Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Factors affecting consumer attitude towards organic food: an empirical study in Hong Kong

This paper presents the findings of a study on the influence of health consciousness, organic food knowledge and environmental concern on Hong Kong consumers' attitudes toward organic foods. A survey was conducted using a sample of 222 respondents and a partial least squares approach was used to validate the research model. Environmental concern and organic food knowledge are found to have positive influences on consumers' attitude towards organic foods, consistent with research results from prior studies. Our research results also conclude that health consciousness does not show a significant influence on the attitudes of young consumers toward organic food products. Several implications of our findings for research and for the continued development of the organic food industry in Asia are proposed.
A Screening Experiment on a Diabetes Mellitus Herbal Formulation

Screening experiments are usually performed on mixtures in order to determine the experimental variables that have significant influence on the targeted response. In this study, a screening experiment was carried out on a herbal formulation prescribed by a registered Kenyan herbalist to diabetes mellitus type II patients. The herbal formulation was composed of the following six herbs: Utica dioica, Moringaoleifera, Cinnamomum verum, Azadirachta indica, Momordica charantia and Gymnema sylvestre. The targeted response was the change that had occurred in blood glucose level 2 hours after the herbal drug treatment had been administered to alloxan induced diabetic albino wistar rats. An axial mixture design with replicated centre points was adopted and a first degree mixture model fitted to the data. The axial mixture design was constructed using Design Expert® software with randomly distributed 23 design points positioned on the component axes. The analysis of the data was carried out using the R statistical software environment. The results showed that Cinnamomum verum and Azadirachta indica caused the highest change individually on the blood glucose level among the six herbs. The complete mixture of the six herbs registered the lowest reduction in the blood glucose level. We recommend that the two herbs, Cinnamomum verum and Azadirachta indica, be tested farther to find out the most optimal conditions for their extraction in terms of temperature and time so as to produce a maximum reduction on the blood glucose level. In addition, we recommend that this study be extended to higher animals to establish whether the same patterns would be observed and also obtain the appropriate dosage levels.
A scaled DCT architecture with the CORDIC algorithm

This paper presents an efficient approach for computing the N-point (N=2/sup n/) scaled discrete cosine transform (DCT) with the coordinate rotation digital computer (CORDIC) algorithm. The proposed algorithm is based on an indirect approach for computing the DCT so that the vector rotations are completely separated from the other operations and placed at the end of the DCT unit. As a result, unlike the other CORDIC-based DCT architectures, the proposed scaled DCT architecture does not require scale factor compensation. The number of CORDIC iterations is minimized through the optimal angle recoding method based on the three-value CORDIC algorithm. Although this three-value CORDIC algorithm results in different scale factors for different angles, this does not incur any extra hardware in the proposed scaled DCT architecture.
Hypertension and Cardiovascular Diseases in an Epidemiological Study in Hokkaido, Japan

The present study describes the results from the 10-year follow-up data of a prospective epidemiological study for hypertension and cardiovascular diseases in two communities of rural agricultural districts in Hokkaido, Japan. The number of incidences of cerebrovascular accidents (CVAs) in persons who were normotensive, borderline hypertensive (BHT), untreated hypertensive (HT), well-controlled HT [blood pressure (BP) < 150/90 mm Hg], and poorly controlled HT (BP ≥ 150/90 mm Hg) were 0.46, 3.24, 4.17, 3.49, and 12.76 per 1,000 person-years, respectively: CVAs were markedly high in poorly controlled HT persons. The winter-summer mean BP differences in the first year were significantly and positively correlated with the differences in mean BP between the tenth and the first year, and were significantly higher in the progression to hypertension group than in the nonprogression group in both towns. Multivariate analysis indicated that the winter-summer mean BP difference was a significant variable for indication of progression to hypertension. From these results, we concluded that (a) good control of hypertension could considerably prevent CVA, (b) cold environment may contribute to the progression to hypertension, and (c) winter-summer variation in BP may predict the future course of BP.
Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs): a review

Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) are the most common mesenchymal neoplasms in the gastrointestinal tract, which, over the last 10 years, have emerged from a poorly understood neoplasm to a well‐defined tumor entity exhibiting particular molecular abnormalities and for which promising novel treatment modalities have been developed. GISTs probably arise from the precursor cell of the interstitial cell of Cajal, express KIT tyrosine kinase in most of the cases and harbor mutations of importance for individualized treatment. The molecular targets for therapeutic interventions are not only of importance for the treatment of GIST patients but also useful for in the development of novel drug modalities and new strategies in basic cancer therapy.
Fractional-order power rate type reaching law for sliding mode control of uncertain nonlinear system

This paper develops a fractional-order (FO) power rate type reaching law for sliding mode control (SMC) of nonlinear integer order systems with disturbance and uncertainty. The proposed FO power rate type reaching law, including an FO derivative function, is proven to ensure that the state trajectories achieve to the switching surface in a finite time. Most importantly, the calculation formula of the reaching time under the FO reaching law is provided, for the first time. The comparisons between the FO and IO reaching laws reveal the potential advantages of the FO reaching law. Furthermore, the criterion for stability of the sliding mode dynamics is provided by solving linear matrix inequality (LMI). Finally, simulation and experimental examples illustrate the effectiveness and advantage of the proposed control method.
MARVEL: a system that recognizes world locations with stereo vision

To use a world model, a mobile robot must be able to determine its own position in the world. MARVEL, a system that builds and maintains its own models of world locations and uses these models to recognize its world position from stereo vision input, supports truly autonomous navigation. MARVEL is designed to be robust with respect to input errors and to respond to a gradually changing world by updating its world location models. In over 1000 recognition tests using real-world data, MARVEL yielded a false negative rate under 10% with zero false positives. <<ETX>>
Fatty acid omega‐oxidation as a rescue pathway for fatty acid oxidation disorders in humans

Fatty acids (FAs) can be degraded via different mechanisms including α‐, β‐ and ω‐oxidation. In humans, a range of different genetic diseases has been identified in which either mitochondrial FA β‐oxidation, peroxisomal FA β‐oxidation or FA α‐oxidation is impaired. Treatment options for most of these disorders are limited. This has prompted us to study FA ω‐oxidation as a rescue pathway for these disorders, based on the notion that if the ω‐oxidation of specific FAs could be upregulated one could reduce the accumulation of these FAs and the subsequent detrimental effects in the different groups of disorders. In this minireview, we describe our current state of knowledge in this area with special emphasis on Refsum disease and X‐linked adrenoleukodystrophy.
Effects of Object Use on Reaching and Postural Balance: A Comparison of Patients with Unilateral Stroke and Healthy Controls

Lin K-c, Wu C-y, Chen C-l, Chern J-s, Hong W-h: Effects of object use on reaching and postural balance: a comparison of patients with unilateral stroke and healthy controls. Am J Phys Med Rehabil 2007;86:791–799. Objective:To evaluate whether the functional use of certain task objects while standing influences reaching performance and postural balance in persons with left or right cerebral vascular accidents, and also in healthy individuals. Design:Thirty-five stroke patients (20 patients with left and 15 patients with right cerebral vascular accidents) and 31 healthy controls (15 using the left and 16 the right arm) performed two experimental reaching tasks (task object present vs. absent) using the less affected arm while standing. For the object-present task, subjects held a glass and moved it forward as far as possible. For the object-absent task, subjects simply reached forward as far as possible. We measured reaching performance using kinematic analysis and assessed postural control using derivatives of the center of pressure, including forward displacement, mediolateral shift, and average velocity. Results:Object presence did not significantly improve overall reaching performance in any group. However, for patients with left cerebral vascular accidents and controls (using either the left or the right arm), there were significant effects of object presence on the average velocity of the center of pressure. For patients with right cerebral vascular accidents, there were significant effects of task object on the forward distance and average velocity of the center of pressure. Conclusions:The positive findings regarding center-of-pressure derivatives suggest that a functional use of objects during a standing reaching task can decrease postural sway, as represented by the average velocity of the center of pressure, in individuals with and without stroke. Patients with right cerebral vascular accidents may benefit considerably more from functional object use during a standing reaching task, apparently because such tasks can facilitate greater forward displacement of the center of pressure.
Follow-up of occult bone lesions detected at MR imaging: systematic review.

PURPOSE To perform a systematic review of the literature regarding the natural course of posttraumatic occult bone lesions (often referred to as bone bruises) detected at magnetic resonance (MR) imaging. MATERIALS AND METHODS A systematic review of the literature was performed by searching the MEDLINE database (from January 1966 to February 2003) with the keywords bone bruise, trauma, follow-up, and MRI. Keywords were linked by using the Boolean operator AND. Studies were included if all of the following criteria were fulfilled: patients sustained trauma, MR imaging was used as a diagnostic method, results of clinical or MR imaging follow-up were available, and study was written in English, Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Danish, or Norwegian. The quality of each study was assessed by using a standardized criteria set, and kappa statistics were estimated to rate the level of agreement between the two reviewers. Results were compared with regard to study design and quality scores. RESULTS The MEDLINE search identified 266 articles, 13 of which met the inclusion criteria. The quality of the included studies was moderate. The two reviewers initially agreed on 179 quality items (kappa = 0.84). The study population was generally small, and follow-up periods ranged from 1 to 73 months. Four different classification systems were used, and in two studies bone bruise was not specified. Study results suggest a generally good clinical prognosis of bone bruises. Normalization of MR imaging appearance is possible and is most often encountered after the occurrence of reticular lesions. Cartilage loss at follow-up is often found in cases of initial cartilage damage (impaction or osteochondral fracture). CONCLUSION In general, a healing response was often encountered after sustained posttraumatic occult bone lesions. The initial MR imaging appearance appears to have prognostic value.
SMARTS (Systematic Monitoring of Adverse events Related to TreatmentS): The development of a pragmatic patient-completed checklist to assess antipsychotic drug side effects

Objectives: Antipsychotic drug side effects are common and can cause stigmatisation, decreased quality of life, poor adherence, and secondary morbidity and mortality. Systematic assessment of anticipated side effects is recommended as part of good clinical care, but is uncommon in practice and patients may not spontaneously report side effects. We aimed to develop a simple patient-completed checklist to screen systematically for potential antipsychotic side effects. Methods: The SMARTS checklist was developed over a series of group meetings by an international faculty of 12 experts (including psychiatrists, a general physician and a psychopharmacologist) based on their clinical experience and knowledge of the literature. The emphasis is on tolerability (i.e. assessment of side effects that ‘trouble’ the patient) as subjective impact of side effects is most relevant to medication adherence. The development took account of feedback from practising psychiatrists in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, a process that contributed to face validity. Results: The SMARTS checklist assesses whether patients are currently ‘troubled’ by 11 well-established potential antipsychotic side effects. Patients provide their responses to these questions by circling relevant side effects. An additional open question enquires about any other possible side effects. The checklist has been translated into Italian and Turkish. Conclusions: The SMARTS checklist aims to strike a balance between brevity and capturing the most common and important antipsychotic side effects. It is appropriate for completion by patients prior to a clinical consultation, for example, in the waiting room. It can then form the focus for a more detailed clinical discussion about side effects. It can be used alone or form part of a more comprehensive assessment of antipsychotic side effects including blood tests and a physical examination when appropriate. The checklist assesses current problems and can be used longitudinally to assess change.
DeepSeek : A video captioning tool for making videos searchable

Inspired by recent advances in the field of deep learning and success that it has gained on various problems like image captioning [8] and [15], machine translation [5], word2vec, skipthoughts [9], etc, we create a end-to-end system model for making video content searchable, such that the search is not limited to meta data but the actual content of the video. We transcribe video clips into text based on its contents and then construct a pipeline that can efficiently and accurately search for this content by an extension of the state-of-the-art skipthough vectors. This makes the task of sifting through hours and hours of video to find what one is looking for much faster. We present Deep-Seek: a deep learning model to get search through video content and show that it performs well on the task defined.
Reduction in TrkA‐Immunoreactive Neurons Is Not Associated with an Overexpression of Galaninergic Fibers Within the Nucleus Basalis in Down's Syndrome

Down's syndrome (DS) individuals develop neuropathological features similar to Alzheimer's disease (AD), including degeneration of cholinergic basal forebrain (CBF) neurons. In AD a reduction in CBF/trkA‐containing neurons has been suggested to trigger a hyperexpression of galaninergic fibers within the nucleus basalis subfield of the basal forebrain. The present study examined the interrelationship between reductions in CBF/trkA‐containing neurons and the overexpression of galaninergic fibers within the nucleus basalis in DS. Within the nucleus basalis stereologic evaluation revealed a 46% reduction in the number of trkA‐immunopositive neurons, whereas optical density measurements displayed a nonsignificant 18% reduction in neuronal trkA immunoreactivity in DS as compared with age‐matched controls. Western blot analysis also showed a significant reduction in cortical trkA protein levels in DS. A semiquantitative examination of galaninergic fibers in the nucleus basalis revealed only a modest hypertrophy of galaninergic fibers within the nucleus basalis in DS. The present findings indicate a significant reduction in trkA within the nucleus basalis and cortex with only a moderate hypertrophy of galaninergic fibers in DS. These observations suggest that DS may not be an exact genetic model for investigation of changes in the AD basal forebrain.
Why Trade Costs Matter

Trade costs are often cited as an important determinant of the volume of trade. A growing literature has documented the negative impact of trade costs on the volume of trade. Most of these studies show that integration is the resultant of reduced costs of transportation in particular and other infrastructure services in general. Direct evidence on border costs shows that tariff barriers are now low in most countries across the world. Poor institutions and poor infrastructure penalize trade, differentially across countries. Therefore, today’s trade strategy goes beyond the traditional mechanisms of tariffs and quotas and includes “behind-the-border” issues, such as the role of infrastructure and governance in supporting a well-functioning trading economy.
Estimating the Number of Hematopoietic or Lymphoid Stem Cells Giving Rise to Clonal Chromosome Aberrations in Blood T Lymphocytes

Abstract Nakano, M. , Kodama, Y. , Ohtaki, K. , Itoh, M. , Awa, A. A. , Cologne, J., Kusunoki, Y. and Nakamura, N. Estimating the Number of Hematopoietic or Lymphoid Stem Cells Giving Rise to Clonal Chromosome Aberrations in Blood T Lymphocytes. Radiat. Res. 161, 273–281 (2004). Quantifying the proliferative capacity of long-term hematopoietic stem cells in humans is important for bone marrow transplantation and gene therapy. Obtaining appropriate data is difficult, however, because the experimental tools are limited. We hypothesized that tracking clonal descendants originating from hematopoietic stem cells would be possible if we used clonal chromosome aberrations as unique tags of individual hematopoietic stem cells in vivo.Using FISH, we screened 500 blood T lymphocytes from each of 513 atomic bomb survivors and detected 96 clones composed of at least three cells with identical aberrations. The number of clones was inversely related to their population size, which we interpreted to mean that the progenitor cells were heterogeneous in the number of progeny that they could produce. The absolute number of progenitor cells contributing to the formation of the observed clones was estimated as about two in an unexposed individual. Further, scrutiny of ten clones revealed that lymphocyte clones could originate roughly equally from hematopoietic stem cells or from mature T lymphocytes, thereby suggesting that the estimated two progenitor cells are shared as one hematopoietic stem cell and one mature T cell. Our model predicts that one out of ten people bears a non- aberrant clone comprising >10% of the total lymphocytes, which indicates that clonal expansions are common and probably are not health-threatening.
CORONARY ARTERY DISEASE Original Studies Everolimus-Eluting Bioresorbable Vascular Scaffolds Versus Second Generation Drug-Eluting Stents for Percutaneous Treatment of Chronic Total Coronary Occlusions: Technical and Procedural Outcomes From the GHOST-CTO Registry

Objectives: We aimed at comparing the acute performance of bioresorbable scaffolds (BRS) and second-generation drug-eluting stents (DES) for the treatment of chronic total occlusions (CTO). Background: There is a lack of knowledge regarding the use of BRS in CTO. Methods: Key outcomes of interest were technical and procedural success. Technical success was defined as successful stent delivery and implantation, postprocedural residual diameter stenosis <30% within the treated segment, and restoration of thrombolysis in myocardial infarction (TIMI) grade 3 flow. Procedural success was defined as technical success with no in-hospital major adverse cardiac events (MACE). Results: Between May 2013 and May 2014, 32 patients underwent CTO percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with the Absorb BRS (Abbott Vascular, Santa Clara, CA) and were compared with a historical control group of 54 patients who had undergone CTO PCI with second-generation DES. Baseline characteristics were similar between the BRS and DES groups, with the exception of a larger mean reference vessel diameter in the BRS group (2.92 6 0.34 vs 2.50 6 0.68; P < 0.001). Technical success was less likely to be achieved in the BRS group compared with the DES group (78.1% vs 96.3%, P 5 0.012). Procedural success rates were 78.1% and 94.4% in the BRS and DES group, respectively (P5 0.035). Conclusions: Compared with second-generation DES for PCI of CTO lesions, BRS were associated with lower rates of technical and procedural success. VC 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Makers based level set method for image segmentation

This paper presents a novel image segmentation method based on the integration of level set and marker methods. The two distinct techniques for image processing are combined in a manner to utilize the strengths of both. The internal markers obtained by extended-maxima transform bring a priori knowledge to bear on the image segmentation. The initial level set function is constructed from region of interest (ROI) on the internal markers. In this way, an automatic initialization of the level set evolution can be obtained, and the boundaries of the objects can be extracted. The cost time does not depend on the size of the image but the region of internal marker because only level set function with markers is updated instead of the level set function for each pixel. Therefore, the consumed time is greatly reduced. The efficiency and accuracy of the method are demonstrated by the experiments on the real blood vessel images and MR image.
Non‐heme iron through the three domains of life

Metalloproteins are proteins capable of binding one or more metal ions, which are often required for their biological function or for regulation of their activities or for structural purposes. In high‐throughput genome‐level protein investigation efforts, such as Structural Genomics, the systematic experimental characterization of metal‐binding properties (i.e. the investigation of the metalloproteome) is not always pursued, and remains far from trivial. In the present work we have applied a bioinformatic approach to investigate the occurrence of (putative) non‐heme iron‐binding proteins in 57 different organisms spanning the entire tree of life. It is found that the non‐heme iron‐proteome constitutes between 1% and 10% of the entire proteome of an organism. However, the iron‐proteome constitutes a higher fraction of the proteome in archaea (on average 7.1% ± 2.1%) than in bacteria (3.9% ± 1.6%) and in eukaryota (1.1% ± 0.4%). The analysis of the function of each putative iron‐protein identified suggests that extant organisms have inherited the large majority of their iron‐proteome from the last common ancestor. Proteins 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.