Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Maternal dietary patterns and gestational diabetes mellitus: a large prospective cohort study in China

Few studies have explored the relationship between dietary patterns and the risk of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Evidence from non-Western areas is particularly lacking. In the present study, we aimed to examine the associations between dietary patterns and the risk of GDM in a Chinese population. A total of 3063 pregnant Chinese women from an ongoing prospective cohort study were included. Data on dietary intake were collected using a FFQ at 24–27 weeks of gestation. GDM was diagnosed using a 75 g, 2 h oral glucose tolerance test. Dietary patterns were determined by principal components factor analysis. A log-binomial regression model was used to examine the associations between dietary pattern and the risk of GDM. The analysis identified four dietary patterns: vegetable pattern; protein-rich pattern; prudent pattern; sweets and seafood pattern. Multivariate analysis showed that the highest tertile of the vegetable pattern was associated with a decreased risk of GDM (relative risk (RR) 0·79, 95 % CI 0·64, 0·97), compared with the lowest tertile, whereas the highest tertile of the sweets and seafood pattern was associated with an increased risk of GDM (RR 1·23, 95 % CI 1·02, 1·49). No significant association was found for either the protein-rich or the prudent pattern. The protective effect of a high vegetable pattern score was more evident among women who had a family history of diabetes (P for interaction = 0·022). These findings suggest that the vegetable pattern was associated with a decreased risk of GDM, while the sweets and seafood pattern was associated with an increased risk of GDM. These findings may be useful in dietary counselling during pregnancy.
La formación inicial del profesorado de secundaria y su identidad profesional

La identidad profesional se ha constituido en un nuevo prisma para analizar el modo como los profesores sienten y ejercen su oficio. En España, la falta continuada de una formación inicial pedagógica, integrada en la propia carrera, ha dado lugar a una identidad profesional disciplinar, inadecuada para la educación obligatoria (Educación Secundaria Obligatoria [ESO]). Se describe el proceso de construcción de la identidad profesional en la formación inicial y se argumenta a favor de un planteamiento integrado de la formación disciplinar y pedagógica y, en tercer lugar, se analiza la renuncia continuada a una formación profesionalizadora, capaz de posibilitar una identidad profesional acorde con la función educativa y docente demandada.
Ethiopian parents' perception of their children's health: a focus group study of immigrants to Israel.

BACKGROUND The recent influx of Ethiopian immigrants to Israel has created challenges for healthcare workers. Qualitative research methods have proven to be of value in providing useful data in cross-cultural medical settings. OBJECTIVE To learn about Ethiopian immigrants' perception of the health of their children. METHODS Ethiopian parents of children under age 3 registered with a family medicine clinic in Jerusalem were invited to participate in two focus groups. Transcripts of the group discussions were analyzed to reveal themes relating to children's health. RESULTS Analysis of the transcripts revealed five themes relating to the health of children in two domains: the intra-familial and the extra-familial. Specific themes that emerged in the intra-familial domain were the role of traditional medicine, gender-specific roles in child care, and decision-making in seeking extra-familial medical help. Themes in the extra-familial domain were recognition of illness and the meaning of symptoms, and notions of prevention and resistance to illness. The collected data found application in the daily clinical work of the researchers and enriched understanding of their patients. CONCLUSIONS Ethiopian immigrants to Israel share special perceptions of their children's health that differ from prevailing beliefs in Israel. Focus groups provide health workers with a wealth of data on these beliefs that will enable them to offer more culturally sensitive care.
The Psychology of Driving

Contents: Preface. Methodological Issues in the Study of Driving. Perceptual Factors in Driving. Attentional Factors in Driving. Effect of In-Car Distractions on Driving. Driving and the Perception of Risk. Driving and Fatigue. Driving and Drugs. The Effects of Age on Driving. Driving and the Future.
Utility of the PFA‐100® for assessing bleeding disorders and monitoring therapy: a review of analytical variables, benefits and limitations

The PFA‐100® (platelet function analyser) is a relatively new tool for the investigation of primary haemostasis. Recent studies have shown its utility in monitoring antiplatelet therapy (including aspirin) and as a screening tool for investigating possible von Willebrand disease (vWD) and various platelet disorders. More recently, the PFA‐100® has been shown to be of value in monitoring DDAVP therapy in both vWD and platelet disorders. This paper reviews current findings, details the utility of the PFA‐100® for some of these purposes, as well as reviewing analytical variables that may complicate the interpretation of results. The author highlights the benefits, as well as noting the limitations, of its use. Ultimately, the greatest strengths of the PFA‐100® are its simplicity in use and excellent sensitivity to particular haemostatic disturbances such as vWD, platelet disorders and platelet‐affecting medication. However, because it is thus a ‘global’ test system, this also creates a significant limitation, as the PFA‐100® is not specific for, nor predictive of, any particular disorder. However, utilized appropriately, the PFA‐100® can be considered a worthwhile addition to any haemostasis laboratory involved in the diagnosis or therapeutic‐monitoring of bleeding disorders including vWD and platelet‐dysfunctions. This review should be of value to both haemostasis scientists and clinical specialists.
Enhancing Edit Distance on Real Sequences Filters using Histogram Distance on Fixed Reference Ordering

Distance functions are the main tools to measure similarity of two sequences and to search the closest sequences to given query sequence. Several well known distance functions, however, have asymptotical time complexity of O(mn) which cannot be fully afforded by systems that deal with large volumes of data. These distance functions, including edit distance on real sequences (EDR) (L. Chen et al., 2005), have pruning methods to reduce execution time by dismissing false candidates as early as possible. In this paper, we propose the histogram distance on fixed reference (HDFR) ordering, with various reference histogram construction methods, to improve the filtering power of the pruning methods in EDR. Experiments show that a decrease in EDR execution time is observed after HDFR is applied. While we base our experiments on EDR, HDFR can also be applied to other distance functions with appropriate pruning methods
Placental hypoxia and foetal development versus alcohol exposure in pregnancy.

AIMS To examine the causes of variability in the effect of maternal drinking on the foetus, with particular reference to the pattern, frequency and duration of the period of drinking, differences in maternal, foetal and placental metabolism of ethanol/acetaldehyde, and genetic factors. METHODS Narrative review of published studies of the pathogenesis of foetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) with emphasis in the development of the central nervous system. RESULTS Animal models suggest that acetaldehyde, the primary hepatic oxidative metabolite of ethanol, reaches the foetus either by placental production or by placental transference, which in turn could affect foetal growth and development. The most likely hypothesis regarding the decrease of foetal growth is via hypoxia and increased oxidative/nitrative stress, which interfere with cellular processes that require oxygen in order to function adequately, such as placental transport. CONCLUSION There seems to be an association between the teratogenic effect, hypoxia and oxidative stress, the molecular mechanism involved (e.g. apoptosis) and the range of effects. The review sums ups the evidence that could explain some of the abnormalities in the brain development that could be related to behavioural problems observed in individuals with FAS/foetal alcohol spectrum disorder. This suggests that alcohol consumption produces failures in the normal migration of radial cells, from which the rest of the brain cells would eventually develop.
The Centromeric Retrotransposons of Rice Are Transcribed and Differentially Processed by RNA Interference

Retrotransposons consist of significant portions of many complex eukaryotic genomes and are often enriched in heterochromatin. The centromeric retrotransposon (CR) family in grass species is colonized in the centromeres and highly conserved among species that have been diverged for >50 MY. These unique characteristics have inspired scientists to speculate about the roles of CR elements in organization and function of centromeric chromatin. Here we report that the CRR (CR of rice) elements in rice are highly enriched in chromatin associated with H3K9me2, a hallmark for heterochromatin. CRR elements were transcribed in root, leaf, and panicle tissues, suggesting a constitutive transcription of this retrotransposon family. However, the overall transcription level was low and the CRR transcripts appeared to be derived from relatively few loci. The majority of the CRR transcripts had chimerical structures and contained only partial CRR sequences. We detected small RNAs (smRNAs) cognate to nonautonomous CRR1 (noaCRR1) and CRR1, but not CRR2 elements. This result was also confirmed by in silico analysis of rice smRNA sequences. These results suggest that different CRR subfamilies may play different roles in the RNAi-mediated pathway for formation and maintenance of centromeric heterochromatin.
Comparative In Vitro and In Vivo Efficacies of Human Simulated Doses of Ceftazidime and Ceftazidime-Avibactam against Pseudomonas aeruginosa

ABSTRACT The combination of ceftazidime and avibactam possesses potent activity against resistant Gram-negative pathogens, including Pseudomonas aeruginosa. We compared the efficacies of human simulated doses of ceftazidime and ceftazidime-avibactam using a hollow-fiber system and neutropenic and immunocompetent murine thigh infection models. Twenty-seven clinical P. aeruginosa isolates with ceftazidime MICs of 8 to 128 mg/liter and ceftazidime-avibactam MICs of 4 to 32 mg/liter were utilized in neutropenic mouse studies; 15 of the isolates were also evaluated in immunocompetent mice. Six isolates were studied in both the hollow-fiber system and the neutropenic mouse. In both systems, the free drug concentration-time profile seen in humans given 2 g of ceftazidime every 8 h (2-h infusion), with or without avibactam at 500 mg every 8 h (2-h infusion), was evaluated. In vivo activity was pharmacodynamically predictable based on the MIC. Ceftazidime decreased bacterial densities by ≥0.5 log unit for 10/27 isolates, while ceftazidime-avibactam did so for 22/27 isolates. In immunocompetent animals, enhancements in activity were seen for both drugs, with ceftazidime achieving reductions of ≥0.3 log unit for 10/15 isolates, whereas ceftazidime-avibactam did so against all 15 isolates. In vitro, ceftazidime resulted in regrowth by 24 h against all isolates, while ceftazidime-avibactam achieved stasis or better against 4/7 isolates. Mutants with elevated ceftazidime-avibactam MICs appeared after 24 h from 3/7 isolates studied in vitro; however, no resistant mutants were detected in vivo. Against this highly ceftazidime-nonsusceptible population of P. aeruginosa, treatment with human simulated doses of ceftazidime-avibactam resulted in pharmacodynamically predictable activity, particularly in vivo, against isolates with MICs of ≤16 mg/liter, and this represents a potential new option to combat these difficult-to-treat pathogens.
Characterizing content sharing properties for mobile users in open city squares

For mobile delay-tolerant networks, different mobility models have been utilized to assess the performance of routing algorithms and applications. Substantial work has gone into understanding the contact characteristics of mobile users to allow evaluation under conditions that approximate the real world. One important finding has been recognizing that contacts humans make at a macroscopic level is derived from daily routines and social interactions so that analyzing social network structures can assist in determining, e.g., suitable peers for message forwarding. While mid- to long-term social interaction patterns assist in delivering messages at larger scales, such patterns become immaterial when considering a microscopic scale such as content sharing in a city square. At microscopic scales, we face an “open” simulation area in which nodes enter and leave rather than a closed system with a fixed set of nodes. Moreover, small scales show more dynamics (e.g., in terms of node density) and steady state analyses become insufficient. In this paper, we investigate the operation of a content sharing application, Floating Content, under such microscopic mobility conditions and characterize its behavior for city squares. For its validation, we derive a mobility model for open squares to which mobile nodes enter and from which they depart.
The experience of agency: an interplay between prediction and postdiction

The experience of agency, i.e., the registration that I am the initiator of my actions, is a basic and constant underpinning of our interaction with the world. Whereas several accounts have underlined predictive processes as the central mechanism (e.g., the comparator model by C. Frith), others emphasized postdictive inferences (e.g., post-hoc inference account by D. Wegner). Based on increasing evidence that both predictive and postdictive processes contribute to the experience of agency, we here present a unifying but at the same time parsimonious approach that reconciles these accounts: predictive and postdictive processes are both integrated by the brain according to the principles of optimal cue integration. According to this framework, predictive and postdictive processes each serve as authorship cues that are continuously integrated and weighted depending on their availability and reliability in a given situation. Both sensorimotor and cognitive signals can serve as predictive cues (e.g., internal predictions based on an efferency copy of the motor command or cognitive anticipations based on priming). Similarly, other sensorimotor and cognitive cues can each serve as post-hoc cues (e.g., visual feedback of the action or the affective valence of the action outcome). Integration and weighting of these cues might not only differ between contexts and individuals, but also between different subject and disease groups. For example, schizophrenia patients with delusions of influence seem to rely less on (probably imprecise) predictive motor signals of the action and more on post-hoc action cues like e.g., visual feedback and, possibly, the affective valence of the action outcome. Thus, the framework of optimal cue integration offers a promising approach that directly stimulates a wide range of experimentally testable hypotheses on agency processing in different subject groups.
COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SINGLE AND MULTISLICE COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY FOR ASSESSMENT OF THE MANDIBULAR CANAL

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of relative measurements from the roof of the mandibular canal to the alveolar crest in multislice (multidetector) computed tomography (MDCT) and single-slice computed tomography (SSCT). Material and Methods: The sample consisted of 26 printed CT films (7 SSCT and 19 MDCT) from the files of the LABI-3D (3D Imaging Laboratory) of the School of Dentistry of the University of São Paulo (FOUSP), which had been acquired using different protocols. Two observers analyzed in a randomized and independent order a series of 22 oblique CT reconstructions of each patient. Each observer analyzed the CT scans twice. The length of the mandibular canal and the distance between the mandibular canal roof and the crest of the alveolar ridge were obtained. Dahlberg test was used for statistical analysis. Results: The mean error found for the mandibular canal length measurements obtained from SSCT was 0.53 mm in the interobserver analysis, and 0.38 mm for both observers. On MDCT images, the mean error was 0.0 mm in the interobserver analysis, and 0.0 and 0.23 mm in the intraobserver analysis. Regarding the distance between the mandibular canal roof and the alveolar bone crest, the SSCT images showed a mean error of 1.16 mm in the interobserver analysis and 0.66 and 0.59 mm in the intraobserver analysis. In the MDCT images, the mean error was 0.72 mm in the interobserver analysis and 0.50 and 0.54 mm in the intraobserver analysis. Conclusion: Multislice CT was demonstrated a more accurate method and demonstrated high reproducibility in the analysis of important anatomical landmarks for planning of mandibular dental implants, namely the mandibular canal pathway and alveolar crest height.
Determinants of non-reporting of social and environmental information by Malaysian companies

In Malaysia, most public companies do not provide social and environmental information in their annual reports. Given the importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to the sustainability of resources for future generations, this study attempts to identib; the determinants of non-reporting of social and environmental information from the perspectives of proprietary costs and information costs saving. This study analyses the content of annual reports of 368 Malaysian public listed companies. The results show that proprietary cost perspective can explain the non-reporting of social and environmental information while information costs saving perspective can only partially explain the decision. It is also noted that the absence of these drivers are caused by low ethical consumerism and lack of proactive measures by the various watch dog groups in Malaysia.
Multi-store model memory

Sensory register: The first store which holds the sensory information received through all the senses for a brief period of time. Examples include iconic (visual) and echoic (sound) memory. Short-term memory: The memory for immediate events. These memories tend not to last for more than a minute or two, usually shorter, and disappear unless they are rehearsed. Capacity is limited to 7 plus or minus 2 individual items. Long-term memory: The memory for past events that can last for the life-time of a person. Its capacity is most unlimited employed in laboratory
Genome Sequence of the Listeria monocytogenes Food Isolate HPB913, Collected in Canada in 1993

ABSTRACT Listeria monocytogenes is a pathogenic bacterium of importance to public health and food safety agencies. We present the genome sequence of the serotype 1/2a L. monocytogenes food isolate HPB913, which was collected in Canada in 1993 as part of an investigation into a sporadic case of foodborne illness.
Receptors for triglyceride-rich lipoproteins and their role in lipoprotein metabolism

The triglyceride-rich lipoproteins in normal human plasma are VLDL and chylomicrons and their remnants. Several receptors for these lipoproteins have been described, most of them belonging to the LDL receptor family. The LDL receptor itself is able to recognize remnants through apolipoprotein E. However, the LDL receptor-related protein is the actual candidate to be the chylomicron remnant receptor in the liver and the VLDL receptor might be responsible for VLDL catabolism in muscle and adipose tissue.
A System Exploration Platform for Network-on-Chip

Network-on-Chip (NoC) is a key component in the design of many cores on a chip. This paper presents a new system level NoC simulation framework, called “Network-On-Chip-centric System Exploration Platform” (NOCSEP). It divides NoC design space into blocks and models them using abstracted layers. Together with task-graph software modeling and simplified middle-layer modeling, it can estimate the performance of an on-chip interconnect rapidly and is therefore very suitable for quickly exploring design alternatives.
AURA: Preliminary Technical Results

This paper presents AURA, a programming language for access control that treats ordinary programming constructs (e.g., integers and recursive functions) and authorization logic constructs (e.g., principals and access control policies) in a uniform way. AURA is based on polymorphic DCC and uses dependent types to permit assertions that refer directly to AURA values while keeping computation out of the assertion level to ensure tractability. The main technical results of this paper include fully mechanically verified proofs of the decidability and soundness for AURA's type system, and a prototype typechecker and interpreter. Comments University of Pennsylvania Department of Computer and Information Science Technical Report No. MSCIS-08-10. Author(s) Limin Jia, Jeffrey A. Vaughan, Karl Mazurak, Jianzhou Zhao, Luke Zarko, Joseph Schorr, and Stephan A. Zdancewic This technical report is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn. edu/cis_reports/886 AURA: Preliminary Technical Results University of Pennsylvania Technical Report MS-CIS-08-10
Some Extensions of Liapunov's Second Method

>In the study of the stability of a system, it is never completely satisfactory to know only that an equilibrium state is asymptotically stable. As a practical matter, it is necessary to have some idea of the size of the perturbations the system can undergo and still return to the equilibrium state. It is never possible to do this by examining only the linear approximation. The effect of the nonlinearities must be taken into account. Liapunov's second method provides a means of doing this. Mathematical theorems underlying methods for determining the region of asymptotic stability are given, and the methods are illustrated by a number of examples.
The prion protein M129V polymorphism

The PRNP gene encodes the cellular isoform of prion protein (PrPc). The M129V polymorphism influences the risk of prion diseases and may modulate the rate of neurodegeneration with age. We present the first study of the polymorphism among Polish centenarians. In the control group (n = 165, ages 18 to 56 years) the observed M129V genotype frequencies agreed with those expected according to the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (MM, MV, VV): 43%, 44%, 13% (HWE p > 0.05). Among centenarians (n = 150, ages 100 to 107) both homozygotes were more common than expected and HWE was rejected: 46%, 37%, 17% (expected 42%, 46%, 13%; HWE p = 0.025). This finding is consistent with a higher mortality rate among heterozygotes. However, the observed allele and genotype frequencies did not differ significantly between the oldest-old and the young controls. The genotypic frequencies were not related to severe cognitive impairment among the centenarians.