Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE PREVENTION IN EUROPE : AN UPDATE

This paper summarizes the evidence on the relationship between physical activity (PA) and cardiovascular disease (CVD) that has been published mainly during the past 10 years. The primary focus is on aspects related to the primary prevention of the clinical events of coronary heart disease and stroke. The material was collected by conducting a search of the Medline, Embase and Cochrane electronic databases to identify systematic reviews and meta-analyses having been published on the relationship between PA and CVD since 2002. The terms used for the exposure were physical activity or exercise, and for the outcome the following terms: cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, coronary artery disease, coronary disease, myocardial infarction, stroke, peripheral vascular disease or peripheral arterial disease. In addition, committee reports on the topic were identified through scientific meetings and by personal communication. A large majority of the studies included in the reviews were prospective cohort studies of at-risk populations. The quantity and quality of scientific data on the cardiovascular and other health-related effects of physical activity has increased greatly during the past decade. The evidence now shows convincingly that insufficient physical activity is one of the key causal risk factors of CVD, particularly of the most prevalent of them, CHD and stroke. The effects of insufficient physical activity are mediated partly through the traditional major risk factors, and partly they are independent. This rather recently shown fact emphasizes the essential, irreplaceable role of PA for cardiovascular health. Strong epidemiological evidence indicates that a major part of the preventive effect of PA can be attained by activity that is applicable on a large scale in all European populations: moderate-intensity endurance or aerobic activity such as brisk walking on several days during the week, in total approximately 150 minutes per week. Higher, still attainable amounts of moderate-intensity PA would further increase the CV and other health benefits, particularly because PA in all domains, during leisure time, in domestic chores, in transport, and in occupational work has been shown to be effective. Prevention of CVD through increased PA brings also several other health benefits by decreasing substantially the risk of several of the most common chronic diseases and by improving and maintaining physical, mental, and cognitive functions. PA also decreases, even totally counterbalances in overweight persons the risk of CVD, as well as several other health hazards of being overweight and obese. It is clear that sufficient physical activity is an essential factor in attaining and maintaining health and functional capacity at all ages, and without sufficient physical activity all attempts to improve the health of the Europeans remain deficient.
Survival Benefit of Tamoxifen in Estrogen Receptor-Negative and Progesterone Receptor-Positive Low Grade Breast Cancer Patients

Purpose This study aimed to analyze the efficacy and prognostic significance of adjuvant tamoxifen in breast cancer patients with various hormone receptor statuses. Methods Typically, 1,260 female breast cancer patients were recruited in this study. The correlation between estrogen receptor (ER)/progesterone receptor (PR) phenotypes and clinical characteristics was investigated, and the survival rate was assessed after 5-year follow-up. Results The 5-year overall survival (85%) was better in women under the age of 50 years. Patients with ER+/PR+ tumors had a better 5-year survival rate (94%); those with ER-/PR- tumors experienced the worst outcome (74% survival rate); whereas single-positive cases were in between. In 97 out of 128 patients with ER-/PR+ tumors, tamoxifen was given as adjuvant hormonal therapy, and it increased the survival benefit in the lower grade group in terms of overall survival and disease-free survival (p=0.01 and p=0.03, respectively). Conclusion For high-grade tumors with ER-/PR+, adjuvant tamoxifen therapy may have no survival benefit, whereas for the patients with low-grade ER-/PR+ tumors, adjuvant tamoxifen therapy is highly suggestive.
Client bandwidth: The forgotten metric of online storage providers

Since the inception of online storage offered by Amazon, implementations and technology have continuously improved the data centers' capabilities. However, in this paper, we will show that the perceived performance at the client is primarily dependent on the client's network capabilities and the network performance between client and S3. Without this knowledge, customers will continue to choose a supposedly faster data center or Online Storage Provider (OSP) with a higher associated cost over choosing a slightly slower data center that still fulfills or even exceeds the needs of the client at a much lower cost.
Comparative evaluation of support vector machine classification for computer aided detection of breast masses in mammography

False positive (FP) marks represent an obstacle for effective use of computer-aided detection (CADe) of breast masses in mammography. Typically, the problem can be approached either by developing more discriminative features or by employing different classifier designs. In this paper, the usage of support vector machine (SVM) classification for FP reduction in CADe is investigated, presenting a systematic quantitative evaluation against neural networks, k-nearest neighbor classification, linear discriminant analysis and random forests. A large database of 2516 film mammography examinations and 73 input features was used to train the classifiers and evaluate for their performance on correctly diagnosed exams as well as false negatives. Further, classifier robustness was investigated using varying training data and feature sets as input. The evaluation was based on the mean exam sensitivity in 0.05–1 FPs on normals on the free-response receiver operating characteristic curve (FROC), incorporated into a tenfold cross validation framework. It was found that SVM classification using a Gaussian kernel offered significantly increased detection performance (P = 0.0002) compared to the reference methods. Varying training data and input features, SVMs showed improved exploitation of large feature sets. It is concluded that with the SVM-based CADe a significant reduction of FPs is possible outperforming other state-of-the-art approaches for breast mass CADe.
Pattern of Chromosomal Aberrations in Patients from North East Iran

Objective: Chromosomal aberrations are common causes of multiple anomaly syndromes. Recurrent chromosomal aberrations have been identified by conventional cytogenetic methods used widely as one of the most important clinical diagnostic techniques. Materials and Methods: In this retrospective study, the incidences of chromosomal aberrations were evaluated in a six year period from 2005 to 2011 in Pardis Clinical and Genetics Laboratory on patients referred to from Mashhad and other cities in Khorasan province. Karyotyping was performed on 3728 patients suspected of having chromosomal abnormalities. Results: The frequencies of the different types of chromosomal abnormalities were determined, and the relative frequencies were calculated in each group. Among these patients, 83.3% had normal karyotypes with no aberrations. The overall incidences of chromosomal abnormalities were 16.7% including sex and autosomal chromosomal anomalies. Of those, 75.1 % showed autosomal chromosomal aberrations. Down syndrome (DS) was the most prevalent autosomal aberration in the patients (77.1%). Pericentric inversion of chromosome 9 was seen in 5% of patients. This inversion was prevalent in patients with recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA). Sex chromosomal aberrations were observed in 24.9% of abnormal patients of which 61% had Turner’s syndrome and 33.5% had Klinefelter’s syndrome. Conclusion: According to the current study, the pattern of chromosomal aberrations in North East of Iran demonstrates the importance of cytogenetic evaluation in patients who show clinical abnormalities. These findings provide a reason for preparing a local cytogenetic data bank to enhance genetic counseling of families who require this service.
Uncertainty vs. Variability: What's the Difference and Why is it Important?

Technical professionals are often asked to estimate “ranges” for uncertain quantities. It is important that they distinguish whether they are being asked for variability ranges or uncertainty ranges. Likewise, it is important for modelers to know if they are building models of variability or uncertainty, and their relationship, if any. We discuss and clarify the distinction between uncertainty and variability through strict definition, illustrative analogy and numerical examples. Uncertainty means we do not know the value (or outcome) of some quantity, eg the average porosity of a specific reservoir (or the porosity of a core-sized piece of rock at some point within the reservoir). Variability refers to the multiple values a quantity has at different locations, times or instances - eg the average porosities of a collection of different reservoirs (or the range of core-plugs porosities at different locations within a specific reservoir). Uncertainty is quantified by a probability distribution which depends upon our state of information about the likelihood of what the single, true value of the uncertain quantity is. Variability is quantified by a distribution of frequencies of multiple instances of the quantity, derived from observed data. That both are represented by ‘distributions’ is a major source of confusion, which can lead to uncritical adoption of frequency distributions to represent uncertainty, and thus to erroneous risk assessments and bad decisions. For example, the variability of natural phenomena is sometimes well-approximated by normal or log-normal distributions, but such distributions may not be appropriate to represent the uncertainty in outcome of a single occurrence. We show there is no objectively ‘right’ probability distribution for quantifying the uncertainty of an unknown event – it can only be ‘right’ in that it is consistent with the assessor’s information. Thus, different people (or teams or companies) can legitimately hold different probabilities for the same event. Only in very restrictive, arguably unrealistic, situations can we choose to use a frequency distribution derived from variability data as a probability distribution to represent our uncertainty in an event’s outcome. Our experience as educators of students and oil & gas industry personnel suggests that significant confusion exists in their understanding of the distinction between variability and uncertainty. This paper thus provides a resource for technical professionals and teachers to clarify the distinction between the two, or to correct it where it has been wrongly taught, and thereby help to improve decision-making.
Consumption-Based Asset Pricing with Incomplete Markets

This paper shows that consumption-based asset pricing theory imposes no testable restrictions on either macroeconomic or cross-sectional data if one allows for uninsurable idiosyncratic income shocks which are persistent and not normally distributed. More precisely, this paper shows that any “observed” joint process of arbitrage-free asset prices and payoffs, aggregate consumption, and moments of the cross-sectional distribution of consumption (income) growth is an equilibrium outcome for some incomplete-markets economy (some subjective discount factor and process of individual income). The proof heavily relies on the fact that second moments might be a poor measure of risk once the assumptions (normal distribution or quadratic utility) leading to a mean-variance framework are relaxed. More specifically, this paper introduces a “personal-disaster process” and shows that this process completely determines idiosyncratic risk in equilibrium without affecting the higher (second) moments of the cross-sectional distribution of consumption and income growth.
Studying of winning or losing on the quality of mood and salivary cortisol concentrations in female futsalists.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of the losing and wining on the profile of mood quality and on the salivary cortisol concentrations in female futsal players. Stress increases the competition in any sport. Stress, both physical and psychological, and pressures of competition and tolerance of these pressures change the secretion of stress hormones such as cortisol. Dangerous physiological effects caused by these changes may be very disturbing. The purpose of this research is to study the impact of losing and winning on the quality of mood profile and on the salivary cortisol concentrations in female futsal players. The design of this study is quasi-experimental and 18 female futsalists in Club Competitions participated in this study. Saliva samples were taken 30 minutes after the end of the competition in one winning game and in one loosing game. The athletes completed questionnaires related to emotional states s after the race. The quality of mood states of subjects was assessed by questionnaire of Brooms with 32 questions of mood states and salivary cortisol of athletes were assessed by ELIZA method. Single-group study design and Student t-test and Pearson's correlation coefficient were used to analyze the data. The results showed that cortisol levels and Broomz test scores of emotional states had significant difference at the end of the race. The data showed that winning and losing have significant effect on cortisol which is the indicator of stress and participation in the competition increased the mood states of female futsalists and this enhancement is more evident in losing.
Electro-Magneto-Encephalography for the three-Shell Model: Numerical Implementation for Distributed Current in Spherical Geometry

The basic inverse problems for the functional imaging techniques of Electroencephalography (EEG) and Magnetoencephalography (MEG) consist of estimating the neuronal current in the brain from the measurement of the electric potential on the scalp and of the magnetic field outside the head. Here we present a rigorous derivation of the relevant formulae for a three-shell spherical model in the case of independent as well as simultaneous MEG and EEG measurements. Furthermore, we introduce an explicit and stable technique for the numerical implementation of these formulae. Numerical examples are presented using the locations and the normal unit vectors of the real 102 sensors of the Electa Neuromag (R) apparatus.
Protection against tuberculosis: cytokines, T cells, and macrophages

Tuberculosis remains a major health problem, with two million deaths and eight million new cases annually. At the same time, two billion people (one third of the total world population) are infected with the aetiological agent, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Of these, fewer than 10% ever develop disease, although the pathogen is not eradicated but rather contained in discrete lesions. Hence, the immune system is highly effective in containing the pathogen, but fails to eradicate it. Disease typically develops through reactivation once the immune system is weakened. The immune response to M tuberculosis is T cell dependent. It comprises not only the conventional CD4 and CD8 T cells, but also γδ T cells and CD1 restricted T cells. γδ T cells recognise phospholigands and no presentation molecules are known thus far. CD1 restricted T cells recognise glycolipids, which are highly abundant components of the mycobacterial cell wall. Although different T cells are required for optimum protection, the immune mechanisms known to have a role in acquired resistance can be associated with two major mechanisms: (a) activation of macrophages by cytokines; (b) direct cytolytic activity. In vivo granuloma formation, which is central to protection, is induced and sustained by cytokines. Mycobacteria are contained within granulomas and in this way are prevented from spreading all over the body.
System-Size Dependence of Helix-Bundle Formation for Generic Semiflexible Polymers

Helical polymer bundles are an important fixture in biomolecular systems. The particular structural geometry of helix bundles is dependent on many factors including the length of the polymer chain. In this study, we performed Monte Carlo simulations of a coarse-grained model for helical polymers to determine the influence of polymer length on tertiary structure formation. Helical structures of semiflexible polymers are analyzed for several chain lengths under thermal conditions. Structural hyperphase diagrams, parametrized by torsion strength and temperature, are constructed and compared.
Secure performance analysis of buffer-aided cognitive relay networks

The paper investigates a decode-and-forward buffer-aided relay selection for an underlay cognitive radio network in the presence of an eavesdropper. The secondary users operating on the same band used by primary user, so the QoS of primary user should be guaranteed. Eavesdropper can intercept the information transmission from the secondary transmitter or relay to the corresponding receiver, which is considered to threaten the security of cognitive radio networks. Finite buffer size is assumed to be available at the relay, so that the relay can store packets. We propose a max-ratio link selection scheme which can optimize the secrecy transmission performance by considering all possible source-to relay and relay to destination links and selecting the relay having the link which maximizes the signal to eavesdropper channel gain ratio. It incorporates the instantaneous strength of the wireless links as well as the status of the finite relay buffers and adapts the relay selection decision on the strongest available link by dynamically switching between relay reception and transmission, so it can take full advantage of the additional flexibility offered by relays with buffers. A closed-form expression for the secrecy outage probability is obtained, both simulation and theoretical results are shown based on the Markov chain to validate the proposed schemes and demonstrate that the proposed schemes can significantly enhance the secure performance compared to the conventional Max-min relay selection schemes.
A hash-based image content authentication scheme for tamper detection using compressive sensing

In this paper, a novel hash-based image content authentication scheme for tamper detection and localization is proposed. The original image is divided into sub-blocks whose size can be tuned with the accuracy of tamper localization, and the measurements which are obtained in the compressed sensing (CS) process contain all the information of the subblocks. Moreover, singular value decomposition (SVD) is applied to capture the most energy of measurements and compress them into a compact hash. Experimental results have shown that the proposed method is robust with a reliable security.
Household support and physical activity in adolescent females from lower socioeconomic status households

BACKGROUND: Parental support for physical activity has been demonstrated to be associated with physical activity levels of low socioeconomic status adolescent females. While research show that adult facilitation and encouragement of physical activity engagement is valued by this group, limited research has been done examining the associations between household support and physical activity levels in this population. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine the association between the perception of household support and physical activity levels of low socioeconomic status adolescent girls. METHODS: Thirty-six girls, between the ages of 13-17 years, were recruited from lower socioeconomic geographic areas. Recruitment strategies included boy low-touch (e.g., flyers, mailings) and high-touch (e.g., face to face) methods. During a study visit, participants completed two questionnaires as well as had their height and weight measured. The 3DPAR was used to assess participant physical activity and the household support questionnaire was used to collect demographic information as well as measure support for physical activity from the adult in the household the participant perceived themselves as being closest with and each additional adult in the household. RESULTS: There were no significant associations between the perception of household support for physical activity and physical activity levels. There were negative significant associations between the BMI of low socioeconomic status adolescent girls and both the total household support (p=0.001) and the support provided by the closest adult to the participant in the household (p<0.001). The most frequently reported priorities were family and friends, school, and being the best version of oneself. The most frequently reported facilitators of physical activity were family/ friend support, types of physical activities, and school. The most frequently reported barriers to physical activity were school, transportation, and pain/injury. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that household support for physical activity is not associated with physical activity engagement in adolescent girls living in low socioeconomic geographic areas. Thus, other factors may be associated with physical activity participation in this population group, and this warrants further investigation.
Local binary pattern: An improved LBP to extract nonuniform LBP patterns with Gabor filter to increase the rate of face similarity

The LBP is a technique used to extract textures of an image, especially in facial image analysis. As we are intended to extract more fine texture details of an image to increase the rate of facial similarity, we combined the techniques of LBP with Gabor filters to obtain a fine texture details. The Gabor filters are designed to multiply the filter coefficients with an LBP pattern to get more finely textured images. The gabor filter used in this proposed method helped to filter the coefficients of LBP pattern with gabor filters. The gabor filter is a technique used to generate a real and imaginary parts of a trignometric function with respect to θ. Similarly, LBP pattern is an individual technique used to extract a texture of an image in terms of local binary patterns. By combining the two individual techniques into a single technique and by employing a non-uniform LBP Pattern, we will be able to extract more finely textured images of a dataset. The result of combining LBP with Gabor filter produces a result of 93.4%, which is better than individual approaches.
Radical scavenging activity of vanilla ( Vanilla fragrans ) pods and commercial vanilla essence

Methanolic extract (Me) of vanilla pods and commercial vanilla, hexane (He), benzene (Be), ethyl acetate (Ea), n-butanol (nBu) and aqueous (Aq) fractions of methanolic extract of vanilla pods and commercial vanilla essence were analyzed for radical scavenging activities viz. DPPH radical, hydroxyl radical, superoxide radical and nitric oxide radical scavenging activities to screen the best fraction of the methanolic extract (Me) of the samples that posses the highest free radical scavenging activity. All the fractions and methanolic extract of both the samples have individualized and concentration dependent activities. Methanolic extract, benzene, ethyl acetate and aqueous fractions of vanilla pods showed comparatively better scavenging activities with IC50 values ranging from 64485μg/ml in various assays conducted whereas, of vanilla essence, ethyl acetate, hexane, n-butanol and benzene fractions were better with IC50 values ranging from 61-489μg/ml. The correlation between each fractions of samples were carried out using ANOVA at a level of p< 0.05 and p<0.001.