Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Is Dairy Intake Associated to Breast Cancer? A Case Control Study of Iranian Women

Current epidemiologic data lack consistent evidence for an association between consumption of dairy products and breast cancer risk. In this study we assessed the relationship between consumption of dairy products and the odds of breast cancer. This case-control study was conducted on 275 women (100 cases and 175 controls). Data regarding sociodemographic factors, medical history, medications, and anthropometric measurements were collected. Dietary data were assessed using a validated food frequency questionnaire. The odds [95% confidence interval (CI)] of breast cancer were estimated across quartile categories of energy-adjusted dairy intake using multiple logistic regression models with adjustment for confounders. We observed that higher consumption of total dairy intake was accompanied with reduced breast cancer risk [odds ratio (OR) = 0.14, 95% CI = 0.04–0.38]. A similar inverse association was also observed for higher intakes of low-fat and fermented dairy products (P for trend <0.05). Lower intake of high-fat dairy was associated with reduced odds of breast cancer, and no significant association was found between nonfermented dairy and breast cancer risk. Our study demonstrates the protective effects of high intakes of total dairy, low-fat and fermented dairy, as well as low intakes of high-fat dairy products against breast cancer risk and shows no association with nonfermented dairy.
Association Between Amygdala Volume and Anxiety Level: Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Study in Autistic Children

Our objective was to evaluate brain-behavior relationships between amygdala volume and anxious/depressed scores on the Child Behavior Checklist in a well-characterized population of autistic children. Volumes for the amygdala, hippocampus, and whole brain were obtained from three-dimensional magnetic resonance images (MRIs) captured from 42 children who met the criteria for autistic disorder. Anxious/depressed symptoms were assessed in these children by the Anxious/Depressed subscale of the Child Behavior Checklist. To investigate the association between anxious/depressed scores on the Child Behavior Checklist and amygdala volume, data were analyzed using linear regression methods with Pearson correlation coefficients. A multivariate model was used to adjust for potential covariates associated with amygdala volume, including age at MRI and total brain size. We found that anxious/depressed symptoms were significantly correlated with increased total amygdala volume (r = .386, P = .012) and right amygdala volume (r = .469, P = .002). The correlation between anxious/depressed symptoms and left amygdala volume did not reach statistical significance (r = .249, P = .112). Child Behavior Checklist anxious/depressed scores were found to be a significant predictor of amygdala total (P = .014) and right amygdala (P = .002) volumes. In conclusion, we have identified a significant brain-behavior relationship between amygdala volume and anxious/depressed scores on the Child Behavior Checklist in our autistic cohort. This specific relationship has not been reported in autism. However, the existing literature on human psychiatry and behavior supports our reported evidence for a neurobiologic relationship between symptoms of anxiety and depression with amygdala structure and function. Our results highlight the importance of characterizing comorbid psychiatric symptomatology in autism. The abundance of inconsistent findings in the published literature on autism might reflect differences between study populations regarding age at MRI, level of impairment within autistic subjects, and underlying anxiety level in the selected study groups.
Novel Phase Shifter Design Based on Substrate-Integrated-Waveguide Technology

A novel phase shifter is proposed based on a substrate-integrated-waveguide (SIW) technology. It consists of several phase channels made by SIW resonators loaded with extra metallic posts. These metallic posts act as inductive posts controlling the resonant frequency of the SIW resonators. Circular slots on the upper plate of the SIW structure are used to selectively disconnect these inductive posts from the upper plate of the structure to tune the resonant frequency. It is shown that by properly controlling the resonant frequency in each channel, the phase gradient between adjacent channels exhibits a linear phase progression at the operating frequency. As a result, a novel phase shifter is obtained accordingly. Based on this approach, a phase shifter prototype made by five channels is proposed to validate the concept. Each channel consists of three SIW resonators which form a third-order bandpass filter for impedance matching. Experimental results demonstrate that the resulting phase shifter has more than 10% fractional bandwidth for a 15° phase gradient across adjacent channels with a phase error of ±5°. The insertion loss is less than 1.5 dB in the considered band. The experimental results agree well with full-wave simulations. The proposed phase shifter is expected to be easily implemented with active components.
Influence of peritoneal dialysis training nurses' experience on peritonitis rates.

BACKGROUND This study examined the clinical impact of peritoneal dialysis (PD) training nurses regarding Gram-positive peritonitis among incident dialysis patients. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, AND MEASUREMENTS This study included 200 consecutive inception PD patients in a single center from September 1999 through April 2003. Effects of PD nurse trainers on the clinical outcomes of Gram-positive peritonitis were evaluated. RESULTS A total of 81 patients of 200 incident PD patients (mean age 56.9 yr) developed Gram-positive peritonitis. Mean Gram-positive peritonitis-free time for patients who were trained by nurses with years of experience in the lowest tertile was 58.8 mo, as compared with 47.0 mo in those who were trained by nurses within the intermediate tertile of experience (log-rank test, P = 0.044). After adjustment for diabetes and relevant coexisting medical factors, PD trainers' having > or =3 yr of experience, body mass index, and baseline serum albumin were the only independent risk factors for the time to a first Gram-positive peritonitis. Training nurses with > or =3 yr of experience was associated with more than two-fold increased likelihood of subsequent Gram-positive peritonitis, with an adjusted hazard ratio of 2.24 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.14 to 4.41; P = 0.020). When the lowest tertile group of trainers was used as the reference group in the Cox proportional hazards regression model, the hazard ratio was 1.94 (95% CI 1.04 to 3.61) for the intermediate tertile and 2.13 (95% CI 1.12 to 4.06) for the highest tertile. Experience of the PD trainers was not predictive of Gram-negative peritonitis. CONCLUSIONS The finding of negative association between the trainers' length of time in practice and peritonitis incidence reminds us that active continued learning and applying principles of adult learning might be the answers for the nurses to teach the patients.
Conception of a novel converter topology for higher energy recuperation in electric vehicles

The low cruising range is one of the main points of criticism regarding full electric vehicles and, therefore, the enlargement of the range represents a big challenge on the way to a widely spread acceptance of electric mobility. One starting point for the enhancement of the range is the optimisation of the braking energy recovery. Power inverters in currently available electric cars are not dimensioned for the occurring power during brake applications with high deceleration values. In this paper, a novel converter topology with a second recovery current path, which is connected in parallel to the standard inverter, is presented. A control regulates, that the power of the inverter is limited to the nominal value and that the excessive power is handled by the new recovery path. In simulations the functional capability of this method is illustrated.
Nesiritide for Treatment of Heart Failure Due to Right Ventricular Dysfunction

Little information exists regarding the use of nesiritide for treatment of right‐sided heart failure. Similarly, little information is available regarding routine use of combination nesiritide and diuretics as initial therapy to relieve edema due to heart failure. Nesiritide may be beneficial in combination with diuretics because it reduces activity of the renin‐angiotensin‐aldosterone system. It is unclear how potent nesiritide is as a diuretic. Patients exhibit wide variability in clinical response from the diuretic effects of the drug. Two patients were given a combination of nesiritide and diuretics as initial treatment of right‐sided heart failure; both experienced significant diuresis and weight loss. Further literature is needed to clarify the role of nesiritide in the treatment of right‐sided heart failure.
Comparing the information extracted by feature descriptors from EO images using Huffman coding

Traditionally, images are understood based on their primitive features such as color, texture, and shape. The proposed feature extraction methods usually cover a range of primitive features. SIFT, for example, in addition to the shape-based information, extracts texture and color information to some extent. Thus, different descriptors may cover a common range of primitive features which we call information overlap. Selecting a set of feature descriptors with low information overlap allows more comprehensive understanding of the data by providing a broader range of new features. This article introduces a new method based on information theory for comparing various descriptors. The idea is to code each description of an image by Huffman coding. The distance between the coded descriptions are then measured using Levenshtein distance as the information overlap. Results show that the computed information overlap clearly describes the differences between the learning from different descriptions of Earth Observation images.
Optimal DG location and sizing in distribution system to minimize losses, improve voltage stability, and voltage profile

In this paper, for optimal location and sizing of distributed generation (DG) in distribution system, a constrained optimization problem is defined. The purpose is to minimize real power losses, improve voltage stability and voltage profile of distribution system. The real power losses, the voltage stability, and the voltage profile of distribution network are formulated as objective function to consider in the optimization problem. A 69-bus distribution network is applied as a case study. The optimization problem of case study is solved using PSO algorithm. To illustrate the effectiveness of proposed method the obtained results are compared with results of pervious research.
OIL FLOWERS AND OIL BEES: FURTHER EVIDENCE FOR POLLINATOR ADAPTATION

We examined foreleg length and body size variation in two species of oil‐collecting bees (Rediviva; Melittidae) in southern Africa. Oil‐collecting bees harvest oil from host flowers by rubbing their forelegs against oil‐secreting trichomes. Significant differences in foreleg length occur among populations of both species. Rediviva “pallidula” populations vary significantly in mean foreleg length (11.34 ± 0.42 mm to 12.67 ± 0.36 mm), but not in body length (10.59 ± 0.74 to 10.80 ± 0.64), and foreleg length and body size are not significantly correlated. Instead, foreleg variation appears to be a function of host plant spur length. Ninety‐two percent of the variance in foreleg length of R. “pallidula” is explained by mean Diascia spur length. Rediviva rufocincta populations vary significantly in mean foreleg length (10.12 ± 0.70 mm to 12.34 ± 0.68 mm) and in body length (9.03 ± 0.26 mm to 10.56 ± 0.24 mm). Foreleg length scales allometrically with body size in this species as 90.5% of the variance in foreleg length can be explained as a function of body length. Body size appears to be constrained by the morphology of the oil‐secreting host plant.
Quantum Descriptors for Predictive Toxicology of Halogenated Aliphatic Hydrocarbons

In order to improve Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationships (QSARs) for halogenated aliphatics (HA) and to better understand the biophysical mechanism of toxic response to these ubiquitous chemicals, we employ improved quantum-mechanical descriptors to account for HA electrophilicity. We demonstrate that, unlike the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital energy, E LUMO , which was previously used as a descriptor, the electron affinity can be systematically improved by application of higher levels of theory. We also show that employing the reciprocal of E LUMO , which is more consistent with frontier molecular orbital (FMO) theory, improves the correlations with in vitro toxicity data. We offer explanations based on FMO theory for a result from our previous work, in which the LUMO energies of HA anions correlated surprisingly well with in vitro toxicity data. Additional descriptors are also suggested and interpreted in terms of the accepted biophysical mechanism of toxic response to HAs and new QSARs are derived for various chemical categories that compose the data set employed. These alternate descriptors provide important insight and could benefit other classes of compounds where the biophysical mechanism of toxic response involves dissociative attachment.
TM mode analysis of a Sievenpiper high-impedance reactive surface

Builds on the published work of King and Park [see IEEE Trans. Ant. Propag. , vol AP-31, p. 471-6, 1983] in which they analyze TM modes on a Fakir's grounded bed-of-nails structure. Sievenpiper's reactive surface is essentially a Fakir's structure with the addition of a capacitive FSS loading the ends of the rods. In this analysis, we show that an infinite number of TM modes can exist on this structure, and that the apparent TM mode cutoff, experimentally observed, is a manifestation of the two lowest order modes coalescing, and then being cut off. Furthermore, we show that this apparent TM mode cutoff can be adjusted independent of the +90/spl deg/ reflection phase frequency by controlling the density and diameter of the rods.
Tree-structured generation of orthogonal spreading codes with different lengths for forward link of DS-CDMA mobile radio

Tree-structured generation of orthogonal spreading codes with different lengths is presented for orthogonal multiplexing of forward-link code-channels of different data rates in direct sequence code division multiple access DS-CDMA mobile radio. The bit error rate performance under a multi-user environment suffering multipath Rayleigh fading is evaluated by computer simulation.
A Study of Applications of Fuzzy Logic in Various Domains of Agricultural Sciences

Fuzzy logic (FL) has emerged as an important branch of Expert system which has proved to provide solution to real life problems that had remained unsolvable otherwise. It has found wide range of applications in diversified areas. In this paper, we study how the methods of fuzzy logic have been effectively used to solve a myriad of problems in the field of agricultural sciences. This paper reviews a few of the applications of fuzzy logic integrated with expert systems which had been applied in the field of agricultural sciences. This study could be considered as a part of the literature survey done for research work in future for developing expert system for a particular crop for a given region in our country. It can serve as the baseline for further work to be carried out in this domain.
Anomaly detection in hyperspectral imagery: comparison of methods using diurnal and seasonal data

The use of hyperspectral imaging is a fast growing field with many applications in the civilian, commercial and military sectors. Hyperspectral images are typically composed of many spectral bands in the visible and infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum and have the potential to deliver a great deal of information about a remotely sensed scene. One area of interest regarding hyperspectral images is anomaly detection, or the ability to find spectral outliers within a complex background in a scene with no a priori information about the scene or its specific contents. Anomaly detectors typically operate by creating a statistical background model of a hyperspectral image and measuring anomalies as image pixels that do not conform properly to that given model. In this study we compare the performance over diurnal and seasonal changes for several different anomaly detection methods found in the literature and a new anomaly detector that we refer to as the fuzzy cluster-based anomaly detector. Here we also compare the performance of several anomaly-based change detection algorithms. Our results indicate that all anomaly detectors tested in this experimentation exhibit strong performance under optimum illumination and environmental conditions. However, our results point toward a significant performance advantage for cluster-based anomaly detectors in the presence of adverse environmental conditions.
Clinical, genetic, and structural basis of apparent mineralocorticoid excess due to 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 2 deficiency

Significance Apparent mineralocorticoid excess, a rare autosomal recessive disorder characterized by low renin hypertension, may display a severe or mild phenotype in patients. The variability in clinical presentation stems from different extents of impairment of the 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 2 (HSD11B2) enzyme arising from distinct mutations in the encoding gene. The computational model of the HSD11B2 protein that we constructed here will be useful in predicting disease severity for newly reported missense mutations in this gene. Mutations in 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 2 gene (HSD11B2) cause an extraordinarily rare autosomal recessive disorder, apparent mineralocorticoid excess (AME). AME is a form of low renin hypertension that is potentially fatal if untreated. Mutations in the HSD11B2 gene result either in severe AME or a milder phenotype (type 2 AME). To date, ∼40 causative mutations have been identified. As part of the International Consortium for Rare Steroid Disorders, we have diagnosed and followed the largest single worldwide cohort of 36 AME patients. Here, we present the genotype and clinical phenotype of these patients, prominently from consanguineous marriages in the Middle East, who display profound hypertension and hypokalemic alkalosis. To correlate mutations with phenotypic severity, we constructed a computational model of the HSD11B2 protein. Having used a similar strategy for the in silico evaluation of 150 mutations of CYP21A2, the disease-causing gene in congenital adrenal hyperplasia, we now provide a full structural explanation for the clinical severity of AME resulting from each known HSD11B2 missense mutation. We find that mutations that allow the formation of an inactive dimer, alter substrate/coenzyme binding, or impair structural stability of HSD11B2 yield severe AME. In contrast, mutations that cause an indirect disruption of substrate binding or mildly alter intramolecular interactions result in type 2 AME. A simple in silico evaluation of novel missense mutations could help predict the often-diverse phenotypes of an extremely rare monogenic disorder.
Interrogation de sources biomédicales : prise en compte des préférences de l'utilisateur

Résumé. Nous nous plaçons dans le cadre d’un projet de constitution d’une plate-forme intégrative de données biomédicales pour l’étude génomique des cancers. La plate-forme comporte, entre autres, un certain nombre de scénarios d’analyse qui sont proposés à l’utilisateur. A chaque étape d’un scénario qu’il a choisi de réaliser pour les besoins de son étude, l’utilisateur peut être amené à poser une requête nécessitant d’accéder à différentes sources et il doit alors choisir les sources pertinentes. Nous proposons un guide à l’utilisateur sous forme d’un algorithme de sélection de sources adapté à sa requête et à ses préférences. Pour cela, nous explorons quelques spécificités des banques de données biomédicales et définissons différents critères de préférence utiles pour les biologistes. Nous illustrons notre démarche avec un exemple de requête biomédicale.
An ultra low energy 8-bit charge redistribution ADC for wireless sensors

A low-energy 8-bit charge-redistribution SAR ADC for wireless sensor nodes is proposed. The ADC employs a new capacitor switching procedure that allows a reduction of the average switching energy as compared to previous proposals. Simulation and measurement results of a test chip prototype operating at 100 kS/s are provided, showing a SFDR of 55.63 dB for a power consumption of 2.17 μW. The active area of the ADC is only 0.275 mm2.
Two‐locus developments of the weighted pairwise correlation method for linkage analysis

Different studies of complex traits assumed to be influenced by two unliked loci found that two‐locus linkage analysis is more powerful than the classical one‐locus strategy. The Weighted Pairwise Correlation (WPC) approach is a nonparametric method for linkage analysis that has the advantage to analyze any kind of phenotypes and to consider extended pairs of relatives. In this report, we propose different two‐locus extensions of the WPC method based on an additive or a multiplicative effect of two unlinked marker loci on the phenotype. Both methods and their corresponding statistics are easily derived from the classical WPC approach. Compared to the additive model, the multiplicative approach, which can be understood as a statistical interaction effect of the two markers, does not need to specify any additional parameter and allows one to test both the global effect of the two markers (TAB test) and the effect of one marker, e.g., B, taking into account the effect of the other, A (TAB/A test). When compared to classical one‐locus tests by means of simulations, two‐locus tests have comparable 0.05 type I error and are more powerful. In particular, tests based on the multiplicative approach appear to be quite interesting in addition to single locus tests to detect the combined role of two markers (TAB), or to investigate the role of a marker taking into account a known linked marker (TAB/A), especially when these markers have complex effects on the phenotype (e.g., statistical interaction). Genet. Epidemiol. 15:491–510,1998. © 1998 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.