Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intracoronary Doppler assessment of moderate coronary artery disease: comparison with 201Tl imaging and coronary angiography. FACTS Study Group.

BACKGROUND Coronary angiography may not reliably predict whether a stenosis causes exercise-induced ischemia. Intracoronary Doppler ultrasound may enhance diagnostic accuracy by providing a physiological assessment of stenosis severity. The goal of this study was to compare intracoronary Doppler ultrasound with both 201Tl imaging and coronary angiography. METHODS AND RESULTS Fifty-five patients with 67 stenotic coronary arteries underwent coronary angiography with intracoronary Doppler ultrasound and had exercise 201Tl testing within a 1-week period. Coronary flow reserve was measured, and analyses were performed by independent core laboratories. The mean stenosis was 59+/-12%; 51 of 67 stenoses were intermediate in severity (40% to 70%). A coronary flow reserve < 1.7 predicted the presence of a stress 201Tl defect in 56 of 67 stenoses (agreement=84%; kappa=0.67; 95% CI=0.48 to 0.86). In the patients who achieved 75% of their predicted maximum heart rate, the Doppler and 201Tl imaging data agreed in 46 of 52 stenoses (agreement=88%; kappa=0.77; 95%CI=0.57 to 0.97). Scatter was evident when angiography was compared with coronary flow reserve (r=.43), and the angiogram did not reliably predict the results of the 201Tl stress test (kappa=0.21; agreement=57% to 63%). CONCLUSIONS Doppler-derived coronary flow reserve accurately predicts the presence of exercise-induced ischemia on stress 201Tl imaging, and coronary angiography does not reliably assess the physiological significance of an intermediate coronary stenosis.
Study of Image location for the High Intensity Focused Ultrasound therapy system

High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is one of promising non invasive thermal ablation techniques of tumor, and the demand of imaging for guidance the HIFU procedure is becoming important. We choose ultrasound imaging method based on sequence images to locate the focal position of the HIFU. To the characteristic of ultrasound sequence images, we adopt a diffusion stick method for speckle noise suppression in ultrasonic images, and improve the discrete active contour method by adding external force in segmenting sequence ultrasonic images. The experiments of clinical ultrasonic images show that the techniques are effective. The next work is to reconstruct the processed sequence images into volume data for visualization and guidance the therapy procedure
Lifestyle Behaviors and Illness-Related Factors as Predictors of Recurrent Headache in U.S. Adolescents

ABSTRACT Purpose: This study describes a multivariate model showing how lifestyle behaviors (skipping meals, water intake, tobacco use, alcohol use, and physical activity) and illness-related factors (depression, somatic complaints, insomnia, and obesity) work together to predict headache in an adolescent population. Method: A descriptive, cross-sectional, secondary analysis using survey data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (1996) is reported. The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health is a large database providing a nationally representative sample of adolescents (aged 11–17 years, n = 13,570). The database evaluated adolescent headache and is inclusive of all the predictors specific to this study. Frequency analysis and forward logistic regression were performed using each of the lifestyle behaviors and illness-related factors. Results: Approximately 26% of the adolescents experienced recurrent headache. Recurrent headache was reported by 19% of male adolescents and 26% of female adolescents. A multivariate model was developed that showed how lifestyle behaviors and illness-related factors predict recurrent headache in adolescents. The final model (Wald F = 86.88, p = .00) consisted of the following predictors: chest pain, muscle and joint pain, skip breakfast three or more times a week, skip lunch one or more times a week, and physical activity. The interactions of gender and age group, race and smoking regularly, and depression and insomnia were also included in the final model. Conclusion: Providing evidence to clinicians that lifestyle behaviors and illness-related factors are associated with adolescent headache may improve overall headache assessment and may result in a more comprehensive plan of treatment.
Predicting public bicycle rental number using multi-source data

In order to solve the problems about “no bicycle to rent” and “no place to return”, Public bicycle system (PBS) requires rental amount prediction. We build a hybrid short-term rental prediction model of public bicycle by using public bicycle renting record data and environmental characteristic data such as holiday, weather and temperature. By K-means cluster analysis, different rental modes of public bicycle are distinguished. we extract the environmental characteristic rules to build the Bayesian classifier by using the datasets. The data samples of different rental modes are used to training the adaptive particle swarm optimization-back-propagation neural network (APSO-BP). When predict public bicycle rental amount, choose the APSO-BP model with the same rental mode to predict the rental amount of public bicycle during the next time period. We use the real Hangzhou public bicycle rental data to verify the validity of the method. The average prediction accuracy is over 95%.
Schwann Cells Increase Prostate and Pancreatic Tumor Cell Invasion Using Laminin Binding A6 Integrin

Human pancreatic and prostate cancers metastasize along nerve axons during perineural invasion. The extracellular matrix laminin class of proteins is an abundant component of both myelinated and non‐myelinated nerves. Analysis of human pancreatic and prostate tissue revealed both perineural and endoneural invasion with Schwann cells surrounded or disrupted by tumor, respectively. Tumor and nerve cell co‐culture conditions were used to determine if myelinating or non‐myelinating Schwann cell (S16 and S16Y, respectively) phenotype was equally likely to promote integrin‐dependent cancer cell invasion and migration on laminin. Conditioned medium from S16 cells increased tumor cell (DU145, PC3, and CFPAC1) invasion into laminin approximately 1.3–2.0 fold compared to fetal bovine serum (FBS) treated cells. Integrin function (e.g., ITGA6p formation) increased up to 1.5 fold in prostate (DU145, PC3, RWPE‐1) and pancreatic (CFPAC1) cells, and invasion was dependent on ITGA6p formation and ITGB1 as determined by function‐blocking antibodies. In contrast, conditioned medium isolated from S16Y cells (non‐myelinating phenotype) decreased constitutive levels of ITGA6p in the tumor cells by 50% compared to untreated cells and decreased ITGA6p formation 3.0 fold compared to S16 treated cells. Flow cytometry and western blot analysis revealed loss of ITGA6p formation as reversible and independent of overall loss of ITGA6 expression. These results suggest that the myelinating phenotype of Schwann cells within the tumor microenvironment increased integrin‐dependent tumor invasion on laminin. J. Cell. Biochem. 117: 491–499, 2016. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The role of ocean acidification in Emiliania huxleyi coccolith thinning in the Mediterranean Sea

Ocean acidification is a result of the uptake of an-thropogenic CO 2 from the atmosphere into the ocean and has been identified as a major environmental and economic threat. The release of several thousands of petagrams of carbon over a few hundred years will have an overwhelming effect on surface ocean carbon reservoirs. The recorded and anticipated changes in seawater carbonate chemistry will presumably affect global oceanic carbonate production. Coccolithophores as the primary calcifying phytoplankton group, and especially Emiliania huxleyi as the most abundant species have shown a reduction of calcification at increased CO 2 concentrations for the majority of strains tested in culture experiments. A reduction of calcification is associated with a decrease in coccolith weight. However, the effect in monoclonal cultures is relatively small compared to the strong variability displayed in natural E. huxleyi communities , as these are a mix of genetically and sometimes morphologically distinct types. Average coccolith weight is likely influenced by the variability in seawater carbonate chemistry in different parts of the world's oceans and on glacial/interglacial time scales due to both physiological effects and morphotype selectivity. An effect of the ongoing ocean acidification on E. huxleyi calcification has so far not been documented in situ. Here, we analyze E. huxleyi coc-colith weight from the NW Mediterranean Sea in a 12-year sediment trap series, and surface sediment and sediment core samples using an automated recognition and analyzing software. Our findings clearly show (1) a continuous decrease in the average coccolith weight of E. huxleyi from 1993 to 2005, reaching levels below pre-industrial (Holocene) and industrial (20th century) values recorded in the sedimentary record and (2) seasonal variability in coccolith weight that is linked to the coccolithophore productivity. The observed long-term decrease in coccolith weight is most likely a result of the changes in the surface ocean carbonate system. Our results provide the first indications of an in situ impact of ocean acidification on coccolithophore weight in a natural E. huxleyi population, even in the highly alkaline Mediterranean Sea.
Language planning and social change

Preface Overview 1. Four examples in search of a definition 2. Definitions: a baker's dozen 3. The uses of frameworks 4. Some descriptive frameworks 5. Status planning 6. Corpus planning 7. Acquisition planning 8. Social change 9. Summary and conclusions References.
African tropical rainforest net carbon dioxide fluxes in the twentieth century

The African humid tropical biome constitutes the second largest rainforest region, significantly impacts global carbon cycling and climate, and has undergone major changes in functioning owing to climate and land-use change over the past century. We assess changes and trends in CO2 fluxes from 1901 to 2010 using nine land surface models forced with common driving data, and depict the inter-model variability as the uncertainty in fluxes. The biome is estimated to be a natural (no disturbance) net carbon sink (−0.02 kg C m−2 yr−1 or −0.04 Pg C yr−1, p < 0.05) with increasing strength fourfold in the second half of the century. The models were in close agreement on net CO2 flux at the beginning of the century (σ1901 = 0.02 kg C m−2 yr−1), but diverged exponentially throughout the century (σ2010 = 0.03 kg C m−2 yr−1). The increasing uncertainty is due to differences in sensitivity to increasing atmospheric CO2, but not increasing water stress, despite a decrease in precipitation and increase in air temperature. However, the largest uncertainties were associated with the most extreme drought events of the century. These results highlight the need to constrain modelled CO2 fluxes with increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations and extreme climatic events, as the uncertainties will only amplify in the next century.
Plasmid copy number control: an ever‐growing story

Bacterial plasmids maintain their number of copies by negative regulatory systems that adjust the rate of replication per plasmid copy in response to fluctuations in the copy number. Three general classes of regulatory mechanisms have been studied in depth, namely those that involve directly repeated sequences (iterons), those that use only antisense RNAs and those that use a mechanism involving an antisense RNA in combination with a protein. The first class of control mechanism will not be discussed here. Within the second class (the most ‘classical’ one), exciting insights have been obtained on the molecular basis of the inhibition mechanism that prevents the formation of a long‐range RNA structure (pseudoknot), which is an example of an elegant solution reached by some replicons to control their copy number. Among the third class, it is possible to distinguish between (i) cases in which proteins play an auxiliary role; and (ii) cases in which transcriptional repressor proteins play a real regulatory role. This latter type of regulation is relatively new and seems to be widespread among plasmids from Gram‐positive bacteria, at least for the rolling circle‐replicating plasmids of the pMV158 family and the theta‐replicating plasmids of the Inc18 streptococcal family.
Chinese Herbal Medicines as an Adjunctive Therapy for Unresectable Pancreatic Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Pancreatic cancer is a common malignancy with a high mortality. Most patients present clinically with advanced pancreatic cancer. Moreover, the effect of radiotherapy or chemotherapy is limited. Complementary and alternative medicines represent exciting adjunctive therapies. In this study, we ascertained the beneficial and adverse effects of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) in combination with conventional therapy for inoperable pancreatic cancer by using meta-analysis methods for controlled clinical trials. We extracted data for studies searched from six electronic databases that were searched and also assessed the methodological quality of the included studies. We evaluated the following outcome measures: 6-month and 1-year survival rate, objective response rate, disease control rate, quality of life, and adverse effects. The final analysis showed CHM is a promising strategy as an adjunctive therapy to treat advanced or inoperable pancreatic cancer and that CHM in combination with conventional therapy is a promising strategy for resistant disease. However, convincing evidence must be obtained and confirmed by high-quality trials in future studies.
Literacy skills of children with low vision

The main question of the studies reported in this thesis is how the reading and spelling skills of children with low vision compare to those of their sighted peers, and which factors determine the variation in reading and spelling ability in children with low vision. In the study reported in chapter 2, the reading comprehension, decoding and spelling skills of 404 children with low vision were compared with a norm sample of sighted children. It was found that the children with low vision with no additional disabilities, performed less well than the sighted children only on decoding, whereas those with additional disabilities performed less well on all three tests. In chapter 3, it was investigated whether the difficulties with decoding of children with low vision are a matter of reduced visual input or also a consequence of a lack of orthographic knowledge because of less reading experience. The results indicated that reduced visual input is the only cause of these children's lower reading performance. In chapter 4, text reading was studied. It was found that despite their lower reading speed on reading comprehension task the children with low vision comprehended texts at least as well as did the sighted children. Children with low vision need more time to read and comprehend a text, but see m to use this time with enough efficiency to process the semantic, as well as the syntactic information. In the final chapter, two aspects of word decoding were investigated in two word naming experiments: the identification of the constituent letters of a word, and the processing of letter order information. Children with low vision were compared with sighted children. Both experiments showed qualitative differences between children with low vision and sighted children.
Complete mitochondrial genome of the brown alga Sargassum vachellianum (Sargassaceae, Phaeophyceae)

Abstract Sargassum vachellianum C. Agardh is endemic to China. It inhabits in rocky intertidal zones and plays an important role in maintaining the structure and function of littoral ecosystems. In this study, we present the complete mitochondrial genome of S. vachellianum. The circular S. vachellianum mitogenome is 34,877 bp in size and contains the same set of 65 genes as the reported Sargassum mtDNAs. The overall AT content of the genome is 63.79%, and the inter-genic spacers constitute only 4.67%. The genome organization including the gene order, overlapping regions between genes, and the total length of inter-genic spacers is conserved among the known Sargassum mitogenomes. High divergence is in inter-genic spacer regions. Phylogenetic analyses indicated that S. vachellianum combined tightly with Sargassum species with strong support values (NJ/ML, 100%).
Beliefs about arguing: A comparison of public issue and personal issue arguments

Arguments occurring in interpersonal relationships can be divided into two types: public issue arguments and personal issue arguments. This study utilizes five beliefs about arguing delineated by Rancer, Kosberg, and Baukus (1992) to examine the different beliefs individuals hold about each type of argument. Public issue arguments, which focus on issues outside of the interpersonal relationship, were reported to have higher enjoyment and a more positive effect on the self‐concept. Personal issue arguments, which relate more closely to the interpersonal relationship, were perceived as resulting in more pragmatic outcomes and higher ego‐involvement. These differences illustrate the need to examine both types of arguments to comprehensively understand arguing in interpersonal relationships.
A 30fJ/conversion-step 8b 0-to-10MS/s asynchronous SAR ADC in 90nm CMOS

Applications like wireless sensor nodes require ultra low-power receivers with power-efficient ADCs. Moreover, the power-efficiency should be maintained for a wide range of sampling rates to enable system-level flexibility. Previously, the use of SAR ADCs has been proposed for low-power applications [1], [2]. This work describes the implementation of an 8bit asynchronous SAR ADC that achieves a 30fJ/Conversion-step power-efficiency for sampling rates between 10kS/s and 10MS/s.
The Molecular Outflow and Possible Precessing Jet from the Massive Young Stellar Object IRAS 20126+4104

We present images of the molecular gas in the IRAS 20126+4104 massive outflow and examine the interaction between the energetic outflowing material and the surrounding molecular cloud. Mosaic interferometric images in CO(1-0), 13CO(1-0), C18O(1-0), C17O(1-0), and millimeter continuum emission are compared with mid-infrared images at 12.5 and 17.9 μm, near-infrared images in the Ks band (2.17 μm) and H2 line emission, and optical Hα and [S II] images. We show that the molecular outflow is approximately 6 × 104 yr old with a mass of about 50-60 M☉ and mass outflow rate f ~ 8 × 10-4 M☉ yr-1. The driving source is located near the center of the ≳300 M☉ molecular cloud, and the mass of the disk plus circumstellar envelope traced by millimeter continuum emission is ~50 M☉. The outflow appears to be bounded on most sides by higher density gas traced by C18O emission. Shocks identified by H2 and [S II] emission knots follow a NW-SE jet close to the young stellar object and then rotate more north-south along the edges of the CO flow. The most likely interpretation appears to be that the knots trace the working surfaces of a collimated jet that precesses through an angle of ~45°. Possible mechanisms that could produce the jet precession include tidal interactions between the disk and a companion star in a noncoplanar orbit or an anisotropic accretion event that dramatically altered the angular momentum vector of the disk.
TEAMWORK IN ISRAELI ARAB-BEDOUIN SCHOOL-BASED MANAGEMENT

ABSTRACT Throughout the western world a leading example of the educational reforms that have been implemented in the late twentieth and twenty-first century is School-Based Management (SBM), a system designed to improve educational outcome through staff teamwork and self-governance. This research set out to examine the efficacy of teamwork in ten SBM-designated Arab-Bedouin elementary schools in Israel. Two explicit issues were examined: (1) What impact did SBM have on the development of teamwork among the schools’ staff? (2) Does the Arab-Bedouin social-cultural context influence implementation of teamwork in SBM schools? The research method consisted of a questionnaire to which 361 teachers/school principals replied, and a semi-structured interview with 30 of the respondents. Results of this study demonstrate that true teamwork does not exist in the schools studied, despite their SBM official status, primarily because the concept of teamwork clashes with the social/cultural norms of traditional Arab-Bedouin society and thus exacerbates conflicts among staff, which then impedes implementation of SBM. In conclusion, this research recommends that for SBM to enable traditional Arab-Bedouin society to benefit from managing its own schools, broad educational changes such as this must be introduced gradually, in a customised, culturally sensitive manner.
Children from the Dalit community in rural Nepal: a challenge to inclusive education

Based on empirical research carried out in public secondary schools in the western part of Nepal, this article examines how Dalit children experience secondary-level education. Their experiences are explored using in-depth interviews with Dalit children, their parents and teachers. The findings reveal that Dalit children's inclusion is affected by a range of interconnected school and community factors. The paper argues that these complexities represent a major challenge for efforts to promote inclusive education. Therefore, inclusion in education should not be viewed as being only about what happens within the school gates, since it is equally important to address barriers within the community.
Fine Tuning of Fuzzy Token Bucket Scheme for Congestion Control in High Speed Networks

In ATM networks, due to the dynamic nature of the bursty traffic, severe network congestion may occur. Therefore, policing as the preventive congestion control is required for properly guaranteeing QoS. The leaky bucket control mechanism, which is the most widely and only implemented one, has some drawbacks. In this paper the principles of fuzzy logic are deployed to tackle the problem of congestion control. This paper implements the fuzzy logic based token bucket scheme in which token generation rate is controlled by Fuzzy Logic. This work studies how to implement token rate predicting and policing in a high speed (ATM) network using fuzzy token bucket. The fuzzy token rate predictor facilitates token rate predicting and dynamic policing. It is able to achieve lower delay, less cell loss and higher throughput by Fuzzy token bucket scheme. A simulation study was performed for the fuzzy logic predictor using MATLAB-Simulink Simulator. The simulation results show that the fuzzy logic predictor gave reasonable token rate prediction compared to a non-fuzzy Token bucket scheme.