Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparação entre a adiposidade subcutânea dos hemicorpos direito e esquerdo

The aim of this study was to compare subcutaneous adiposity levels of right and left sides and posteriorly to analyze the impact of this information to the body composition study. Seventy-six physically active individuals, 47 men (21.6 ± 4.3 years) and 29 women (21.0 ± 2.6 years), comprised the sample. Abdominal, suprailiac, subscapular, triceps, biceps, midaxillary and mid calf skinfolds were measured using the Lange caliper. In terms of mean absolute values, the largest differences found were 0.9 mm (6.9%) and 0.8 mm (6.8%) for the suprailiac skinfold in men and women, respectively. However, there was no significant difference in the comparison between the right and left sides of body for both genders in the seven examples of skinfold thickness analyzed (P > 0.05). Similarly, after applying the measured values of skinfold thickness in predictive equations, we found no significant differences in relative body fat in men and women (P > 0.05). The results suggest that factors such as the technical error of measurement of the examiner, the type of caliper and the choice of the predictive equation to be used probably have more impact on the estimation of body composition derived from skinfolds than the side of body measured.
Sufficient sleep duration contributes to lower cardiovascular disease risk in addition to four traditional lifestyle factors: the MORGEN study

Background The contribution of sufficient sleep duration to lower CVD risk in addition to sufficient physical activity, a healthy diet, (moderate) alcohol consumption, and non-smoking has not been investigated yet. Design The MORGEN study is a prospective cohort study including 8128 men and 9759 women aged 20–65 years, free of CVD at baseline. Methods Sufficient physical activity (≥3.5 h/week cycling or sports), a healthy diet (Mediterranean Diet Score ≥5), (moderate) alcohol consumption (≥1 beverage/month), non-smoking, and sufficient sleep duration (≥7 hours) were assessed by self-administered questionnaires between 1994 and 1997. Cardiovascular morbidity and mortality were ascertained through linkage with national registers. Hazard ratios and preventable proportions were calculated adjusted for age, sex, and educational level. Results During 10–14 years of follow up, 607 composite CVD events (fatal CVD, nonfatal myocardial infarction and stroke) occurred, of which 129 were fatal. Those with the four traditional healthy lifestyle factors had a 57% lower risk of composite CVD (HR 0.43, 95% CI 0.31–0.59) and a 67% lower risk of fatal CVD (HR 0.33, 95% CI 0.16–0.68) compared with those with none or one healthy lifestyle factor. Sleeping sufficiently in addition to the four traditional lifestyle factors resulted in a 65% lower risk of composite CVD (HR 0.35, 95% CI 0.23–0.52), and an 83% lower risk of fatal CVD (HR 0.17, 95% CI 0.07–0.43). Conclusions Sufficient sleep and adherence to all four traditional healthy lifestyle factors was associated with lower CVD risk. When sufficient sleep duration was added to the traditional lifestyle factors, the risk of CVD was further reduced.
Hepatitis C Virus Induces CD81 and Claudin-1 Endocytosis

ABSTRACT Hepatitis C virus (HCV) leads to progressive liver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma. Current treatments are only partially effective, and new therapies targeting viral and host pathways are required. Virus entry into a host cell provides a conserved target for therapeutic intervention. Tetraspanin CD81, scavenger receptor class B member I, and the tight-junction proteins claudin-1 and occludin have been identified as essential entry receptors. Limited information is available on the role of receptor trafficking in HCV entry. We demonstrate here that anti-CD81 antibodies inhibit HCV infection at late times after virus internalization, suggesting a role for intracellular CD81 in HCV infection. Several tetraspanins have been reported to internalize via motifs in their C-terminal cytoplasmic domains; however, CD81 lacks such motifs, leading several laboratories to suggest a limited role for CD81 endocytosis in HCV entry. We demonstrate CD81 internalization via a clathrin- and dynamin-dependent process, independent of its cytoplasmic domain, suggesting a role for associated partner proteins in regulating CD81 trafficking. Live cell imaging demonstrates CD81 and claudin-1 coendocytosis and fusion with Rab5 expressing endosomes, supporting a role for this receptor complex in HCV internalization. Receptor-specific antibodies and HCV particles increase CD81 and claudin-1 endocytosis, supporting a model wherein HCV stimulates receptor trafficking to promote particle internalization.
Development of an HIV/STD Screening Index to Measure HIV/STD Risk in Adolescents

The development of an adolescent screening assessing risk of exposure to HIV/sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and its psychometric evaluation is described. An initial set of 31 items was administered to 1418 adolescents. Item and factor analyses resulted in an 18-item HIV/STD risk screening index. Reliability analysis indicated favorable evidence for index internal consistency (alpha = .86) and temporal stability over 6 to 10 days (r = .92). Construct validity was supported by the ability to use the index to differentiate between groups that differed in history of HIV/STD. Convergent validity was evidenced by significant correlations of the index with conceptually related measures. The screening index shows favorable psychometric evidence among diverse samples of adolescents.
Design of an OFDM Physical Layer Encryption Scheme

This paper presents a new encryption scheme implemented at the physical layer of wireless networks employing orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM). The new scheme obfuscates the subcarriers by randomly reserving several subcarriers for dummy data and resequences the training symbol by a new secure sequence. Subcarrier obfuscation renders the OFDM transmission more secure and random, whereas training symbol resequencing protects the entire physical layer packet but does not affect the normal functions of synchronization and channel estimation of legitimate users while preventing eavesdroppers from performing these functions. The security analysis shows that the system is robust to various attacks by analyzing the search space using an exhaustive key search. Our scheme is shown to perform better in terms of search space, key rate, and complexity in comparison with other OFDM physical layer encryption schemes. The scheme offers options for users to customize the security level and the key rate according to the hardware resource. Its low complexity nature also makes the scheme suitable for resource-limited devices. Details of practical design considerations are highlighted by applying the approach to an IEEE 802.11 OFDM system case study.
Visual object recognition using DAISY descriptor

Visual content description is a key issue for the task of machine-based visual object categorization (VOC). A good visual descriptor should be both discriminative enough and computationally efficient while possessing some properties of robustness to viewpoint changes and lighting condition variations. The recent literature has featured local image descriptors, e.g. SIFT, as the main trend in VOC. However, it is well known that SIFT is computationally expensive, especially when the number of objects/concepts and learning data increase significantly. In this paper, we investigate the DAISY, which is a new fast local descriptor introduced for wide baseline matching problem, in the context of VOC. We carefully evaluate and compare the DAISY descriptor with SIFT both in terms of recognition accuracy and computation complexity on two standard image benchmarks - Caltech 101 and PASCAL VOC 2007. The experimental results show that DAISY outperforms the state-of-the-art SIFT while using shorter descriptor length and operating 3 times faster. When displaying a similar recognition accuracy to SIFT, DAISY can operate 12 times faster.
Quality of life and life satisfaction among adults with and without congenital heart disease in a developing country

Background Life-expectancy of adults with congenital heart disease (CHD) has improved world-wide, but there are limited data on these patients’ experiences of quality of life (QoL), life satisfaction (LS), and their determinants (e.g. social support), particularly among patients from developing countries. Design Cross-sectional case-control. Methods A total of 347 CHD patients (18-64 years, 52.2% women) and 353 non-CHD participants, matched by sex/age, were recruited from two heart hospitals in Tehran, Iran. LS and QoL served as dependent variables, and demographic/socioeconomic status, mental-somatic symptoms, social support, and clinical factors (e.g. defect category) served as independent variables in multiple regression analyses once among all participants, and once only among CHD patients. Results The CHD patients had significantly lower scores in LS and all domains of QoL than the control group. However, having CHD was independently negatively associated only with overall QoL, physical health, and life and health satisfaction. Additionally, multivariate analyses among the CHD patients revealed that female sex, younger age, being employed, less emotional distress, and higher social support were significantly associated with higher perceived QoL in most domains, while LS was associated with female sex, being employed, less emotional distress, and better social support. Neither QoL nor LS was associated with cardiac defect severity. Conclusions The adults with CHD had poorer QoL and LS than their non-CHD peers in our developing country. Socio-demographics, emotional health, and social support were important ‘determinants’ of QoL and LS among the CHD patients. Longitudinal studies are warranted to establish causal links.
Development and validation of an ankle brachial index risk model for the prediction of cardiovascular events

Background The ankle brachial index (ABI) is related to risk of cardiovascular events independent of the Framingham risk score (FRS). The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate a risk model for cardiovascular events incorporating the ABI and FRS. Design An analysis of participant data from 18 cohorts in which 24,375 men and 20,377 women free of coronary heart disease had ABI measured and were followed up for events. Methods Subjects were divided into a development and internal validation dataset and an external validation dataset. Two models, comprising FRS and FRS + ABI, were fitted for the primary outcome of major coronary events. Results In predicting events in the external validation dataset, C-index for the FRS was 0.672 (95% CI 0.599 to 0.737) in men and 0.578 (95% CI 0.492 to 0.661) in women. The FRS + ABI led to a small increase in C-index in men to 0.685 (95% CI 0.612 to 0.749) and large increase in women to 0.690 (95% CI 0.605 to 0.764) with net reclassification improvement (NRI) of 4.3% (95% CI 0.0 to 7.6%, p = 0.050) and 9.6% (95% CI 6.1 to 16.4%, p < 0.001), respectively. Restricting the FRS + ABI model to those with FRS intermediate 10-year risk of 10 to 19% resulted in higher NRI of 15.9% (95% CI 6.1 to 20.6%, p < 0.001) in men and 23.3% (95% CI 13.8 to 62.5%, p = 0.002) in women. However, incorporating ABI in an improved newly fitted risk factor model had a nonsignificant effect: NRI 2.0% (95% CI 2.3 to 4.2%, p = 0.567) in men and 1.1% (95% CI 1.9 to 4.0%, p = 0.483) in women. Conclusions An ABI risk model may improve prediction especially in individuals at intermediate risk and when performance of the base risk factor model is modest.
trans-Packaged West Nile Virus-Like Particles: Infectious Properties In Vitro and in Infected Mosquito Vectors

ABSTRACT A trans-packaging system for West Nile virus (WNV) subgenomic replicon RNAs (repRNAs), deleted for the structural coding region, was developed. WNV repRNAs were efficiently encapsidated by the WNV C/prM/E structural proteins expressed in trans from replication-competent, noncytopathic Sindbis virus-derived RNAs. Infectious virus-like particles (VLPs) were produced in titers of up to 109 infectious units/ml. WNV VLPs established a single round of infection in a variety of different cell lines without production of progeny virions. The infectious properties of WNV and VLPs were indistinguishable when efficiencies of infection of a number of different cell lines and inhibition of infection by neutralizing antibodies were determined. To investigate the usefulness of VLPs to address biological questions in vivo, Culex pipiens quinquefasciatus mosquitoes were orally and parenterally infected with VLPs, and dissected tissues were analyzed for WNV antigen expression. Antigen-positive cells in midguts of orally infected mosquitoes were detected as early as 2 days postinfection and as late as 8 days. Intrathoracic inoculation of VLPs into mosquitoes demonstrated a dose-dependent pattern of infection of secondary tissues and identified fat body, salivary glands, tracheal cells, and midgut muscle as susceptible WNV VLP infection targets. These results demonstrate that VLPs can serve as a valuable tool for the investigation of tissue tropism during the early stages of infection, where virus spread and the need for biosafety level 3 containment complicate the use of wild-type virus.
High prevalence of metabolic syndrome in the Black population of Cape Town: The Cardiovascular Risk in Black South Africans (CRIBSA) study

Aims To determine the metabolic syndrome prevalence by the 2009 harmonised criteria in 25–74-year-old urban Africans in Cape Town. Methods In 2008/2009, a representative cross-sectional sample, stratified by age and gender, was randomly selected. Cardiovascular risk factors were determined with questionnaires, clinical measurements and biochemical analyses, including fasting blood samples. Logistic regression analysis assessed the independent effects of socio-demographic variables on metabolic syndrome. Results There were 1099 participants, 392 of whom were men and 707 women (response rate 86%). Crude and age-standardised (SEGI) prevalence of metabolic syndrome was 30.7% (95% confidence interval (CI): 27.4–34.1) and 31.7% (95% CI: 28.4–35.3), respectively, with higher rates among women (43.5%, 95% CI: 39.2–47.9 and 44.9%, 95% CI: 40.5–49.3) than men (16.5%, 95% CI: 12.7–21.2 and 17.3%, 95% CI: 13.4–21.9) (p < 0.001). Overall, metabolic syndrome components that were higher in women compared with men were central obesity (86.0% vs. 20.1%) and low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (75.0% vs. 33.4%) while in men, raised blood pressure (51.4%) was the most frequent. In the multiple logistic models, higher age (55–64 years (peak age) versus 25–34 years: odds ratio (OR): 7.35, 95% CI: 3.27–16.56, p < 0.001) and wealth (highest versus lowest tertile: OR: 1.87, 95% CI: 1.14–3.08, p = 0.014) in women, and higher age (p = 0.002) and employment compared with unemployment (OR: 3.01, 95% CI: 1.18–7.67, p = 0.021) in men were significantly associated with metabolic syndrome. Conclusions The high metabolic syndrome prevalence underscores the frequent clustering of cardiovascular risk factors, the need to determine other risk factors, if a single risk factor is present, and the need for comprehensive integrated approaches to tackle cardiovascular disease.
Estimated daily salt intake in relation to blood pressure and blood lipids: the role of obesity

Background Excessive salt intake causes increased blood pressure which is considered the leading risk for premature death. One major challenge when evaluating associations between daily salt intake and markers of non-communicable diseases is that a high daily salt intake correlates with obesity, which is also a well described risk factor for poor cardiometabolic outcome. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship of estimated daily salt intake with blood pressure and blood lipids and to investigate the effect of taking different measures of obesity into account. Methods We included 3294 men and women aged 18–69 years from a general population based study in Copenhagen, Denmark. Estimated 24-hour sodium excretion was calculated by measurements of creatinine and sodium concentration in spot urine in combination with information of sex, age, height and weight. The relations of estimated 24-hour sodium excretion with blood pressure and blood lipids were evaluated by linear regression models. Results The daily mean estimated intake of salt was 10.80 g and 7.52 g among men and women, respectively. Daily salt intake was significantly associated with blood pressure (β-estimates 1.18 mm Hg/g salt (systolic) and 0.74 mm Hg/g salt (diastolic), p < 0.0001) – however this association was markedly affected by adjustment for obesity (β-estimates around 0.60 mm Hg/g salt (systolic) and around 0.25 mm Hg/g salt (diastolic), p < 0.05). Also associations between daily salt intake and blood lipids were highly affected by adjustment for obesity. Conclusions Associations of estimated daily salt intake with blood pressure and blood lipids were highly affected by adjustment for obesity.
Five ways to describe a multidisciplinary team

‘Multidisciplinary team' is a term used to describe a variety of different interprofessional working arrangements. A problem in designing and improving teams is that people use the same word to mean something different. This makes it difficult to discuss which type of team is best for a particular purpose and setting. The paper presents five ways to describe a multidisciplinary team: in terms of degree of integration; extent of collective responsibility; membership; client pathway and decision-making; and management structures. Using these concepts practitioners and managers can clarify their working arrangements and make improvements. These concepts service planning and research.
Near-duplicate video retrieval and localization using pattern set based dynamic programming

With the exponential growth of the web multimedia contents, illegal video copies are widespread and easy to be obtained from search engines and video sharing websites. For video copyright protection, near-duplicate video retrieval becomes more and more important. In this paper, we proposed a Pattern Set based Dynamic Programming (PSDP) algorithm to retrieve near-duplicate videos efficiently and effectively. In addition, the precise positions of the near-duplicate segments in videos can also be located. To better deal with the slow/fast motion and the dropped frame problem, the Time-shift Pattern set Similarity (TPS) is then applied. Two datasets are used to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method, and the experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms the compared approaches in terms of precision and execution time in both two datasets.
Trajectories of estradiol and follicle-stimulating hormone over the menopause transition and early markers of atherosclerosis after menopause

Aim The purpose of this study was to assess associations between distinct patterns of circulating estradiol (E2) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) over the menopause transition (MT) and subclinical measures of atherosclerosis after menopause. Methods and results Four temporal patterns of E2 decline (Low: low before and after final menstrual period (FMP); Medium: medium before and high after FMP; High-early decline: high prior to FMP and early decline thereafter; High-late decline: high prior to FMP and late decline thereafter) and three of FSH rise (Low, Medium, High) over 9.6 years across FMP were identified and linked to carotid intima-media-thickness (IMT), adventitial diameter (AD), and presence of carotid plaque (cPlaque) measured after menopause at the 12th annual visit (visit 12). Participants were 856 women (age at visit 12 = 59.5 ± 2.7 years) from the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN), who never reported a stroke or a heart attack. In models adjusted for visit 12 or baseline cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors, odds of having any cPlaque were ∼43% lower among women with the High-early decline E2 trajectory compared to women with the Low E2 trajectory. In contrast, women with the Medium E2 trajectory had significantly higher IMT than those with the Low E2 trajectory adjusting for visit 12 CVD risk factors. Interestingly, adjusting for baseline CVD risk factors attenuated this association. The Low FSH group had lower IMT than the Medium and High FSH groups (p ≤ 0.05) in all models. Conclusion During MT, women are subjected to hormonal alterations that could potentially increase their risk of developing CVD after menopause.
On-premise signs detection and recognition using fully convolutional networks

Convolutional neural network has been recently studied and used in many object recognition tasks. In this work, we employ fully convolutional networks (FCNs) to recognize On-Premise Signs (OPS) in real scene. This technology is capable of being utilized in many camera-enabled devices like smart phones to develop practical commercial applications. The fully convolutional network technique is used to train a model to infer whether a street view image contains a specific OPS and where the OPS locates in the input image. Furthermore, to improve the detection performance, data augmentation approaches are applied in our work, and the experiment results show our model outperforms the previous tasks.
Quantitative In Vivo Fluorescence Cross-Correlation Analyses Highlight the Importance of Competitive Effects in the Regulation of Protein-Protein Interactions

ABSTRACT Computer-assisted simulation is a promising approach for clarifying complicated signaling networks. However, this approach is currently limited by a deficiency of kinetic parameters determined in living cells. To overcome this problem, we applied fluorescence cross-correlation spectrometry (FCCS) to measure dissociation constant (Kd) values of signaling molecule complexes in living cells (in vivo Kd). Among the pairs of fluorescent molecules tested, that of monomerized enhanced green fluorescent protein (mEGFP) and HaloTag-tetramethylrhodamine was most suitable for the measurement of in vivo Kd by FCCS. Using this pair, we determined 22 in vivo Kd values of signaling molecule complexes comprising the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)–Ras–extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase pathway. With these parameters, we developed a kinetic simulation model of the EGFR-Ras-ERK MAP kinase pathway and uncovered a potential role played by stoichiometry in Shc binding to EGFR during the peak activations of Ras, MEK, and ERK. Intriguingly, most of the in vivo Kd values determined in this study were higher than the in vitro Kd values reported previously, suggesting the significance of competitive bindings inside cells. These in vivo Kd values will provide a sound basis for the quantitative understanding of signal transduction.