy physical activity. There was no significant difference in these two groups concerning physical activity. Mean score of mothers’ well-being in the group of light physical activity was less than that in moderate and heavy activity. Conclusion: The findings showed that postpartum physical activity increases postpartum well-being and having a program in this regard can promote some of the health dimensions.
Enrichment and Characterization of Atrazine Degrading Bacterial Communities

Summary The objective of this study was to enrich and evaluate biotransformation activity of atrazine degrading bacterial communities originating from wastewater and soil of the herbicide factory, especially to assess their effectiveness for treatment of effluents from the production of atrazine. The enrichment of atrazine degrading bacteria was carried out in continuous-flow units under the inflow of mineral salts medium containing 25 mg/L of atrazine and 50 mg/L of yeast extract (AMS). After a 2-month cultivation at a dilution rate of 0.1 h –1 , the enriched communities showed similar structure (determined by plating on selective agar plates) and similar degradation activity (complete disappearance of atrazine in AMS medium, monitored by HPLC analyses) as well as substantial mineralizing activity (50–60 % of atrazine released as carbon dioxide, determined by TIC analyses). The potential of the enriched communities for atrazine degradation in industrial wastewater was further studied in laboratory batch and continuous experiments with cells, immobilized or free in solution. Atrazine was completely degraded only in wastewater containing 25 % of mineral salts medium with cells free in the solution, while slower and incomplete degradation with accumulation of hydroxyatrazine was achieved with immobilized cells. Furthermore, there was no significant difference in the kinetics of atrazine degradation using different carrier materials for inoculum immobilization. Other s-triazine wastewater constituents, deethylatrazine (DEA) and deisopropylatrazine (DIA) were poorly degradable. Batch culture experiments in AMS medium amended with isopropylamine (IPA) and NaCl suggested that high salinity and high content of IPA in the industrial wastewater may be the major factors influencing the growth rate of atrazine degrading community and consequently the kinetics of atrazine degradation.
An Integer Programming Model for the Sudoku Problem

Sudoku is the recent craze in logic puzzles. Players must flll in an n £ n matrix, which contains some given entries, so that each row, column, and m £ m submatrix contains each integer 1 through n exactly once. Two issues associated with these puzzles interest us mathematically: puzzle solution and puzzle creation. A Sudoku puzzle can be solved by creating a feasibility problem where the goal is to flnd at least one feasible solution to the puzzle. We present a binary integer linear program to solve this feasibility problem. Further, such an approach is extended to variations on the traditional Sudoku puzzle. In addition, we speculate as to how Sudoku puzzles are created, and provide several theorems for generating many new puzzles from one given original puzzle. Exercises and challenges problems that use principles from optimization, combinatorics, linear algebra, and computer science are presented for students.
Monoplanar Camera Calibration Iterative Multi-Step Approach

A new method for robotics camera calibration based on a linear computation and using a coplanar group of calibration points is presented in this paper. This new method suppresses the constraint presented by the RAC calibration model of having an incidence angle between the optical axis and the calibration plane of at least 30 degrees. The parameters are obtained based on a multi-step calculation, and the accuracy of the parameters is strongly increased when used on a iterative calibration. Experimental and simulated analyses results are presented. A comparative analysis between this new method and the RAC method is presented.
Association of MTOR and AKT Gene Polymorphisms with Susceptibility and Survival of Gastric Cancer

Background The phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B (PKB, AKT)/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling pathway plays a critical role in angiogenesis and cell growth, proliferation, metabolism, migration, differentiation, and apoptosis. Genetic diversity in key factors of this pathway may influence protein function and signal transduction, contributing to disease initiation and progression. Studies suggest that MTOR rs1064261 and AKT rs1130233 polymorphisms are associated with risk and/or prognosis of multiple cancer types. However, this relationship with gastric cancer (GC) remains unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of MTOR and AKT polymorphisms in the risk and prognosis of GC. Methods The Sequenom MassARRAY platform was used to genotype 1842 individuals for MTOR rs1064261 T→C and AKT rs1130233 G→A polymorphisms. ELISA was used to detect Helicobacter pylori antibodies in serum. Immunohistochemical analysis was used to detect total and phosphorylated MTOR and AKT proteins. Results The MTOR rs1064261 (TC+CC) genotype and the AKT rs1130233 (GA+AA) genotype were associated with increased risk of GC in men (P = 0.049, P = 0.030). In H. pylori-negative individuals, the AKT rs1130233 GA and (GA+AA) genotypes were related to increased risk of atrophic gastritis (AG; P = 0.012, P = 0.024). Notably, the AKT rs1130233 (GA+AA) genotype demonstrated significant interactions with H. pylori in disease progression from healthy controls (CON) to AG (P = 0.013) and from AG to GC (P = 0.049). Additionally, for individuals with the AKT rs1130233 variant, those in the H. pylori-positive group had higher levels of phosphorylated AKT (p-AKT) expression. The AKT rs1130233 genotype was found to be associated with clinicopathological parameters including lymph node metastasis and alcohol drinking (P<0.05). Conclusion MTOR rs1064261and AKT rs1130233 polymorphisms were associated with increased GC risk in males and increased AG risk in H. pylori-negative individuals. A significant interaction existed between the AKT rs1130233 genotype and H. pylori infection in CON→AG→GC disease progression. The AKT rs1130233 genotype influenced p-AKT protein expression in H. pylori-infected individuals.
Differentiation between temporary and real non-clearability of biotinylated IgG antibody by avidin in mice

Although an increasing number of antibody conjugates are being used in the clinic, there remain many unmet needs in antibody targeting. Normal tissue background is one of the key issues that limits the therapeutic efficacy and the detection sensitivity. Background reduction coupled with dose increase may provide the required target accumulation of the label or toxin at an acceptable normal tissue background. However, the knowledge about the in vivo interaction between antibody and a clearing agent is currently inadequate for designing a rational clearance regimen or system. The current investigation focuses on the clearability of antibody for background reduction, an important topic to antibody targeting in general. The investigation employs pretargeting as a research tool and avidin as a model clearing agent. By comparing the effects of natural clearance at a longer post-injection time and avidin clearance, we demonstrated that avidin clearance is much more effective. By directly attaching avidin to a biotinylated antibody prior to injection, we found that the biotinylated antibody in blood, once bound to the clearing agent, can be removed from the circulation immediately and completely, while the real non-clearable antibody without biotin stays. The study of multiple avidin injections confirmed that the presence of clearable biotinylated antibodies after an avidin injection is due to their temporary inaccessibility and subsequent return from tissue compartments. The collective clearance efficiency of 91% by three avidin injections indicates a continuous IV infusion would be recommended to remove all of the biotinylated IgG molecules. In conclusion, the use of antibody pretargeting as a tool in this study has improved understanding of the incomplete clearance by avidin and can aid in overcoming this obstacle.
Real time isosurface browsing

As volumetric datasets get larger, exploring the data sets becomes more difficult and tedious. Two approaches have previously been used to solve this problem: presentation of an abstraction of the data and acceleration of extraction and rendering of the data. We present a user centered approach which decouples the volume visualisation into two modes. Selection of the mode is done based on the user's actions. The first mode uses traditional isosurface rendering and extraction techniques and is applied when the user knows the isovalue of interest. The second mode uses a novel view dependent, sampling based isosurface rendering and extraction technique, which allows interactive browsing of the isosurfaces.
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), Irrational and Rational Beliefs, and the Mental Health of Athletes

In this article Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) is proposed as a potentially important framework for the understanding and promotion of mental health in athletes. Cognitive-behavioral approaches predominate in the provision of sport psychology, and often form the backbone of psychological skills training for performance enhancement and maintenance. But far from being solely performance-focused, the cognitive-behavioral approach to sport psychology can restore, promote, and maintain mental health. This review article presents REBT (Ellis, 1957), the original cognitive behavioral therapy, as a valuable approach to addressing mental health issues in sport. REBT holds that it is not events that directly cause emotions and behaviors. Rather, it is one’s beliefs about the events that lead to emotional and behavioral reactivity. Further, REBT distinguishes between rational and irrational beliefs, and suggests that in response to failure, maltreatment, and misfortune, people can react with either healthy or unhealthy emotional and behavioral responses. The extant research indicates that irrational beliefs lead to unhealthy negative emotions, a range of pathological conditions, and a host of maladaptive behaviors that undermine mental health. Therefore, REBT proposes a process for the reduction of irrational beliefs and the promotion of rational beliefs. The use of REBT in sport is seldom reported in literature, but research is growing. This review article proposes three important areas of investigation that will aid the understanding of irrational beliefs and the application of REBT within sport. These areas are: (1) the influence of irrational beliefs and REBT on the mental health of athletes, (2) the influence of irrational beliefs and REBT on athletic performance, (3) the origins and development of irrational beliefs in athletes. Each area is discussed in turn, offering a critical and progressive review of the literature as well as highlighting research deficits, and recommendations to address each of the three areas of investigation.
Parallelizing Query Optimization on Shared-Nothing Architectures

Data processing systems offer an ever increasing degree of parallelism on the levels of cores, CPUs, and processing nodes. Query optimization must exploit high degrees of parallelism in order not to gradually become the bottleneck of query evaluation. We show how to parallelize query optimization at a massive scale. We present algorithms for parallel query optimization in left-deep and bushy plan spaces. At optimization start, we divide the plan space for a given query into partitions of equal size that are explored in parallel by worker nodes. At the end of optimization, each worker returns the optimal plan in its partition to the master which determines the globally optimal plan from the partition-optimal plans. No synchronization or data exchange is required during the actual optimization phase. The amount of data sent over the network, at the start and at the end of optimization, as well as the complexity of serial steps within our algorithms increase only linearly in the number of workers and in the query size. The time and space complexity of optimization within one partition decreases uniformly in the number of workers. We parallelize single- and multi-objective query optimization over a cluster with 100 nodes in our experiments, using more than 250 concurrent worker threads (Spark executors). Despite high network latency and task assignment overheads, parallelization yields speedups of up to one order of magnitude for large queries whose optimization takes minutes on a single node.
Local effects of human PCSK9 on the atherosclerotic lesion

Proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) promotes atherosclerosis by increasing low‐density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels through degradation of hepatic LDL receptor (LDLR). Studies have described the systemic effects of PCSK9 on atherosclerosis, but whether PCSK9 has local and direct effects on the plaque is unknown. To study the local effect of human PCSK9 (hPCSK9) on atherosclerotic lesion composition, independently of changes in serum cholesterol levels, we generated chimeric mice expressing hPCSK9 exclusively from macrophages, using marrow from hPCSK9 transgenic (hPCSK9tg) mice transplanted into apoE−/− and LDLR−/− mice, which were then placed on a high‐fat diet (HFD) for 8 weeks. We further characterized the effect of hPCSK9 expression on the inflammatory responses in the spleen and by mouse peritoneal macrophages (MPM) in vitro. We found that MPMs from transgenic mice express both murine (m) Pcsk9 and hPCSK9 and that the latter reduces macrophage LDLR and LRP1 surface levels. We detected hPCSK9 in the serum of mice transplanted with hPCSK9tg marrow, but did not influence lipid levels or atherosclerotic lesion size. However, marrow‐derived PCSK9 progressively accumulated in lesions of apoE−/− recipient mice, while increasing the infiltration of Ly6Chi inflammatory monocytes by 32% compared with controls. Expression of hPCSK9 also increased CD11b‐ and Ly6Chi‐positive cell numbers in spleens of apoE−/− mice. In vitro, expression of hPCSK9 in LPS‐stimulated macrophages increased mRNA levels of the pro‐inflammatory markers Tnf and Il1b (40% and 45%, respectively) and suppressed those of the anti‐inflammatory markers Il10 and Arg1 (30% and 44%, respectively). All PCSK9 effects were LDLR‐dependent, as PCSK9 protein was not detected in lesions of LDLR−/− recipient mice and did not affect macrophage or splenocyte inflammation. In conclusion, PCSK9 directly increases atherosclerotic lesion inflammation in an LDLR‐dependent but cholesterol‐independent mechanism, suggesting that therapeutic PCSK9 inhibition may have vascular benefits secondary to LDL reduction. Copyright © 2015 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Age-Related Rates of Decline in Performance among Elite Senior Athletes

Background Age-related disability and lost independence currently plague one third of older Americans. Many causes of disability, lost muscle mass and bone mineral density, are modifiable with exercise. Most exemplary of successful aging are the Senior Olympians; this group of vital athletes exhibit persistently high levels of functional capacity. Purpose This study describes demographic data, injury characteristics and the effect of aging on physical performance in senior athletes to identify key time points for intervention to address declining performance. Study Design Cross-sectional study; Level of evidence, 4. Methods Senior Olympians (>50 years) participating in the 2001 National Senior Olympic Games were surveyed for demographic and health characteristics. Age-related changes in physical performance were determined from mean winning performance times in track and field events. These were plotted against age and task for men and women. Analysis of variance and intergroup significance were analyzed using the Tukey procedure. Percentage performance change across events was compared. The 2001 National Senior Olympic Games results were compared with American track and field record holders. Results Senior athletes’ performance declined (male and female) approximately 3.4% per year over 35 years of competition—slowly from age 50 to 75 years and dramatically after age 75 years. Men showed no difference in decline of sprint and endurance events, whereas the decline in the sprint was greater than in endurance for women, especially after the age of 75 years. Conclusion Even the healthiest examples of musculoskeletal aging experience significant performance declines around age 75 years. This may be a key time point for preventive intervention.
A Distributed Algorithm for Minimum-Weight Spanning Trees

A distributed algorithm is presented that constructs the minimum-weight spanning tree in a connected undirected graph with distinct edge weights. A processor exists at each node of the graph, knowing initially only the weights of the adjacent edges. The processors obey the same algorithm and exchange messages with neighbors until the tree is constructed. The total number of messages required for a graph of N nodes and E edges is at most 5N log2N + 2E, and a message contains at most one edge weight plus log28N bits. The algorithm can be initiated spontaneously at any node or at any subset of nodes.
F 2-Linear Random Number Generators

Random number generators based on linear recurrences modulo 2 are among the fastest long-period generators currently available. The uniformity and independence of the points they produce, by taking vectors of successive output values from all possible initial states, can be measured by theoretical figures of merit that can be computed quickly, and the generators having good values for these figures of merit are statistically reliable in general. Some of these generators can also provide disjoint streams and substreams efficiently. In this chapter, we review the most interesting construction methods for these generators, examine their theoretical and empirical properties, describe the relevant computational tools and algorithms, and make comparisons.
Single-image super-resolution using low complexity adaptive iterative back-projection

The current paper focuses on single-image super-resolution algorithms aiming at increasing the spatial resolution of images and video sequences. We achieve this goal by decreasing the complexity of the reconstruction process, combining common filtering methods and introducing adaptive error back-projection throughout an iterative back-projection framework. We compare our scheme with common interpolation algorithms and other single-image super-resolution techniques. The results of this work can be used to improve the performance of space and resource-limited implementations.
The Influence of Spin Orientation and Alloying on Magnetism and Work Function for Fex-1Mnx/Fe (001) Films

By using first-principles methods based on density functional theory (DFT), we investigated the magnetism and work function of Fex-1Mnx/Fe (001) films with different spin arrangements (parallel (PL), antiparallel (APL1) and mixed (APL2)) for Mn and Fe atoms. The calculation shows that the spin arrangement and alloying have evident impact on the work function and moment of Fex-1Mnx/Fe (001) films. For Mn/Fe (001), the spin arrangement affects evidently the geometrical structure, work function and magnetism of the system. Moreover, the work function for non-magnetic (NM) state is found to be higher than that for magnetic state, and the work function of Mn/Fe (001) with PL state is less than that with APL2 state. For Fex-1Mnx/Fe (001), with increased Mn doping content, the Fe moments in the second layer decrease and their values are all less than the bulk value of Fe atom, which is due to the antiferromagnetic coupling between Mn and Fe atoms. Furthermore, we found that the surface alloying can have an impact on the work function of Fex-1Mnx/Fe (001), but the role of spin polarization is also quite important.
Preparation and characterization of surface modified silicon carbide/polystyrene nanocomposites

ABSTRACT: A simple method is reported to coat silicon carbide (SiC) nanoparticles with polystyrene (PS) to improve the interfacialadhesion between polymer matrix and SiC nanoparticles. The morphology of untreated SiC nanoparticles, PS coated SiC (p-SiC)nanoparticles, SiC/PS nanocomposites, and p-SiC/PS nanocomposites are observed. The HRTEM image of p-SiC shows that the thick-ness of PS on the surface of SiC is about 1.5–2.0 nm, which is consistent with the TGA results. With 24.7 vol % untreated SiC nano-particles dispersed into PS matrix, the thermal conductivity (k) of the SiC/PS composites increases by about 192%. However, whenthe same volume fraction of p-SiC nanoparticles is used, the increase is about 353%. This big difference could be attributed to thepromoted dispersion of the p-SiC in the PS matrix. The measurements of glass transition (T g ), dielectric constant (e), and tensilestrength at break (r b ) also support this explanation. V C 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 130: 638–644, 2013
Quartz Crystal Microbalance Aptasensor for Sensitive Detection of Mercury(II) Based on Signal Amplification with Gold Nanoparticles

We show that a short mercury-specific aptamer (MSA) along with gold nanoparticles (Au-NPs) can be used to determine Hg(II) ion by a combination of a QCM-based sensor and a flow system. The MSA binds specifically to Hg(II), and the Au-NPs can amplify the signal to enhance sensitivity. Specifically, the short thiolated MSAs are immobilized on the surface of the QCM as the capture probe, and the MSAs are linked to the Au-NPs as the linking probe. The two components can form a sandwich structure of the T-Hg(II)-T type in the presence of Hg(II) ions. This leads to change in the mass on the QCM and a change in the resonance frequency. Hg(II) can be determined with a detection limit of 0.24 ± 0.06 nM which is better by three orders of magnitude than previous methods. The sensor can be regenerated by disrupting the T-Hg(II)-T base pairs with a solution of cysteine.