Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Diet quality of individuals with rheumatoid arthritis using the Healthy Eating Index (HEI)-2010

Background: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) afflicts approximately 1.5 million American adults and is a major cause of disability. As disease severity worsens, individuals with RA may experience functional decline that can impact dietary intake. Objective: The objective of this study is to assess the diet quality of individuals with RA using the Healthy Eating Index (HEI)-2010 and examine associations between diet quality and disease activity and functional status. Methods: This cross-sectional study assessed diet quality and disease activity and functional status in adults with RA. Participants completed seven-day weighed food records, which were scored using the HEI-2010. Participants had a fasting blood draw and completed the Multidimensional Health Assessment Questionnaire to determine disease activity and functional status. Results: The mean age of individuals with RA (N = 84) was 53 ± 14 years, and 86.9% were female. The mean HEI-2010 total score was 58.7 ± 15.9, with 7.1% of participants scoring “good”, 58.3% “fair”, and 34.5% “poor”. Most participants did not adhere to recommended intakes of total fruit, total vegetables, whole grains, fatty acids, refined grains, sodium, and empty calories. An unadjusted multiple linear regression model found duration of morning stiffness and C-reactive protein concentration to be significant variables to inversely predict HEI-2010 total score. Conclusions: The diet quality of many individuals with RA needs improvement and may be related to functional disability associated with RA. Healthcare providers should encourage individuals with RA to meet dietary guidelines and maintain a healthy diet. Moreover, healthcare providers should be aware of the potential impacts of functional disability on diet quality in individuals with RA.
Recurrent policy gradients

Reinforcement learning for partially observable Markov decision problems (POMDPs) is a challenge as it requires policies with an internal state. Traditional approaches suer significantly from this shortcoming and usually make strong assumptions on the problem domain such as perfect system models, state-estimators and a Markovian hidden system. Recurrent neural networks (RNNs) oer a natural framework for dealing with policy learning using hidden state and require only few limiting assumptions. As they can be trained well using gradient descent, they are suited for policy gradient approaches. In this paper, we present a policy gradient method, the Recurrent Policy Gradient which constitutes a model-free reinforcement learning method. It is aimed at training limited-memory stochastic policies on problems which require long-term memories of past observations. The approach involves approximating a policy gradient for a recurrent neural network by backpropagating return-weighted characteristic eligibilities through time. Using a “Long Short-Term Memory” RNN architecture, we are able to outperform previous RL methods on three important benchmark tasks. Furthermore, we show that using history-dependent baselines helps reducing estimation variance significantly, thus enabling our approach to tackle more challenging, highly stochastic environments.
Emergence of fluoroquinolone resistance in Bacteroides fragilis accompanied by resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics

The in vitro susceptibilities of a group of 93 isolates of Bacteroides fragilis collected from 1983 to 1984 to six fluoroquinolones were compared with those of a group of 93 isolates collected from 1986 to 1987. The recently collected strains were less susceptible than the older strains to all of the agents tested. Norfloxacin-resistant (MIC, greater than 100 micrograms/ml) strains were less susceptible to cefoxitin and piperacillin than norfloxacin-susceptible strains.
Postmortem brain abnormalities of the glutamate neurotransmitter system in autism

Background: Studies examining the brains of individuals with autism have identified anatomic and pathologic changes in regions such as the cerebellum and hippocampus. Little, if anything, is known, however, about the molecules that are involved in the pathogenesis of this disorder. Objective: To identify genes with abnormal expression levels in the cerebella of subjects with autism. Method: Brain samples from a total of 10 individuals with autism and 23 matched controls were collected, mainly from the cerebellum. Two cDNA microarray technologies were used to identify genes that were significantly up- or downregulated in autism. The abnormal mRNA or protein levels of several genes identified by microarray analysis were investigated using PCR with reverse transcription and Western blotting. α-Amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazoleproprionic acid (AMPA)- and NMDA-type glutamate receptor densities were examined with receptor autoradiography in the cerebellum, caudate-putamen, and prefrontal cortex. Results: The mRNA levels of several genes were significantly increased in autism, including excitatory amino acid transporter 1 and glutamate receptor AMPA 1, two members of the glutamate system. Abnormalities in the protein or mRNA levels of several additional molecules in the glutamate system were identified on further analysis, including glutamate receptor binding proteins. AMPA-type glutamate receptor density was decreased in the cerebellum of individuals with autism (p < 0.05). Conclusions: Subjects with autism may have specific abnormalities in the AMPA-type glutamate receptors and glutamate transporters in the cerebellum. These abnormalities may be directly involved in the pathogenesis of the disorder.
Conservation Genetics of Marine Turtles — 10 Years Later

Genetic Paternity and Mating Systems . 296 General Background . 296 Synopsis of Pre-1996 Genetic Findings . 297 Updated Genetic Discoveries . 297 Biological and Conservation Relevance . 299 Population Structure, Inter-Rookery Gene Flow, and Natal Homing . 299 General Background . 299 Synopsis of Pre-1996 Genetic Findings . 300 Updated Genetic Discoveries . 300 Biological and Conservation Relevance . 303 Rookery Origins of Individuals at Non-Nesting Phases of the Life Cycle . 304 General Background . 304 Synopsis of Pre-1996 Genetic Findings . 304 Updated Genetic Discoveries . 304 Biological and Conservation Relevance . 306 Intraspecific Phylogeography at Greater Spatial and Temporal Scales . 307 General Background . 307 Synopsis of Pre-1996 Genetic Findings . 307 Updated Genetic Discoveries . 307 Biological and Conservation Relevance . 308 Systematics and Deeper Phylogenetics . 309 General Background . 309 Synopsis of Pre-1996 Genetic Findings . 309 Updated Genetic Discoveries . 310 Biological and Conservation Relevance . 310 Conclusions and Perspective . 310 References . 311
User Model-Based Intent-Aware Metrics for Multilingual Search Evaluation

Despite the growing importance of multilingual aspect of web search, no appropriate offline metrics to evaluate its quality are proposed so far. At the same time, personal language preferences can be regarded as intents of a query. This approach translates the multilingual search problem into a particular task of search diversification. Furthermore, the standard intent-aware approach could be adopted to build a diversified metric for multilingual search on the basis of a classical IR metric such as ERR. The intent-aware approach estimates user satisfaction under a user behavior model. We show however that the underlying user behavior models is not realistic in the multilingual case, and the produced intent-aware metric do not appropriately estimate the user satisfaction. We develop a novel approach to build intent-aware user behavior models, which overcome these limitations and convert to quality metrics that better correlate with standard online metrics of user satisfaction.
5-Aminoimidazole-4-Carboxamide 1-β-d-Ribofuranoside Acutely Stimulates Skeletal Muscle 2-Deoxyglucose Uptake in Healthy Men

Activation of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) in rodent muscle by exercise, metformin, 5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide 1-β-d-ribofuranoside (AICAR), and adiponectin increases glucose uptake. The aim of this study was to determine whether AICAR stimulates muscle glucose uptake in humans. We studied 29 healthy men (aged 26 ± 8 years, BMI 25 ± 4 kg/m2 [mean ± SD]). Rates of muscle 2-deoxyglucose (2DG) uptake were determined by measuring accumulation of total muscle 2DG (2DG and 2DG-6-phosphate) during a primed, continuous 2DG infusion. The effects of AICAR and exercise on muscle AMPK activity/phosphorylation and 2DG uptake were determined. Whole-body glucose disposal was compared before and during AICAR with the euglycemic-hyperinsulinemic clamp. Muscle 2DG uptake was linear over 9 h (R2 = 0.88 ± 0.09). After 3 h, 2DG uptake increased 2.1 ± 0.8- and 4.7 ± 1.7-fold in response to AICAR or bicycle exercise, respectively. AMPK α1 and α2 activity or AMPK phosphorylation was unchanged after 20 min or 3 h of AICAR, but AMPK phosphorylation significantly increased immediately and 3 h after bicycle exercise. AICAR significantly increased phosphorylation of extracellular signal–regulated kinase 1/2, but phosphorylation of β-acetyl-CoA carboxylase, glycogen synthase, and protein kinase B or insulin receptor substrate-1 level was unchanged. Mean whole-body glucose disposal increased by 7% with AICAR from 9.3 ± 0.6 to 10 ± 0.6 mg · kg−1 · min−1 (P < 0.05). In healthy people, AICAR acutely stimulates muscle 2DG uptake with a minor effect on whole-body glucose disposal.
Parotid gland volumetric changes during intensity-modulated radiotherapy in head and neck cancer.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate volumetric changes of parotid glands (PGs) during intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) in head and neck cancer patients. METHODS During IMRT all patients underwent kilovolt cone-beam CT (CBCT) scans to verify the set-up positioning in a protocol study. On each CBCT scan, the PGs were retrospectively contoured and evaluated with a dose-volume histogram. RESULTS From February to June 2011, 10 patients were enrolled. 140 CBCT scans were registered (280 PGs): for each patient, a median of 14 CBCT scans were performed (range 14-16). At the start of radiation, the average volume for ipsilateral PGs (iPGs) was 18.77 ml (range 12.9-31.2 ml), whereas for contralateral PGs (cPGs) it was 16.63 ml (range 8.3-28.7 ml). At the last CBCT scan, the average volume loss was 43.5% and 44.0% for the iPG and cPG, respectively. When we analysed the percentage of volume loss, we observed that the volume decreased by linear regression (r(2)=0.92 for iPG; r(2)=0.91 for cPG), with an average volume loss rate of 1.5% per day for both PGs. During the third week of treatment the volume of both PGs reduced by 24-30%. CONCLUSION Our data show that, during IMRT, the shrinkage of PGs should be taken into account. A replan could be indicated in the third week of radiotherapy.
A Highly Sensitive CMOS Digital Hall Sensor for Low Magnetic Field Applications

Integrated CMOS Hall sensors have been widely used to measure magnetic fields. However, they are difficult to work with in a low magnetic field environment due to their low sensitivity and large offset. This paper describes a highly sensitive digital Hall sensor fabricated in 0.18 μm high voltage CMOS technology for low field applications. The sensor consists of a switched cross-shaped Hall plate and a novel signal conditioner. It effectively eliminates offset and low frequency 1/f noise by applying a dynamic quadrature offset cancellation technique. The measured results show the optimal Hall plate achieves a high current related sensitivity of about 310 V/AT. The whole sensor has a remarkable ability to measure a minimum ±2 mT magnetic field and output a digital Hall signal in a wide temperature range from −40 °C to 120 °C.
Can a Regional Climate Model Improve the Ability to Forecast the North American Monsoon

AbstractGlobal climate models are challenged to represent the North American monsoon, in terms of its climatology and interannual variability. To investigate whether a regional atmospheric model can improve warm season forecasts in North America, a retrospective Climate Forecast System (CFS) model reforecast (1982–2000) and the corresponding NCEP–NCAR reanalysis are dynamically downscaled with the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF), with similar parameterization options as used for high-resolution numerical weather prediction and a new spectral nudging capability. The regional model improves the climatological representation of monsoon precipitation because of its more realistic representation of the diurnal cycle of convection. However, it is challenged to capture organized, propagating convection at a distance from terrain, regardless of the boundary forcing data used. Dynamical downscaling of CFS generally yields modest improvement in surface temperature and precipitation anomaly correlations.
Masking Does Not Protect Against Differential Fault Attacks

Over the past ten years, cryptographic algorithms have been found to be vulnerable against side-channel attacks such as power analysis attacks, timing attacks, electromagnetic radiation attacks and fault attacks. These attacks capture leaking information from an implementation of the algorithm in software or in hardware and apply cryptanalytical and statistical tools to recover the secret keys. A very well-known countermeasure against these attacks is to randomize every execution of the algorithm and every intermediate piece of data with a so-called masking method. In this paper we demonstrate that traditional countermeasures such as masking methodsfor symmetric cryptosystems are completely inefficient against fault attacks. In other words, differential fault attacks still apply on masked data. As an example we show how to recover secret keys from two masked AES implementations using a basic differential fault attack.
External monovalent cations that impede the closing of K channels

We have examined the effects of a variety of monovalent cations on K channel gating in squid giant axons. The addition of the permeant cations K, Rb, or Cs to the external medium decreases the channel closing rate and causes a negative shift of the conductance-voltage relationship. Both of these effects are larger in Rb than in K. The opening kinetics of the K channel are, on the other hand, unaffected by these monovalent cations. Other permeant species, like NH4 and Tl, slightly increase the closing rate, whereas the relatively impermeant cations Na, Li, and Tris have little or no effect on K channel gating. The permeant cations have different effects on the reversal potential and the shape of the instantaneous current-voltage relationship. These effects give information about entry and binding of the cations in K channels. Rb, for example, enters the pore readily (large shift of the reversal potential), but binds tightly to the channel interior, inhibiting current flow. We find a correlation between the occupancy of the channel by a monovalent cation and the closing rate, and conclude that the presence of a monovalent cation in the pore inhibits channel closing, and thereby causes a leftward shift in the activation-voltage curve. In causing these effects, the cations appear to bind near the inner surface of the membrane.
Strassen's Algorithm Reloaded

We dispel with “street wisdom” regarding the practical implementation of Strassen's algorithm for matrix-matrix multiplication (DGEMM). Conventional wisdom: it is only practical for very large matrices. Our implementation is practical for small matrices. Conventional wisdom: the matrices being multiplied should be relatively square. Our implementation is practical for rank-k updates, where k is relatively small (a shape of importance for libraries like LAPACK). Conventional wisdom: it inherently requires substantial workspace. Our implementation requires no workspace beyond buffers already incorporated into conventional high-performance DGEMM implementations. Conventional wisdom: a Strassen DGEMM interface must pass in workspace. Our implementation requires no such workspace and can be plug-compatible with the standard DGEMM interface. Conventional wisdom: it is hard to demonstrate speedup on multi-core architectures. Our implementation demonstrates speedup over conventional DGEMM even on an Intel® Xeon Phi™ coprocessor1 utilizing 240 threads. We show how a distributed memory matrix-matrix multiplication also benefits from these advances.
Surgery of Unruptured, Asymptomatic Aneurysms: a Decision Analysis

ABSTRACT: Background: Asymptomatic cerebral aneurysms are diagnosed more frequently since the advent of computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging. Their management is currently empirical. We have used decision analysis to place it on a more analytical basis. Methods: Decision analysis was used to determine the benefit in years of survival free of sequelae resulting from elective surgery of unruptured aneurysms over natural history. We took 2% as the annual rate of rupture (r), 73% as the risk of death or disability with rupture (M), and 6.5% for the average risk of elective surgery (S). Benefit was calculated from the equation L{[1-(1-r)L]M/2-S} [1] for life expectancy (L) corresponding to each quinquennial age group from age 15 to 100 years. Sensitivity analysis was performed to take into account increasing risk of elective surgery based on the size, and accessibility of the aneurysm, and variable risks of rupture and outcome. Results: A gain of at least one year of survival free of neurological sequelae is achieved by surgery compared to natural history for patients whose life expectancy is 19.5 years, corresponding to age 63.5 years for males and 68 years for females. The life expectancy at which a benefit accrues is longer (the patient is younger) for larger, less accessible aneurysms, for lower rates of rupture, and for lesser risks of death or disability from rupture. Conclusions: Elective surgery of unruptured asymptomatic aneurysms achieves an increased survival over the natural history of at least one year free of neurological sequelae in patients whose life expectancy is 19.5 years or more, using our baseline assumptions. Using equation [1], the corresponding life expectancy producing this benefit can be calculated to account for the increased surgical risk of large, poorly accessible aneurysms and for factors affecting natural history.
Structuralism? functionalism? behaviorism? or mechanism? - looking backward and forward on better approach to AI

Artificial Intelligence, AI in brief, has received much attention from academic circles since its inception 50 years ago and has made great progress so far. But all the major approaches to AI, the so-called structuralism, functionalism and behaviorism, are now facing critical difficulties in their development. A rethought on AI has thus been made for quite a long time and is presented in the paper to propose a new approach to the research that is featured with a directly concern with the core mechanism of intelligence formation and is thus named mechanism approach. It is discovered as result that the transformations from information to knowledge and further to intelligence are the key to the mechanism. A by-product is also received at the same time that the three named approaches can all be unified within the framework of mechanism approach. These discoveries may open up a new direction for the Intelligence research.
Time Series Forecasting for Dynamic Environments: The DyFor Genetic Program Model

Several studies have applied genetic programming (GP) to the task of forecasting with favorable results. However, these studies, like those applying other techniques, have assumed a static environment, making them unsuitable for many real-world time series which are generated by varying processes. This study investigates the development of a new ldquodynamicrdquo GP model that is specifically tailored for forecasting in nonstatic environments. This dynamic forecasting genetic program (DyFor GP) model incorporates features that allow it to adapt to changing environments automatically as well as retain knowledge learned from previously encountered environments. The DyFor GP model is tested for forecasting efficacy on both simulated and actual time series including the U.S. Gross Domestic Product and Consumer Price Index Inflation. Results show that the performance of the DyFor GP model improves upon that of benchmark models for all experiments. These findings highlight the DyFor GP's potential as an adaptive, nonlinear model for real-world forecasting applications and suggest further investigations.
An adaptive fuzzy threshold scheme for high performance shared-memory switches

In this paper we propose a new buffer management scheme for shared-memory ATM switches. The philosophy behind it is adaptation of the threshold for each output logical queue to the real traffic conditions by means of a system of fuzzy inferences. The performance of our system is very close to that of an ideal mechanism such as the push-out mechanism, and at any rate much better than that of the threshold schemes based on conventional logic. In addition it is simple to implement and above all inexpensive when implemented using VLSI technology.
Human T‐ and B‐Cell Reactivity to the 16 kDa α‐Crystallin Protein of Mycobacterium tuberculosis

The attributes of immunodominance, predominant expression during mycobacterial dormancy and restriction to the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex make the 16 kDa protein an important candidate for the study of the immune response in humans. We therefore investigated the relationship between T‐ and B‐cell reactivity to the recombinant antigen and disease in a total of 127 subjects. The percentage of T‐cell responders towards both the intact antigen and its permissively recognised peptide 16p91‐110 was highest in healthy bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG)‐sensitized controls (96% and 68%, respectively) and lowest in those with extensive untreated tuberculosis (26% and 18%) (P < 0.001). By contrast, antibody levels (ABT50 > 100) were highest in patients with extensive disease (46–50%) (P < 0.005). There was significantly higher production of IFN‐γ in the BCG‐sensitized controls by comparison with untreated patients (P < 0.05), but complete antituberculous chemotherapy abolished this deficit in patients. The significance of these findings to immunodiagnosis and protective immunity is discussed.
Ear diseases and other risk factors for hearing impairment among adults: An epidemiological study

Abstract Objective: To investigate the prevalence of ear diseases, other otological risk factors potentially affecting hearing, and noise exposure among adults. Furthermore, subject-related factors possibly associated with hearing impairment (HI), i.e. handedness, eye color, and susceptibility to sunburn, were studied. Design: A cross-sectional, unscreened, population-based, epidemiological study among adults. Study sample: The subjects (n = 850), aged 54–66 years, were randomly sampled from the population register. A questionnaire survey, an otological examination, and pure-tone audiometry were performed. Results: Chronic middle-ear disease (both active and inactive) was the most common ear disease with a prevalence of 5.3%, while the prevalence of otosclerosis was 1.3%, and that of Ménière's disease, 0.7%. Noise exposure was reported by 46% of the subjects, and it had no effect on hearing among those with no ear disease or other otological risk factors for HI. Dark eye color and non-susceptibility to sunburn were associated with HI among noise-exposed subjects. Conclusions: Common ear diseases and other otological risk factors constitute a major part of the etiologies of HI among adults. Contrary to previous studies, noise exposure turned out to have only marginal effect on hearing among those with no otological risk factors.