Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of Coenzyme Q10 Supplementation on Serum Lipoproteins, Plasma Fibrinogen, and Blood Pressure in Patients With Hyperlipidemia and Myocardial Infarction

Background: Low plasma concentrations of coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) have been associated with concentration of lipoproteins and other factors contributing to coronary heart diseases. Objectives: The present investigation aimed to improve the blood pressure and serum lipoproteins concentration in patients with myocardial infarction (MI) by CoQ10 supplementation. Patients and Methods: In this randomized double-blinded controlled clinical trial, 52 Iranian patients with hyperlipidemia and MI were recruited to examine the effect of CoQ10 on serum total cholesterol (TC), LDL-C, HDL-C, triglyceride (TG), LDL-C/HDL-C ratio, TC/HDL-C ratio, fibrinogen, systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP). Individuals were randomly allocated to two groups for receiving either 200 mg/d of CoQ10 or placebo for 12 weeks. Results: There were not significant differences in serum LDL-C (2.70 ± 0.31 vs. 2.70 ± 0.35 mmol/L), TC (4.47 ± 0.33 vs. 4.93 ± 0.57 mmol/L), TG (2.48 ± 0.12 vs. 2.25 ± 0.69 mmol/L), and fibrinogen (2.08 ± 0.99 vs. 38.7 ± 0.64 mg/dL) between CoQ10 and placebo groups. After 12 weeks, a significant enhancement in serum HDL-C (1.44 ± 0.18 vs. 1.14 ± 0.18 mmol/L) level was observed between groups after the supplementation (P < 0.001). A significant reduction of TC, LDL-C, and fibrinogen and a significant increase in HDL-C concentration was observed in CoQ10 group after intervention (P < 0.001). Our assessment demonstrated statistically significant differences between the two groups in SBP and DBP after intervention (P < 0.001). ANCOVA also revealed significant differences in the ratio of LDL-C/HDL-C and TC/HDL-C between the two groups (1.89 ± 0.42 vs. 2.39 ± 0.38, P = 0.002; and 3.2 ± 0.5 vs. 4.24 ± 0.66, P = 0.01, respectively). A significant reduction of LDL-C/HDL-C and TC/HDL-C was observed in CoQ10 group (P < 0.001). Conclusions: Twelve-week supplementation with CoQ10 in patients with hyperlipidemia and MI can improve blood pressure, serum HDL-C as well as LDL-C/HDL-C and TC/HDL-C ratios; therefore, it might decrease the risk of frequent MI.
Position Estimation for a Mobile Robot with Augmented System State

Position estimation is a fundamental problem for an autonomous mobile robot. Extended Kalman filter is an efficient tool for mobile robot pose tracking, but it suffers from linearization errors due to linear approximation of nonlinear system equations. In this paper we describe a position estimation method with linear system models. The position of mobile robot is indirectly represented with an augmented system state vector. The coordinate of landmark is considered as observation information. In this way, motion model and observation model are linear. The position of mobile robot is estimated recursively based on optimal KF. It avoids linear approximation of nonlinear system equations and is free of linearization error. All these techniques have been implemented on our mobile robot ATRVII equipped with 2D laser rangefinder SICK
Learning Behaviour by Observation for Real-Time Strategy Games

This thesis details an exploratory investigation into the use of Learning By Observation (LBO) methods for the complex domain of real-time strategy games. The domain presents a number of interesting challenges forArtificial Intelligence (AI) research, many of which are analogous to real-world challenges in robotics. The aim of this research was to reduce the human effort required to develop new AI systems for such complex domains by using LBO methods to enable an agent to learn from human examples. Case-based reasoning was applied to the problem, creating a case base associating observed game states with the actions that humans took in those situations. Even with a very simple metric for deciding which states were similar, this method was able to select appropriate enough actions to emulate a human in the very early stages of the game. However, it suffered from issues in selecting the correct order of actions, and required a relatively large amount of time to make decisions. Additionally, the existing dataset used to form the case base presented a very simplified view of the game state, with many attributes not recorded or infrequently sampled. To address the limitation in data, an improved dataset was created using the same original human match records as the dataset from prior work, but extracting much more precise and complete information. This information was also stored more efficiently so that it could be quickly and easily searched or updated. In the process of extracting and checking this information, previously undetected errors with certain records were discovered and the records removed, making the dataset more accurate than any prior work. Data mining algorithms were applied to the new dataset in order to extract association rules and frequent patterns that could be useful for online decisionmaking. Most of the tested algorithms were unsuitable to handle the large scale and complexity of the data without extensive human preprocessing, making them unsuitable for LBO. A new method was devised to find simple highconfidence rules and patterns. It was able to discover some game rules and common action sequences. An alternative approach was then taken with the dataset: player actions were used to build a behaviour tree characterising typical player actions in a match. This was achieved using a novel application of a motif-finding algorithm from computational biology to align subsections of observed action sequences. This method was able to create a tree structure that generalised a large amount of action information, making it viable as a first step in building a more compact and generalised representation of observed behaviour.
Red Cell Membrane Permeability Deduced from Bulk Diffusion Coefficients

The permeability coefficients of dog red cell membrane to tritiated water and to a series of[14C]amides have been deduced from bulk diffusion measurements through a "tissue" composed of packed red cells. Red cells were packed by centrifugation inside polyethylene tubing. The red cell column was pulsed at one end with radiolabeled solute and diffusion was allowed to proceed for several hours. The distribution of radioactivity along the red cell column was measured by sequential slicing and counting, and the diffusion coefficient was determined by a simple plotting technique, assuming a one-dimensional diffusional model. In order to derive the red cell membrane permeability coefficient from the bulk diffusion coefficient, the red cells were assumed to be packed in a regular manner approximating closely spaced parallelopipeds. The local steady-state diffusional flux was idealized as a one-dimensional intracellular pathway in parallel with a one-dimensional extracellular pathway with solute exchange occurring within the series pathway and between the pathways. The diffusion coefficients in the intracellular and extracellular pathways were estimated from bulk diffusion measurements through concentrated hemoglobin solutions and plasma, respectively; while the volume of the extracellular pathway was determined using radiolabeled sucrose. The membrane permeability coefficients were in satisfactory agreement with the data of Sha'afi, R. I. , C. M. Gary-Bobo, and A. K. Solomon (1971. J. Gen. Physiol. 58:238) obtained by a rapid-reaction technique. The method is simple and particularly well suited for rapidly permeating solutes.
A formulation of the linear discrete Coulomb friction problem via convex optimization

This paper presents a new formulation of the dynamical Coulomb friction problem in finite dimension with discretized time. The novelty of our approach is to capture and treat directly the friction model as a parametric quadratic optimization problem with second‐order cone constraints coupled with a fixed point equation. This intrinsic formulation allows a simple existence proof under reasonable assumptions, as well as a variety of solution algorithms. We study mechanical interpretations of these assumptions, showing in particular that they are actually necessary and sufficient for a basic example similar to the so‐called “paradox of Painlevé”. Finally, we present some implementations and experiments to illustrate the practical aspect of our work.
The Effect of Team-Based Learning Coupled with Merrill’s First Principles of Instruction on the Achievement of Learning Objectives in Nursing Students

Introduction: Team-based learning is one of the methods concerned in medical education. Teaching and learning have some principles known as Merrill’s first principles that are a basis for effective education. This study examined the effect of using team-based learning combined with Merrill’s Principles on achieving learning objectives in nursing students. Methods: This was a semi-experimental, applied research that used pretest-posttest design with a control group. The statistical population included all undergraduate students of Ardebil University of Medical Sciences, Meshkin Shahr campus, in 2015 2016. The sample group comprised a class of nursing students selected by convenience sampling method (n = 47). The subjects were divided into two groups of control (n = 23) and test (n = 24) using simple random allocation. A pretest was given to both groups prior to the implementation of the training. Then, the intended plan was executed for 5 weeks and at the end, a posttest was administered. The data were analyzed by applying covariance analysis test using SPSS version 20. Results: The results showed that the learning objectives scores in the test group increased from 2.68 and 1.31 to 17.83 and 12.16 for remembrance and application levels, respectively, while the increments were not significant in the control group. In other words, there was a significant difference in the achievement of learning objectives between the test and control groups (P < 0.001), implying that the test group had better learning. Conclusions: By using team-based learning combined with Merrill’s First Principles, we can improve learning objectives achieve-
Evolution of reproductive isolation as a by-product of divergent life-history evolution in laboratory populations of Drosophila melanogaster

We show that two complementary asymmetric isolating mechanisms, likely mediated by divergence in body size, underlie the evolution of incipient reproductive isolation between a set of Drosophila melanogaster populations selected for rapid development and their ancestral controls. Selection has led to great reduction in body size in the fast developing lines. Small males belonging to fast developing lines obtain few matings with large control females, both in presence and absence of large control line males, giving rise to unidirectional, premating isolation caused by sexual selection. Conversely, small selected line females suffer greatly increased mortality following mating with large control males, causing unidirectional postcopulatory prezygotic isolation. We discuss preliminary evidence for evolution of reduced male harm caused to females upon mating in the fast developing lines, and speculate that the females from these lines have coevolved reduced resistance to male harm such that they can no longer resist the harm caused by males from control lines. This potentially implicates differing levels of sexual conflict in creating reproductive barrier between the selected line females and the control males. We also show that a large difference in development time is not sufficient to cause postzygotic incompatibilities in the two sets of populations reaffirming the belief that prezygotic isolation can evolve much earlier than postzygotic isolation.
Substitution of TAG oil with diacylglycerol oil in food items improves the predicted 10 years cardiovascular risk score in healthy, overweight subjects

Dietary fat is normally in TAG form, but diacylglycerol (DAG) is a natural component of edible oils. Studies have shown that consumption of DAG results in metabolic characteristics that are distinct from those of TAG, which may be beneficial in preventing and managing obesity. The objective of the present study was to investigate if food items in which part of the TAG oil is replaced with DAG oil combined with high α-linolenic acid (ALA) content would influence metabolic markers. A 12-week double-blinded randomised controlled parallel-design study was conducted. The participants (n 23) were healthy, overweight men and women, aged 37–67 years, BMI 27–35 kg/m2, with waist circumference >94 cm (men) and >88 cm (women). The two groups received 20 g margarine, 11 g mayonnaise and 12 g oil per d, containing either high ALA and sn-1,3-DAG or high ALA and TAG. Substitution of TAG oil with DAG oil in food items for 12 weeks led to an improvement of the predicted 10 years cardiovascular risk score in overweight subjects by non-significantly improving markers of health such as total body fat percentage, trunk fat mass, alanine aminotransferase, systolic blood pressure, γ-glutamyl transferase, alkaline phosphatase and total fat-free mass. This may suggest that replacing TAG oil with DAG oil in healthy, overweight individuals may have beneficial metabolic effects.
Evaluation of Different DNA Vaccines against Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) in Pigs

In veterinary medicine, there have been different experiences with the plasmid DNA vaccination. In this area and with the hypothesis to demonstrate the effectiveness of different plasmids encoding porcine respiratory and reproductive syndrome (PRRS), five DNA vaccines against PRRS were evaluated for their innocuity and efficacy in pigs. Eighteen animals were divided into five groups which were injected with five (A, B, C, D, E) different DNA vaccines. Albeit, none of the proposed vaccines were able to protect the animals against PRRS virus. Only vaccines A and B were able to reduce the clinical signs of the infection. ELISA IgM were detected 30 days after the first vaccination in the pigs injected by Vaccine A or B. ELISA IgG were detected 90 days after the first vaccination in the pigs injected by Vaccine B or C. Neutralizing antibody were detected Post Challenge Days 61 (PCD) in all groups. In the pigs inoculated with Vaccine C, IFN-γ were detected 90 days after first vaccination, and after challenge exposure they increased. In the other groups, the IFN-γ were detected after challenge infection. Pigs injected with each of the vaccines A, B, C, D and E showed a significantly higher level of CD4−CD8+ lymphocytes (p < 0.001) after infection in comparison with their controls.
Mobile Robot Control by BCI Based on Motor Imagery

Current interests in BCI development mainly derive from rehabilitation engineering, assistant control for normal people, entertainment, brain cognition, and so on. This paper has developed an online mobile robot control system by BCI based on motor imagery (MI). In the system, the user can give control command by 'thinking'. The EEG signals from the user are acquired by a biological signal acquisition system. The MI, specific signal features that reflect the user's intent are extracted and translated into control commands. Through the wireless network, the computer can communicate with the mobile robot. The control commands can control the robot motion. The videos on the PC screen from the camera on the robot feedback to the user. Thus, the user can use feedback information to develop and maintain good correlation between his or her intent and the signal features employed by the BCI. The experimental results show that the system can extract features and translate those features into the robot commands correctly and efficiently for the real-time mobile robot control.
Soil moisture estimation using TerraSAR-X data and empirical models upgraded with SOMs

For public safety reasons is essential early pre- diction of natural disasters like floods and landslides, which can be based on soil moisture estimation. Our goal is to evaluate quality of the Dubois and Shi empirical models used in soil moisture parameters retrieved from TerraSAR-X satellite data. In order to compare and validate estimated results, volumetric soil moisture measurements were done with a Pico64 sensor at the time of SAR image capture. Our measurements show superiority of the Shi model by a factor 4 with regard to the Dubois model. Results are further im- proved using Self-organizing map, which is a type of a neural network in order to file out artefacts and fields with inaccu- rate soil moisture estimation.
A predictive model of criminality in civil psychiatric populations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a predictive model of criminal risk in civil psychiatric populations, by determining the relative impacts of psychopathy, drug use, impulsivity and intelligence on levels of criminality. Design/methodology/approach – The sample consisted of 871 civil psychiatric patients, selected from the MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study, who had been diagnosed with a mental illness or personality disorder, and hospitalised less than 21 days. Each participant was administered the Hare Psychopathy Checklist Screening Version (PCL:SV), Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11) and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-R). In addition, information on background demographics, drug use and criminality was obtained via a self-report questionnaire. Findings – Pearson correlations identified significant positive relationships between past arrests, psychopathy, impulsivity and drug use. Intelligence was negatively related to past arrests. Multiple regressions identified a.
Content-based image quality assessment of natural scene image distorted by quantization

In this paper, the subjective image quality for different image content is investigated by psychophysical experiments. The experimental images are the parts from natural scenes distorted by integer transform and quantization in H.264 frame. These images are divided into two types based on the scene content, type I and type II. The perceived thresholds and subjective graded scores for different quantization are obtained using forced choice staircase experiments and graded response experiments, respectively. The subjective assessment results showed that the image quality of type I degrades much more than the type II when quantization steps increase, and the preliminary experiment showed that the existed IQA metric, i.e. SSIM, could not predict it well. We also present a content-based image classifier to predict the two image types. The results show good accordance between the classifier and the subjective assessment.
On the Conflicting Estimations of Pigment Site Energies in Photosynthetic Complexes: A Case Study of the CP47 Complex

We focus on problems with elucidation of site energies (E0n) for photosynthetic complexes (PSCs) in order to raise some genuine concern regarding the conflicting estimations propagating in the literature. As an example, we provide a stern assessment of the site energies extracted from fits to optical spectra of the widely studied CP47 antenna complex of photosystem II from spinach, though many general comments apply to other PSCs as well. Correct values of E0n for chlorophyll (Chl) a in CP47 are essential for understanding its excitonic structure, population dynamics, and excitation energy pathway(s). To demonstrate this, we present a case study where simultaneous fits of multiple spectra (absorption, emission, circular dichroism, and nonresonant hole-burned spectra) show that several sets of parameters can fit the spectra very well. Importantly, we show that variable emission maxima (690–695 nm) and sample-dependent bleaching in nonresonant hole-burning spectra reported in literature could be explained, assuming that many previously studied CP47 samples were a mixture of intact and destabilized proteins. It appears that the destabilized subpopulation of CP47 complexes could feature a weakened hydrogen bond between the 131-keto group of Chl29 and the PsbH protein subunit, though other possibilities cannot be entirely excluded, as discussed in this work. Possible implications of our findings are briefly discussed.
mGPT: A Probabilistic Planner Based on Heuristic Search

We describe the version of the GPT planner used in the probabilistic track of the 4th International Planning Competition (IPC-4). This version, called mGPT, solves Markov Decision Processes specified in the PPDDL language by extracting and using different classes of lower bounds along with various heuristic-search algorithms. The lower bounds are extracted from deterministic relaxations where the alternative probabilistic effects of an action are mapped into different, independent, deterministic actions. The heuristic-search algorithms use these lower bounds for focusing the updates and delivering a consistent value function over all states reachable from the initial state and the greedy policy.
Beat Tracking for Multiple Applications: A Multi-Agent System Architecture With State Recovery

In this paper we propose an audio beat tracking system, IBT, for multiple applications. The proposed system integrates an automatic monitoring and state recovery mechanism, that applies (re-)inductions of tempo and beats, on a multi-agent-based beat tracking architecture. This system sequentially processes a continuous onset detection function while propagating parallel hypotheses of tempo and beats. Beats can be predicted in a causal or in a non-causal usage mode, which makes the system suitable for diverse applications. We evaluate the performance of the system in both modes on two application scenarios: standard (using a relatively large database of audio clips) and streaming (using long audio streams made up of concatenated clips). We show experimental evidence of the usefulness of the automatic monitoring and state recovery mechanism in the streaming scenario (i.e., improvements in beat tracking accuracy and reaction time). We also show that the system performs efficiently and at a level comparable to state-of-the-art algorithms in the standard scenario. IBT is multi-platform, open-source and freely available, and it includes plugins for different popular audio analysis, synthesis and visualization platforms.
Consumo Adolescente: Construindo a Identidade de Jovens Brasileiras.

O estudo objetiva compreender a construcao da identidade em brasileiras de 12 a 17 anos tomando como pressuposto a influencia do consumo sob tal fenomeno. A abordagem teorica retrata aspectos da identidade individual e coletiva e refere-se a cultura de consumo nos preceitos da Consumer Culture Theory – CCT, como disposta por Arnould & Thompson (2005), dentre outros estudos. Com metodo qualitativo, a pesquisa utilizou-se da ferramenta Grupos de Foco em uma amostra de 33 informantes de classes sociais variadas, regionalizadas em 13 estados brasileiros e dentro da faixa etaria determinada. O estudo identificou particularidades de consumo deste publico, segmentando os resultados em tres dimensoes: Psicossocial, Comportamental e Cultural. Os principais influenciadores encontrados a partir dos depoimentos das informantes foram divididos em: Classe Social, Familia, Grupos de Pares, Midia e Instituicoes de Ensino como aspectos relevantes da cultura de consumo das adolescentes e consequentemente na construcao de sua identidade.