Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Factores de riesgo y variables clínicas asociadas a situaciones extremas de peso: Trastornos de la Conducta Alimentaria y Obesidad

ADVERTIMENT. La consulta d’aquesta tesi queda condicionada a l’acceptació de les següents condicions d'ús: La difusió d’aquesta tesi per mitjà del servei TDX (www.tdx.cat) ha estat autoritzada pels titulars dels drets de propietat intel·lectual únicament per a usos privats emmarcats en activitats d’investigació i docència. No s’autoritza la seva reproducció amb finalitats de lucre ni la seva difusió i posada a disposició des d’un lloc aliè al servei TDX. No s’autoritza la presentació del seu contingut en una finestra o marc aliè a TDX (framing). Aquesta reserva de drets afecta tant al resum de presentació de la tesi com als seus continguts. En la utilització o cita de parts de la tesi és obligat indicar el nom de la persona autora.
Capsaicin Protects Mice from Community-Associated Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Pneumonia

Background α-toxin is one of the major virulence factors secreted by most Staphylococcus aureus strains, which played a central role in the pathogenesis of S. aureus pneumonia. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of capsaicin on the production of α-toxin by community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) strain USA 300 and to further assess its performance in the treatment of CA-MRSA pneumonia in a mouse model. Methodology/Principal Findings The in vitro effects of capsaicin on α-toxin production by S. aureus USA 300 were determined using hemolysis, western blot, and real-time RT-PCR assays. The influence of capsaicin on the α-toxin-mediated injury of human alveolar epithelial cells was determined using viability and cytotoxicity assays. Mice were infected intranasally with S. aureus USA300; the in vivo protective effects of capsaicin against S. aureus pneumonia were assessed by monitoring the mortality, histopathological changes and cytokine levels. Low concentrations of capsaicin substantially decreased the production of α-toxin by S. aureus USA 300 without affecting the bacterial viability. The addition of capsaicin prevented α-toxin-mediated human alveolar cell (A549) injury in co-culture with S. aureus. Furthermore, the in vivo experiments indicated that capsaicin protected mice from CA-MRSA pneumonia caused by strain USA 300. Conclusions/Significance Capsaicin inhibits the production of α-toxin by CA-MRSA strain USA 300 in vitro and protects mice from CA-MRSA pneumonia in vivo. However, the results need further confirmation with other CA-MRSA lineages. This study supports the views of anti-virulence as a new antibacterial approach for chemotherapy.
Connexin32‐null mice develop demyelinating peripheral neuropathy

Mutations in the gene encoding the gap junction protein connexin32 (Cx32) cause X‐linked Charcot‐Marie‐Tooth disease (CMTX), a common form of inherited demyelinating peripheral neuropathy. To learn more about the pathogenesis of CMTX, we examined the PNS and CNS of cx32‐null mice (cx32−/Y males and cx32−/− females) by light and electron microscopy. These mice develop a progressive demyelinating peripheral neuropathy beginning by 3 months of age, and at all ages, motor fibers are more affected than sensory fibers. Like other genes of the X chromosome, the cx32 gene appears to be randomly inactivated, since only some myelinating Schwann cells express Cx32 in heterozygous cx32+/− females. Heterozygous cx32+/− females have fewer demyelinated and remyelinated axons than age‐matched homozygous cx32−/− females and cx32−/Y males. Although oligodendrocytes also express Cx32, no abnormalities in CNS myelin were found. These findings indicate that a null cx32 allele in myelinating Schwann cells is sufficient to cause an inherited demyelinating neuropathy, so that Cx32 has an essential role in myelinating Schwann cells both in mice and in humans. GLIA 24:8–20, 1998. © 1998 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Correlations Between Mini-Mental State Examination Score, Cerebrospinal Fluid Biomarkers, and Pathology Observed in Brain Biopsies of Patients With Normal-Pressure Hydrocephalus

Abstract Alzheimer disease (AD)–related pathology was assessed in cortical biopsy samples of 111 patients with idiopathic normal-pressure hydrocephalus. Alzheimer disease hallmark lesions—&bgr;-amyloid (A&bgr;) and hyperphosphorylated tau (HPtau)—were observed in 47% of subjects, a percentage consistent with that for whole-brain assessment reported postmortem in unselected cohorts. Higher-immunostained area fraction of AD pathology corresponded with lower preoperative mini-mental state examination scores. Concomitant A&bgr; and HPtau pathology, reminiscent of that observed in patients with AD, was observed in 22% of study subjects. There was a significant correlation between A&bgr;-immunostained area fraction in tissue and A&bgr;42 (42-amino-acid form of A&bgr;) in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Levels of A&bgr;42 were significantly lower in CSF in subjects with concomitant A&bgr; and HPtau pathology compared with subjects lacking pathology. Moreover, a significant correlation between HPtau-immunostained area fraction and HPtau in CSF was noted. Both HPtau and total tau were significantly higher in CSF in subjects with concomitant A&bgr; and HPtau pathology compared with subjects lacking pathology. The 42-amino-acid form of A&bgr; (A&bgr;42) and HPtau in CSF were the most significant predictors of the presence of AD pathology in cortical biopsies. Long-term follow-up studies are warranted to assess whether all patients with idiopathic normal-pressure hydrocephalus with AD pathology progress to AD and to determine the pathologic substrate of idiopathic normal-pressure hydrocephalus.
Bioetica: Una Orientacion Hacia La Responsabilidad Social Empresarial De Los Estudiantes Latinoamericanos De Escuelas De Negocios (Bioethics: A Guide to Social Responsibility of Students American Business School)

Spanish Abstract: El objetivo principal de este estudio es validar el instrumento de medicion desarrollado por Lopez-Palau y Rivera Cruz (2010) en Latinoamerica. Dicho estudio encontro que el razonamiento bioetico puede aportar en el entendimiento y solucion de muchos conflictos eticos en el ambito de los negocios. La relacion entre la responsabilidad social empresarial y el razonamiento bioetico se examino con base en modelos conceptuales. El estudio desarrollo una escala cuantitativa confiable para ambos constructos partiendo de una muestra de estudiantes puertorriquenos, la cual necesita ser examinada en otros contextos para verificar su validez y utilidad en el ambito internacional. Los resultados obtenidos determinaron los principales principios bioeticos e identificaron las caracteristicas que deben tener las empresas para ser consideradas exitosas, socialmente responsables y el efecto de los principios bioeticos para lograrlo.English Abstract: The objective of this study was to validate the measurement instrument developed in Palau and Rivera Lopez-Cruz (2010) in Latin America. The study found that bioethical reasoning can contribute to understanding and solving many ethical conflicts in the field of business. The relationship between corporate social responsibility and bioethical reasoning was examined based on conceptual models. The study developed a reliable quantitative scale for both constructs from a sample of Puerto Rican students The results identified major bioethical principles and identified the characteristics that companies must have to be considered successful, socially responsible and the effect of bioethical principles to achieve it.
The Medicinal Use of Cannabis and Cannabinoids—An International Cross-Sectional Survey on Administration Forms

Abstract Cannabinoids, including tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol, are the most important active constituents of the cannabis plant. Over recent years, cannabinoid-based medicines (CBMs) have become increasingly available to patients in many countries, both as pharmaceutical products and as herbal cannabis (marijuana). While there seems to be a demand for multiple cannabinoid-based therapeutic products, specifically for symptomatic amelioration in chronic diseases, therapeutic effects of different CBMs have only been directly compared in a few clinical studies. The survey presented here was performed by the International Association for Cannabinoid Medicines (IACM), and is meant to contribute to the understanding of cannabinoid-based medicine by asking patients who used cannabis or cannabinoids detailed questions about their experiences with different methods of intake. The survey was completed by 953 participants from 31 countries, making this the largest international survey on a wide variety of users of cannabinoid-based medicine performed so far. In general, herbal non-pharmaceutical CBMs received higher appreciation scores by participants than pharmaceutical products containing cannabinoids. However, the number of patients who reported experience with pharmaceutical products was low, limiting conclusions on preferences. Nevertheless, the reported data may be useful for further development of safe and effective medications based on cannabis and single cannabinoids.
A Method to Support Fault Tolerance Design in Service Oriented Computing Systems

Service Oriented Computing relies on the integration of heterogeneous software technologies and infrastructures that provide developers with a common ground for composing services and producing applications flexibly. However, this approach eases software development but makes dependability a big challenge. Integrating such diverse software items raise issues that traditional testing is not able to exhaustively cope with. In this context, tolerating faults, rather than attempt to detect them solely by testing, is a more suitable solution. This paper proposes a method to support a tailored design of fault tolerance actions for the system being developed. This paper describes system failure behavior through an extensive fault injection campaign to figure out its criticalities and adopt the most appropriate countermeasures to tolerate operational faults. The proposed method is applied to two distinct SOC-enabling technologies. Results show how the achieved findings allow designers to understand the system failure behavior and plan fault tolerance.
Rover maneuvering for autonomous vision-based dexterous manipulation

Manipulators mounted on-board rovers have limited dexterity due to power and weight constraints imposed by rover designs. However, to perform science operations, it is necessary to be able to position and orient these manipulators on science targets in order to carry out in-situ measurements. This article describes how we enhance manipulator dexterity using the rover mobility system. The lack of omni-directional driving capability and the constraints imposed by the mobility mechanism requires vehicle maneuvering to supplement the manipulators' motions. Target tracking using stereo vision is integrated with rover maneuvering to perform two types of operations: rock sample acquisition for return to earth and instrument placement for in-situ science measurements. We describe the computational architecture, tools, and algorithms that we developed for this task. We have successfully demonstrated these operations on a self-contained Mars Rover prototype, Rocky 7. We have demonstrated grasping a small rock sample from a distance of more than one meter away and placing an instrument on a boulder from a distance of more than five meters away.
Four dark corners of requirements engineering

Research in requirements engineering has produced an extensive body of knowledge, but there are four areas in which the foundation of the discipline seems weak or obscure. This article shines some light in the “four dark corners,” exposing problems and proposing solutions. We show that all descriptions involved in requirements engineering should be descriptions of the environment. We show that certain control information is necessary for sound requirements engineering, and we explain the close association between domain knowledge and refinement of requirements. Together these conclusions explain the precise nature of requirements, specifications, and domain knowledge, as well as the precise nature of the relationships among them. They establish minimum standards for what information should be represented in a requirements language. They also make it possible to determine exactly what it means for requirements and engineering to be successfully completed.
Artificial Magnetic Conductor Loaded Monopole Antenna

In this letter, the use of artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) to load a monopole antenna has been investigated. It is known that the current reversal, which occurs at frequencies much beyond the antenna natural frequency, disturbs the omnidirectional radiation pattern of the monopole antenna. The current distribution of the monopole antenna can be improved to a large extent by using perfect magnetic conductor (PMC) loading. To this aim, the capacitively loaded loops (CLLs) are used to realize PMC behavior.
Aggregates in Possibilistic Databases

Fuzzy set theory represents a uniform framework for extending the relational database model to han-, dle imprecision of information found in the real world. None of the existing proposals for data models handling imprecision has dealt with queries involvin aggregate operators. This paper presents a framewor for ek handling aggregates in the context of imprecise information. Two kinds of aggregates, namely, scalar aggregates and aggregate functions, are being supported. We consider three cases: aggregates within approximate queries on precise data, aggregates within precisely specified queries on possibilistic data, and aggregates within vague queries on imprecise data. These extensions are based on fuzzy set-theoretical concepts such as the extension principle and the possibilistic expected value.
Velocity Awareness in Vehicular Networks via Sparse Recovery

In this paper, we study the problem of velocity estimation in vehicular networks by exploiting the sparsity of vehicle velocity trajectory. First, we exploit the sparsity of vehicular velocity trajectories to reduce the beaconing load on the channel. To this end, we propose a sublayer that reduces the number of transmitted packets through a superframe. At each superframe, each vehicle transmits a few samples of its velocity as well as an encoded measurement of its past velocities. Sparse recovery of each velocity vector is performed at the receiver. We propose the use of repetitions at the medium access control (MAC) layer. Moreover, we extend our scheme into a streaming estimation system without the superframe concept. The streaming system uses a sliding window concept. We thoroughly study the estimation error of the streaming system, and we propose an algorithm to find the best solution over a streaming sliding window. The proposed superframe and streaming schemes are tested with real velocity traces collected in the city of Toronto to capture the performance in the city and highway conditions. Experiment results show that the proposed schemes significantly reduce the number of exchanged packets while preserving the velocity information with an excellent accuracy at the receiver. We also demonstrate how past velocity can be used to enhance vehicle localization accuracy.
A Sequential Detection Approach for Approximate MAP Detection in MIMO Systems

Soft-decisions from a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) detector are desirable if iterative detection and decoding (IDD) is employed at receivers in MIMO systems. The minimum mean square error (MMSE)-soft cancellation (SC) detector has an excellent trade-off between performance and complexity. By noting that the MMSE-SC detector is an approximate maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) detector, another approximate MAP detector that uses sequential processing is proposed in this paper. The proposed sequential detector can provide a better performance than the MMSE-SC detector, while its complexity is comparable with that of the MMSE-SC detector. An interesting feature of the proposed sequential detector is that the trade-off between complexity and performance can be exploited by a single parameter, which could be an important control parameter in practical implementations.
Nitric oxide, derived from inducible nitric oxide synthase, decreases hypoxia inducible factor‐1α in macrophages during aspirin‐induced mesenteric inflammation

Background and purpose: Nitric oxide (NO) modulates expression of hypoxia inducible factor‐1 (HIF‐1), a transcription factor regulating function of myeloid cells. Here, we have assessed the role played by NO, formed by inducible NOS (iNOS), in the inflammation induced by aspirin in the gut, by modulating HIF‐1 activity.
Cell Death and Inflammatory Bowel Diseases: Apoptosis, Necrosis, and Autophagy in the Intestinal Epithelium

Cell death mechanisms have been associated with the development of inflammatory bowel diseases in humans and mice. Recent studies suggested that a complex crosstalk between autophagy/apoptosis, microbe sensing, and enhanced endoplasmic reticulum stress in the epithelium could play a critical role in these diseases. In addition, necroptosis, a relatively novel programmed necrosis-like pathway associated with TNF receptor activation, seems to be also present in the pathogenesis of Crohn's disease and in specific animal models for intestinal inflammation. This review attempts to cover new data related to cell death mechanisms and inflammatory bowel diseases.
Implementing Lightcuts

Conventional techniques for computing direct illumination have linear cost with growing number of light sources. Lightcuts is a new technique which has sublinear cost and thus becomes very useful when rendering scenes with a great number of lights. This report describes the basic version of lightcuts technique and provides insight into the implementation problems. We also describe an extension to lightcuts—lightcuts with multiple representatives—which suppresses some visual flaws of the basic version. Finally, the implementation will be verified on a set of test scenes and benchmarks.
Atypical Intraductal Cribriform Proliferations of the Prostate Exhibit Similar Molecular and Clinicopathologic Characteristics as Intraductal Carcinoma of the Prostate

Atypical intraductal cribriform proliferations of the prostate (AIP) are loose cribriform proliferations of luminal cells that exhibit greater architectural complexity and/or nuclear atypia than high-grade prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia (HGPIN), but lack the diagnostic criteria for intraductal carcinoma (IDC). The significance of AIP has not been formally established. We compared the clinical, morphologic, and immunohistochemical characteristics of AIP with classic IDC in 310 radical prostatectomy specimens that were received over an 18-month period. Of the 310 cases, 46 cases had AIP only (n=10), IDC only (n=6), or AIP coexisting with IDC (n=30). The ERG status of all 46 AIP/IDC cases was identical to the nearby acinar carcinoma, contrasted to just 3 cases of HGPIN (7%, P<0.01). The degree of uniform phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) loss in 34 selected cases was identical in AIP and IDC (66.7%). No foci of HGPIN showed uniform PTEN loss; there was only 38% concordance of PTEN expression pattern between HGPIN and the nearby acinar carcinoma, unlike AIP and IDC (77% and 81%, respectively, P<0.01). AIP-associated and/or IDC-associated carcinoma (n=46) showed a higher stage and grade compared with acinar-only carcinoma (n=264, P<0.01). AIP-associated carcinoma had similar clinicopathologic features as IDC-associated carcinoma, including preoperative prostate-specific antigen, Gleason score, extraprostatic extension, seminal vesicle invasion, and lymph node metastasis (n=36, P>0.05). In conclusion, AIP shares similar ERG/PTEN immunoprofiles and exhibits similar clinical behavior as IDC, warranting immediate repeat biopsy when AIP is identified on biopsy, as is recommended in the most recent WHO Classification of Tumours of the Urinary System and Male Genital Organs, 2016.
Choosing Classifiers for Decision Fusion

This paper investigates the use of the ρ-correlation as a measure for classifier diversity to aid in the choice of classifiers for a fusion ensemble. Specifically, we d fine a measure that captures the correlation for n classif iers for binary output as well as for classifier with continuous ou tput. We then suggest the use of the ρ-correlation in classifier selection where classifiers are picked sequentially from a larger p ool of classifiers without the need to exhaustively calcu l te the performance of all possible permutations. We show that this simple method will give close to optimal classifica tion performance. We present examples from real applicat ions for both binary as well as continuous out classifiers.
A task description language for robot control

Robot systems must achieve high level goals while remaining reactive to contingencies and new opportunities. This typically requires robot systems to coordinate concurrent activities, monitor the environment, and deal with exceptions. We have developed a new language to support such task-level control. The language, TDL, is an extension of C++ that provides syntactic support for task decomposition, synchronization, execution monitoring, and exception handling. A compiler transforms TDL into pure C++ code that utilizes a platform-independent task management library. This paper introduces TDL, describes the task tree representation that underlies the language, and presents some aspects of its implementation and use in an autonomous mobile robot.
Energy Aware Passive Clustering in Wireless Mobile Networks

Due to the limited capacity of the nodes' batteries, energy is a critical resource in wireless mobile networks (e.g., wireless sensor networks: WSNs). Clustering is an effective approach to reduce total energy consumption; indeed, only cluster heads and gateways forward traffic. However, without proper distribution of energy consumption among the nodes, gains in total energy consumption do not necessarily translate to an increase of the network lifespan. In this paper, we propose novel heuristics that allow balancing energy consumption among the network nodes; these heuristics have been developed in combination with passive clustering due to its superior performance. Compared to existing approaches, the proposed heuristics (1) do not have stringent requirements, such as clock synchronization; and (2) do not generate extra control traffic to exchange energy information among the nodes. Furthermore, they can be easily used/adapted with other clustering protocols. The simulation results show that the heuristics considerably increase the network's lifespan.
Efficiency of TR-Classifier versus TFIDF

In this paper, we present a method of topic identification based on computing triggers pairs: TR-classifier (Triggers-based classifier). Indeed, it is used for the purpose to identify topics of texts. Hence, the first step to be realized is the construction of a vocabulary for each topic. Topic vocabularies are composed of words ranked according to their frequencies from the maximum to the minimum. We note that the size of each topic vocabulary is 400. For each word of the vocabulary, average mutual information (AMI) is calculated. The used triggers are selected according to the highest AMI values. In order to evaluate the TR Classifier, we compared it to the well-known TFIDF.