Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Association of physical fitness, body composition, cardiometabolic markers and adherence to the Mediterranean diet with bone mineral density in perimenopausal women. The FLAMENCO project

ABSTRACT This study aimed to analyse the association of different components of physical fitness, body composition, cardiometabolic markers and the Mediterranean diet with bone mineral density (BMD) in perimenopausal women, and to test which of these components are independently associated with BMD. The sample comprised 197 perimenopausal women (52.6 ± 4.5 years). Physical fitness was assessed with the “Senior Fitness Test” battery and the handgrip strength and Bruce tests. Fat and lean mass and BMD were measured using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. We analysed the markers of metabolic syndrome, C-reactive protein, and components of the Mediterranean diet. Handgrip muscle strength (β = 0.212, P = 0.005), body weight (β = 0.244, P = 0.001), BMI (β = 0.180, P = 0.011) and lean mass (β = 0.379, P < 0.001) were positively associated with BMD. No associations were observed between cardiometabolic markers or the Mediterranean diet with BMD (all P > 0.05). When all relevant indicators of BMD were simultaneously considered, lean mass was the only 1 showing an independent association with BMD (β = 0.392, P < 0.001), explaining 14% of the BMD variability. In conclusion, muscle strength might be a marker of BMD in perimenopausal women. However, lean mass was the only factor independently associated with BMD. Future research to determine whether increasing lean mass through specific exercise-based interventions contributes to increasing BMD is warranted.
On Parameterized Path and Chordless Path Problems

We study the parameterized complexity of various path (and cycle) problems, the parameter being the length of the path. For example, we show that the problem of the existence of a maximal path of length k in a graph G is fixed-parameter tractable, while its counting version is #W[1]- complete. The corresponding problems for chordless (or induced) paths are W[2]-complete and #W[2]-complete respectively. With the tools developed in this paper we derive the NP-completeness of a related classical problem, thereby solving a problem due to Hedetniemi.
Common statistical issues in genome-wide association studies: a review on power, data quality control, genotype calling and population structure

Purpose of review Genetic association studies which survey the entire genome have become a common design for uncovering the genetic basis of common diseases, including lipid-related traits. Such studies have identified several novel loci which influence blood lipids. The present review highlights the statistical challenges associated with such large-scale genetic studies and discusses the available methodological strategies for handling these issues. Recent findings The successful analysis of genome-wide data assayed on commercial genotyping arrays depends on careful exploration of the data. Unaccounted sample failures, genotyping errors and population structure can introduce misleading signals that mimic genuine association. Careful interpretation of useful summary statistics and graphical data displays can minimize the extent of false associations that need to be followed up in replication or fine-mapping experiments. Summary Recently published genome-wide studies are beginning to yield valuable insights into the importance of well designed methodological and statistical techniques for sensible interpretation of the plethora of genetic data generated.
Teaching Inclusion Preparation Skills to Children with Developmental Disabilities.

The general purpose of the present study was to examine the effectiveness of simultaneo us prompting embedded in activities for teaching preparatory skills to children with developmental disabilities. Furthermore, determining the perspectives of the teachers about the skills taught to the participants and also to themselves were targeted. Depending on the performance and characteristics of the participants and the observations conducted in the classroom, three skills were determined to be taught to three children with developmental disabilities. The effectiveness of simultaneous prompting embedded into teaching activities for teaching these skills to children with developmental disabilities was planned. A multiple probe design across behaviors was used and replicated across subjects. Also, the perspectives of the teachers about the skills taught to the participants and themselves were determined through interviews conducted by the researchers. The participants of the study had Down syndrome with an age range of 36-44 months. The target skills taught to the participants were: (a) following two step instructions provided in group activities, (b) participating in group activities by raising his/her hand, and (c) nodding the head when asked “Do you want …? ”. The effectiveness results of the study revealed that all three par ticipants acquired the target skills at criterion level. Moreover, two of the participants maintained the skills in the inclusive environments where they were placed seven weeks after the study was completed. Furthermore, the social validity data revealed that the preschool teachers of the two participants were very pleased about having the participants in their classes, the participants’ skills acquisitions and also about being informed about inclusion and children with special needs at the beginning of the school year.
On epicardial potential reconstruction using regularization schemes with the L1-norm data term

The electrocardiographic (ECG) inverse problem is ill-posed and usually solved by regularization schemes. These regularization methods, such as the Tikhonov method, are often based on the L2-norm data and constraint terms. However, L2-norm-based methods inherently provide smoothed inverse solutions that are sensitive to measurement errors, and also lack the capability of localizing and distinguishing multiple proximal cardiac electrical sources. This paper presents alternative regularization schemes employing the L1-norm data term for the reconstruction of epicardial potentials (EPs) from measured body surface potentials (BSPs). During numerical implementation, the iteratively reweighted norm algorithm was applied to solve the L1-norm-related schemes, and measurement noises were considered in the BSP data. The proposed L1-norm data term-based regularization schemes (with L1 and L2 penalty terms of the normal derivative constraint (labelled as L1TV and L1L2)) were compared with the L2-norm data terms (Tikhonov with zero-order and normal derivative constraints, labelled as ZOT and FOT, and the total variation method labelled as L2TV). The studies demonstrated that, with averaged measurement noise, the inverse solutions provided by the L1L2 and FOT algorithms have less relative error values. However, when larger noise occurred in some electrodes (for example, signal lost during measurement), the L1TV and L1L2 methods can obtain more accurate EPs in a robust manner. Therefore the L1-norm data term-based solutions are generally less perturbed by measurement noises, suggesting that the new regularization scheme is promising for providing practical ECG inverse solutions.
Guidelines for improving the care of the older person with diabetes mellitus.

BACKGROUND AND SIGNIFICANCE iabetes mellitus (DM) is highly prevalent and increasing in persons aged 65 and older, particularly among racial and ethnic minorities. Estimates have placed the proportion of adults aged 65 to 74 with physician-diagnosed DM at nearly 25% in some ethnic groups. 1 Estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that, in 1998, 12.7% of persons aged 70 and older had a diagnosis of DM, up from 11.6% in 1990. 2 There are also large numbers of older adults, almost 11% of the U.S. population aged 60 to 74, with undiagnosed DM. 1 Older persons with DM have higher rates of premature death, functional disability, and coexisting illnesses such as hypertension, coronary heart disease (CHD), and stroke 3,4 than do those without DM. Older adults with DM are also at greater risk than other older persons for several common geriatric syndromes, such as depression, 5,6 cognitive impairment, 7 urinary incontinence, 8 injurious falls, 9–11 and persistent pain. 12,13 Although there are numerous evidence-based guidelines for DM, few guidelines are specifically targeted toward the needs of older persons 14 and help clinicians prioritize care for the heterogeneous population of older adults they may see in their practices. Moreover, the main emphasis of most DM guidelines is on intensive blood glucose control and prevention of microvascular complications. Although control of hyperglycemia is important, in older persons with DM, greater reduction in morbidity and mortality may result from control of cardiovascular risk factors than from tight glycemic control. Additionally, little is known about how well providers of health care for older persons with DM adhere to recommendations for the screening and treatment of common geriatric syndromes, such as depression, injurious falls, urinary incontinence, cognitive impairment, chronic pain, and polypharmacy, which are more prevalent with DM and may significantly influence quality of life. Although interventions to reduce the incidence of geriatric syndromes and to ameliorate their symptoms have been studied in general populations of older adults, few studies have focused on the identification and treatment of these common syndromes in older adults with DM. Moreover, because conditions such as cognitive impairment, polypharmacy, and injurious falls may interfere with the provision of appropriate DM care, the identification and management of these syndromes may enhance the effectiveness of DM management for the busy primary care provider. The purpose of this guideline is to improve the care of older persons with DM by providing a set of evidencebased recommendations that include DM-specific recommendations individualized to persons with DM who are aged 65 and older and recommendations for the screening and detection of geriatric syndromes. Table 1 summarizes the components of care included in the guidelines and the number of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and systematic evidence reviews that were evaluated for the care recommendations.
Genetic risk of major depressive disorder: the moderating and mediating effects of neuroticism and psychological resilience on clinical and self-reported depression

Abstract Background Polygenic risk scores (PRS) for depression correlate with depression status and chronicity, and provide causal anchors to identify depressive mechanisms. Neuroticism is phenotypically and genetically positively associated with depression, whereas psychological resilience demonstrates negative phenotypic associations. Whether increased neuroticism and reduced resilience are downstream mediators of genetic risk for depression, and whether they contribute independently to risk remains unknown. Methods Moderating and mediating relationships between depression PRS, neuroticism, resilience and both clinical and self-reported depression were examined in a large, population-based cohort, Generation Scotland: Scottish Family Health Study (N = 4166), using linear regression and structural equation modelling. Neuroticism and resilience were measured by the Eysenck Personality Scale Short Form Revised and the Brief Resilience Scale, respectively. Results PRS for depression was associated with increased likelihood of self-reported and clinical depression. No interaction was found between PRS and neuroticism, or between PRS and resilience. Neuroticism was associated with increased likelihood of self-reported and clinical depression, whereas resilience was associated with reduced risk. Structural equation modelling suggested the association between PRS and self-reported and clinical depression was mediated by neuroticism (43–57%), while resilience mediated the association in the opposite direction (37–40%). For both self-reported and clinical diagnoses, the genetic risk for depression was independently mediated by neuroticism and resilience. Conclusions Findings suggest polygenic risk for depression increases vulnerability for self-reported and clinical depression through independent effects on increased neuroticism and reduced psychological resilience. In addition, two partially independent mechanisms – neuroticism and resilience – may form part of the pathway of vulnerability to depression.
Evidence for Astrophysical Muon Neutrinos from the Northern Sky with IceCube.

Results from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory have recently provided compelling evidence for the existence of a high energy astrophysical neutrino flux utilizing a dominantly Southern Hemisphere data set consisting primarily of ν(e) and ν(τ) charged-current and neutral-current (cascade) neutrino interactions. In the analysis presented here, a data sample of approximately 35,000 muon neutrinos from the Northern sky is extracted from data taken during 659.5 days of live time recorded between May 2010 and May 2012. While this sample is composed primarily of neutrinos produced by cosmic ray interactions in Earth's atmosphere, the highest energy events are inconsistent with a hypothesis of solely terrestrial origin at 3. 7σ significance. These neutrinos can, however, be explained by an astrophysical flux per neutrino flavor at a level of Φ(E(ν))=9.9(-3.4)(+3.9)×10(-19) GeV(-1) cm(-2) sr(-1) s(-1)(E(ν)/100 TeV(-2), consistent with IceCube's Southern-Hemisphere-dominated result. Additionally, a fit for an astrophysical flux with an arbitrary spectral index is performed. We find a spectral index of 2.2(-0.2)(+0.2), which is also in good agreement with the Southern Hemisphere result.
Tweakable parallel OFB mode of operation with delayed thread synchronization

Introduction of various cryptographic modes of operation is induced with noted imperfections of symmetric block algorithms. Design of some cryptographic modes of operation has already been exploited as an idea for parallelization of certain algorithms execution. To the best of our knowledge, there is no evidence in the available literature that output feedback (OFB) mode, which is used in satellite communications, has ever been parallelized. In this paper, we consider the performance of a convenient mode of operation, which performs tweakable parallel encryption using xor encrypt xor (XEX) and xor encrypt (XE) constructions in OFB like mode. We make use of an idea similar to the XTS-AES in order to create two parallel tweakable block ciphers. The first of them is designed using XEX construction, while the second is based on XE construction. Each cipher uses two threads to produce corresponding keystreams. Keystreams are first merged with each other and then used in modified tweakable parallel OFB mode of operation. As a proof of the concept, we have implemented a Java application in which these parallel solutions are applied to collect empirical data. The results obtained show that under certain conditions tweakable parallel OFB modes using XEX and XE constructions can achieve performance accelerations up to 10% and to 20%, respectively. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
Noninvasive and real‐time monitoring of the therapeutic response of tumors in vivo with an optimized hTERT promoter

Telomerase is commonly recognized as an effective anticancer target. The human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT), the rate‐limiting component of telomerase, is expressed in most malignant tumors, but it is not found in most normal somatic cells. Here, we report a real‐time and noninvasive method to monitor tumor response to a lentivirus‐based hTERT‐conditional suicidal gene therapy.
Renal responses to exercise-induced lactic acidosis.

Five healthy males performed four 30-s bouts of maximal exercise, separated by 4 min of rest, on an isokinetic cycle ergometer. Arterial blood and urine samples were taken from indwelling catheters at rest, immediately postexercise, and for 90 min of recovery. Inulin was continuously infused to measure glomerular filtration rate (GFR). Arterial plasma [Na+], [K+], and [Cl-] increased (P less than 0.05) with exercise; plasma lactate concentration ([Lac-]) increased from 1.3 +/- 0.2 to 21.0 +/- 1.0 (SE) meq/l (P less than 0.05). A significant decrease in the GFR occurred after exercise and during recovery associated with reductions in renal Na+ and K+ excretion (P less than 0.05). Renal excretion of Lac- reached a maximum of 293 +/- 79.4 mu eq.kg-1.h-1 (P less than 0.05), with Cl- excretion reaching a minimum of 4.8 +/- 0.95 mu eq.kg-1.h-1 (P less than 0.05). Urine [Lac-] was 189 +/- 25.6 meq/l, and urine [Cl-] was 6 +/- 1.7 meq/l at 30 min of recovery. There was a curvilinear relationship between urine [Cl-] and [Lac-] (r = -0.86; P less than 0.0001). Net Lac- production was estimated from arterial [Lac-] and after assuming a distribution volume. Less than 2% (13.1 meq) of the total estimated Lac- produced (678 meq) was excreted in the urine. Decreases in urine [Cl-] act to limit the fall in urine pH that accompanies increases in urine [Lac-].
Beyond Declines in Student Body Diversity

Guided by a bottom-up policy implementation framework, this study draws from semi-structured interviews of 14 campus-level administrators charged with implementing diversity policy at the University of Michigan to investigate how an affirmative action ban (Proposal 2) influenced their efforts in support of racial/ethnic diversity at the university. Our findings show that beyond contributing to declines in student body diversity, laws like Proposal 2 have negatively influenced work critical to the success of students of color on campus. The findings suggest institutions operating in an anti–affirmative action context would benefit from proactive policies and practices that empower administrators in legally restrictive environments and support conversation and action that directly address the ways race continues to matter on college campuses.
Environmental Behavior in Cross-National Perspective

This article seeks to explain cross-national differences on environmental behavior. After controlling for a series of sociodemographic and psychosocial factors, it was predicted that national levels of wealth, postmaterialism, education development, and environmental problems are positively related to environmental behavior. The national-level variance is to a substantial degree explained by individual-level variables, capturing compositional effects. The remaining variance is explained by the contextual-level variables. All of the country-level variables are predictors in the expected direction, with the exception of environmental degradation, which is negatively related to behavior, and education development, which has no impact on private environmental behavior. More importantly, cross-level interactions show that in more developed countries, there are stronger relationships between proecological attitudes and reported proenvironmental behavior. These findings contribute to the growing cross-cultural research on environmental behavior pointing out the necessity of simultaneously assessing the effects of both individual and contextual-level forces affecting behavior across nations.
Amino acid labeling patterns in the efferent innervation of the cochlea: An electron microscopic autoradiographic study

Light microscopic autoradiography and electron microscopic autoradiography were used to study the distribution of label in the cochlear efferents following in vivo incubation with tritiated amino acids. Two basic patterns of labeling were observed. These patterns correspond closely to the lateral and medial superior olivary complex (SOC) olivocochlear systems identified by Warr and Guinan ('79, Brain Res. 173:152‐155). Our electron microscopic observations suggest that, at least in the gerbil, the complete separation of outer hair cell (OHC) versus inner hair cell (IHC) efferent innervation proposed by these investigators based upon light microscopic data does not occur. Rather, our data suggest that while the lateral SOC system supplies endings only to the region under the IHC, the medial SOC system may supply endings beneath both the IHCs and OHCs.
Diet-Induced Obesity in Male C57BL/6 Mice Decreases Fertility as a Consequence of Disrupted Blood-Testis Barrier

Obesity is a complex metabolic disease that is a serious detriment to both children and adult health, which induces a variety of diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, type II diabetes, hypertension and cancer. Although adverse effects of obesity on female reproduction or oocyte development have been well recognized, its harmfulness to male fertility is still unclear because of reported conflicting results. The aim of this study was to determine whether diet-induced obesity impairs male fertility and furthermore to uncover its underlying mechanisms. Thus, male C57BL/6 mice fed a high-fat diet (HFD) for 10 weeks served as a model of diet-induced obesity. The results clearly show that the percentage of sperm motility and progressive motility significantly decreased, whereas the proportion of teratozoospermia dramatically increased in HFD mice compared to those in normal diet fed controls. Besides, the sperm acrosome reaction fell accompanied by a decline in testosterone level and an increase in estradiol level in the HFD group. This alteration of sperm function parameters strongly indicated that the fertility of HFD mice was indeed impaired, which was also validated by a low pregnancy rate in their mated normal female. Moreover, testicular morphological analyses revealed that seminiferous epithelia were severely atrophic, and cell adhesions between spermatogenic cells and Sertoli cells were loosely arranged in HFD mice. Meanwhile, the integrity of the blood-testis barrier was severely interrupted consistent with declines in the tight junction related proteins, occludin, ZO-1 and androgen receptor, but instead endocytic vesicle-associated protein, clathrin rose. Taken together, obesity can impair male fertility through declines in the sperm function parameters, sex hormone level, whereas during spermatogenesis damage to the blood-testis barrier (BTB) integrity may be one of the crucial underlying factors accounting for this change.
Fine temporal analysis of DHT transcriptional modulation of the ATM/Gadd45g signaling pathways in the mouse uterus

In rodents, the uterus of a mature female undergoes changes during the uterine cycle, under the control of steroid hormones. 5α‐Dihydrotestosterone (DHT) is recognized to play an important role in the regulation of androgen action in normal endometrium. Using microarray technology, a screening analysis of genes responding to DHT in the uterus of ovariectomized mice, has allowed us to highlight multiple genes of the ATM/Gadd45g pathway that are modulated following exposure to DHT. Two phases of regulation were identified. In the early phase, the expression of genes involved in the G2/M arrest is rapidly increased, followed by the repression of genes of the G1/S checkpoint, and by the induction of transcriptional regulators. Later, i.e. from 12 to 24 hr, genes involved in G2/M transition, cytoarchitectural and lipid‐related genes are stimulated by DHT while immunity‐related genes appear to be differentially regulated by the hormone. These results show that a physiological dose of DHT induces the transcription of genes promoting the cell cycle progression in mice. Profile determination of temporal uterine gene expression at the transcriptional level enables us to suggest that the DHT modulation of genes involved in ATM/Gadd45g signaling in an ATM‐ or p53‐independent manner, could play an important role in the cyclical changes of uterine cells in the mouse uterus. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 76: 278–288, 2009. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.